Saturday, March 31, 2018

Go fund me

I wrote about our local "reverend" Patrick White of the Chaplain's Office here and here. When I was doing all that research on him I somehow missed the February 2017 fundraiser set up by York St. Peter's, an evangelistic organization based in Woodbridge ON. White's friend, Oliver, is noted as being in "serious condition" after he "was overcome with smoke and suffered 3rd degree burns" fighting a stove fire in White's apartment — which Oliver had been assigned to "watch" while White was out of town. Oliver, I guess, was augmenting his watching with a little cooking.

Another casualty of the fire was Patrick White's parakeet, Joey, who came through the ordeal with a bit of smoke inhalation. Joey is mentioned in a photo on the Chaplain's Office website:


Wait a second! Your friend Oliver was seriously hurt in a fire in your apartment and all you can say is that he was recently married ?!

Thursday, March 15, 2018

More English number words in base-26 pi

I last worked on this in January 2013. Dropping the final "googol" line from that post's in situ list, but continuing with subsequent finds:

..datnmvbwezlfygflonebugwcjooatbjbskh..
..wzlwdhgbhphxeqsqfourdjjmmikzqwvivabm..
..pceoeiigwyqtmaustwoamxyatxhqxoyzbno..
..ifnuetcfdxrwipodsixyavsnasweexagllo..
..ectasqgcghjmzirrtenfjiphdkdoumqzpjt..
..dwbfgegkqjwkubjvfivewgjlbihzmwgalifm..
..jyhdeevmsxmbxtbininesuzrnrzsxosctuxm..
..efzoqitnhuljsgztzerovlptejdfwretaara..
..hwdvoynebabsyjkdsevenaabgjthpqgapqnrg..
..cgakthjgxsmoldokthreeapdiuhncqcjgsmnt..
..gfaoforthfmdhgkzfiftyxiboudqllqzqlcmh..
..obptjczwqdirtnvmfortyigfxwmybvztjkhbc..
..hubksmltneixkvpheightmgsxrwaqokrdcpnw..
..ttsybfashnuibvlisixtytdchrjcvvzazzivu..
..wltescttnomsztonelevenfyifyclxdcacsfta..
..qpddtdyuitfganmgninetyhecteviwajvcosrv..
..kvvtnvsdypwsumzveightysstqdeajfbyxrrde..
..iuwxlmueqjjzpbcmtwelveefcsszipcnmifmzp..
..ssoshdnbsnembdkgthirtyqwbfxohiadwgtvya..
..fcgcgwvbsyihoavxtwentymbigcbkjfiuezgex..
..edapsvilnlndkwusfifteenzkfkepmwhsauydgc..
..mkczsxsgslvltfxqnineteenpxzlphhysfrfpjwp..
..gmrxvlhvuocxdssaseventyurdrqcdywvowytwb..
..qndvrurhkjaqjqabsixteennwdbnngckhpzduwr..

These are the numbers' first occurrences, at indices 10087, 11324, 13463, 14295, 15276, 64838, 175372, 389247, 786244, 1556763, 2300987, 8879098, 9202330, 9946442, 33027856, 126003234, 126348794, 238426469, 389952198, 536531272, 1709539474, 5624040208, 7690604024, 7869864133, respectively.

I excluded "googol" because it's just a slang name for "ten duotrigintillion". Likewise, I've excluded "hundred", "million", "billion", because in proper English I expect them to be modified by a numerical adjective. Regardless, for the record, here they are:

..dnihymgxncwxfhsdgoogolxvodlfjhbzlnrucr..
..knqqklhgazusrbummillionziaocmauzjxqqrdo..
..bcqtdtvmnmumvmhqhundrednizjohkrhvlzdkpv..
..qgrqqgrlwjuobeyfbillionliuisnrlcobglhiv..

... whose shown first occurrences are at indices 454315613, 942420517, 2169343694, 4359384810, respectively. In December 2000, I created a sequence of numbers: 1, 4, 2, 6, 10, 1, 2, 2, 6, 10, 6, 10, 2, 2, 5, 2, ... representing the (proper) number words in the order in which they occur. I now have a very large number of terms for this sequence. Back then I noted eight consecutive 6s by showing them in blue. In my now-larger list, there are ten consecutive 6s. There are also eleven consecutive 2s, twelve consecutive 1s, and thirteen consecutive 10s.

Tuesday, March 06, 2018

Facts first


This local red-light camera setup became operational on 20 October 2017. The first photo shows the scene on the northeast corner of Lawrence Ave. W. and Weston Rd. A second picture shows it from the other direction:


A reporter for WestonWeb (an acquaintance to whom I still owe a couple of beers) seemed to be unaware of its existence when he suggested that "there are only 77 red light cameras in the whole of Toronto and only one remotely close to our area (at Keele and Lawrence)". His erroneous 77 was apparently based on this City of Toronto website:

I attempted to get him to acknowledge that the number was small but he didn't think that that was too important: "... whatever the actual number and location is, it’s inadequate" and then doubled down on the number: "I believe that unmarked red light cameras should be at many more intersections than the current 77."

Banana, banana, banana! It wasn't too difficult to extract the actual apple from the basket. The supervisor of Toronto's Red Light Camera Operations assured me that — as of today — there are 124 red-light cameras in operation.