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I saw "Pi" today. It was nowhere near as scary as dinner.

Now, I consider myself a more or less competant cook. I'm not a wizard or anything, but I like to believe that I am beyond the bachelor archetype of "if it's not moving it's food" and even into a realm somewhere between the cooking expertiese of a bachelorette and an adult male family man.

I also pride myself on my quesadillas. I can make a crisp, pleasant cheese-filled foodstuff out of a couple of tortillas and a block of cheese under most circumstances.

Except, apparently, tonight.

The first half of the operation went smoothly enough. Tortilla down, cheese down, wait for cheese to melt. No problem.

Cheese melts, other tortilla down. Also, no problem. I wait the normal amount of time one waits for such things (as long as it takes to start getting "really" bored), and prepare for First Flip.

First flip really is the critical point of most quesadillas. This is the time when the pan is at its least seasoned, and the time the cheese is most likely to remain in chunks and fall out onto the pan. This first flip is going to have an added twist: the tortilla is larger than the pan.

I can usually correct for this with a little slight of hand, but I'm short a spatula, having not yet purchased one to add to my official "bachelor ware" kitchen set.

The book "Frankenstein" tells a story of Victor Frankenstein, who, so wrapped up in his desire to cheat death, forgets what is growing to life beneath his hands. He is confronted with the reality of this only when the thing on the table actually grasps for the table and jerks to life. Fearing what he had created, finally realizing the true horror of what he had unleashed, Frankenstein flees, trying to put as much distance between the horror he had wroght and himself as possible.

Smart guy.

Not me, ohhh no. As the two tortillas, unbalanced by the mass of butter underneath, flopped over into a tepi-like structure, cheese sinking onto the pan in a bubbling, cholesterol-rich soup, I looked upon it, and thought "Ah, what the hell." I grabbed a fork, scouped the monstrosity onto a plate, and cut off a slice. I suspect the taste was almost, but not entirely, unlike a particularly rubbery omlet.

I stuck it on a bagel.

Halfway into this suicidal repast, I began to feel pleasantly full. I started thinking "Hey, this isn't half bad." I might have made it through the whole thing if half of the lower side of the bagel hadn't fallen off. "Oh," I thought, in my cholesterol-clouded thoughts, "more cheese with less bread!" Biting into this part of the bagel made me thirsty, so I took a pull off my jug of grape juice...

And realised what I was doing.

"Wait," I said to the quesadilla/omlette-bagel sandwich, "You're trying to destroy me. Well, NO DEAL!" I wrapped the remaining sandwich in a plastic bag and hucked it into the fridge to gather mold until the next cleaning cycle. I downed another few swallows of grape juice to fight off the cholesterol-shock and took a vitamin for good measure. "Never again," I told myself, looking back at the refrigerator with reproach. But I knew this wasn't over.

I still have 4 more tortillas.

Well I'm supporting the idea of a serious comic from you rather than a funny one, because, you obviously don't need the art to be funny.
If we get a serious comic, we get seriousness in the comic (duh) and we'll still get all the laughs we need from posts like these.

allan_ecker wrote:I saw "Pi" today. It was nowhere near as scary as dinner.

I saw "Pi" a few years back, interesting premise, interesting execution.

Utterly failed to be scary.

Didn't succeed in being all that entertaining by the end of the film either.

I was very disapointed. That film could have been so much more, but it ended with something that failed to even be as evocative as the end of "Blow Up."

I was more entertained by playing tennis with mimes. Sigh.

Wait... Pi was supposed to be scary?

I thought it was jsut supposed to be flippin wierd, in that stanly cubric, end of 2001 Space Odyssey way. or maybe in an "artistic style' way.l

But that was supposed to be scary?

Actually, I'm not sure. But it seemed like the whole "creepy brain poking thing", and the chases and dark imagery were meant to give us creepy crawlies up and down our spine. This did not happen for me.

Also, my suspense of disbelief was shattered by the following:

"You wouldn't know what to do with the number if you had it! How many 216 digit numbers are there? I'm sure you've intoned them all. You have to understand its meaning, its syntax--"

At which point my scientific notation skills go POING!!!

How many numbers are there? Easy, a one with 216 zeroes after it.

Okay. How many numbers could a person get through in a lifetime?

Well, if you believe that WONDERFUL book "how much is a million", a person could do maybe a hundred million, working long hours.

That's a one with eight zeroes.

So, how many could you get? Lets say a hundred million, which is more than fair, considering how obscure the group of people who are actively seeking the true name of god is. Now, multiply these two ones with eight zeroes by each other.

You get a one with sixteen zeroes.

Verses a one with two hundred and sixteen.

Keep guessing, boys.

Now, this would not bother me if this guy was a layperson, but he is NOT. He's a brilliant mathematician with a SPECIFIC INTEREST in connecting numbers to the real world.

Again, state my assumption, that the world is governed by numbers, and that numbers can be understood.

With all the clever math babble in this movie, it's a shame the author fell so FLAT there.

I usually point to Pi when I want to explain the "ok, what the f*ck just happened* confusion state, with a negative connotation.

Of course, I use Evengelion for it with a good connotation. That or the end to 2001: A Space Odyssey

Twin Peaks is the example for "you have to watch it 30 times to catch even half the subtle clues going on."

allan_ecker wrote:How many 216 digit numbers are there? I'm sure you've intoned them all. You have to understand its meaning, its syntax--"

At which point my scientific notation skills go POING!!!

How many numbers are there? Easy, a one with 216 zeroes after it.

Almost. There are 1 X 10 ^216 numbers included up to the end of the 216-digit numbers. There are 1 X 10 ^215 numbers up to the end of the 215-digit numbers. So there are 9 X 10 ^215 216-digit numbers.

But this does not invalidate your intoning arguement at all.

Sorry. It's this detail thing....

100% right.

If you're counting 8, 9, 10, 11..

But these guys ONLY know that there are 216 characters in the number. It COULD be 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 1 for all these poor bastards know.

However, I don't actually know if the Hebrew counting system HAS zero. The Romans didn't. That'd likely have been an interesting point of conflict between these two cultures; Rome often ran into difficulty dealing with Jewish radicals like Jesus of Nazareth because of some important cultural difficulties such as monotheism, although I -think- it could be argued to have been developed as part of counter-Rome culture. However, Jesus was an unusual radical in that he did not recommend the Hebrews withold taxes from the empire.

"Whose face is on this coin? The emperor. Then give it to him."
--Paraphrased from JC

One other thing about the name that really doesn't make sence...

We know it is 216 digits long, right?

Ok, let's figure out the english-numberical code for my name, Shakal
S = 19, H = 8, A = 1, K = 11, A = 1, L = 12
So my name is 198111112, which is nine digits for 6 characters.

Now for the guessing time. There isn't 10^2i6 possibilities, it's actually 20^216, or however many jewish characters there are (I THINK there are less then in the english alphabet). So then the issue of just "intoning them all" is made far worse.
Also, if we assume it is 216 digits long, but not that it's 216 characters long, consider my name. Just sitting here, I can come up with the following names from my number...

AIHAAAAAB
AIHAAAKB
AIHAKAAB
AIHAKKB
SHAAAAAB
SHAAAKB
SHAKAAB
SHAKKB
AIHAAAAL
AIHAAKAB
AIHAAKL
AIHKAAAB
AIHKAAL
AIHKKAB
AIHKKL
SHAAAAAAL
SHAAKAB
SHAAKL
SHKAAAB
SHKAAL
SHKKAB
SHKKL
AIHAKAL
SHAKAL <--- right

So from a 6 digit name, we get a 9 digit number , which produces 24 different possible results(or more, if I missed any)

Me and math got into a fight about 2nd grade and we don't talk any more. What's so bad about cheese? I mean, you don't plan to live forever, so just eat it. And if it tastes bad, toss it out or feed it to something who'd like it (Like animals outside or something).

Maybe I'm getting the idea wrong, but wouldn't the amount of 216 numbers just be the amount of comunations you could make from 1 (215 zeros after that one) to 9 (215 9's after that)? That's a lot but that's not really that many (I mean it's a lot more than I could guess the correct number to).

Exactly correct. But here's how it works.

The number of numbers between 1 and 10 is 10.

That's a two digit number having a one with one zero after it number of combinations.

The number of numbers between 1 and 1000 is 1000.

That's a four digit number having a one with three zeroes after it number of combinations.

Keep going, and you get to 216-digit numbers, and, well, you get the picture.

(You should definitely kiss and make up with math. She's a GREAT lay.)

When you're counting all the 216 digit numbers you can't count 1 thru 9,(214 9's after that), as they're not 216 diget yet. At least that's how my logic works at least. And any 216 digit positive number is a positive number, regardless of the lack of a concept of 'nothingness' in the counting system. In arabic numerals we just put '0' to represent digit places (as opposed to making up new 'characters' for them, like in Roman). The numbers are the same no matter what we draw them looking like. After all they're intangible concepts not actual objects. Or maybe I've missed the point?

But these guys ONLY know that there are 216 characters in the number. It COULD be 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 1 for all these poor bastards know.

Sorry for double posting, but I just thought of this too. Having a large number of zeros before a number isn't really a new number. There's infinite 'nothing' so it's not like you need to state the nothing before something. Just like there's infintate zeros in decimals after a number, but you don't need to write 1.00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 to have it be a new number. It's still just one. At least, that's what I was taught, and that's how my logic works. Again, maybe I missed the point.

but all those zeros do make a difference if you are dealing with significant digits. 1.00000 is more precise then just 1.

1.00000001 is is more percise than 1, but 1.000000 is one.

You're both right. It all depends on how you're using the numbers. If you are counting one object or saying the radius of a unit circle is one, then it doesn't matter how many zeroes you add after the decimal point. It's still exactly one.

But if you're talking about a real-world measurement, then it does make a difference. In that case, a measurement of 1.000000 is much more accurate (and useful) than a measurement of 1. It depends on how precise your measuring instrument is.

So basically, significant digits are only really relevant to science, and not pure mathematics.

--Random "Look, I'm pretending to know something about math!" Scribe

allan_ecker wrote:Exactly correct. But here's how it works.

The number of numbers between 1 and 10 is 10.

That's a two digit number having a one with one zero after it number of combinations.

The number of numbers between 1 and 1000 is 1000.

That's a four digit number having a one with three zeroes after it number of combinations.

Keep going, and you get to 216-digit numbers, and, well, you get the picture.

(You should definitely kiss and make up with math. She's a GREAT lay.)

Actually the number of numbers between 1 and 10 is equal to the number of numbers between 1 and 1000.

The number of integers, on the other paw...

Fallwind wrote:but all those zeros do make a difference if you are dealing with significant digits. 1.00000 is more precise then just 1.

Yeah, but any zeroes appearing before the first digit before the decimal place are considered extraneous as Zavion said, PLUS if you put decimals into it, there are infinite possiblities for numbers between say, 0 and .0000001, due to a lack of constraint of the number of possible decimal places. So the problem doesn't even work in non integer math.. if anything, restricting SF's would reduce the number, as you'd be forced to "estimate" past a certain number of digits.

EDIT: Sorry Alf, didn't see your post before I pointed out the number/integer inconsistency.. good catch though