Matthew M. Conroy's blog

A lady surrounded by lions!

From this LOC stereograph.

I added a problem, #57 of now 80 problems. It is the problem of creating a single die with distinct integer faces such that when we roll twice, sum and add one, we always get a prime. This is really just a simpler version of problem 56, but I thought I would add it anyway, since it's kind of fun.

https://www.madandmoonly.com/doctormatt/mathematics/dice1.pdf

A new video experiment inspired by work of Conor Lawless (https://vimeo.com/1045788384) with color.

This is a scan of an image, row by row, with the colors converted to disks whose positions are determined by the colors and the size is determined by how prevalent the color is in that row. Probably will experiment with using this method for sound compositions, but this one's silent.

I found this piece of rusty chain outside a medical clinic. Looks ages old.

I've finished a new chapbook/zine of drawings made using variations of code that I wrote. Let me know if you would like one and I'll mail it to you!

A purple thing I saw in the Arboretum in Seattle.

I learned about cycling-related Eddington numbers recently.

They are the largest integer n such that you have ridden at least n kilometers on at least n days (not necessarily consecutively).

I wrote some code to find mine.

With data from 2001 to 2024, my Eddington number is 102.

So, I rode at least 102 kilometers on at least 102 days, and have not ridden at least 103 kilometers on at least 103 days. Apparently, I've ridden at least 103 kilometers on 101 days, so I'll need to do that twice more to get my Eddington number up to 103. Sounds like a nice goal for 2025.

One can also use miles. An amusing thing to note is that you cannot simply convert the Eddington number in kilometers to the Eddington number in miles, since we're counting days.

My Eddington number in miles is 68. 68 miles is about 109 kilometers, so my Eddington number in miles is both larger and smaller than my Eddington number in kilometers.

One can, of course, apply this to running, walking, swimming, or really any other quantifiable activity.

Let me know if you'd like the (simple) code I wrote to calculate these.

Yesterday, I nearly stepped on a dead rabbit. It was in the damp grass next to a road that, despite being a popular way to walk to campus, has no sidewalks, and, to avoid being run over, I was walking in the grass. There was a streak of blood coming out of one of the poor rabbit's eyes, and the flesh of its hind quarters were exposed, showing glistening muscle. It reminded me of when I was a kid and I saw skinned rabbits, and other animals, hanging in a butcher shop's window in the North End of Boston, maybe on a school field trip to see the Bunker Hill monument, and probably other things. I am sometimes surprised to meet a person and learn that they didn't grow up around reminders of the revolution of 1776, as they were all so ordinary and all around when I was a child. And the rabbit reminded me of Lillian Gish's line "It's a hard world for little things" from The Night of the Hunter, from 1957, which is such a great film. And I was sad. And I continued walking, and I took a little secluded path that I always take, just on the edge of campus, where, very often, I see a live rabbit or two minding their own business on the grass next to an intense mass of blackberry and other plants, but then I saw that the plants had all been drastically cut back and I was a little sad again, wondering if the rabbits would be able to find other places to live. And when I recall the rabbit's bloody eye, I am sad again today.