Dear Gelatinifers,
I wish to register a complaint; specifically, without endorsing the heresy sometimes wrongly known as "Luddite", it is nonetheless my firmly-held belief that recipes artificially biased in favour of electromechanical mixing apparatus should only be packaged with electromechanical mixing apparatus (and otherwise appear in books describing what they are), not with foodstuffs. I'm sure I shall, after one or two more trials, adapt the method so as not to melt the cream I've just whipped, but I don't see why I should have to use up the whole box of whatever it is you actually sold me, before it is properly useful, after you pretend to suggest a recipe.
As it is, I'm rather tempted to just get me a bottle of orange-infused curaçao (or maybe kirsch!) and go back to meringue mousse.
a disgruntled cook
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Jigsaw
Dear Crowsfort,
I have a jigsaw puzzle. The pieces look like squares Af→Bg↓⇓↓hC→kD ... actually, f,g,h,k all know what their corners are, so we could leave out the A,B,C,D, but this gets distracting. Also, the ⇓ deserves to have a name, only I can't think of a good way to make it all fit. Which particular ⇓ a square has in it makes a difference, later!
Two pieces sharing an edge fit together, so that Af→Bg↓⇓↓hC→kDCk→Dg′↓⇓↓h′E→lF make a rectangle Af→Bg↓⇓↓hCk→Dg′↓⇓↓h′E→lF or sometimes Af→Bg↓↓hC⇓Dg′↓↓h′E→lF and can even be squished down to a square Af→Bg′g↓⇓↓h′hE→lF which is handy, though we don't often want to do that.
The good people who cut out my jigsaw puzzle were very nice, and provided an unlimited supply of various standard shapes, guaranteed to fit certain sorts of corners, so that if anywhere in the puzzle you find A↓fB→gC you can add in a square Pf,g→A↓⌟↓fB→gC and in the same way, if you have Af→Bg↓C you can fill it in Af→Bg↓⌜↓C→Qf,g There is one other sort of handy square, looking like Af→Bf↓=↓gB→gC which lets you go around corners, when it looks like a good idea. These have two further special types, Af→Bf↓=↓=B→=B ... and there is another of the similar sort that I'm sure you can guess; and there's also vertical and horizontal versions of A=Af↓=↓fB→=B which also happens to be a ⌟ and a ⌜.
Actually, those last two squares are special cases of these two : Af→B=↓=↓gA→gfC and Af→Bgf↓=↓gC→=C or reflections of them; but most of these two are neithert ⌟ nor ⌜.
They were also kind enough to suggest a few ways to get started, using a special corner called "∗", or "the point", though it's not really the point of all this. Still, there's always exactly one edge A→∗, no matter what A is, and you can also draw it vertically: A↓∗ The corner ∗ also has another nifty feature, that the collection of edges ∗→A might as well be called A. There's only one corner, {} to which you can't draw an arrow from ∗; but on the other hand, there's always exactly one arrow from {} to any other corner A, including to ∗! So, for instance, there's a nice corner {}→∗↓∗ and because of the ⌜ pieces, this gets filled-in as {}→∗↓◻↓∗→∗+∗ although it's more common, among my fellow puzzlers, to call that new thing S0. It has two points, as you can see. Oh! this one tile happens to be of *both* sorts: it's the standard tile to fill-in those two edges ∗→S0 as well as the standard tile to fill-in the edge {}→∗ drawn twice from a single copy of {}. Sometimes it's fun just to look at the special pieces A→∗↓⌜↓∗→ΣA which highlight a fascinating sequence of corner labels A,ΣA,Σ2A,… --- the ones you get starting with S0 are called the spheres (or homotopy spheres) and have the special names Sn=ΣnS0. Going in the other direction --- if you have a favourite arrow ∗a→A, the special square you get is labelled ΩaA→∗↓⌟↓a∗→aA ... to tell you how one is supposed to keep going after that, I have to tell you one last thing about the special squares labelled ⌟ and ⌜; given any square at all Af→Bg↓⇓↓hC→kD there are of course the standard two squares Ph,k→B↓⌟↓hC→kD and the other one to Qf,g; in essence, what it means to be a ⌟ is that, there's essentially just one edge Aw→Ph,k that fits into this puzzle A=→Af→B=↓=w↓⇓↓=A→wPh,k→Bg↓⇓↓⌟↓hC→=C→kD There's a similar story about unique edges Qf,g→D that fit in another puzzle --- try it and see! But particularly, since we always have this square ∗→∗↓=↓a∗→aA there's exactly one ∗→ΩaA that fits in all the necessary puzzles, and this is what lets us keep going to make new spaces Ω2aA,⋯. Here's a puzzle for you: come up with a good edge A→Ω?ΣA! This entails finding a way to fill-in that ?; you should be able to think of perhaps-two.
There are lots of things I haven't mentioned, but of course, that will always be true, even if I say all the things that should come first! You're welcome to play with the jigsaw, too; we'll never run out of pieces!
the joiner
I have a jigsaw puzzle. The pieces look like squares Af→Bg↓⇓↓hC→kD ... actually, f,g,h,k all know what their corners are, so we could leave out the A,B,C,D, but this gets distracting. Also, the ⇓ deserves to have a name, only I can't think of a good way to make it all fit. Which particular ⇓ a square has in it makes a difference, later!
Two pieces sharing an edge fit together, so that Af→Bg↓⇓↓hC→kDCk→Dg′↓⇓↓h′E→lF make a rectangle Af→Bg↓⇓↓hCk→Dg′↓⇓↓h′E→lF or sometimes Af→Bg↓↓hC⇓Dg′↓↓h′E→lF and can even be squished down to a square Af→Bg′g↓⇓↓h′hE→lF which is handy, though we don't often want to do that.
The good people who cut out my jigsaw puzzle were very nice, and provided an unlimited supply of various standard shapes, guaranteed to fit certain sorts of corners, so that if anywhere in the puzzle you find A↓fB→gC you can add in a square Pf,g→A↓⌟↓fB→gC and in the same way, if you have Af→Bg↓C you can fill it in Af→Bg↓⌜↓C→Qf,g There is one other sort of handy square, looking like Af→Bf↓=↓gB→gC which lets you go around corners, when it looks like a good idea. These have two further special types, Af→Bf↓=↓=B→=B ... and there is another of the similar sort that I'm sure you can guess; and there's also vertical and horizontal versions of A=Af↓=↓fB→=B which also happens to be a ⌟ and a ⌜.
Actually, those last two squares are special cases of these two : Af→B=↓=↓gA→gfC and Af→Bgf↓=↓gC→=C or reflections of them; but most of these two are neithert ⌟ nor ⌜.
They were also kind enough to suggest a few ways to get started, using a special corner called "∗", or "the point", though it's not really the point of all this. Still, there's always exactly one edge A→∗, no matter what A is, and you can also draw it vertically: A↓∗ The corner ∗ also has another nifty feature, that the collection of edges ∗→A might as well be called A. There's only one corner, {} to which you can't draw an arrow from ∗; but on the other hand, there's always exactly one arrow from {} to any other corner A, including to ∗! So, for instance, there's a nice corner {}→∗↓∗ and because of the ⌜ pieces, this gets filled-in as {}→∗↓◻↓∗→∗+∗ although it's more common, among my fellow puzzlers, to call that new thing S0. It has two points, as you can see. Oh! this one tile happens to be of *both* sorts: it's the standard tile to fill-in those two edges ∗→S0 as well as the standard tile to fill-in the edge {}→∗ drawn twice from a single copy of {}. Sometimes it's fun just to look at the special pieces A→∗↓⌜↓∗→ΣA which highlight a fascinating sequence of corner labels A,ΣA,Σ2A,… --- the ones you get starting with S0 are called the spheres (or homotopy spheres) and have the special names Sn=ΣnS0. Going in the other direction --- if you have a favourite arrow ∗a→A, the special square you get is labelled ΩaA→∗↓⌟↓a∗→aA ... to tell you how one is supposed to keep going after that, I have to tell you one last thing about the special squares labelled ⌟ and ⌜; given any square at all Af→Bg↓⇓↓hC→kD there are of course the standard two squares Ph,k→B↓⌟↓hC→kD and the other one to Qf,g; in essence, what it means to be a ⌟ is that, there's essentially just one edge Aw→Ph,k that fits into this puzzle A=→Af→B=↓=w↓⇓↓=A→wPh,k→Bg↓⇓↓⌟↓hC→=C→kD There's a similar story about unique edges Qf,g→D that fit in another puzzle --- try it and see! But particularly, since we always have this square ∗→∗↓=↓a∗→aA there's exactly one ∗→ΩaA that fits in all the necessary puzzles, and this is what lets us keep going to make new spaces Ω2aA,⋯. Here's a puzzle for you: come up with a good edge A→Ω?ΣA! This entails finding a way to fill-in that ?; you should be able to think of perhaps-two.
There are lots of things I haven't mentioned, but of course, that will always be true, even if I say all the things that should come first! You're welcome to play with the jigsaw, too; we'll never run out of pieces!
the joiner
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
To the credit of Mr. Bumble
or, a foreigner's comments.
Of course, the question of whether a given law is logically consistent with a narrow scope of (written, "foundational" or, paradoxically "superior") law is an important one, in that the police should be able to tell whether they should be arresting citizens or legislators; not that the latter is envisioned or practised much, according to a particular and narrow scope of law.
It is a sad thing, however, that this seems to be the only competence of various superior courts; elsewhere several people are remarking that more important than whether a document like Veritatis Splendor is infalible is whether it's true. Similarly, more important than whether a given law is legal ("constitutional") is whether it is just; or, under the maxim that an unjust law is no-law-at-all, whether a given piece of legislation is indeed a true law.
Alas...
no beadle me
Of course, the question of whether a given law is logically consistent with a narrow scope of (written, "foundational" or, paradoxically "superior") law is an important one, in that the police should be able to tell whether they should be arresting citizens or legislators; not that the latter is envisioned or practised much, according to a particular and narrow scope of law.
It is a sad thing, however, that this seems to be the only competence of various superior courts; elsewhere several people are remarking that more important than whether a document like Veritatis Splendor is infalible is whether it's true. Similarly, more important than whether a given law is legal ("constitutional") is whether it is just; or, under the maxim that an unjust law is no-law-at-all, whether a given piece of legislation is indeed a true law.
Alas...
no beadle me
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