Eunoia : Stu Savory's Blog - July 2023

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Nav Tools --> Most recent Blog Comments are OFF, so send any via Email to :- Comments Policy DSGVO Impressum Maths trivia Search this site RSS Feed About Eunoia, who is a grumpy, overeducated, facetious, multilingual naturalised German, blatantly opinionated, old (1944-vintage), amateur cryptologist, computer consultant, atheist, flying instructor, bulldog-lover, Porsche-driver, textbook-writer and blogger living in the foothills south of the northern German plains. Not too shy to reveal his true name or even whereabouts, he blogs his opinions, and humour and rants irregularly. Stubbornly he clings to his beliefs, e.g. that Faith does not give answers, it only prevents you doing any goddamn questioning. You are as atheist as he is. When you understand why you don't believe in all the other gods, you will know why he does not believe in yours. Oh, and after the death of his old bulldog, Kosmo, he also has a new bulldog, Clara, since September 2018 :-) Some of my bikes My Crypto Pages	Sunday, July 30 5 Stupid signs This is a collection of some five stupid signs I found on the web. Schroedinger´s ash-tray Anal advice outside a UK hospital Language school advert with 9 spelling mistakes MAGA fans´ posters Bike Lane turn - mind the step Comments(1) Billions of Versions... wrote " I made an electric collage once but it burst into flames when I turned it on." OK. Found by^© Ole Phat Stu on July 30, 2023 permalink Comments Email Thursday, July 27 Credit card thief :-( Friday I got June´s credit card statement. One (foreign) charge not made by me. So I called them and blocked the card. Tuesday I went to the bank which issued my card to get the amount (about 120€) reimbursed. They could track the charge as having been made at a UK petrol station, in june 2023. I explained that I hadn´t been in the UK since 2016 and that was on a motorcycle with a 15 liter tank which costs under 30€ to fill, not 120€. Since I still had my credit card, some thief somehow got the number and filled his (car?) tank at my expense! But to get my money back I had to go to the police and press charges. So yesterday I did just that. Friendly older cop filled out all the forms for me, I made a witness statement and he gave me a receipt for the bank to process my refund. He stated that there was almost NO chance of them finding the thíef, as the theft was done abroad (UK, no longer in the EU). He gets about one such credit card theft reported a week but PayPal crimes almost daily. In our town of 100,000 inhabitants. To the bank again to give them the police receipt. The bank confiscated the (blocked) card and cut it up in front of my eýes. I´ll see if I get my money back. A lot of running around (100+kms) to get this sorted out and about 6 hours of buerocratic hassle. Almost not worth it! Damned thief got 70 liters of petrol off me! Comments(2) Billions of Versions... wrote "Almost not worth it!" I know what you mean. After a while, the dollar per hour you get for the time you put in getting your money back gets so low it would be easier to get a part-time job at Mcdonald's to recover the money." Exactly. Cop Car wrote " Having an experience similar to yours would surely be frustrating. Over the years, I’ve had several occasions to challenge charges on a credit card. I must say that my claims were handled expeditiously with little bureaucracy. I would further say that I have a more honest face than do you, but all of my issues have been handled by phone. Better luck in the future." Here we can block the card on the phone, but for the bank and the cops we have to show up and show ID so they know you are really the victim. And yes, except for GOP politicians, some people DO have a more honest face than mine ;-) Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on July 27, 2023 permalink Comments Email Monday, July 17 Busy, busy, busy My w And I´ve been busy running errands to the pharmacist to get her medicines and daily covid tests (negative) for us both ife SWMBO has been quite ill for a week now, bedridden even. It´s the viral stomach flu I had for 3 days a week ago. So I´ve been busy nursing her back to health, albeit weak. And I´ve been busy doing all her chores besides all of my own chores. Hers take me longer. so busy, busy, busy. So blogging is on low priority until we get back to normal. ~~At least she can get up again now.~~ Update 21/7 : Well, she is not getting any better, so I took her to 2 doctors today; hope she improves over the weekend. Update 27/7 : She is recovering now. Can even walk the dog a bit :-) Comments(5) Doug wrote "Sorry to hear SWMBO is ill. Wishing her all the best and a speedy recovery. Now go do the dishes ;-)" Maybe just let the dog lick them clean? Cop Car wrote " I’m sorry that SWMBO is feeling punk, but glad that you recovered in time to let you care for her...." Thankyou. Carol (UK) read that I'd been taking care of SWMBO and sent this US typo photo. Liz (Wales) wrote " Hope SWMBO is much better soon. I’m being looked after at the moment. I only have a snuffly cold but playing it up a lot." Thankyou,Liz, I´ll tell her you wrote. Billions of Versions... wrote " It's been a week now. How's SWMBO doing?" Long, slow fight, Mike. What the doc said later today : Bronchitis too, so antibiotics now. Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on July 17, 2023 permalink Comments Email Monday, July 10 Ticks in the garden? I see that Cop Car and Bogie have been blogging about which flowers to plant to attract more butterflies. We have an opposite problem. There is a large number of ticks in Germany this year, but there are some plants whose smell(?) will help keep ticks out of your gardens. Ticks are dangerous insects, their bites can cause FSME, borreliosis, Lyme disease etc etc. Besides mowing the grass really short, there are plants which ticks don´t like; so plant these five :- Rosmary. catnip tansy. ... real lavender. ... Dalmatian insect flower. Wishing you all a tick-free summer. Your pets will be grateful. Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on July 10, 2023 permalink Comments Email Wednesday, July 5 Pythagorean Reciprocals Most of you, in secondary school, will have covered Pythagoras theorem and even learned how to prove it. If you need to jog your memory, here is my simple proof that A² + B² = C² for right-angled triangles. And back in 2014, I also showed you that it also works for semicircles, not just squares; see my simple proof that For any right triangle ABC, the semicircle on the hypoteneuse is equal in area to the sum of the semicircles on the other two sides. So now it is time to show you a new pythagorean result. Again, we have a right-angled triangle with sides a,b, and c. The height is labelled h. As usual a² + b² = c². Now I won´t show you my working (it is about ½ page of simple algebra, which I will leave to you readers) , but we can prove that 1/a² + 1/b² = 1/h² . How about that!!! ;-) Alternatively you can write this result as a^-2 + b^-2 = h^-2. Feedback Several of you objected to me focussing on maths; but I assure you secondary school algebra suffices for this result. So I won´t name the commenters who sent these cartoons, despite their derogatory remarks. You need to post the "find X, here it is" meme with this. Alan Kay however, was the first to send me a proof of my result, I quote " Hi Stu, This puzzler gave me great joy. At first, I was convinced that it couldn't be true. What physically corresponds to 1/a^2? Then I was thinking about it in bed in the middle of the night over the weekend. Let A be the angle between a and h. Then h/a = cos A and h/b=cos (90-A) = sin A. Since for all X, (cos X)^2 + (sin X)^2 = 1, then (h/a)^2 + (h/b)^2 = 1. Assuming h is not zero, dividing by h^2 gives: (1/a)^2 +(1/b)^2 = (1/h)^2 QED! If h is zero, then the triangle has shrunk to a point, and the puzzle is meaningless." Actually, If H is zero, then the triangle has shrunk to a straight line, Alan. But you have delivered a nice proof :-) Carol (UK) chides me " You did not answer Alan´s question : What physically corresponds to 1/a^2? " My analogy would be Pressure, which is Force/Area. With a force of 1, and Area is a^2. Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on July 5, 2023 permalink Comments Email Sunday, July 2 Are Oldtimers overpriced? TL;DR Mostly, yes. But a minority are OK. Some examples. As regular readers will know, I own an oldtimer, a 1986 Porsche 944. See photo. But I have been toying with the idea of swapping it for something more exotic but affordable. Then by chance a sales catalog arrived from classic-trader, so I photographed a few which caught my eye. I didn´t want to pay more than 30K€, so most were too expensive, but I`ll show you some of those first. Far too expensive. Then there were some more realistically priced. Affordable/reasonably priced I had one of these Alfas, but in green, not red; Jenny, you may remember riding in it. Carol, you used to have a Sprite like the one on the right here; I remember it was tiny. Asking price is 32k€, I think 25k€ is more realistic. I also had a Lotus Elan, but sold it when I moved from Munich. The MG A on the right is far too expensive, due to Customs and Import needed. I`d only offer 25k€. Liz´s husband used to have one of these, I think I read in her blog some years ago. They have a 944 too,now. The NSU Ro80 has a Wankel engine. Not very reliable, so the asking price of 19k€ is OK. My top boss had one in the seventies, his was on its third engine! The BMW Isetta bubble car is imho way overpriced; I would only offer half. Just to show you how prices vary depending on condition, here are two VW busses. The left one will need a lot of work which is why it is so cheap. The one on the right is nicely restored, but again I´d only offer half. Decision? I´m keeping my Porsche 944. Comments (4) Billions of Versions... wrote "The Cobra caught my eye. The price blinded me. You can get Cobra for 100K to 30K. I'm not sure what's special about that one." Rarer here than in the USA, I guess? Keith (UK) notes "If I had millions to invest in oldtimers (I don´t), I would go for this old Bugatti :-" Brian has a video showing us "How to fix the BIGGEST Problems of the Rotary Engine for that green 1970 NSU Ro80 you show above." Alain (F) asks "Why do like your Porsche 944 so much?" Suitable for everyday use, but can still go 140mph (225 kph) which is e.g. twice the UK speed limit, even at 37 years old. But can trickle through town at 2000 rpm in 3rd. Quiet. Optically attractive. Reliable (even if the A/C does not work right now and would be expensive to fix). Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on July 2, 2023 permalink Comments Email Link to the previous month's blog.	Recent Writings 5 stupid signs Credit card thief :-( Busy, busy, busy Ticks in the garden? Pythagorean Reciprocals Oldtimers overpriced? Canstein Highland Games Visiting the falconer No word in English 80th solar orbit begins WW2 Warbird down :-( Where are you? Maltese cathedral clocks Recommended reading Corona tion stuff Star Wars Day RIP Dame Edna Everage Peter´s Party Giger´s Easter Monday Theocratic Nonsense Blogroll Ain Bulldog Blog All hat no cattle Balloon Juice Billions of Versions... Cop Car Earth-Bound Misfit Fail Blog Finding life hard? Hackwhackers Infidel753 Mockpaperscissors Not Always Right Observing Hermann Pergelator Rants ... Rookery Starts with a Bang Yellow Dog Grannie Archive 2023: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Archive 2022: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2021: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2020: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2019: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2018: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2017: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2016: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2015: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2014: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec This blog is getting really unmanagable, so I've taken the first 12 years' archives offline. My blog, my random decision. Tough shit; YOLO. Link Disclaimer ENGLISH : I am not responsible for the contents or form of any external page to which this website links. I specifically do not adopt their content, nor do I make it mine. DEUTSCH : Für alle Seiten, die auf dieser Website verlinkt sind, möchte ich betonen, dass ich keinerlei Einfluss auf deren Gestaltung und Inhalte habe. Deshalb distanziere ich mich ausdrücklich von allen Inhalten aller gelinkten Seiten und mache mir ihren Inhalt nicht zu eigen. This Blog's Status is Blog Dewey Decimal Classification : 153 FWIW, 153 is a triangular number, meaning that you can arrange 153 items into an equilateral triangle (with 17 items on a side). It is also one of the six known truncated triangular numbers, because 1 and 15 are triangular numbers as well. It is a hexagonal number, meaning that you can distribute 153 points evenly at the corners and along the sides of a hexagon. It is the smallest 3-narcissistic number. This means it?s the sum of the cubes of its digits. It is the sum of the first five positive factorials. Yup, this is a 153-type blog. QED ;-) Books I've written

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