Code Czar

I am up in the middle of the night figuring out factorial like addition in my head. When people talk about factorials they mean multiplication and notate it n! so what do I mean by factorial like addition?

In the middle of the night I decided to do some pushups in a reverse pyramid from 10. So I did 10 reps, then 9, then 8, then 7 and so on until I got to 1. How many did I do in all? 10+9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1 = 55. While I'm sure mathematicians have figured this out in the past, I still wanted to work out the pattern on my own. After a bit of trial and error here is what I came up with.

n^2/2 + n/2 where n is the number I start with.

Then I thought about a similar thing I do by 5s. I trained myself to be able to do a decent amount of not so decent crunches by pyramiding down by 5. So I'd start at say 50 reps, then 45 and so on until I got to 5. The previous way to work it out didn't match so I kept spinning my wheels to figure out something that works for both(and other numbers as well).

n^2/d*2 + n/2 where n is the number I start with and d is the amount I decrement by each time.
So my example of 50, 45, et cetera looks like this:
50^2/5*2 + 50/2
2500/10 + 25
250 + 25
275 = 50 + 45 + 40 + 35 + 30 + 25 + 20 + 15 + 10 + 5

From my minuscule amount of adding numbers in my head this works for decrementing by 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 quite well as long as you start with a multiple of the decrement amount, thus ending on the decrement amount. For other values it seems like you just need to round up your solution, though I haven't really tried with a lot of numbers to verify.

So, I might not have totally figured this out but I got somewhere so that I can answer this math problem quicker in the future. Most likely it will be in the same context of reverse-pyramiding reps. However, I'd like to know the actual name for what this describes in mathematic terms if anyone knows what that is.

I'm on facebook just about every day. I play chess, mostly with coworkers, and due to my history I also play Wrestler with some regularity. I've also tried and stopped using all the popular apps my friends play.

What I find interesting is that the most common tag line I see for facebook game application advertisements is "The Most Addicting Game On Facebook." While on some level it disgusts me that this sort of advertising works, I am intrigued by the psychology of why it works. Is it because of the nature of facebook and other social networking sites? Is it just human nature? Why is addiction something we would knowingly chase? Is it the man trying to keep us entertained so he can keep us down?

Needless to say, one can spend a lot of time analyzing this simple phrase and why it is so popular. So, in an effort to crowd source with the 1 or 2 people who come across my blog I leave it to the comments for discussion.

Only because I mentioned the 2 game apps I use on facebook:
My chess challenge URL is:
http://apps.facebook.com/chessfb/?page=create_game&challenge_to_id=590273940
And for those of you who wish to see the facebook incarnation of Deacon (the wrestler) may go to: http://apps.facebook.com/wrestle/Wrestlers!show.fb?id=590273940

I was watching Wimbledon this morning. Specifically, I was watching Venus and Serena face each other. The first set was so insanely close and tough fought it was enjoyable to watch. Now I'm not an avid tennis watcher but such a close final matchup between 2 big name sisters of tennis got me thinking something I often think about professional sports.

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The following video was shot with the Android Cupcake update camcorder app. It seemed to upload fairly quick over the air and the quality isn't too bad for what it will be used for. I wouldn't be shooting a movie with it, that's for sure.



PS - the camera reacts much quicker as well, which is very nice.

I don't know what I did right but lately random magicians have been adding me as friends on facebook. From these new friends I hear about different magical happenings in the world. Recently, one of these magicians performed at the world famous Magic Castle. Luckily for us he posted a large portion of his performance on YouTube. Enjoy, this could have easily been posted as a Friday Humor post.

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It's been a while since I've posted anything so I figured my Birthday is on a Monday why not start back with a JAMM post. I have a friend in the office whose dad is a Magician and he has said several times that the cups and balls is his favorite routine. Last week I had the pleasure of seeing a great cups and balls routine by Michael Ammar at a seminar hosted by my magic club. So, without further ado, here are three different version of the cups and balls starring Jason Latimer, Michael Ammar and Penn & Teller.

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