The Open Notebook of an Atypical Teenager

Well, the olympics are over. Well, they ended in China this morning, because they’re 12 hours ahead (wait… 9 hours ahead xD). So it was this morning, or this evening in China. AUGH, so confusing! Well, confusing story short, it’s over, done.

I was amazed at how many medals were handed out! I mean, I know that there are a whole lot of sports and a whole lot of events and a whole lot of people, but wow. A total of 302 gold medals were awarded during these olympics. (And that, I’m assuming, makes 906 medals in total!)

And there’s another debate, who really “won” the olympics, the Chinese or the Americans? The Americans had a higher total number of medals, while the Chinese had more Gold Medals. HMM. Who did win?

Let’s go over the facts: 

United States: 110 medals (36G,38S,36B). China 100 medals (51G,21S,28B).

Well, The USA has only 10 more total medals, while the Chinese have 15 more gold medals. However, I personally think that all medals matter, and you can’t just say you “win” because you have more gold. I think we should assign points for every medal received, and then total the points and the country with the most total points “wins”.

Let’s assign 3 points for gold, 2 for silver, and 1 for bronze (this makes the most sense to me…). Then,if my math is right, totaling the points gives the United States 220 points and China 223 points. 

So, I think it’s really close, but China would “win” the olympic games. 

However, all in all, I think the olympics aren’t about getting the most medals, or “winning”, but for the empowerment of the sport and for global unison throughout all this crap going on.

This game is so addicting! I want you all to try it.

http://www.addictinggames.com/fingerfrenzy.html

I went crazy for about 10 minutes and did this nonstop ^.^;;

By the way my high (well, low score lol) score is 3.182 seconds.

Okay, I know that /most/ of my /regular/ readers are not yet at the age to vote. However, I still find it to be an interesting topic. Voting. When you are 18, you are given the right to vote. PLEASE exercise this right. You are being given a chance to cast forth your opinion regarding .. hmm.. the President of the United States?!  Not using your vote is robbing your opinion from the pool.  Why wouldn’t you vote?  Because “it’s just one vote not being counted, what difference can it make?”? WRONG. Put it this way-if everyone had your mindset, nobody would vote. There would be 0 votes counted. And if one person breaks this and votes one way, their candidate will win the popular vote instantaneously from a single vote. EVEN if you absolutely hate every single person running, please, still vote. It’s not like not voting is counted as a vote for “none of the above”. No, one of the persons on that ballot will become president, and you are choosing who, of the above, you would most want to see in the White House. If you would not like to see any of them become President, you still should vote, because one of them will be, no matter how many “none of the above” votes there are! Also, don’t just vote for your “party”. I don’t care how staunch of a democrat you are, if you like one candidate over Obama, vote that way. The only way I can see justification for this is if you have an immense dislike for McCain, and you are voting for Obama in a sort of “anything but McCain” vote.  But other than that, it’s not like every democrat is the same. You are bound to have different opinions than other democrats/the democratic nominee.  Vote how YOU want to vote, not how your neighbor wants you to vote, or those annoying attack ads everywhere want you to vote. So please, if you are of age this year to vote, research the candidates’ opinions and policies, decide on which candidate you would most like to see in the White House, and go out this November and vote.

Okay. So I just got a graphing calculator for school, and, (of course) the first thing I do is put little flash games on it!!! HAHA!! Math /CAN/ be fun!!

So I have this game called falldown, where you move a ball through little holes in the floor which are moving up at you, and if you get stuck at the top you lose. It’s really fun and very addicting. Here’s a classic version: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/falldown (If any of you just played that, my high score (from playing it once, lol) is 62396.)

I have another game called “aspirin” where you move  little black ball to a little which square. Once you get it, it moves and you have to get it again. The object of the game is to get as many white squares as you can. The trick! After every white square you get, little thingys start bouncing around the screen, and if you hit one, you die. So as you keep getting the squared, the harder and harder it gets because more thingys are bouncing around the screen. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an online version of the game. :[

Finally, I have a game called Tankers where you drive around a map shooting people. Simple, surprisingly fun. There are 10 other tanks on the field and you have 3 lives to shoot them all. Sounds easier than it is. There are like 5 basic maps to choose from, plus you can make your own. Pretty cool. No online version.

And yeah. That’s about it. I have now transformed my calculator into something actually useful!!! (just kidding) Oh, and I’m going to download more games, like ASTEROIDS! Woohoo.

Because a) I’m bored, b) I have nothing to post about, and c) because we all know that mathgeek loves math. SO!! Let’s start.

1. (Hard.) What digit should replace the question mark so the numbers continue their logical sequence?

23     42     61     44     18     3?

2. (REALLY, REALLY hard.) The numbers below increase according to a simple mathematical rule. What two digits are missing from the last number?

745     1379     1647     2183     32??

3. (This one’s really hard. If someone gets this, I’ll give them something special. Seriously. It’s hard.) The numbers below follow a mathematical logic. What should the last number be?

13     16     22     26     ?

4.  (Very simple and easy.) The letters below always represent the same digit. If the number of the first set is the highest, which sum is the lowest? (NOT the sum! For example, let’s say you think A is 1, B is 2, and C is 3. ABC would equal 123, NOT 1+2+3 or 1*2*3)

XYZ     XZY     YXZ     ZYX     YZX     ZXY

5. (Medium. But pretty easy.) How many pairs of adjacent numbers with a difference of 5 can you find in the sequence of numbers below? (example: if there is a 9 and a 4 next to each other, that is a pair of adjacent numbers with a difference of 5.)

16516065155

Okay! That’s all for today. Comment me any answers you may have!

I’m really sorry if you’re like me and hate the sight of math during the last bits of summer. (This is for mathgeek. Getting her warmed up for Mrs. B. LOL) I apologize.

I was eating ice cream a couple hours ago, and I thought about why we like it. Simple, I thought. It has a bunch of sugar, a nice texture, and lots of fatty cream. Wait a second. “Fatty” cream. The way I had phrased i in my mind made it sound like “fatty” goes a long with “good-tasting”. Which it .. does. Hmm. Why DO we like butter and cream and eggs and mayonnaise and oil and french fries and meat (if you don’t like any of that stuff, go along with it so I can prove my point) and all that other fatty stuff? Wait.. why do we have a taste preference for anything? What the crap says that asparagus taste bad and ice cream tastes good? What defines that broccoli is bad, french fries taste good, gorgonzola is bad, cookies are good, etc.? And then I thought… at least some of the reason we like food is how its prepared. A really good cook can make anything taste good! Just drown those escargots in a really thick butter sauce! Wait, back to the “fat=good” paradox.  Fat is generally good tasting. I thought of why we might have some sort of taste preference for this. I wondered, what if taste preference is genetic? I’m not talking about something weird like “well. my dad likes fat, I like fat!”, but more of our way far back ancestors, when humans were hunter-gatherers. I suppose they had to live off of whatever game they killed, which is meat (obviously), which has a lot of fat in it (obviously again). So, maybe after needing to live off of fat for so long, they started to adapt to to constant supply of only one foodstuff and develop a preference for fat. Something like, “since we can only eat this one thing, we might as well make it taste good!”. And we humans down the line have managed to inherit this preference for fat. (Which, inevitably, led to McDonalds and obese people.) I think. This is theory. But it .. kinda makes sense to me… right? RIGHT?! Okay. Now.. I wonder what common ingredient is in the foods we have a general dislike for. Things recently introduced to our diet that has not had time to “adapt” to our palate? Well. That’s maybe for another post.. tell me what you think of my theories. But yeah. Either way, I LOVE ICE CREAM!!! (but that’s for another post.)

Today, almost 4 billion people around the world will all turn their eyes to one major event.  It will unite the world, for fleeting moments, as all watch the worlds best athletes compete against each other.  

8/8/08, 8.08 PM, Beijing, China. The Olympic Games.

Now that I’ve finished that long thought-up really cool intro… haha.  Well, I’m going to watch most of them anyway, not out of support for any one country, but out of awe for the amazing athletes out there, and the ridiculous training they go through to be able to perform here. For, usually, not longer than a minute or two (with the exception of team sports or distance running/swimming). And for the cool fireworks! Yups, yups.

In other random news, Walmart just changed their logo from

to

just recently. Also, I was watching an advertisement for Walmart the other day (when I noticed the change), and this woman was like “Save Money, Save Time” blah blah about Walmart, and I was literally screaming at the TV “SAVE MONEY, SAVE TIME, BUT RUIN THE ECONOMY BY SUPPORTING SWEATSHOPS IN CHINA AND UNDERPAID EMPLOYEES!”. Yep.

I’m back, and I’m tired. Had to post.