| CARVIEW |
Select Language
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2026 22:39:44 GMT
Server: Apache/2.4.41 (Ubuntu)
Last-Modified: Wed, 06 Aug 2025 15:31:05 GMT
ETag: "90c9-63bb4077c025c-gzip"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Encoding: gzip
Content-Length: 10321
Content-Type: application/rss+xml
Content-Type: text/shitpost
https://shitpost.plover.com
Mark Dominus Shitposts
en
-
Bulk liquid food transport
https://shitpost.plover.com/2025/04/18#bulk-liquids
<p>Me and the family have been on the road recently, and yesterday we saw
a food-grade tanker truck in the next lane. I amused myself for a
while speculating about what might be in it: Pudding? Cottage cheese?
Guacamole? Hummus? Blueberry yogurt, with the fruit on the bottom?
(That one got a laugh from Ms. 17.)</p>
<p>Well, probably not, but on looking it up I found some probably
reliable lists of what does get shipped that way. From
<a href="https://kanhaul.com/liquid-transport/bulk-liquid-transport-equipment-faq/">Kan-Haul's bulk liquid transport FAQ</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>Dairy products ( pasteurized milk, and cream)</li>
<li>Alcohol products (gin, vodka, and wine)</li>
<li>Juices (fruit juice and vegetable juice)</li>
<li>Vegetable oils (canola oil and coconut oil)</li>
<li>Syrups and other sweeteners (corn syrup, honey, and molasses)</li>
<li>Sugar alcohols (mannitol and sorbitol)</li>
<li>Vinegar (apple cider vinegar and distilled vinegar)</li>
<li>Citrus products (citric acid solution and citrus fruit terpenes)</li>
<li>Non-food products (essential oils and mineral oil)</li>
<li>Additives and preservatives (beverage bases, caramel color, and natural and artificial colors)</li>
</ul>
<p>I think the most amusing item on that list is the molasses. Or
perhaps the honey. "There's been a crash on route 202! Send a
truckful of graham crackers!" But a tomato juice spill could also be
amusing. Amusing, rather than <em>just</em> horrible. I wouldn't want to be
anywhere near after a canola oil mishap.</p>
<p>Still I guess the really interesting items are the ones <em>not</em> on the
list because they are less commonly shipped. I was tempted to write
to one of these shipping firms to ask for weird stories, but they have
work to do. Still I can dream that maybe there <em>is</em> a tanker truck
out there somewhere carrying 11,000 gallons of
butterscotch pudding.</p>
<p>Aha, someone in
<a href="https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-the-weirdest-cargoes-truck-drivers-have-hauled">this Quora thread</a>
mentioned hauling processed pumpkin pie filling. I am completely satisfied.</p>
-
Sister cities?
https://shitpost.plover.com/2025/03/16#sister-cities
<p>Are Salisbury and Salzburg sister cities? And if not, why not?</p>
-
Frequently asked questions about signal handling in C
https://shitpost.plover.com/2024/12/18#signal-handling
<p>“In a signal handler, can I…”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“You didn't let me finish the question!”</p>
<p>“The answer is still ‘no’.”</p>
-
The silliest town name in the United States
https://shitpost.plover.com/2024/09/06#silliest-town-name
<p>In <em>Blue Highways</em>, author William Least Heat-Moon states that that
the town with the silliest name in the U.S. is Intercourse,
Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>I disagree. My own nominee is French Lick, Indiana.</p>
-
https://shitpost.plover.com/2024/08/24#mercury-bread
<p><a href="https://hsp.org/blogs/hidden-histories/looking-for-the-drowned-dead-with-a-loaf-of-bread-and-mercury">This article about finding drowned bodies</a>
with quicksilver-filled bread says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A loaf of bread was then filled with “over two ounces of
quicksilver,” then thrown into the water</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I was annoyed that the original source said this, because I found it
unclear. Is that two ounces by weight or by volume? If it were water
it wouldn't matter, but quicksilver is 13.6 times as dense, and two
fluid ounces weighs nearly a pound. Conversely, a two-ounce weight of
quicksilver is only a few milliliters.</p>
<p>I guess it must be the second, smaller amount, because bread stuffed
with a pound of quicksilver would sink quickly, and you need
it to float to where the body is. Also quicksilver costs money.</p>
-
Don't get all up in my grill
https://shitpost.plover.com/2024/08/14#up-in-my-grill
<p>Today I'm feeling happy about the phrase "all up in my grill". I
think it means the same as "all up in my face" but substituting
"grill" (cosmetic dental work) for "face" is more pungent and
flavorsome.</p>
<p>I wrote a while back about the hilarious phrase "too dumb to pour piss
out of a boot" which I feel is funny for a similar reason.</p>
<p>Specific is almost always funnier than generic. I wonder, is "all up
in my grill" funnier if the person actually <em>has</em> a grill, or if they
don't? Maybe both.</p>
-
Jehovah's Witnesses schism
https://shitpost.plover.com/2024/08/14#witnesses
<p>What if there were a Jehovah's Witness splindere sect that took the Tolkien legendarium as literally true? <br />
Wouldn't that be something?</p>
-
More pizza heresy
https://shitpost.plover.com/2024/08/11#pizza-heresy
<p>People like to have fainting fits to show off how horrified they are about pineapple pizza,
or Hawai‘ian pizza (pineapple plus ham) but I think it's pretty good and those people need
to get a grip or find a less silly hobby.</p>
<p>Today I was thinking, prosciutto is good with orange cantaloupe. Why
not put them on pizza?</p>
<p>Not sure what you'd call it though. I think it needs a name that it
catchier than “prosciutto and melon pizza”.</p>
-
Followup to a Stack Exchange comment from 2014
https://shitpost.plover.com/2024/06/04#comment
<blockquote>
<p>Reminder: Anyone can edit Wikipedia and make it better... </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Well, anyone can <em>try</em>.</p>
-
Actors with odd names
https://shitpost.plover.com/2024/05/15#actors-with-odd-names
<p>What famous actors have the oddest names?</p>
<p>Offhand, I think maybe Meryl Streep and Humphrey Bogart.</p>
-
Is this a coincidence?
https://shitpost.plover.com/2024/05/14#horst-wessel
<p>I just realized the parallel between the John Birch Society
(“who the heck is John Birch?”)
and the Horst Wessel song (“who the heck is Horst Wessel?”)</p>
<p>In both cases it's nobody in particular, and the more you look
into why they canonized their particular guy, the less
interesting it gets.</p>
<p>Is this a common pattern of fringe political groups?
Right-wing fringe political groups?</p>
-
Thing I believe
https://shitpost.plover.com/2024/05/14#thing-i-believe
<p>I think I would write more thorough, more interesting annotations than most of the people
who write annotated works of literature.</p>
<p>(Exception: Martin Gardner's annotated <em>Alice in Wonderland</em> and
<em>Through the Looking Glass</em> are better than I could do.)</p>
-
About that aphorism
https://shitpost.plover.com/2024/04/22#aphorism-2
<p>A while back I suggested the following aphorism:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It's not enough to make the coffee, you also have to drink it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I'm not sure what I had in mind at the time —
maybe just that it seemed like it might be applicable to many situations —
but I think a couple of good programming-related examples are:</p>
<ol>
<li>It's not enough to write the automated tests, you also have to run them</li>
</ol>
<p>and</p>
<ol>
<li>It's not enough to have a disaster recovery plan, you also have to
try it out</li>
</ol>
-
Potamus
https://shitpost.plover.com/2024/04/22#potamus-3
<p>A while back I complained that the suffix ‘-potamus’ wasn't
widely-enough used. Recently I've had this word on my mind:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>phlebopotamus</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I'm not sure what it means. “Phlebo-” means veins and all I can
imagine is a large rampaging blood monster, maybe something like the
Blood Golem from Diablo II.</p>
<p>Today I also thought of</p>
<blockquote>
<p>apotropotamus</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and I don't yet knoe what that means, and I'm a rather afraid to find
out.</p>
<p>I am sometimes in the habit of muttering under my breath “Mark Jason
Potamus” but I don't know what that is about either.</p>
-
Dark side of the Moon
https://shitpost.plover.com/2024/04/21#moon
<p>I'm so tired of people talking about the dark side of the moon,
how come you never hear anyone talk about the dark side of the sun?</p>
-
How to tell apart the languages of Nigeria?
https://shitpost.plover.com/2024/04/21#nigerian-languages
<p>Suppose I'm looking at a sentence of Hausa, Yoruba, or Igbo that has been
transliterated into English. How can I tell which it is?</p>
<p>I know how to do this for most European languages, for Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, etc.,
but I don't know Yoruba from Igbo.</p>
-
Carl Gauß' hat
https://shitpost.plover.com/2023/12/01#gauss-hat
<p>The most common picture of Carl Gauß depicts him wearing a black velvet cap.
It is a pretty cool-looking cap, and I wonder if there isn't a small opportunity to sell
math people black velvet caps like Gauß.</p>
<p>The same opportunity does not exist for Euler, whose most common depiction appears to have just gotten
out of the shower, and to be wearing a bathrobe and to have a towel wrapped around his head.\</p>
-
Well-ordering blah
https://shitpost.plover.com/2023/11/27#omega-omega
<p>I was going to write something about the ordinal number <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%cf%89%5e%cf%89%24">, but
then I got bogged down in a lot of blather about well-orders and
smaller ordinal numbers. I asked folks in Recurse Center if this
article was interesting and they very genrly and constructively said
it was not. So I am publishing it here.</p>
<p><em>Caveat lector</em></p>
<hr />
<p>Well-founded ordering is a fundamental idea in set theory, the basis of all
inductive arguments. The idea of a set with a well-founded ordering
is that if you start somewhere, and the moved to an element of the set
that is “smaller” in the ordering, and then do it again and again, you
must eventually get stuck at an element for which there is no
“smaller” element.</p>
<p>The prototypical example of a well-founded ordering is the ordinary <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%0a%5clt%20%24"> relation on the natural numbers. You can't keep passing from one
natural number to a smaller one without eventually getting stuck at
<img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%240%24">. And the prototypical example of a <em>not</em> well-founded ordering
is the ordinary <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%20%5clt%20%24"> relation on the integers, because you can move
to <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%2d1%24">, then <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%2d2%24">, then <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%2d3%24">, and you never do get stuck. Or
for a slightmy more subtle non-example, the ordinary <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%5clt%24"> relation on
the positive rational numbers, whre you can go <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%241%2c%20%5cfrac12%2c%20%5cfrac13%2c%0a%5cfrac14%2c%5cldots%24"> and you still never do get stuck.</p>
<p>To see the relationship with inductive arguments, think of induction
as working this way. In an inductive argument you say well, if the
claim were false for some large example it would also be false
for a smaller example, then also for an even smaller one, and you
could keep going like that until you got down to a trivial example,
but the claim is easy to verify for the trivial examples, so it must be
true for the large ones also. To work, the notion of "smaller"
has to guarantee to end at a trivial example after a finite number of
steps, and that's what "well-founded" gets you.</p>
<p>There are lots of examples of well-founded orders of the natural numbers that aren't the
usual <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%5clt%20%24"> relation. The simplest nonstandard
one is:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Exactly the same as the usual order, except…</p></li>
<li><p>Instead of <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%243%24"> being smallest, Every number is considered to be less than <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%243%24">.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>$$
0\prec 1\prec 2 \prec 4 \prec 5 \prec \ldots \prec 3
$$</p>
<p>We use the symbol <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%5cprec%24"> instead of <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%5clt%24"> to remind ourselves
that this is something like but not the same as the usual less-than
relation. It doesn't have to be <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%243%24"> that is out of line, it doesn't
matter. I just picked <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%243%24"> to emphasize that the choice was
arbitrary.</p>
<p>This is not just a simple renaming of the natural numbers, because in
the usual ordering there is no largest number, and here there <em>is</em> a
largest number, namely <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%243%24">. But the order is still well-founded. Even if
you start at <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%243%24">, the first time you move to a smaller number, it's
some other finite number and at that point you can be sure that the process can't
go on forever. You can move from <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%243%24"> down to <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%241000007%24">, but from
there you have at most <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%241000007%24"> moves before you are certain to get
stuck at <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%240%24">.</p>
<p>The way I presented this ordering is a <em>little</em> bit odd to set
theorists, because set theorists have a standard set of names and
notations for different well-founded orders. The ordinary natural
numbers one is called <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%5comega%24">. The one above, which is like
<img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%5comega%24"> except it has one extra element on the end, larger than the
others, is called <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%5comega%20%2b%201%24">. Instead of describing it the way I
did, with <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%243%24"> pulled out of line and stuck at the end, set theorists
usually call that largest element “<img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%5comega%24">” and write it like this:</p>
<p>$$
0\prec 1\prec 2 \prec 3 \prec 4 \prec 5 \prec \ldots \prec \omega
$$</p>
<p>It's the same thing, just with slightly less silly names. But it's
important to remember that something like <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%5comega%20%2b%201%24"> describes a
perfectly well-defined ordering relation that could be put on the
ordinary natural numbers, not the usual ordering but no less
legitimate.</p>
<p>Of course you can add more than one big element on the right-hand end;
those orderings are <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%5comega%2b1%2c%20%5comega%2b2%2c%24"> and so on.</p>
<p>You can even add an infinite number of elements on the right. Suppose
we take two copies of the natural numbers, one painted blue and one
painted green. Then we define the following order:</p>
<ol>
<li>If <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24n%24"> and <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24m%24"> are the same color, then <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24n%24"> is smaller than
<img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24m%24"> in the usual way, just if <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24n%5clt%20m%24"> as ordinary unpainted numbers</li>
<li>If they are different colors then one is blue and one is green, and
the <span style="color: darkblue"><strong>blue</strong></span> one is smaller</li>
</ol>
<p>Now we have this ordering:</p>
<p>$$
\underbrace{
\color{darkblue}{0} \prec
\color{darkblue}{1} \prec
\color{darkblue}{2} \prec
\color{darkblue}{3} \prec \ldots
}_{\text{blue numbers}}
\prec
\underbrace{
\color{darkgreen}{0} \prec
\color{darkgreen}{1} \prec
\color{darkgreen}{2} \prec
\color{darkgreen}{3} \prec \ldots
}_{\text{green numbers}}
$$</p>
<p>If we don't like using paint, we could phrase it like this:</p>
<ol>
<li>If <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24n%24"> and <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24m%24"> are the same parity, then <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24n%24"> is smaller than
<img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24m%24"> in the usual way, just if <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24n%5clt%20m%24"> as ordinary unpainted numbers</li>
<li>If they are different parities then one is even and one is odd, and
the <strong>even</strong> one is smaller</li>
</ol>
<p>$$
\underbrace{
0 \prec 2 \prec 4 \prec 6 \prec\ldots
}_{\text{even numbers}}
\prec
\underbrace{
1 \prec 3 \prec 5 \prec 7 \prec\ldots
}_{\text{odd numbers}}
$$</p>
<p>The standard name for this is <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%5comega%20%2b%20%5comega%24"> or <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%242%5ccdot%5comega%20%24">
and the elements are usually written like this:</p>
<p>$$
0 \prec 1 \prec 2 \prec 3 \prec\ldots
\prec
\omega \prec \omega+1 \prec \omega+2 \prec\ldots
$$</p>
<p>I like to think of <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%5comega%24"> as a game in which there is a track
of squares extending forever to the right. The leftmost square is
labeled <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%240%24">. One one square there is a penny. Two players
play a game in which they take turns moving the penny to the right some
number of squares. If a player moves the penny to <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%240%24">, they lose. Must
the game come to an end, or could it go on forever? Clearly it must
come to an end, even though the track itself is infinite. If the
penny starts on square 1000007, the game can't possibly last more than
1000007 moves. (As a game this is no fun at all, since the first
player can immediately move the penny to square <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%241%24">, but I'm only
interested in whether the game will end.)</p>
<p><img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%5comega%2b1%24"> is the game where, instead of starting somewhere on the
track, the penny starts in player 1's pocket, and their first move is
to take it out and place it on one of the squares of the track. Again
the game must come to an end, although unlike in the previous case we
can't say ahead of time how long it will take. If we say “no more
than 1000007 moves”, player 1 can belie us by taking out the penny and
placing it on square 2061982 instead. But what we <em>can</em> say at the
beginning of the game is “I can't tell you now how long the game will
take, but I will once Player 1 makes her first move.”</p>
<p>For <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%242%5ccdot%5comega%24"> I like to think of two tracks, one above the
other. Now a player has two kinds of move:</p>
<ol>
<li>Move the penny to a square farther left in the same track, or</li>
<li>If the penny is in the upper track, move it to <em>any</em> square in the
lower track</li>
</ol>
<p>Again Player 1 begins the game by taking the penny from her pocket and
placing it on any square.</p>
<p>If the penny is on square 1000007 of the top track, I can't tell you
how long the game will take to end. But I can say “I will tell you
how much longer the game will take, not right now but after no more
than 1000008 moves from now.” Because after 1000007 moves, either
someone will have moved the penny to the lower track, and I can tell
how long the rest of the game will take, or the penny will have moved
left 1000007 times and be on the leftmost square of the top track and
the next move <em>must</em> take it to the lower track.</p>
<p>And if the game hasn't started yet, I can't <em>yet</em> tell you when I will
be able to say how much longer the game will take. But I will be able
to do that once Player 1 has made her first move and put the penny on
the board.</p>
<p>This reminds me of an anecdote I once heard from another programmer.
He told me his boss had come to him to ask him if he could do a certain
task; he had replied that he could, and the boss had asked him how long he
thought it would take.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He said “I don't know.”</p>
<p>His boss, being a reasonable woman, asked him when he would be able to
tell her.</p>
<p>He said “I don't know.”</p>
<p>The boss, having dealt with this guy before, did not lose her
temper. Instead, she asked “How long will it take you to figure that
out?”</p>
<p>“Not more than two days,” he said at once.</p>
<p>“Okay, just to make sure there is no miscommunication, are you telling
me that in two days you will be able to tell me how long it will
take you to estimate how long the task will take?”</p>
<p>“That's right.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And they parted amicably, both parties satsified, at least for the
time being. Communication between management and engineering doesn't
always turn out so well!</p>
<p>In that programmer's game, there were three tracks, and the penny was
on the second space on the topmost track. He was playing the game
<img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%242%5ccdot%5comega%20%2b%201%24">. At most two days later, the penny had moved to
<img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%5comega%20%2b%20n%24">, where <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24n%24"> was how long it would take him produce his
estimate of the project timeline.</p>
<p>It's easy to add more tracks. Let's add an infinite stack of tracks,
one atop the other. Now when Player 1 takes the penny from her pocket
she can put it on any space on any track. Again, a legal move is to
move the penny left on the same track, or to any space on any lower
track.</p>
<p>How long before you can say how long the game ends? Human
language is not well-suited to this guarantee.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Even once Player 1 was made her first move, I may not be able to tell you
how long the game will take, <br />
and I also may not be able to tell you
how long before I can tell you how long the game will take.</p>
<p>And I may not
be able to tell you how long before I can tell you how long
before I can tell you how long the game will take. </p>
<p>And I can't even
tell you now how many times I will have to stack up “I may not be able to tell
you”. </p>
<p><strong>BUT</strong> once Player 1 has made her first move, I <em>will</em> be
able to tell you how many times I have to stack it up.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Is the game really guaranteed to end? Yes, it really is. After
Player 1's first move, the penny is on some square of some track, say
square <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24n%24"> of track <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24m%24">.
After at most <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24n%2b1%24"> moves, the track
number <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24m%24"> must decrease. And then there can only be a finite
number of moves before it decreases again. And it can decrease at
most <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24m%24"> times before the penny is on the bottom track, and then
the game must end after a bounded number of moves.</p>
<p>This ordering is called <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%5comega%5e2%24">. A penny on square <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24n%24"> of
track <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24m%24"> is said to be at <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24m%c2%b7%5comega%20%2b%20n%24">. If we want to think
about a way to order the natural numbers with order type <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%cf%89%5e2%24">, we
can do it like this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Every number larger than <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%240%24"> can be put in the form <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%242%5ei%c2%b7j%24"> where <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24j%24"> is
odd. For example, <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24200%20%3d%202%5e3%c2%b725%24"> and <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%2437%20%3d%202%5e0%c2%b737%24">.</p>
<ol>
<li><img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%240%24">, as usual, is smaller than every other number.</li>
<li>Otherwise, the numbers can be thought of as <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24n%20%3d%202%5ei%c2%b7j%24"> and
<img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24n%27%20%3d%202%5e%7bi%27%7d%c2%b7j%27%24">. Consider <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24n%5cprec%20n%27%24">:
<ol>
<li>if <img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24i%20%5clt%20i%27%2c%20_or_%0a%3e%20%20%20%202%2e%20if%20%24">i = i'<img src="https://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chf=bg,s,00000000&cht=tx&chl=%24%2c%20_and_%20%24">j\lt j'!!</li>
</ol></li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<p>Written out explicitly, the ordering looks like this:</p>
<p>$$\begin{array}{l}
0 \prec \\
2^0\cdot 1 \prec 2^0·3 \prec 2^0·5\prec 2^0·7 \prec\ldots \\
2^1\cdot 1 \prec 2^1·3 \prec 2^1·5\prec 2^1·7 \prec\ldots \\
2^2\cdot 1 \prec 2^2·3 \ldots
\end{array}
$$</p>
<p>or if you prefer</p>
<p>$$\begin{array}{l}
0 \\
\prec 1 \prec 3 \prec 5 \prec 7 \prec \ldots \\
\prec 2 \prec 6 \prec 12 \prec 24 \prec \ldots \\
\prec 4 \prec 12 \prec 20 \prec 28 \prec \ldots
\end{array}
$$</p>
<p>Well, none of that was <em>actually</em> what I planned to write about, but I
am going to stop here and continue tomorrow.</p>
-
The Sun's Wish
https://shitpost.plover.com/2023/11/25#sun-at-night
<p>The Sun loves looking down and seeing the mortals scurrying about like
germs, busy at our daily activities. But she's a little bit sad
because she doesn't know much about what we do at night. She has
never seen a late-night movie and has not even imagined sitting around a
campfire, toasting marshmallows and singing songs.</p>
<p>One day the Sun was granted her wish to spend a night on Eartha. Just at sundown she
was transformed into a woman. She had dinner at a jazz club, then
went out to a cocktail bar where she met a new friend. They went out
for midnight supper and then went back to the friend's apartment.</p>
<p>Just before dawn she kissed her new friend and returned to her work, content.</p>
-
Passing thought
https://shitpost.plover.com/2023/10/30#finite
<p>All numbers are finite, but some numbers are more finite than others.</p>
-
Sisters
https://shitpost.plover.com/2023/09/09#sisters
<p>Famous sisters <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Steinem">Gloria Steinem</a>
and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediastinum">Media Steinem</a>.</p>
-
Skinks
https://shitpost.plover.com/2023/05/31#skink
<p>How sure are we that the blue-tongued skink and the blue-tailed skink
aren't the same animal walking in different directions?</p>
-
Modok
https://shitpost.plover.com/2023/03/28#modok
<p>Does MODOK need to shave?</p>
<p>Does he blow his nose? How? He can't reach it. Now I picture the
hapless AIM scientist who has to attend MODOK with an enormous spotted hanky
when he catches cold.</p>
-
Croatian puzzle
https://shitpost.plover.com/2023/03/22#croatia
<p>In Serbian, Croatian, and other Slavic languages, <em>srp</em> (or ср̑п) means a sickle.
And <em>sȑpskī</em> (ср̏пскӣ) means the Serbs or the Serbian language.</p>
<p>But it's <em>Croatia</em>, not Serbia, that is actually sickle-shaped.</p>
-
I have had this conversation more than once
https://shitpost.plover.com/2023/02/27#judgmental
<p>Therapist: You're a very judgmental person.</p>
<p>Me: That's because is <em>good</em> to be judgmental </p>
<p>Me: Most people should be more judgmental actually</p>
<p>Me: I don't know what the fuck is wrong with them all</p>