Assorted Science Links (Jan 2020)
In the interest of filling more blog pages and clearing out lots of bookmarks (“that’s interesting, I should post that”), here are some assorted science links I’ve come across recently, with minimal annotation.
Vegan-Microwave-Wheat-Free-High-Fibre-and-Protein-Low-Carb-Apple-Crumble
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