Posts for year 2019
Non-Monotonicity in Australian Preference Voting
There are several methods of voting which allow voters to rank candidates in order of their preference, rather than just selecting a single desired candidate and then doing a single count (Plurality or “First Past the Post” voting). The system specifically used in Australian elections is “Instant-Runoff Voting” (IRV).
IRV is intended to allow for a variety of political parties of various sizes to flourish (unlike the famously two-party-dominated politics of the USA) as citizens who vote for a minor party as their first preference don’t “waste” their vote; if their first preference is too obscure to get in, their vote goes to their second preference, and so on.
However, it is still possible for “vote-splitting” to have a negative effect on minor parties - in some cases, giving a candidate a higher preference can paradoxically cause them to lose, as they can be eliminated earlier.
Sunday Maths: The Diagonal-Sum Mental Multiplication Method
This is a mental math technique to solve non-trivial integer multiplication I picked up from one of Arthur Benjamin’s talks, and is widely used by other “mathemagicians” to solve large products.
It converts an n × n multiplication problem into a n² set of single digit multiplications, arithmetically identical to the “Lattice Method”. However, instead of filling the lattice first and then summing each diagonal, this method calculates each sum as soon as possible - thus you only need to keep track of the bare minimum of working data and it becomes possible to do the problem entirely in your head.
How to use a Unix PC as a Vocal Monitor
If you have a computer running on Linux or BSD, a microphone connected to it, and a desire not to spend $50 on a very small amplifier, you can use a one line shell script to listen to yourself sing instead.
Listening to yourself through a vocal monitor gives a better indication of the pitch and timbre of your voice than just listening to yourself, as the sound reaching your ears from your mouth is affected by resonating through your head, like listening to someone talk through a bone wall covered by a wet blanket. A monitor will therefore be a more accurate reproduction of what you sound like to everyone else than “directly” listening to your own voice.
Pastry and Cookie Doughs Reference Table
This is a reference table for deciding what to make, or making batches of dough for later use. It was going to be part of a page on Doughs and Batters for the Cooking Reference Tables section of my old site, but I never finished the rest of the dough/batter tables, so posting this one here on it’s own.
Cooking Reference Tables and New Blog
At the start of the year I started assembling some cooking reference tables - reference lists of cooking times, types of fillings, sauces, doughs, herbs and spices used in different cuisines, etc. I never got around to finishing the doughs and sauces, and I was going to wait until they were all done before “announcing” it. But it looks like it’s not going to get done anytime soon, so this post is the belated and incomplete announcement.
Due to my tardiness in making updates here, I’m considering creating a new blog-type site where I can have a fresh start and post little snippets every now and then.
Sunday Maths - Quickly Multiplying Teens
In a similar vein to last week’s post on simplifying squares, this one uses some basic algebra to make it easier to multiply numbers between 10-20:
(10 + x)(10 + y) = 100 + 10x + 10y + xy = 10(x + y + 10) + xy
Forms of Life part 1: Intro to Bionomenclature
Part one of what I hope will be series of at least two articles on how different lifeforms differ.
To start off, this article will give an overview of the hierarchical classification of biological life, with a focus on the nomenclature of biological nomenclature.
Sunday Maths: Simplifying Squares
This is a simple method to make it easier to calculate squares in your head (or on paper). The key is the following equation:
x² = (x+y)(x-y) + y²
Introducing the Price And Nutrition Tracking System
In early 2017 I had just gone onto disability pension. Desperate to improve my health despite being broke, I was looking for a way to get the maximum fibre and protein from my food for the minimal cost and calories. I started entering in all the nutritional data from food I bought into a spreadsheet, calculating and plotting those protein:fibre:cost:calories ratios.
Later that year I started to create and analyse recipes which combined different ingredients. This quickly became cumbersome in a spreadsheet, so I started a Django project initially called the Price And Nutrition Tabulation System (P.A.N.T.S) for storing and visualising the data for both recipes and ingredients.
Soon I also realised since I was entering in all my recipes here it would also be easier if I used it as my daily calorie counter and added a “food diary” to the system, renaming it the Price And Nutrition Tracking System.
Example screenshot of the diary view:
