Monday, February 23, 2015

Monday: Monday sucks, but I surprisingly have two stories.

Part 1: Tiny Gecko Friend.

I noticed this guy sitting next to my office door this afternoon.
So tiny.
 I tapped my foot next to him a few times, but there was no movement, so I assumed he was dead, and left it for the end of the day.  I then got a few sheets of paper, and planned to scoop him up and fold up a tiny envelope shaped coffin.
But then he started moving.
 I assume that tiny gecko friend was maybe just tired and hungry after being trapped in an office all weekend.  A few minutes later:
And a shake.  Sorry to drop you, TGF, but you need to live outside.
 Still no major movement a few minutes after being shifted outside, so I dripped some water next to him, since I could at least help if he was thirsty.
And before I left, I checked again, and TGF was no where to be seen.  Have a happy life outside, TGF!
Part 2: Trigonometry.

I have five colors of post-it notes, and I want to make a post-it-coaster.  The first time I did this, I did it by eye, and it didn't work so well.  Last time, I realized that I actually know math.
The base post-it.
 Five post-its means I'm making a pentagon.  The sum of interior angles of a polygon is 180 * (n-2) or 540.  There are five such angles, so each one is 108.  The excess from the 90 corner of a post it is 18.  Converting this to radians tells us that q = pi/10, so tan(q) ~ 1/3 (due to small angle formula).  The triangle formed from this has to meet the triangle from the opposite corner halfway across the base post-it (due to symmetry).  This means that the intersection point is 1/6 the height of the post-it.
Make a mark there.
 Now all the remaining post-its can be placed, keeping that angle in common.
And you get a tiny corner that isn't totally correct, but it's close enough.

Part 3: Links


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