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The other day Paul told me that square wheels (and, indeed, any regular polygon except a triangle) can ride on a road constructed of inverted catenaries. A catenary is the curve made by a telegraph wire when stretched between two poles — a cable hanging under its own weight.

A little bit of thinking about the road makes you realise that the length of the catenary s must be the same as the length of the side of the square, and the height h must be

.

This is because the centre of the square, the axle, must remain at a constant height from the ground for a smooth ride.

Anyway, armed with this information, I spent this afternoon making a real-life version of this. I used some string to mark out a catenary of the right size, and used it as a template on two bits of plywood. A fair bit of jigsawing and filing later, I had this:



I was really surprised how well it worked! Check the video to see how smoothly the “wheel” runs along the “road”!

Lolcat has taken over my life. I spend far too long looking through pictures of amusing cats superimposed with intentionally grammatically incorrect captions.

But I love it.

Some of my favourites:



For more pictures, check http://icanhascheezburger.com, http://lolcats.com or http://lolcats2.com, or perhaps you might want to check out http://lolcode.com, a programming language based on those exact macros. It’s arguably as good as some of the esoteric programming languages!

So good, even xkcd has picked up on it.

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me…

Helen, Caroline and I went to see the third film this evening. If you didn’t like either of the first two, don’t go see this one. Mind you, that’s because you’re a lost cause; they were both excellent, and this one was a great finish to the trilogy!

Convoluted? Difficult to follow? Pah. If you know the characters well enough, then the complexity only makes the film better. There’s not as much comedy in this as there was in the previous two, but it had its moments: from the recoil of Marty’s gun to Jack’s miniature pirate ship, this film is everything I could have wanted!

I want to be a pirate!

We went to see Spider-Man 3 for Jay’s birthday today. I’ve seen the second, and really enjoyed it. This one, I must admit, was no different — despite warnings from critics and friends alike that “there’s too much going on.”

One thing, though — I’m sure it’s tongue-in-cheek, or at least I hope it is — but I did find it rather daft that when ol’ Spidey wins back the public, there’s a huge American flag? I’ve read that the same thing was done in a more subtle way in the first film, and apparently so much more so in the second that I don’t remember it. But was that necessary? Come on!

In addition, the symbiote seems to turn him in to Gerard Way. Anyone else notice that? Oh, apparently they did.

Always a great day, and this one was no exception!

Not wanting to start with the provided champagne breakfast, as it was a little early, we had our own — much better in my opinion! Pains au chocolat, croissants and éclairs were among the breakfast, as well as the obligatory champagne and Buck’s Fizz!

After the food, we headed to Chase for a a drink before the bar and marquee opened. Just time for a bounce on the bouncy castle though — including a joint effort that saw me somersault over the back! Wish I’d managed to film it! Once in the marquee, the buffet was huge, and had some great choices — had to go hunting for the prawns though!

No-one was drinking the red wine, so it was left to me to be “forced” into downing a number of glasses (very elegant). Then the white dried up and everyone was made to join me!

We all relaxed after lunch, mostly to let all the food go down, and then a quick play on the inflatables again before we headed into the bar for some drunken pool…

And to finish off the evening, I went up the Bailey to find a few of the old Gables crew in 24’s! A great day, and a salute to the best college!

You can also view the pictures.

Strangely, a ska-core version of “Don’t Let Me Get Me” (originally by P!nk) and a punk version of “Just A Little While” (Janet Jackson) seem to me like they wouldn’t sound half bad? Maybe that’s just me then.

Andy got a Wii the other day. A complete impulse buy — but a good one, I might add! It came with Wii Sports, a game that demonstrates the revolutionary controller known as the Wii remote:

Unfortunately the console only came with one controller, so Andy went and bought another, complete with counterpart Wii Play. Both games actually feature several mini-games, each of which are low in graphics but high in playability. Wii Play has a few good games, but some can get a bit repetitive. The games on Wii Sports, however, are so addictive that for the last few nights they’ve had me up until the early hours trying to gain training medals or improve my high scores! It does tire your arm out, though…

JC was here earlier this week. I was supposed to meet up with him on Monday, but on his way down to the pub (the Swan and 3, where else would we meet) he and Dave managed to get started on. He went to casualty that evening but seemed OK the next day, with the exception of a slightly inflamed cheek and a lisp! He’s been travelling around the world, and comes back to this within a week… Oh well, welcome home JC.

If your life was film what would the soundtrack be?

So, here’s how it works:

1. Open your media player
2. Put it on random
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button

Opening credits:
The Streets — Fit But You Know It

Waking up:
Bryan Adams — Vanishing

First day at school:
Captain — Build A Life

Falling in love:
Vonda Shepard — Will You Marry Me?

Fight song:
Aerosmith — Cryin'

Breaking up:
Scissor Sisters — Better Luck

Prom:
The Stimulagos — Contradictions

Life:
The Beach Boys — Then I Kissed Her

Making babies:
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones — The Impression That I Get

Mental breakdown:
NOFX — Bottles To The Ground

Driving:
Anti-Flag — Their System Doesn’t Work For You

Flashback:
Def Leppard — Photograph

Getting back together:
DJ Luck & MC Neat — A Little Bit Of Luck

Birth of a child:
[spunge] — Break Up

Final battle:
Bear McCreary — Baltar’s Dream

Death scene:
Lynyrd Skynyrd — Down South Jukin'

Funeral song:
Nelly Furtado — Maneater

End credits:
Primal Scream — Leaves

So many of those were entirely appropriate! With my stupidly large music collection I wasn’t expecting results half that good!

I have just got back from my trip to Val Thorens with Collingwood College Skiing & Snowboarding Club. It was great! The snow was much better than Val d’Isère, at least for the first part of the week. The last couple of days weren’t so good, but I missed out on the penultimate day so that was all right!

The reason that I missed out on a day was that we found an amazing closed red run that had the best powder — and late on one day, when the light was low and flat, I hit an invisible kicker and flew unsuspecting to land on my coccyx on a rock. Ouch! I then had to crawl out of the bowl I’d just landed in…

Apart for one minor injury, the holiday was brilliant, the après-ski was great if a little expensive, and the accommodation was indeed very accommodating!

View pictures of the trip

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.

Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

Such are the joys of getting The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, a book about the life of Paul Erdős, for Christmas.