Failure is just success rounded down

Today, as you certainly know, is Approximation to Pi day. It is a global day of celebration for anyone who's ever approximated π. That is to say, used π. (If you can explain why the terms 'used' and 'approximated' are synonymous in the case of pi, you are an Approximation To Pi Day King/Queen).

Why today? Well, because today is the 22nd of July, or 22/7- and 22 sevenths is a bit more than three- in fact, it's about 0.001 more than π.

But heck, AtπD isn't just for scientists, mathematicians and other people who argue on which of Euler's equation or Maxwell's Laws is more elegant. It's for everyone! Go on, bake a pie. Or something similar to a pie. Maybe something you can use in place of a pie.

Me, I've got some Cottage Pie and some Banana bread in the oven. I'm kinf od worried about the banana bread, actually. Since I have no idea how to make it, I googled it and took whatever Link One said as gospel. Let's just hope it wasn't hoaxrecipes.com. I guess time will show if my loaf turns out to be a twenty-two seven or an Alabama.

Capitalist bastards

I have a long running debate with a friend of mine¹. Starbucks, everyone's favourite coffee shop, have several lines of coffee available in the shop. However, only one of them is fairtrade. Similarly, fairtrade coffee is available for no extra cost, but you have to ask. Now, are Starbucks doing enough considering the considerable power they wield over the world's coffee market?

I have always argued no. Although making fairtrade available is a good thing, many coffee chains (AMT, Coffee Republic) offer only fairtrade coffee. You might argue that people should make up their own minds and choose their own morals, but I usually argue that it's the luxury of the Western world that allows us that freedom, and many people are not so lucky. Companies should consider their responsibilities. Also, most people aren't that switched on. It's one thing to say you'll buy fairtrade and another thing altogether to remember to.

However, having had a "behind the scenes" look (woo, I'm a barista) I am changing my mind. Two things spring to mind - Many coffee shops are changing to fairtrade to try to attract customers, but there simply isn't another chain the size of Starbucks, and there may not be the supplies immediately available without huge amounts of groundwork and masses of investment. Secondly, Starbucks (to the best of my knowledge) don't recycle a damn thing. Perhaps they should sort that out before anything else.

1. Can you really ever be "friends" with a scot?

I don't care if you're Black/Asain/Jewish/Arab, just don't try to get my money

I've been a little bit bored from time to time, but it's nice to be able to see how biased I am and where I fit in spectra. I could link to the obvious¹, but really, who cares about that. That is SO last year. So, I'm going to link to the not so obvious. And the down right unobvious^2,3. And my summary is; Libertarian. I don't discriminate against Asains, Blacks, Arabs, Jews, and the disabled. I hate Jefferson and Roosevelt (FDR) and Bush equally, but favor Lincoln (a lot), Grant and Carter (a little). I am slightly biased against gays and the overweight, and I associated the sciences with men and the liberal arts with women. I don't think that most of the situations deserve money, or at least certainly not paid to the government (SPOILER - You're not supposed to know this before taking the test - I was about $72,300 below the average of $72,300 and change).

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¹I did!
²Yes, there's a word for this, but I'm too tired to google it.
³Admittedly, this links to the not so obvious at the end. And a few others.

Rather good

Quote for the day comes from George Mikes, 1960:

"A man in a queue is a fair man; he is minding his own business; he lives and lets live; he gives the other fellow a chance; he practices a duty while waiting to practice his rights; he does almost everything an Englishman believes in doing."

My Wacky Friend

Circa scrubs. I like parodying scrubs, but only scrubs series 1-3, because 4 and 5 weren't really all that funny. 

I am so often amazed by how generic people are. I realised this today when I was looking at my own facebook profile and I noticed that I had a favourite quote which was nothing more than one of my friends volunteering to have sexual relations with the other. It occurred to me that just about everyone in the whole world has something along these lines (either that or the line 'We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars'). I couldn't decide whether to feel ashamed ('U laf at me coz Im different, I laf at u coz ur all the same!!!1') or ever so slightly socialist ('Everybody belongs to everybody else'). 

I went for confused. 

Raving Vermonsters

Old news, I'm sure, but can any of you Yanks give me an update on how Vermont's secession bid is going? From the lack of coverage¹ I'm assuming it's being viewed in the same way we used to view the Raving Monster Loony Party trying to win seats², although to be honest the fact that they're gone for good took me by surprise. Come to think of it, the last thing I heard from them was that the leader had died and had passed on the leadership to his cat, so maybe it wasn't such a big shock.

Still, it seems people are insistent that the purpose of the party that everyone assumed was a big joke (no, really?) was actually a series of political protests designed to highlight inconsistencies in public policy.

Unfortunately, I'm not convinced.

1. It'd make the UK the 50th state rather than the 51st, so it's of great national importance, and a lot of bands will want to know about it.
2. With policies like "reduce class sizes by making children sit closer together", you can't lose!

Scariness

Dear Gosh! I can fit into the Panama Canal over 44,300 times and still have room to stretch! Fortunately, a T-Rex can only do it 6700 times. The real question is, how many of me does it take to make a T-Rex no longer hungry?