You are in "".

Okay! we’ve got a new skyline search for you!!

This week’s skyline is from Nantucket, MA.

Your goal is to provide for me the exact location from where this photograph was taken. I’d recommend going into google maps and doing some digging. the best way to point out a specific spot is to right click on the google map and select “Directions to here” It will either give you a street address or a set of coordinates for longitude & latitude. Commenting with either is acceptable to win the game.

Good luck!!

It’s the Thanksgiving edition!!

Today the DiDonato family donned sweaters in honor of the holiday. We were sad to miss Leesh and Dwane, but this didn’t stop us from eating mass quantities of food.

Yay DiDonatos!

Next up we have first time contributor Sander. He included his with a caption: “no more Turkey for me, thanks”

HA!

Sarah T. pulled out a green number for her Thanksgiving

Lookin’ stylish Sarah!

We also have an anonymous contributor this week. This particular contributor is wearing a very warm looking white sweater with sweet patterns.

Jocelyn keeps it real. This time with a red sweater and a clean bathroom.

And finally we conclude with Chicago Caitlin who sent me a few photos of the sweater she’s crocheting. We can’t wait for the completed sweater photos.

Homemade sweaters for the win!

feel free to e-mail me pictures of your sweater on this fine holiday and I’ll post them. MikeDiDonato AT gmail D0T com

It’s sweater Thursday again! I think this is the fourth one this season and it’s still going pretty strong, though I must admit my weak sweater collection is growing thin.

Enough talk, more sweater rock. This light gray number was actually a left over from when Jesse left. It’s a very warm sweater, ideal for days of travel.

Sarah T. flys into Sweater Thursday yet again. This time she’s wearing a turtle neck sweater. Nice!

Jocelyn comes back again keeping her Sweater Thursday participation streak in tact. she looks tired.

Vivienne, What is going on with your collar. I love it.

Irene snapped a quick photo with a camera phone. In her words “Quality is not great, but viva la sweaters!”

Send me over your sweater photos and I’ll add ‘em to the mix!

MikeDiDonato AT gmail D0T com

Hey everybody! It’s Sweater Thursday again!

Send me your sweater photos, and I’ll post ‘em on the blog.

First, my sweater. It’s brown. Nearly 50% of my sweaters are brown. I’m okay with this though. This particular one has a pretty sweet texture to it. Over the years of ownership it has shrunk a little bit, so it’s just barely long enough on the arms. Any shorter and I’ll have to retire it to the bin of the well worn.

I’ve gone with a pink tie to add some excitement. Despite this, I still look a little shell shocked in the photo. I blame the ungodly hour of 6:00am.

Mykal joins us!! I love her bright green color. It puts my brown ensemble to shame.

And the striped color? Nice touch!

Jocelyn continues her participation streak with a homemade handknit sweater!

I like the swatch of texture on the left.

Vivienne is another first time contributor to Sweater Thursday!

not only is she wearing a stylish sweater, you can see on the left of the picture there is a fantastic view of her brand new purple coat which, though it isn’t a sweater, is totally awesome.

Irene is looking thoughtful in her gray sweater today.

Excellent Sweater pose!

Jesse goes Easter Island style!

Jesse’s sweater matches the giant head pretty well actually.

E-mail your sweater photos to mikedidonato AT gmail D0T com!!

Picture above: Pearl Jammer signs an autograph for an adoring fan.

On Saturday night the crowds came in huge numbers to this year’s 2008/2009 CT Roller Girl Demolition Exhibition at the CT Sports Center in Woodbridge. The venue was new for the roller girls. The sport center’s proximity to New Haven and the I-91 corridor certainly didn’t hurt, nor did the fact that the sport center served beer. Despite the cold rain that poured outside, the crowd inside the sports center was completely enthusiastic; excited to see their favorite players after the lengthy off season.

Shortly after 7pm, Hitman Hank addressed the crowd, his black suit perfectly juxtaposed by a bright pink tie. “Are you ready for some Roller Derby!?” he shouted and the crowd cheered back. The night’s exhibition would be made up from players of all three regular season teams squished into two extreme teams: The Honor Rollers and The Jock Stars.

Our group had come with 5 roller derby virgins. They paid close attention as the players were introduced and the rules were reviewed. And then? The action got under way.

Victoria Deck’em waves her field hockey stick during the introduction of the Jock Stars

The bout began with Luciana Pulverotti of the Honor Rollers jamming against Jock Stars player Pam Terror. When the whistles blew the girls took off sprinting towards the pack. Right from the beginning we knew that this bout would not be one of jammers, so much as pivots and blockers. The formidable defensive wall of Derby girls was made even more imposing by the different floor texture of the CT sports Center which slowed the furious drives of the jammers. The Jock Stars started off strong with 4 consecutive unanswered jams. Honor Roller Revengela was the first on her team to break the streak. Normally positioned as a blocker, Revengela came out strong and took advantage of a key opportunity as the Jock Stars’ jammer was sent to the penalty box. In just a few short jams the Honor Rollers had narrowed the gap from a 12 to a 4 point difference.

While the jamming is always exciting, the first half saw some fantastic action in the depths of the pack. Victoria Deck’em, Miz Con SepJen, and Violet Riot each had pretty strategic hits on the opposing jammer. In fact, there were plenty of great blocks from many of the newer roller girls as well.

Let’s break from the action to take a look at some of the newer names that were skating Saturday night

Lemmy Atter (#695)
Eve Coli (#0157)*
Flora Goodthyme (#1-900)
Paula G. Imnaughty (#NC-17)
C. Mya Rage (#86′d)
Ramona Rotten (#77)

Lemmy and Flora will skate with the Widowmakers in the regular season, Eve, C. Mya, and Ramona will skate with the Elm City Bone Crushers, and Paula G. Imnaughty will skate with the Iron Angels.

*fun fact! The 0157 strain of ecoli is extremely dangerous as it is resistant to antibiotics. I love it when roller girls have subtle academic and scientific references within their names and numbers.

The new recruits were doing great! Eve had some fantastic blocks in the later half of the first period, Flora was consistently scoring points as jammer, and Ramona’s skating looked effortless. The new girls had enthusiasm on their side but the experience of some of the roller derby powerhouses proved nearly overwhelming.

Milla Lowlife (pivot) tries to stay out front as the pack fumbles around a turn

In the thirteenth jam of the evening Doomcake came up to the jamming line. She had jammed once earlier in the night and had barely sneaked past Ramona Rotten to steal lead jammer status and a single point for the Honor Rollers. This time, when the whistle sounded Doom kicked it into gear and pulled some extremely skillful maneuvers to weave through the wall of opponents. She circled once while the powerful Honor Rollers’ pack held opposing jammer Ramona captive. Doom knew she had an opportunity: her team was down 10 points but their defense was holding strong. She gained speed and circled once more effortlessly winding through her opponents. When her hands finally touched her hips, Doom had brought the Honor Rollers ten more points. The score was tied!!

The tide had turned for the Honor Rollers and Revengela added her own punctuation to their statement when, just three jams later, she plowed through an swath of opposing players taking down three jock straps in the action. The first half ended with the Honor Rollers having just edged past the Jock Stars: 36 to 34.

The band Kiss Kiss came out to entertain at half time. This isn’t the first time they’ve played at a CT Roller Derby intermission, though I think that this time around they did an especially good job. I’m not sure how to best classify their music, but it was pretty rocking.

A young fan roots for her mom

After the intermission, the girls took to the floor. The first five jams of the second half were brutally tight. Jam after jam came up with few points scored, though the strategy was impressive. First Eleanor Bruisevelt skated hard against Violet Riot, but only pulled a single point. Jam 2 saw Honor Roller Paula G. Imnaughty steal lead jammer status from IV Drop, a visiting roller girl from Suburbia Roller Derby–Westchester County NY (Thanks Ro - see comments). Despite the steal, IV pulled ahead and Paula smartly ended the jam. Jam 3 saw the roles reverse. This time Violet Riot with the Jock Stars stole the lead from Honor Roller Pearl Jammer and was forced to end the jam in the same manner.

And then, it happened AGAIN.

C. Mya Rage, skated hard and got lead jammer status only to see her lead erode. Like the previous two jams, C. Mya smartly ended the jam just before her opponent scored. The fifth jam of the second half put Luciana against Pam Terror. Luciana got a great start through the pack. Pam Terror was dropped early on and was virtually out of the picture. Miz Con SepJen and Victoria Deck’em loomed in front of Luciana. Luciana swerved and tried to dart in front of her imposing opponents, but Miz and Victoria were skating strongly. Luciana couldn’t get through. She struggled behind her opponents for a full lap and then - out of nowhere! - Pam Terror screamed through the pack and grabbed lead jammer status. It was a remarkable showing of defense by the Jock Star team.

As the jams added up and the time ticked down the Milla Lowlife, Doom, and Pearl continued to chip away at the Jock Stars. Flora Goodthyme had a phenomenal 10 point jam recovering some lost ground for her team, but it was answered by a second double digit jam by Doomcake.

The bout ended with some beautiful blocks by Doom and Miz. When the final horn sounded the score stood at Honor Rollers 72 and Jock Stars 51. Weird Al’s “White and Nerdy” boomed over the speakers as the Honor Rollers took their victory lap. The crowd was ecstatic.

Doomcake secured M.V.P. for the Honor Rollers, Flora Goodthyme took M.V.P. for the Jock Stars.

Let’s look at some stats!

Lead Scorers!

Honor Rollers:
Doomcake 29 points in 6 jams.
Milla Lowlife 14 points
Revengela 12 points
Eleanor Bruisevelt 10 points

Jock Stars:
Flora Goodthyme 17 points in 6 jams
Pam Terror 16 points
Violet Riot and IV Drop 8 points

Great job Roller Girls! CT is glad to have you skating again. The next bout will be on December 13th as CT’s Stepford Sabotage take on the Maine Port Authorities. Last time these two teams met Stepford fell to the fury of Maine. But the two teams are closely ranked and I know our Connecticut girls will fight hard. Come check them out at the CT Sports Center on December 13th.

As for our group? Our Roller Derby virgins were pretty captivated by the action. One unique thing about Roller Derby is that it really doesn’t take much before you find yourself cheering wildly with the rest of the crowd and wincing at the brutal hits that send skaters off spinning. I have high hopes for the new venue and hope that it helps bring more crowds to Derby. Connecticut is a more exciting state in Roller Derby season and the more people who can appreciate it, the better.

Get all the info on upcoming bouts and your favorite teams by going to the newly redesigned CT Roller Derby website.

Okay! we’re back!

Jocelyn and Patrick both nailed last week’s guess the photo location. Let’s try it again!

This time, the city is San Francisco.

Your goal is to provide for me the exact location from where this photograph was taken. I’d recommend going into google maps and doing some digging. the best way to point out a specific spot is to right click on the google map and select “Directions to here” It will either give you a street address or a set of coordinates for longitude & latitude. Commenting with either is acceptable to win the game.

Good luck Team D.

Hey Everybody!

It’s Sweater Thursday! Today will be a bit of a strange sweater Thursday because I am on the road and will not have access to e-mail until late tonight. So! If you have a photo of yourself and your sweater today, then please feel free to e-mail it over to MikeDiDonato AT gmail D0T com. Tonight, I’ll update the website upon my return from work, and hopefully we’ll have scored a big catch of fresh fun sweaters.

Enough chit chat. Let’s sweater.

This week mine is a turtle neck sweater with deep groves of warmth.

This week Ryan and Ruth are CRAZY*

Jocelyn was in a rush today, but she still snagged a sweater photo. that’s dedication!

Irene joins us with a fun belted sweater. Stylish Irene, Stylish!

Sigh. Jesse goes pun style on us. in his words:

“it was really hard to fit my stupid head in that pant leg, let me tell you! HOT in there too. in this picture, I WAS the sweat-er.”

har har har.

And we conclude with Sarah’s sweater. Apparently this is a new sweater and also apparently it was made with the hides of hundreds of adorable rabbits.

Thanks to all the sweater thursday participants! For more sweaters (yes more!) check out Darcy’s site (1 sweater), and Jobonga’s site (3 sweaters).

Rock on sweater people!

*wow.

John and Irene had their annual Halloween bash on Saturday night. I needed a costume that could compete with last year’s nunchucks. I don’t think I surpassed them, but I’m pleased with my costume nonetheless.

The Concept: Scrabble D.

The Execution:

That’s Darcy on the right as a Popple. Also, it should be noted that HOLY CRAP I NEED A HAIRCUT.

Here are some other fun photos from the night:

Darcy eats my scrabble tile as Irene stands provocatively as Madonna.

Darcy was really going at that tile. She likes to gnaw.

without arms, it was difficult for me to eat and drink. Thankfully, Iron man was available to help me out.

Me and Chris (some shrubbery)

Scrabble D and the Popples*

Really, the night was a huge success. More photos may appear later as party participants post photos on facebook.

*Whoa - band name potential?

It’s Sweater Thursday! Are you guys wearing sweaters? If so, e-mail pictures of yourself wearing a sweater over to me at mikedidonato AT gmail D0T com and I will add you to the sweater enthusiast list below.

First off, here’s my sweater.

I decided to go with a brown sweater. Since we’re formal at my company I had, of course, the tie on underneath. Sweet sassy mo’ lassy that is one fine looking sweater.

Next up, we’ve got Kurt’s mom and sister. They have been waiting nearly a year for this picture to appear on Sweater Thursday. Take it away Kurt’s mom and sis!

Why are they eating mayonnaise you ask? Because it runs in the family*

Wow! bdp sent in an awesome sweater combo. Major bonus points for the dog sweater.

Jocelyn join us from Chicago! She comes charging in with a cardigan.

Rumor has it that this isn’t the first sweater Jocelyn wore this week. In fact, she claims that the previous two were home made. WHOA.

Irene is also pulling in the sweater theme today. Notice the hugely awesome collar on this particular sweater.

Jesse has provided us a sweater photo. In his words:

“I have two favorites and couldn’t decide between the two, so I Duct Taped them together and I’m wearing both.”

Wow.

While Patrick isn’t wearing a sweater, he did want to share with us a sweater story. Patrick reports:

“2-3 years ago, I did a Google image search for “argyle”. And this came up. It was so awesome that I decided to keep it. I have no idea what website it was from, who the guy is, when it was taken or anything. I just know that there’s an argyle sweater in it.”

Thanks Patrick! Great find of this ArgyleDude.

Send me your sweater thursday photos, and I will post them. It will be an epic sweatery day. Keep checking back for updates!

*picture from last year’s sweater Thursday

We all remember the skyline challenges of the past. This time I want to try something a little different.

In the past, I’d show you a skyline and a satellite image and you’d have to tell me what cities were represented. This time, I’m going to show you a photo taken of a skyline and you must pinpoint the location on a map from where the photo was taken. Yeah, I think this will be challenging.

So let’s try this one first. The photo was taken in Chicago. Tell me where the photographer stood.

The photograph is here.

Also… wow. this is extremely challenging. Way more so than I had anticipated. I just tried to find the place where I took the picture, and I’m having a very difficult time. I highly recommend using street view to try and figure out how far you need to be from the monuments.

50 MikeDiDonato.com points if you are the first to identify the satellite location via Gmaps link.

Shaun L. got Rock Band 2 a short while ago and we have been playing like crazy.

This is my avatar:

Please note:
The heroic hair
The impressive tiger striped coat
The really sweet scarf

Last night we jammed through a few tunes including:
Alanis - You Oughta Know
some Fleetwood Mac.
Journey - Any way you want it
Soundgarden - Spoonman
Alice in Chains - Man in the Box

Shaun L. owned the guitar. Kevin switched bass and drums, and I switched drums and vocals. We ended the night with Livin’ on a Prayer which has disgustingly brutal vocals. If any of you guys have Rock Band 2 out there, we’ll have to hook up on the internet and have Band showdowns.

Our band, LeMarbelous, will crush you.

I mentioned in my Portland recap that Michelle got us free OMSI tickets. Michelle is married to Thor, Ryan Schenk’s cousin. She totally hooked us up. When we (Dwane, Alicia, Sarah, and I) got to the Membership desk to pick up the tickets she left for us, we found 16 TICKETS! 4 General Admission, 4 Planetarium, 4 Imax, and 4 Sub Tour. We could choose what we wanted to do.

WHOA.

Before we explored the special tickets, we entered the Mindbender Mansion exhibit. Mindbender Mansion is a series of confusing puzzles like those ones where you have a ring and a strip of steel and you have to fit a knot through a heart around a steel triangle without taking the nail out of the chunk of driftwood. Usually there’s a trick to it, but until you see that trick, the puzzle seems virtually impossible.

Take for example, this one. Two people put rings over their wrists that have rope strung between them. You cross your rope with your partner’s rope. Then you’re suppose to untangle yourselves without removing the rings from your wrists.

I have no idea.

Some of the puzzles at the Mindbender Mansion had little clues associated with them which could be entered into a computer to generate some snazzy password or cool video or something. In order to beat the hordes of field day students who were coming in, Alicia, Dwane, Sarah and I split up to try and get as many of the clues as possible. It turns out that despite my mechanical engineering degrees, I’m terrible at these things. There was one weird one where you had to fit all these puzzle pieces together to form the letter T. It was surprisingly difficult. Sarah and I were working on it diligently - hitting dead end after dead end. Suddenly this little 7 year old brat walks up to our table, reaches over, and moves the critical piece into the right spot solving the puzzle immediately. This was not good for my delicate ego.

We left mindbender mansion shortly thereafter and decided to hit up the submarine tour.

Check it out!

The Submarine

Torpedo Tubes!

Controls and fake wood paneling!

We walked through the sub under the direction of a submarine guy. He told us how they navigated, what types of sonar they used, methods of submarine propulsion, living conditions, how often showers were allowed… that sort of thing. It was really fascinating and the guy did a great job of describing life underwater. Here are some fun sub facts:

Fun sub facts:

In the 70’s about 3/4 of the sub population smoked. That mixed with the diesel sub engine resulted in some NASTY air quality.

There’s very little storage space on a sub. So the food is put in cans and put all across the floor. Then they put a fake floor on top of the cans. Best food in the military? Yes. Lower ceilings? worth it.

No women have served on submarines.

The maximum height limit on a submarine is 6′7″

Thanks again to Michelle for helping us out. It really made for a fun day. I highly recommend going to OMSI if you happen to be in the Portland area.

MikeDiDonato.com readers? Meet Jess (she’s on the left - I believe that’s her Ukrainian ’sister’ on the right)

Jess is in the northwest corner of Ukraine right now with the peace corps teaching and spreading good cheer.

Specifically she’s teaching children and trying to connect this little Ukraine village to the rest of the world. In her words: “I run two clubs that are English based and focus on the comparison of and contrast between Ukrainian and American cultures.”

One of the methods she hopes to use to connect her little Ukrainian village to the rest of the world is the Internet.

Right now she’s working to throw a Halloween party with candy-grams and more in order to raise money for that triumphant internet connection and she needs our help. Or specifically, our candy. Would you be able to send a small bag of candy to Ukraine? For both the good of the little kids and the good of the tiny town?

Little Ukranian kids:

Here’s Jess’s comments on how to send help:

Should you decide to send: Sending things to Ukraine is a pretty easy process. The difficulty is the five-minute customs declaration process at the post office. When sending something, if possible, sending it in a flat envelope will be best. If this is not possible, a box is fine also, but keep the size of the box relative to the items so they don’t shake around. The potential detour point is Ukrainian customs. These guys are pretty random with what they withhold at the office for pick-up, what they open up for inspection, and what they let through. The easiest way to prevent all of this is to write on the customs form indicating what you are sending. In this case, I absolutely recommend that you are sending “Donated School Supplies” or “Donations for Orphans”, or something that is going to instill guilt in the hearts of anyone who may think to take it. School Supplies is legit and the least transparent. And seriously underestimate the value of the items you are sending. Never EVER value it over $100. Something of “value” will almost guarantee it opened or stolen. So in short, you are sending donated school supplies that are valued at less than $10 to…me.

Via USPS is an ok method and here is where you send it:

Park, Jessie
Chaikivka Street, #45
C. Altinyvka
Krolevci Reón
Cumska Oblast
Ukraine 41346

This is Mike D. again. I have a lot of readers in unique places. If we could get little packages to arrive for the Ukrainian kids from all over the place, what a great worldly gesture that would be. Please help! Feel free to e-mail questions to me and I’ll pass them to Jess.
MikeDiDonato AT gmail D0T com

If you can, try and send something small out within the next week. The party to bring internet and candy to the people (does anything sound more awesome?) is going down in early November and I guess it takes about two weeks for candy supplies to arrive. Let me know if you can help!

Ruth works the lattes at her workplace and she’s introduced latte art to her little coffee shop. She sent out a few pictures last week and they are truly beautiful works. Check ‘em out!

These first two are called rosettas. Cute little ferns.

An apple

and my favorite, a heart.

Great job Ruth! These are awesome. If you find yourself with some time, I think MikeDiDonato.com readers would be extremely excited for a Video How-to.

Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB) are celestial events that are overwhelmingly intense. As a star dies a couple things could happen. Two scenarios are Supernovas and GRBs. During these dying processes, the inner core of the star collapses into a black hole and the outer core of the star explodes. Occasionally the forces work in such a way that two beams of terrifying power fire out of the ex-sun. These are Gamma Ray Bursts.

What is ‘terrifying power’?

Well, for one, GRB’s are visible across the universe. That in itself is pretty intense, but the power of a GRB is absurd. If one hit us squarely, and we were close enough to it, it would tear our atmosphere to bits, boil all our oceans, and impose one million times the lethal dose of x-rays and gamma rays upon us.

Thankfully for us, there are two characteristics of Gamma Ray Bursts that make them dramatically less dangerous.

Firstly, the beams are narrow. Very Narrow. only .4 degrees. As soon as you escape the hallway of fire, you’re safe.

Secondly, they have to be close to hurt us: no further than 1000 light years away.

Well, on March 18th, 2008 we witnessed one. We were staring right down the throat of a GRB. Thankfully, it was 8000 light years away so we didn’t fry. But it’s scary that we were hit at all. The likelihood of that is just so slim. So what happened on the 18th of March? Some of our big satellites quickly noticed the event and told all the other satellites to check it out. That they did and we got all sorts of information about Gamma Ray Bursts. It was visible to the naked eye and stands as the single most luminous event ever witnessed by humankind.

To be wittnessed so far away GRB’s must released a lot of energy. According to Bad Astronomy* a GRB releases “as much energy in a few seconds as the Sun will over its entire 10 billion year lifetime.”

Dang.

So do we have anything to worry about? Not really… Although there is one star, WR 104, that is within the 1000 light-year radius. It appears to be of the right age to go supernova, but even if it did… not ever star that explodes emits a Gamma Ray Burst. Also, we’d have to be aligned with the star in order for their to be a problem. Unfortunately… we are aligned with the star - within 16 degrees (wikipedia). Now, 16 degrees is a wide range for a mere 0.4 degree beam of untold death - still though, a little too close for comfort.

Don’t lose sleep on it though, we’re not in any immediate risk. Though if you wake up tomorrow and the oceans are boiling, you can probably suspect that WR 104 is the culprit.

(with the exception of one WR 104… which, if you suddenly notice that the oceans are boiling… WR 104 is probably the culprit)

*that astronomy link is where I got most of the data for this post.

The time was right at Darcy’s party for a new Kung Fu Party Trick. This particular one has been in the planning for awhile: kick a marshmallow into a friend’s mouth.

Kung Fu Party Tricks: Volume 4. from mikedidonato on Vimeo.

Amazingly, we completed it on the first try. I’m stunned by this. Special thanks to Irene for throwing, Chris for catching, and Laura for camera-ing.

Also, props to Alicia for the sick Kung Fu fighting musical beats.

Special thanks to BDP for this write up. Take it away BDP!

So you’ve all heard of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac… I’ve been doing some research at work on the topic so I thought I’d give a very high level overview.

A Brief History Of…

Fannie Mae (FNMA - Federal National Mortgage Association) was started by FDR as part of the new deal… it was a government, not a private corporation.

In 1968 LBJ privatized Fannie into a Government Supported Enterprise, aka GSE, due to “fiscal pressures.”

Now that Fannie was a private corporation, Freddie Mac (FHLMC - Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation) was started in 1970 to eliminate Fannie’s monopoly. Fannie and Freddie are almost identical corporations.

(more…)

I don’t like Politics. Not one bit.

But I have to appreciate this website of Buttons for Obama.

THERE ARE FOUR PAGES.

favorites:
Roller Girls for Obama
Unicorns for Obama
Trains for Obama
Mammas for Obama
Banjos for Obama.

Last week, I made a mention to a fun prime number theorem. That theorem is the Green Tao theorem. I’ve been trying to get enough information on it so that I could really put together a comprehensive review of the theorem… but I tried getting through the actual write up… and frankly it was a bit too dry for me.

On the surface, I suppose the theorem is reasonably simple. It states that for any number k there exist infinitely many arithmetic progressions of length k consisting of prime numbers.

Let’s look at some basic prime numbers.

2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19

in this series, numbers 3, 5, and 7, are two numbers apart. 7-5 = 2 and 5-3 = 2.
Since there are three numbers in this series, k = 3

Likewise 7, 13, and 19 are equally spaced. With 6 integers between them. 19-13 = 6, 13-7 = 6
This series also has length k = 3

Ben Green and Terrence Tao (Mathematician Rockstars) are suggesting that you can find strings like this of ANY length.

So, if I took a number, say… a billion = k, this theorem states that yes there are a billion primes out there that have equal arithmetic spacing. That disgusts me with its insanity.

That means if you took an infinite number line, you could take a comb with any number of equally spaced teeth, and scale the comb up or down until you were able to place it on the number line so that every tooth aligned with a prime number. That blows my mind.

*
Source 1

I just learned of a little math fact today. A Mersenne number is a number that is one less than a power of two. (*see source 1)

2^n - 1

Examples:
1, 3, 7, 15, 31, 63, etc.

A prime number is a number that is only divisible by itself and the number one.

Examples:
2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17… etc

By putting these two bad boys together we get the Mersenne Prime. A number that is one less than a power of two that is ALSO a prime number.

Examples:
1, 3, 7, 31, 127, 8191, etc.

These Mersenne numbers are very tricky to figure out. In fact, there are only 44 that have ever been discovered; the largest having over 9.8 million digits in the number (2^32,582,657 - 1). One cool thing about Mersenne Primes is that always is the case where two must be raised to the power of a prime number. That makes hunting Mersenne Primes a heck of a lot easier though still way too hard for Windows Calculator. Also cool is that the 44th Mersenne number is currently the largest prime number known. (*see source 2)

Anyway, the exciting news of the day is that the 45th Mersenne Prime number may have been discovered!!! Hot Diggidy! Get out your party pants!! If the number confirms in September we should have a Prime Party. This one will most certainly be more than 10 million digits long which means that the GIMPS folks may win the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s prize of $100,000. And if you’re feeling ambitious, try and grab the next prime number in the list to win $150,000 or $200,000!!!! (*see source 3)

A couple sources:
1. The fast, the easy, the wikipedia
2. GIMPS - with lots of history and fun facts.
3. The Electronic Frontier Organization

One of my favorite rock climbing routes in Connecticut is Thor’s Hammer. It’s up at East Peak in Meriden and reliably delivers chills and thrills at each ascent. I’ve talked of its majesty in the past. It’s just great in every way.

I hit up Thor’s hammer a few weekends ago with Pete and Ben. We got out there reasonably early, set up our rappel lines and then zipped down to try our luck. Other than some heavy heat, the day was successful.

As an added bonus, I got to do some ascending with Pete’s equipment as well. Ascending requires using special equipment to quickly ‘climb’ ropes. Here’s a picture of some of the equipment that hovered above me as I ascended.

The advantage of setting up an ascending line adjacent to the climbing route is that it allows us to get a unique perspective for taking climbing photographs. Pete has a beautiful Canon 10d camera, so it’s always worthwhile to spend some time setting equipment to help with photos.

We each climbed Thor’s Hammer twice. This route is unique in that it has two roofs that require either stretched lean backs or furious fist jams.

Here’s a picture of Pete working his way to the first roof.

Here’s Pete again working the second roof.

It was a great day and a gorgeous climb. I hope that I’ll be able to climb it a few more times before the season ends. I desperately want to lead the route.

Okay Team MikeDiDonato.com, time for a quick game.

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Every once in awhile I am totally blown away by math - this is definitely one of those moments.

Benford’s Law talks about numbers and how they appear in nature. He says that if you take a random collection of natural numbers, like… the number of leaves on a tree, the height of mountains, the population of foxes, mathematical constants, etc… and you look at the first digit of those numbers, the distribution will not be even.

The first digit means the following:

324524 has a first digit of 3
29 has a first digit of 2
152923840 has a leading digit of 1

So wait… Benford’s suggesting what now?!?

That if you choose random numbers from nature, the probability that the number starts with 1 is different than say… 9?

Yes. In fact, 1’s are a lot more probable than 9’s. there’s about a 30% chance that the number will be a 1 and only a 4% chance that it will be a 9. But why??

Well, basically the distribution of numbers in nature is logarithmic*, not sequential. Let’s look at an example, say… the population of foxes. Let’s suppose you had 1000 foxes. If the foxes started reproducing, it would take a lot longer for their population numbers to go from 1000 to 2000 than it would to go from 8000 to 9000.

Another fun test is mathematical constants. I looked up some Mathematical constants on Wikipedia from here. I jotted down the leading digit in Excel and plotted them here:

Wow! nearly Logarithmic! And with only 43 data points. CRAZY.

“Now wait a minute,” you might interject, “that’s all well and good for populations and math constants but earlier you said that this was also true for distances like the height of mountains… what if I changed the unit from feet to meters?”

well, actually nothing at all. The logarithmic scale still works regardless of the unit. Nature just seems to work Logarithmically.

Does it also work if we fall out of base ten? Heck yes. The actual equation is LOGb((x+1)/x) where b is your base, and x is the number of which you want to find the likelihood. So in base 10, Log (10/9) is about 4% while Log (2/1) is about 30%.

So how is this useful? Well, this phenomenon also appears in accounting. New software packages are incorporating Benford’s law to analyze financial statements looking for the frequency of leading digits. Because people tend to think that the probability of every number appearing is about equal, fraudulent numbers can become very apparent. These software packages help the authorities audit the right people. Neat huh?

A word of warning: while you can use this law for a lot of things, it’s not always as simple as it seems. The specific application might be framed as ‘naturally’ occurring but it may not be. Take, for example, the height of people. If you looked at the leading number of anyone’s height in feet, you’d probably get a ton of 5’s, a bunch of 6’s, and a handful of 4’s. But height follows a bell curve, so Benford’s law won’t work.

Oh man, math and nature are so crazy!

*for any non-math folks, logarithmic distributions look something like this (see source 2):
1—————2———3——-4—–5—-6—7–8–9

sources:
Source 1: Some argue it’s not a real source, others don’t care… it’sWikipedia!
Source 2: Not satisfied with Wikipedia? Try this excellent website.

While this video isn’t of as high a quality as the first, it’s still kind of entertaining. My project partners and I made this video to try and portray the Fatalist perspective. The audio isn’t very good because of the karaoke version of comfortably numb that we downloaded. Also… the second half of the clip isn’t well matched between audio and visual… and the video was recorded with the backlight on. But whatever. It’s still kind of funny.

Enjoy!

Comfortably Numb - Modified from mikedidonato on Vimeo.