Bush has predictably used the London bombings as further reason for the war on terror in Iraq. In reference to Al Qaeda, he stated that "When they are constantly on the run they can't plan attacks, so we and our allies will stay on the offensive." The worry about that tactic is that it seems to negate the need for an exit strategy from Iraq.
A lovely weekend in Connecticut visiting some friends in Westport. Great to see Jodi and Paloma after so long. We didn't really do much, which was the nice part - just catching up with one another and relaxing. We must do that more often.
And tonight, we began our pottery class, which was great fun! Messy and disorganised as hell, but kinda got the hang of things - hopefully there'll be something worthwhile at the end of week eight.
A few links worthy of varying levels of note forwarded by a good friend yesterday, which I thought some might be interested in. First of all, someone questioning the Universal Theory of Gravity. I'm afraid I'm not sufficiently well versed in physics to validate their statements or otherwise, but if someone else is sufficiently well educated, then some further commentary would be welcomed - it would certainly be a weight off my shoulders!
Next, a page that simply reels off 1,000,001 digits of pi. (Or pi to 1,000,000 decimal places.) I like that. It reminds me of Akira Haraguchi, who recently reeled off the first 83,431 digits from memory. The amusing part of the story is the fact that part way through, he lost his place and had to start again, and that he had to abandon a previous attempt as the facility he was competing in had to close for the night. It also reminds me of a poster you can buy for $83 that is merely a print of (2^25,964,951)-1, the largest known prime as of February this year. I'd quite like that poster :)
Finally, an article entitled Programmers Need To Learn Statistics Or I Will Kill Them All. While a little extreme in its sentiment, I think the message is primarily a good one. I've never really thought about performance testing as one following statistical models, but I suppose at the end of the day, there is noise that needs to be allowed for, and seemingly identical tests will result in a range of data that needs to be interpreted just like those in experimental physics or any other application to which statistics lends itself so nicely.
