A Mathematical Diversion

A few years back, I would get together with a bunch of friends during lunch and play strategy games. I've been waxing nostalgic for those get-togethers and have even scripted some new scenarios that we could use. The dice, sheet protectors and grease pencils made for some great fun, but I've thought about what could be done to make it a little more high tech.


I was momentarily bored today, so I figured out how to create a function that would allow you to use an Excel function in place of dice.

The function RAND will generate a random number between 0 and 1. =RAND()



If you want to specify a min-max range, for example if you were using a twelve-sided die, multiply the result times the largest possible number less the smallest and add 1. =RAND()*(12-1)+1


If you want to round up the number so you don’t get any decimal places, add the ROUND function and specify zero decimals. =ROUND((RAND()*(12-1)+1),0)


If you wanted to, you could put this function into multiple cells, specifying a different range of numbers for each cell. Just press F9 and the computer will do all the die rolls for you!


I wonder if this is how the M5 computer system started?

Political Thinking

It's time to confess something. I've been trying to avoid it, but I can't. Everyone's talking about it, and I've been thinking about it. So I'm going to do something about it.

I'm gonna talk.

All the uproar about changing the health care system has just been divisive. I don't honestly think that I can trust any solution the government puts forward. Really, what is the government's track record on making things better?

Let me be clear: no one should loose their homes to pay their medical bills. Costs are outrageous, and many people don't have access to care they need. Making people "realize" the costs of healthcare by making their insurance payments doesn't make them less likely to need medical care.

Hello, does anyone else realize this? Who wants to contract a major illness that disrupts their life and plunges them into debt? No one elects illness.

Instead of this major overhaul, let's start with something smaller. Let's unify the records and billing process.

People should promptly know what their medical costs are. This nonsense about having a procedure and waiting 120 days to get a bill from the provider is unacceptable. This is something the health care industry can fix themselves without any pressure from Washington. And I think they do a better job if they do it themselves. It's call industry standards. If they all decide to work together they can fix this problem.

Let's see them do it. And if they can't, let's see if the government can legislate a better system.

And then we'll talk about what's next.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like .... Christmas?

Yes, indeed it is.

Last Thursday we got fifteen copies of How the Grinch Stole Christmas in. And this wasn't our first receipt of Christmas books, either.

And on Monday they started putting red lights on the Lebanese Cedar on Temple Square.

Today's high in Salt Lake City--a balmy 96 degrees Farenheit.

Ho, Ho, Ho.

Sports Programmers Are Idiots

Yep, this is another disgruntled post about baseball.

This is the first Saturday afternoon I've gotten home before the MLB Game of the Week is scheduled to start. The possible matchups: Cardinals vs. Phillies, White Sox vs. Tigers, and the Twins vs. Angels.

If you look over to the column at the left, you will see that I live in Utah, just 20 minutes north of Salt Lake City. We have a AAA baseball team here that is affiliated with the Angels, the Salt Lake Bees. You'd think some programmer would make note of that.

Wrong.

What do we get to see? St. Louis @ Philadelphia. Yeah, Salt Lake is such a National League town.

I wonder if the decision was made by our local Fox station? I hope not, because this way I can attribute it to some nameless suit in a boardroom somewhere, and not someone who's supposed to know about sports locally.

It's interesting to note that we are in the Colorado Rockies broadcasting area. But we don't get any of their games on radio or television. I can pick up the San Francisco Giants some evenings on the radio in my van when the signal is skipping, though.

Doctor Who and the Fashionistas

Within days of releasing pictures of the newest regeneration of the Doctor, the fashion police are critiquing his wardrobe. Read about it in BBC News Magazine.

Interesting how comments on changes to the Tardis have been rather quiet.

Forty years ago today ...

I was glued to the television in our apartment on the south side of Fargo watching Neil Armstrong take that "one small step."

NASA's Apollo 11 40th Anniversary site.

NASA's Apollo 11 multimedia library.

Just one more of those "where were you when" moments.

Damn Yankees

Anthony DiComo, MLB.com's beat writer for the Yankees said it concisely:

For the first time since 2003, the Yanks swept the Twins in a season series.

You can read all about it at this link.

At least the Twins won't have to play the Yankees again this season. So there is a silver lining on this dark cloud.

And I hate having to say something nice about the Yankees.