Skip to main content

Halloween

Yesterday was Halloween. Some people I know don't do anything on Halloween. I'm not one of them, and never have been; I've gone trick-or-treating every year since I was about 2 or 3.

When I first started, I didn't stay out very long, and at least one of my parents stayed with me at all times. Yesterday I stayed out for about 2½ hours with some siblings and a couple of friends, and would have stayed longer if I was allowed; the candy I get then is pretty much all of the candy I get for the next year. And it really does last that long. Even now, I still have a few pieces of candy left from last year! You might be able to guess that I'm proud of my self-control when it comes to Halloween candy. My other siblings finished off their candy many months ago.

The main idea for trick-or-treating is to dress up as something cool. This year I was planning on being a burglar, since I couldn't think of much else. My sister told me that she was dressing up as Buttercup from The Princess Bride (which is a really cool book, and also a neat movie). Bingo! I could be the Dread Pirate Roberts (from the same book), and then we'd match! So she decided to help me with my costume.

About a week ago, she decided to dress up as something else; but I still dressed up as the Dread Pirate Roberts. I guess he must not be a very well-known character; everybody kept asking me if I was Zorro (but that could be because they look so similar).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Flipping Quarters

Here's an interesting puzzle involving chance: A man in a park asks you to play a game with him. It's a form of gambling. To play, you must pay the man $5, then flip a coin repeatedly until you get heads. As soon as you get heads, you stop flipping. If you only flipped the quarter once, he'll give you $1. If you flipped it twice, you get $2. Three times, $4. Four times, $8. Each extra flip gets you twice as much money, so the longer it takes before you get tails, the more money you get. Should you play, if you have a lot of time and the man will play as many games as you want? How much money, on average, would you gain (subtracting the $5 fee)? I will give the solution in a later post .
1 comment
Read more

Pluto No Longer on the Horizon

This morning, New Horizons became the first spacecraft to make a flyby observation of the Pluto system. During the mission, the spacecraft captured the most detailed photographs of Pluto's surface we've ever had, and possibly ever will have. It also found many new properties including size, mass, atmosphere, and surface composition. In a period of a few hours, we discovered more about Pluto than we've found in the 85 years since Clyde Tombaugh captured its first photograph. Before After  (images credit: NASA) To complete this mission, the spacecraft flew for more than 9 years through the emptiness of space. This may sound like a long time, but it's actually amazingly quick. In fact, New Horizons set the record for the fastest speed at launch, and during the flyby, the spacecraft was moving at a rate of over 30,000 mph, or roughly 50 times the speed of sound. Picture an object twice as heavy as a grand piano moving 25 times faster than a bullet from a gun. Yikes. The man...
2 comments
Read more

Should Tau Replace Pi?

The digits of π, organized in a very new way Happy π-day! And happy π-month! Today's month and day - that is, March 14 or 3.14 - includes the first 3 digits of π. And today's month and year - March 2014 or 3.14 - also includes the first 3 digits of π. We won't have another double-day for π for the next 100 years, so enjoy this one! For the special occasion, I'm posting two π-related posts - one for π-month, and the other for π-day. In both posts, I'm setting the font size to approximately π * π + π + π. This is the first post, for π-month; to see the second, go to http://greatmst.blogspot.com/2014/03/pi-month-pi-day-post-2-5-common-pi-myths.html . In this post, I am including an essay I wrote about whether π or τ is the more superior constant. This was written for people who know very little about math, so the basic idea should be easy to understand even for people who are not mathematically inclined. Should Tau Replace Pi? A constant is any number or value that ne...
Post a Comment
Read more