Wednesday 26 February 2014

The saddest face at the Hoedspruit Endangered Species centre, South Africa - a real nose job needed.



The Hoedspruit Endangered Species centre is a place with a mission which is to help African wild life survive and thrive in the modern world. With a rehabilitation and release program alongside a volunteer work program the centre really makes a difference.  Two of the residents have a sad back story described in at the centre as follows ..

Meet Lion's Den and Dingle Dell - two white rhinos being nursed back to health at the centre. Their story began on 30th August 2013, when an unnamed reserve discovered that they had been struck by poachers and three of their rhinos had been darted and dehorned. Unfortunately, the rhino bull did not make it, but the two cows managed to survive despite being brutally mutilated. The horns had been cut off with a chain-saw, but this left the animals' sinus canals open and exposed, posing a massive threat.

On 4th September, the rhinos were located, darted and sedated. Their wounds were examined and treated before they were moved to the HESC to be rehabilitated.

Every 3 weeks, a team of specialists and members of the HESC join forces to treat Lion's Den and Dingle Dell's wounds. The rhinos are sedated and their wounds are cleaned and checked. A cast is then secured over the area to prevent dirt, bacteria or flies from getting in. Unfortunatly, it hasn't been easy. As the wounds start to heal, it gets itchy and the rhino's natural instinct is to rub their noes against trees etc.  The team must keep checking to make sure that the cast is not damaged and if it is , they must replace the cast as soon as possible before flies and dirt can slow down the healing process.



What does the future hold for Dingle Dell and Lions Den? 

The rhinos will stay at HESC until there wounds are sealed and the horn is properly healed after which the team will decide on the future. It is our greatest wish that out of this tragedy we will have a story of hope and perseverance. Should Lions Den give birth to a healthy baby even after the terrible ordeal that she has endured, she will be monitored closely throughout her pregnancy to ensure the well-being of her new born calf.

You can contribute to Lions Den and Dingle Dell's well-being by making a donation to our rhino fund. You can make a donation on our webpage or follow the rhinos progress on our blog help us to ensure their is a tomorrow.

Sadly this is not a unique situation as this Saving the Survivors web page testifies. 

Eating a computer does not make you think quicker and eating a boat won't make you a better swimmer and in the same way eating rhino horn won't make your willy big.

A happier chap in Hluhluwe game park.


#RejectDeadAnimalMedicine

Wednesday 12 February 2014

Old time maths question. What is 7+7/7+7*7-7 ?


This is a bit of a trick question. For the modern age the question would have been better phrased as either "What answer should your calculator give you when you push these keys ?" or "If this was an Excel formula, what would be the answer ?"

For extra credit this is how to get the various answers: Work out the bits in the innermost  ( brackets ) first. (second bit ( first bit )) 

0=(7+7)/(7+7)*(7-7)
8=(7+(7/(7+(7*(7-7)))))
50=7+7/7+7*7-7
50=7+(7/7)+(7*7)-7
56==((((7+7)/7)+7)*7)-7

The highlighted answers give the "correct" method to work out the answer. Parts of a sum in (  ) must be worked out first, followed by all * and / only then can the + and - be evaluated.  Breaking this down we get

7+7/7+7*7-7
There are not brackets so we first work out the 7/7 and 7*7
7+ 1 + 49 - 7
which becomes
8 + 42
= 50

Some "bad" calculators, will incorrectly give the answer 56 because they jump to the partial answers after each time any of the + - * /  keys are pushed.

7+7 = 14
 / 7 = 2
+ 7 = 9
* 7 = 63
- 7 = 56

The answer to why the "bad" calculator method is wrong comes from the basic rule that the order that a sum is written should not make a difference to the answer.

2 + 1 / 2  must be the same as  1 / 2  + 2  read this as
Two plus a half is equal to two plus a half.
Two plus a half is equal to a half plus two.

A "bad" calculator would read 2 + 1 / 2  as
Two plus one is three, divided by two equals one and a half.

There are more ways to get wrong answers from the sum above if the order of execution is adjusted. Work out the parts in brackets first :

44=(7+7)/7+(7*7)-7
2=(7+7)/7+7*(7-7)
0.2857=(7+7)/(7+7*7-7)
-6.75=(7+7)/(7+7*7)-7

With so many possible choices for a simple sum there has to be agreement on how to calculate any written sum. Having two people work out the same written sum in different ways is the road to math madness.  Luckily this has been mostly resolved. See Google "Bodmas" or order of operations more detailed explanations. 

How did "bad" calculators come about ? Back in history when calculators were mechanical they only had a single "running total" displayed. Each operation immediately changed the running total without reference to the previous operations. Such calculator users were expected to reorder the operations before using the calculator. The early electronic calculator followed this methodology.

See here about the contradictory answers to expressions like  $6\div 2(1+2)$ that can be see as both  $6\div (2(1+2)) = 1$, or  $(6\div 2)(1+2) = 9$.



Fun

Just for fun, here is how various professions would tackle this question. What is closest to your way of thinking ?

  • Mathematician – There are at least 8 possible answers depending on …..
  • Scientist – I asked 500 people the same question and they said …..
  • Engineering – The answer has been calculated in Excel, on a Calculator, with a slide-rule, on paper and in my head as …
  • Teacher – We can find the answer by following this method  ….
  • Lawyer – What do the books say the answer is ?
  • Philosopher – First we must understand how we relate to the concept of 7 in this context.
  • Graphics designer – The spacing between the symbols is inconsistent, and the font does not match, resulting in ambiguity and confusion.
  • PR consultant – Whatever the client wants is The Answer.
  • Media Guru – Call 0907834348*  to get the answer. *( 75p/Min + call charges apply )

**Update April 2020 **

Find out how to solve Sudoku and Giant Sudoku variants using a logic solver here

See also :





Wednesday 5 February 2014

The "Big 5" a very special day - This precious wilderness area is under threat by coal miners. Updated June 2018

***2020 update *** Suddenly lots of traffic

The Gods of internet traffic are fickle. The following two elephant encounter videos from our 2014 holiday in Hluhluwe/iMfolozi have been parked on Youtube ever since. In the last two months they have received over 40,000 views mostly from India mostly directly linked from Whatsap.
What should also be alongside is the view from the real carbon political driven world :

***2018 Update**** This precious wilderness area is under threat by coal miners.

Tendele has an existing blasting operation at Somkhele, about ten kilometres east of the park, but managers gave undertakings nearly 15 years ago that the company would not touch coal reserves within the five-kilometre–wide wilderness buffer zone but he recently-appointed chief operating officer, Ms Jarmi Steyn, met the park custodian – Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife – earlier this year to announce that the company wanted to mine less than one kilometre from the park boundary.
There seem to be no major legal hurdles to mining just outside the park, but Ezemvelo and several conservation groups fear that regular blasting, dust and other impacts will sound the death knell for the wilderness area, and harm the flagship Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park.
https://www.countrylife.co.za/wildlife-2/imfolozi-under-threat

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Ibutho Coal Pty Ltd has applied for a mining license to mine anthracite coal for the next 32 years in the Fuleni area bordering on the Wilderness section of the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park. The mine would be mainly opencast and would operate for 24 hours, 365 days of the year.

https://saveourwilderness.org/about/the-fuleni-open-cast-coal-mine/

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Today, Wednesday 5th Feb 2014 we had a very special and privileged day in Hluhluwe/iMfolozi game park in Zululand South Africa. We saw for ourselves the Big Five animals, Lion, Cape Buffalo, Leopard, Elephant and Rhino. This was a very exciting day and an unusual occurrence as seeing any of the big cats is quite rare.  The leopard sighting was very brief as it crossed the road and disappeared into the bush in the late afternoon. The lion in typical lazy attitude were dozing in a riverbed just by the entrance to the park.

We were lucky to see both rhino and elephant a couple of times during the day.







A big thanks to the  workers and staff of KZN Wildlife for protecting and preserving these fabulous animals.

Finally a couple of Videos from the Elephant encounter above .


From the car behind : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz2VlLnoXMg   

More photos over here.

Cheers and take care out there in the wilds.