Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Giving up is unforgivable. ~Joe Biden

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Not all heroes wear capes.

T R E 4 5 O N

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

American History and Black History can not be separated.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: For All You Nerds on Pi Day

Open Thread: For All You Nerds on Pi Day

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The Waffle people have a special Waffle in honor of Pi Day, and they link to the Nerdle people for special Pi Day games.

March 14 (3.14) is Pi Day!

March 14 marks Pi Day, an annual celebration of the mathematical sign pi. Founded in 1988 by physicist Larry Shaw, March 14 was selected because the numerical date (3.14) represents the first three digits of pi, and it also happens to be Albert Einstein’s birthday.

To celebrate, we have some special nerdle and other challenges for you…

Special Pi Day games.

Anything else happening in honor of Pi Day?

Update:  anyone have any good games besides Wordle, Waffle, Quordle, and Absurdle?

Reader Interactions

163Comments

  7. 7.

    Alison Rose

    This isn’t about pie or pi or word games, but it’s an open thread and I feel like it’s my duty to make sure as many people as possibly see Simone Ashley’s pics from the Vanity Fair Oscars party because HELLOOOOOO NURSE. Sweet Lord almighty. Be sure to click through all three pics because her cheekbones in the close-up are nearly a felony. Now I wanna rewatch season 2 of Bridgerton again. For the fourth time.

  11. 11.

    Old School

    I’ve tried Squaredle a few times since Waffle linked to them a while back.  It’s more Boggle-ish and I’ve never been that big of a fan/that good at Boggle.

  12. 12.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    Today is also 314 Day, as in area code 314, which covers St. Louis. St. Louisians celebrate the things (especially food) that are unique to the city, such as St. Louis style pizza, toasted ravioli, Fitz’s soda, Red Hot Riplets chips, etc.

  13. 13.

    MattF

    If you’re looking for small puzzle games, Simon Tatham’s portable puzzles are a canonical collection. They’ve been recompiled for just about every kind of system (including iPhone and iPad) and are immense wastes of time for anyone who likes puzzles.

  15. 15.

    Paul in KY

    I just watched the former sovereign citizen ™ Chase Allen get himself offed in Utah. Sounds like he was brainwashed by his nutso mother. Man, they are some fools. One less of them now.

  16. 16.

    Paul in KY

    @Baud: If they had ever adopted the Paulorian calendar, they’d have that 14th month. I told them this was one of it’s advantages….

  18. 18.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Alison Rose: Wowza!!  Thank you for that :). She is also really great on Sex Education, which is imo, one of the best and most over-looked series streaming nowadays.  For tremendous laughs and loads emotionally moving moments without overly wholesome or too precious about it.

  19. 19.

    Sandia Blanca

    Worldle.teuteuf.fr is a geography game that’s fun. (Also has a states version and a photographic geography puzzle.)

  22. 22.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Alison Rose: It is SO GOOD!  And it has a really positive depiction of LGBTQ+ youth and the challenges of exploring their identities.  If you are a softie like us, get your Kleenex ready, because it’s definitely one of those shows that can make you weep almost every episode, without being quite so This-Is-Us manipulative about it.  Really amazing show and just loaded with talented cast.

  25. 25.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    So I’ve been seeing someone new lately. I was discussing my history with my friends and migrating between friend groups. I told him about how my former bestie threatened to kill me because I was voting for Biden. His response:

    So he’s an idiot?

    I think I like this guy.

  28. 28.

    Roger Moore

    @Sandia Blanca:

    I was also going to mention Worldle.  Like Wordle, it has tools that let you change the difficulty level.  For example, you can have the outline of the country randomly rotated, or you can have no picture to work from at all.

  29. 29.

    AM in NC

    I have had fun with Globle – it has helped me learn countries in Africa and Central Europe and also better visualize distances on a map.

  30. 30.

    Gwangung

    @WaterGirl: My laptop’s in the shop for a bit, so my other devices are filling in, and capitalization aren’t their styles….

    But, yes, you can tell my inhibitions are going down as I get older (I’ve asked some of my acquaintances to call me “Uncle” just to remind me….)

  33. 33.

    WaterGirl

    @James E Powell: From the instructions, I don’t quite understand how to play.

    I got the first word in 4 tries, and it works just like Wordle except the colors are bright and happy.

    Then I am prompted for a second word.  I got that one in 4 or 5, then it said the next word comes after the advertisement, but I have an ad blocker, so then it seems to stop dead and the game never goes on.

    That sucks.  Not willing to watch an ad in order to play.

    edit: After while, I went back and refreshed the page. It let me pick up where I left off. I still don’t get what happens at the end, but I imagine it will be clear when I see it. There is now another ad after word 4, I think, maybe it will let me pick up where I left off if I refresh again.

  34. 34.

    NotMax

    Prefer to think of it as Ides of March Eve.

    Time to sneak in that last minute dagger shopping.
    :)
    .

  42. 42.

    Layer8Problem

    @WaterGirl:  Sorry. e is approximately equal to 2.71828, hence the ridiculous day. If you want to get seriously freaky, try ei𝞹+1 = 0, Euler’s Identity, which ties up e and 𝞹 nicely. McIrvin could probably expand on that one.

    ETA:  and try as I might I cannot get the superscript tag to work for the “i𝞹” part of that equation, no matter how pretty it looks in the visual tab of the Update Comment editor. Phooey.

  43. 43.

    Anoniminous

    @Alison Rose: 

    When I see cheekbones like that I wonder if the person, like Audrey Hepburn, was severely malnourished/border-line starved during their childhood. 

    (And, yes: I’m a load of fun at parties!)

  46. 46.

    Betty Cracker

    @HumboldtBlue:

    “He asked me to do his eulogy — excuse me, I shouldn’t say that,” said Biden, who was speaking without notes.

    Yikes, he’s right; he probably shouldn’t have said that, though the Carters are super gracious people, so they won’t mind. It’s a huge honor in any case.

    Was talking to some friends about eulogies this weekend because someone we know has to do one soon. I did my mom’s eulogy and hope to never have to do another.

  47. 47.

    Matt McIrvin

    Well, last night I helped my kid work out some trigonometric identities. Plenty of pi in there.

  48. 48.

    justawriter

    In what may be good news (I will let the better informed be the judge) The North Dakota Attorney General seems to have cracked down on one of those religious health membership schemes and prohibiting it from advertising itself as health insurance.

  49. 49.

    JoyceH

    @Betty Cracker:

    Was talking to some friends about eulogies this weekend because someone we know has to do one soon. I did my mom’s eulogy and hope to never have to do another.

    Maybe it’s mean-spirited of me, but the other day it occurred to me – I hope they hurry up and indict and try Trump and get him thoroughly disgraced, because I’m afraid if he kicks the bucket before that, there will be those who feel compelled to give the old horror a state funeral.

  50. 50.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Layer8Problem: It’s the flashy advertisement for the really important fact, which is that raising e to the power of an imaginary number gives you a result that goes around in a circle, and therefore makes trig functions.

    Here’s a series of YouTube videos by the excellent Australian math teacher Eddie Woo in which he climbs the mountain of deriving it almost from first principles (the one bit he glosses over is how to derive a Taylor series, since it’s a little beyond these students, but he convinces you it works). I love the fact that when he gets to the culmination, the students are actually shouting in disbelief and amazement:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y2eIPCg7uc&list=PLHZZ0otaqNsWV01h2ZssT17Tj8fbtLiuM

  51. 51.

    hueyplong

    @JoyceH: Maybe it’s mean-spirited of me, but the other day it occurred to me that it would be fun to spread a rumor that DeSantis gave the prosecutors info about Trump.

    No need to ID any specific prosecutors.  No need to ID any specific info.

    Just make him deny it.

  54. 54.

    Splitting Image

    @AM in NC:

    I have had fun with Globle – it has helped me learn countries in Africa and Central Europe and also better visualize distances on a map.

    I discovered that I am absolutely abysmal at recognizing all of those little island nations out there.

    Pretty bad at former Soviet republics, too, underscoring how out-of-date my geographic knowledge is. At least I can recognize Rupert’s Land and the Electorate of Hannover if they ever come up.

  57. 57.

    Paul in KY

    @CaseyL: You read up on these nuts and it’s like they are cosplaying pioneer D & D. If they put an apostrophe in their name, then they can evade anything directed at the non-apostrophed name & if flag in courtroom has a gold fringe, that means the court can only hear maritime law stuff. And ‘traveling’ down a road (in any kind of vehicle) is different from whatever. Complete nonsense!!!

    Pretty sure young Chase hadn’t corralled him a fine subservient wife yet.  I hope not anyway.

  61. 61.

    gene108

    @Anoniminous:

    When I see cheekbones like that I wonder if the person, like Audrey Hepburn, was severely malnourished/border-line starved during their childhood.

    I looked up Simone Ashly. Her Wikipedia page says she was born and raised in the U.K., and didn’t spend her adolescent years in the Nazi occupied Netherlands, like Audrey Hepburn.

    So I doubt malnutrition was a problem.

  68. 68.

    Barbara

    For the lawyers reading here.  I have been following Proud Boys seditious conspiracy trial live tweeting by Roger Parloff, and Enrique Tarrio’s lawyer just posed the following “question” to the lead testifying FBI agent:  “you’ve taken multiple trainings in how to testify in court. that’s why you’re doing so well, correct.”

    Naturally, the objection was sustained. Still, it’s like telling the jury that a witness against testifying against your client is good and credible!.  What the heck?

  72. 72.

    Layer8Problem

    @Roger Moore:  Well, since we’re on to physical constants let’s go straight to the fine-structure constant, about which Richard Feynman said “Immediately you would like to know where this number for a coupling comes from: is it related to pi or perhaps to the base of natural logarithms? Nobody knows. It’s one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by humans.” The things one reads in Wikipedia on one’s cell phone when struck with the goddamn insomnia . . .

  75. 75.

    hueyplong

    @Barbara: It sure sounds like a Hail Mary.  The lawyer is apparently hoping there is an idiot/conspiracy theorist on the jury to whom he can argue that testimony that is “too good” or otherwise uncontradicted must be made up.

    There will be general jury instructions that contradict such an absurd position.

    What we’ve seen over the last couple of years is that it’s in the legal arena that Trumpers clearly aren’t sending their best.  Sadly, when they’re on the Supreme Court, there is little to be done about it.

  76. 76.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud:

    Infinite series actually make perfect sense once you really grasp the concept of limits.  I would say that infinity in general makes a lot more sense once you grasp the concept of limits.

  78. 78.

    Baud

    Congrats to another blue state.

    Illinois will become one of three states to require employers to offer paid time off for any reason after Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a law on Monday that will take effect next year.

  82. 82.

    Layer8Problem

    @Baud:  When visiting my late mom three weeks after getting her into a nursing home for dementia, she mentions to me in the cafeteria “I’m ready to leave this hotel, but at least the restaurant is pretty good.”

  85. 85.

    Rachel Bakes

    Globle is a daily challenge for me and has been for more than a year. Just learned about Chrono where you’re putting historical events in chronological order. Did Actorle for a while but eventually lost interest-and reached the point where I had no idea who these people were; fun for a while though.

  87. 87.

    Betty Cracker

    @Paul in KY: No shit, but it’s not something people usually talk about publicly in advance, as Biden realized in the moment.

    @JoyceH: If it were up to me, the orange sack of liposuction clinic medical waste would be expunged from history altogether, but we probably won’t get that lucky, regardless of any indictments. I vaguely remember Nixon’s funeral, and IIRC, there was a big to-do over that crook.

  88. 88.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker:

    Yikes, he’s right; he probably shouldn’t have said that, though the Carters are super gracious people, so they won’t mind. It’s a huge honor in any case.

    Probably shouldn’t have, but… isn’t it pretty standard for a sitting POTUS to give those eulogies? The Bush family had an out. And if gossip is to be believed, Biden is the possibility Carter has had the warmest feelings for.

    With all my usual caveats about McCain, I don’t think there was a lot of personal warmth between him and BHO, and that eulogy request was one more Fuck You from an irascible old coot who knew how to hate, and hated trump (and TIL I learned irascible has one “r”)

  90. 90.

    RevRick

    My local paper, in addition to the usual crosswords, sudoku, and cryptoquote runs the Word Game. They give you a word and the challenge is to find as many words of four or more letters you can find (with certain exceptions). For instance, today’s word is unicorns, and the challenge is to find at least 24 words.

  93. 93.

    Matt McIrvin

    For a few years there was a fashion among geek YouTubers to insist that 2*pi (6.28…), the ratio between a circle’s circumference and its radius, really should have been the constant that got the name. They would call that “tau” and advocate rewriting everything in terms of tau rather than pi.

    I do see where they’re coming from, for a variety of reasons, but honestly it’s not that big a deal.

  96. 96.

    WaterGirl

    @hueyplong: ooh, I would be willing to play that game!

    I wonder if a post title of “Breaking!  Rumors Fly that DeSantis supplies prosecutors with information about Trump”

    Or perhaps the tried and true:

    “Did DeSantis supplies prosecutors with information about Trump?”

    Just asking a question!

    edit: That might provide good feedback on whether BJ posts influence discussions on the internet. :-)

  97. 97.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Biden giving his some of his best quasi-eulogy tribute to the victims of the Half Moon Bay shooting as blog

    and he’s done

  98. 98.

    Roger Moore

    @RevRick:

    That sounds interesting.  I’ve gotten fairly heavily into Wordscapes, a mobile game with a similar premise.  You’re given a set of letters and a (sparse) crossword, and you’re supposed to find the words that fill in the crossword by using the letters.  You get a bonus for finding real words beyond those in the crossword.  Both games are similar to Boggle, though Boggle is more random, so there’s no guarantee of how many words you’ll be able to find.

  104. 104.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: Power-hungry asshole bosses are going to be pissed off at  their slightly-reduced ability to intimidate and employees.

    It’s such a relief to have Pritzker after the awful guy whose name I couldn’t even bring myself to say out loud.

  105. 105.

    Barbara

    @RevRick: There is an online version of this game called Spellbound, where you have seven letter words and type in words with three letters or more.  The letters are scrambled so you have to guess the longest word as well, and sometimes there are more than one: enurets = tenures, tureens, neuters.  It gets kind of repetitive, but it definitely enhances your typing skills and clears external stimuli from your head.

  106. 106.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Good question — I don’t know what the standard practice is. I gather the Carters and Bidens are pretty tight, so in this case, it makes all kinds of sense, but it wouldn’t always! Agree about McCain asking Obama to deliver the eulogy — it was a giant fuck you to Trump. Good for McCain!

    I wonder which Republican will be asked to eulogize Trump? Pence and DeSantis are out, obviously, and I’m not sure Himself would consider obsequious worms like Graham or any of the House crazies to be high-status enough. Depending on what happens next year, his survivors might have to just take whoever is on offer. Or wrap the old coot in a contractor bag and bury him next to a putting green.

  107. 107.

    Geminid

    @Roger Moore: People are really different when it comes to games. Some people love playing games like you describe, but to me they’re like a form of enhanced interrogation. I’d rather play Chutes and Ladders, or Parcheesi.

  111. 111.

    cain

    Twitter is filled with #JimmyCarter stuff and I am getting misty-eyed.

    Of course, right wing “Christian” twitter is of course mocking the man. These people think he’s a complete failure – that they hate this man shows where they are. I hope on their road to perdition that they fall over and get run over by an errant flock of running penguins.

    ETA – #111 – this comment is worth it – manifest y’alls

  116. 116.

    Dangerman

    @Betty Cracker: I wonder which Republican will be asked to eulogize Trump?

    Junior.

    Melania will wear something hideous (and a shit eating grin under the veil).

  119. 119.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker: He’ll pre-record his own, if he acknowledges his own mortality.

    otherwise, Vanky, in something slinky and low cut from the Ginger Grant collection

  122. 122.

    JPL

    Publix sold small key lime pies for $3.14, which I thought was cute idea  Yes I purchased one, and after a few bites tossed.   Cute doesn’t necessarily mean good.

  123. 123.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Dump’s eulogy will be delivered by Mayor McCheese

  126. 126.

    zeecube

    @Betty Cracker: I’m guessing TFG already made a VHS tape of he giving his own eulogy with at least 1 reference to big men with tears in their eyes, marked as “top secret” just for kicks, stored in some unlabled box in his office.

  127. 127.

    Betty Cracker

    @JPL: Yeah, their bakery isn’t half bad, but the key lime pies are meh. When it comes to key lime pies, it’s rarely worth the calories if it’s not homemade.

  129. 129.

    prostratedragon

    @EntroPi:  Well, it was good to have an impression of Hannibal Lechter erased from my mind by the article, as I see she wasn’t that kind of therapist nor an actual murderer. Also good that her next turn down that spiral has been at least delayed; that’s a weird thing to do, especially for someone working with genuine veterans.

  130. 130.

    AlaskaReader

    I like pi day and always observe the tradition – pie

    I also observe Tau day, (6-28), with twice the pie.

    τ = C/r = 6.283185…

  132. 132.

    EntroPi

    @prostratedragon: Sometimes I feel like my entire life is guided by a series of odd events.  I was fortunate enough to graduate college into the dot-com boom and help some friends start a company, I was unfortunate enough to be walking downtown in NY in time to watch a plane do its damage, and now these sorts of “interesting” events show up.

    I live 1 block away from where our current Secretary of Commerce used to live ( I played Frisbee with her!), but 2 blocks in the other direction is a playground that has shootings a couple of times a year.

    Life is strange.

  137. 137.

    Cameron

    It was a solemn moment indeed.  As America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani delivered a semi-sincere eulogy, the carcass of the 45th President of the United States was lowered into the composting pit at Four Seasons Landscaping….

  139. 139.

    EntroPi

    @prostratedragon: Yep, on the walk down to NYU.  It’s not just the moment that sits in your brain, but the days/weeks after with everything being weird everywhere you went.

  143. 143.

    catclub

    @Matt McIrvin: ​
     Have you watched any of the youtube videos on vector algebra? They told me it makes maxwells equations extremely simple. I think I have been introduced to them too late to really absorb. Since nobody will be forcing me to use it.

  146. 146.

    Paul in KY

    @Betty Cracker: I figured that would be your response. LOL!!! Regular people who are not ancient, sure. Someone who knows there will be a public this n that when he dies, maybe more leeway, IMO.

    When they are complaining about piddly stuff like that, you got em on the run.

  147. 147.

    Paul in KY

    @WaterGirl: I always like (hate) the Just Asking Questions type. Makes me grit my teeth more when directed unjustly at one of my peeps.

  149. 149.

    karen marie

    @hueyplong:   No, there’s not.

    Unless you have one to show.  I’ve not seen anything like what you suggest in almost 40 years of transcribing criminal trials.

  151. 151.

    Paul in KY

    @Geminid: It’s funny, I will say that. I just think (with all his warts) that Elvis was a way, way, way better person than TFG and I am sad to see him in the same sentence as that greasy, traitorous globule.

    I wasn’t a big Elvis fan, but he died my Freshman year and there was this dude from Eastern KY, who was a huge Elvis fan. About every 2 or 3 days for weeks, he would get up on a table in the cafeteria and belt out an Elvis hit acapella. Everyone would clap and no one would jeer him, as this was genuine grief. I wonder what became of him?

  155. 155.

    Geminid

     

     

    @Paul in KY: Elvis Presley was indeed a much better person than Trump. I was thinking more in mythological  terms. And I guess a little sarcastically too.

  158. 158.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Roger Moore:

    An oldie but a goody:

    π = 4 – 4/3 + 4/5 – 4/7 + 4/9 – 4/11 + 4/13 …

    But man, that sucker takes forever to converge!

    (OK, every converging infinite series takes forever to converge, but this one does do it really really slowly, even by the standards of other infinite sums.)

  159. 159.

    jonas

    @Barbara:Enrique Tarrio’s lawyer just posed the following “question” to the lead testifying FBI agent:  “you’ve taken multiple trainings in how to testify in court. that’s why you’re doing so well, correct.”

    “So all the entered evidence and witness testimony seem to point toward my client’s guilt. How very conveeeeeeenient!”

  160. 160.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud:

    I’m an e man myself.

    I’m more of an ε guy, myself.  (Even used it in the morning thread, as in ‘let ε > 0’,  before I knew we’d be getting all geeky in this one.)

    My wife made me a mincemeat pie for π day.  It’s delicious. :-)

  162. 162.

    planetjanet

    Curses to whoever suggested semantle. I am trapped in this game and can’t get out.

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