God dammit. YOU ARE NOT MAKING THIS ANY EASIER ON YOURSELVES.
Read my stories!Poe's Law. It has to be a joke. Note that it's in the "Huffpost Comedy" section.
I wouldn't put it past Repubs to do that, but come on.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"US students suck at math...in response, they try to make their math abilities even worse?!
How is shooting a flamethrower into a forest fire supposed to make it any better?!
"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."—phew— that's good.
...
I didn't know the huffington post had a comedy section.
edited 23rd Mar '11 1:19:17 PM by MrAHR
Read my stories!Okay, if anyone argues that this is legitimate, you're wrong, this is now just trolling. Anything like this is just trolling.
EDIT: And it's in the comedy section. Ha...
edited 23rd Mar '11 1:20:08 PM by Usht
The thing about making witty signature lines is that it first needs to actually be witty.Well, 5% error margin compared to the "standard" is not so bad is it?
A guy called dvorak is tired. Tired of humanity not wanting to change to improve itself. Quite the sad tale.Darn it, this is fake? I thought I had found some really good information that would spark good debate.
Well, so this topic doesn't completely go to waste: Does anyone think that this could be a good or reasonable idea?
I wish people would shut the fuck up about that bill. Jesus, find actual examples of government stupidity, not trivia.
[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.This is fake? But it seems so in-touch with their modus operandi...
Oh, well. Still amusing.
edited 23rd Mar '11 1:37:04 PM by AllanAssiduity
Just to be clear, the second half of the article makes it obvious that it's a fake. I mean, "Senator X had a heart attack and died when he read it?" Come on, people, get your skepticism where it belongs!
On its merits? That's like passing a law that says 1+1=3, or the sky is pink. Pi is 3.1415297 etc. It's a geometric constant. You can't legislate it any more than you can legislate gravity.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I loled too. Fake article people.
WHASSUP....... ....with lolis!...or morality, but they try anyway .
edited 23rd Mar '11 1:41:06 PM by SavageHeathen
You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.Bah so it was fake...
But it looked just like what a republican would do...
"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."Oh, I'm totally sure Colbert was the origin of this bill.
The thing about making witty signature lines is that it first needs to actually be witty.I recall reading somewhere that some town in Colorado tried to do this or something. Might have been apocryphal.
...Why would the Republicans want to enforce non-Euclidean geometry?
Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.To be fair, non-Euclidean geometry is really freaking cool.
So the Republicans are Bloody Stupid Johnson?
I'd vote for him if he ran on his own.
Probably not Vetinari though, he's a great Patrician but as president his hands would be tied too much.
Charlie Tunoku is a lover and a fighter.In theory you could redefine the circle constant. You would just need a corresponding constant to multiply by when using it. Let's say you were finding the circumference of a circle from its radius and understood pi to be three - you'd then multiply pi by r and then by a number equal to two-thirds of pi. Obviously this is pretty ridiculous and there is no good reason to define the circle constant as such.
There is, however, a minor movement trying to convince people in general academia to define the circle constant as 2pi (calling it tau) because 2pi appears far more often in mathematics than pi by itself and is tidier overall.
Everything is best in moderation.At least the tau movement makes sense. It's not trying to redefine the universe. It's just trying to define another constant equal to 2pi.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. DickThe origin of the rumor the joke is based on is an incident in Indiana when a bill was proposed based on the work of a crank mathematician, which most people just didn't read through that throughly.
the statement above is falseAs a sidenote, a fake like that seems rather extreme to me. Does Roby have a history of stupid ideas like that? Because otherwise this would be an incredibly rude joke. Or is there something else about American affairs that I totally miss and that makes the joke completely obvious to every American?
Or perhaps they miscalculated when waiting for April 1st...
edited 23rd Mar '11 2:53:18 PM by vijeno
No, it's based on an actual incident. People (fortunately a state legislator, not a federal one) are really that stupid.
Edit:
No, you can't. The circle constant is a constant. You can define the symbol pi as 3, or 7, or "grapefruit", which is then multiplied or added to some other value to get the circle constant. But the circle constant itself isn't changing, and all you're doing is teaching kids a needlessly complex workaround.
edited 23rd Mar '11 3:03:15 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Here's a link to an article which we discussed in my Theory of Knowledge class today.
Quote: "Congresswoman Martha Roby (R-Ala.) is sponsoring HR 205, The Geometric Simplification Act, declaring the Euclidean mathematical constant of pi to be precisely 3. The bill comes in response to data and rankings from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, rating the United States' 15 year-olds 25th in the world in mathematics."
Basically, the US isn't doing well in math, so there's a new bill in place which aims to define Pi as exactly 3 instead of 3.1415926535...
Anyone else think this is incredibly stupid? When a classmate brought this up I thought she took an article from The Onion. Pi's an integral part of math, pun intended, and it seems moronic to try to reduce the number of decimal places to increase testing scores.
What does everyone else think about this?