Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[doubleup]

Here's a number question

How can you find out if a number eg 126724118226134 is exactly divisable by 3 without using division?

[Ecosse]

Here's a number question

How can you find out if a number eg 126724118226134 is exactly divisable by 3 without using division?

Use multiplication instead ?

[doubleup]

Here's a number question

How can you find out if a number eg 126724118226134 is exactly divisable by 3 without using division?

Use multiplication instead ?

actually addition

[kinboshi]

Add up the digits and see if they add up to a multiple of 3?

[doubleup]

Add up the digits and see if they add up to a multiple of 3?

pretty much yes even if you have a very very long number that you just add the digits and then add them again eventually you get there. 

I have no idea why and will transfer $5 on stars to anyone who can come up with a practical use for this information..........

[kinboshi]

Add up the digits and see if they add up to a multiple of 3?

pretty much yes even if you have a very very long number that you just add the digits and then add them again eventually you get there. 

I have no idea why and will transfer $5 on stars to anyone who can come up with a practical use for this information..........

In a pub quiz?

[Simon Galloway]

To win $5 on stars?

[dik9]

  π 

[tikay]

  π 

Clever stuff Rich!

[tikay]

Oh, & I'm reminded - by PM - that it's "pi" not "pye". Oops, I hang my head in shame.

Can you do the "pi" symbol - that wiggly thing - on a keyboard, by the way?

My dear departed mother had a Pye Black Box which was a record-player(remember them?) which was her most prized possession.

I just thought you'd like to know that

I well recall record players Ralph. I had one with a needle -  proper needle - & a wind-up handle.

After Record Players came Gramaphones, then "Music Centres", then it got all silly, Cassettes arrived, reel-to-reel Tape-Recorders, then CD's, MP3's, Walkmans, la de da de da. My, how times have changed.

[tikay]

Tikay, I have a book about pi, I'll bring it with me on Saturday (if I remember).

Please do.

[RED-DOG]

[Colchester Kev]

[tikay]

Talking of how times have changed, everything happens SO much quicker now. I suppose the Internet has changed a lot of things.

The sheer speed of this latest recession/credit crunch/depression has astonished me. Banks taken over in hours, where it would normally take years to get through regulatory obstacles, & Takeovers completed at breakneck speed, Leaman Bros etc.

Demand has fallen off a cliff in just 2 or 3 months, all the financial & manufacturing industry pointers say the same thing.

I was reading today about something called "The Baltic Dry Index", (let's call it BDI) operated by The Baltic Exchange, in London.

The BDI measures & charts bulk Shipping rates, the cost of chartering cargo vessels, & the cost per ton for transporting stuff. As such, it's a sort of crude barometer of world trade - but stuff has to be exported & shipped hither & thither, so it's a decent yardstick.

So, the BDI has dropped from 11,798 in May - 6 months ago - to, wait for it - 826 now!

The rate for transporting Iron Ore from Brazil to China, $100 per ton then, is $10 now.

Finally, a bulk-carrier was chartered at $234,000 a day, just 6 months ago. Last week, it was $5,611 per day. Think on that. (According to today's Independent).

[tikay]

There was a great map of the new political order in the USA in today's paper - the States all coloured red or blue, with the voting shown alongside each State.

The voting in each State was much as you'd forecast - the Obama heartlands of, say, California (61%-37%) & New York (62%-37%), with the deep south going predictably the other way to McCain, e.g, Oklahama 66%-34%, & Alabama, 61%-39%. Those apart, it was mostly in the 56%-44% to 52%-48% range, either way.

But........

What is "District of Colombia" (Washington DC, as we know it, the US capital)  all about? It went 93%-7% in Obama's favour. How much?

Curious, I went Wikipidea-ing, & found this clue.

If Washington, D.C. were a state, it would rank last in area (behind Rhode Island), second-to-last in population (ahead of Wyoming), first in population density, 35th in gross state product, and first in percentage of African Americans, which would make Washington, D.C. a minority-majority state.

I'm not sure why that fascinated me so, but it did.