Truth or consequences

[Barry Arrowsmith]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "snow15145" <kking0731 at g...> wrote:
> 
> Snow:
> I guess I'm part mathematician because I agree with all of his 
> statements except the last statement of one side of the sheep being 
> black. "The sheep is black" sounds like a secure statement, no reason 
> to suspect that the sheep was turned sideways so that you could not 
> see the other side. 
> 

Kneasy:
Should you really be confessing such intimate, nay - devastating 
personal details  on a public site? Most of the mathematicians I've run 
across are mega-LOONs whenever the word 'proof' is uttered. Although 
for mere mortals a black sheep is a black  sheep no matter what angle 
it's viewed from, I'm confident that a true exemplar of the difficult sums
brigade would require submission of a proof showing that the 'class' 
described as 'sheep' never include bilaterally coloured variants, would 
demand to know the frequency of mud patches an animal could lie in 
and the location of recently creosoted fences a  sheep could lean against.

A bit OT this, but it demonstrates the depths of depravity the 
mathematical mind can sink to. Dunno where you're based, but you may
or may not know of a drinking game - Fizz Buzz. (Some of us played 
something a bit less brain-damaging called Cardinal Puff.) It requires a
group of drinkers to sit round a table, pints to hand and in turn number
off, but at 3, 5 and multiples of those numbers to say a word or make a
specific noise instead. Each error requires that the offending player 
downs a pint. Winner is last player upright.

Langford (of whom I've written before) describes the mathematicians 
version which he and his friends developed (as below) over many 
beer-soaked sessions.
At 3 or multiples say "Oink"
     5 or multiples say "Fizz"
     7 or multiples say "Buzz"
     11 or multiples say "Burp"
fairly straightforward, so they decided to liven it up and added:
"Clang" for each prime number
"Pow" for perfect squares
"Zap" for powers of two

Thus 1, 2, 3, 4 would be expressed as "Clang Pow", "Clang Zap", 
"Oink Clang", "Pow Zap".
It's claimed that the first number to be expressed as numerals is 26, 
though I've never  checked it myself.
Consideration was given to adding "Ping" for cubes and "Argh" for 
members of the Fibonacci series,  but they didn't want to complicate things.
The Dept. of Nuclear Physics at Oxford even programmed their computer
to generate all the correct responses up to 10,000.
(There also exists Cantorian Fizz Buzz, played with real numbers between
0 and 1 with special grunts for transcendentals.) 
These are not normal people.

> 
> Snow:
> Oh but he isn't lying, he is only telling half a truth; just like you 
> said about the attorneys' and their brilliant way in which to sway 
> the conversation in their favor. (Dumbledore, like his creator, is 
> evasive as hell) 
> snip>

Kneasy:
Most definitely.
By coincidence there's a book review in today's Daily Telegraph that 
gives an opinion by Cicero, the great grand-daddy of advocates to 
the effect that the trick was to advance points that look like the truth,
even if they didn't correspond exactly. That's not far from Jo's game 
IMO with DD following close on her heels. The way he puts a spin
on the truth obviates the need for lies -  though I have highlighted
a couple of incidences that are contradictions of his own words. To 
be fair, it could have been Jo having trouble plugging loopholes in 
a plot device (it was DD's explanation of why the Mirror didn't work
for Quirrell when plainly it should have done).  

> 
> Snow:
> I think that even the most naughty of fans, that realize this as a 
> certain fact, will be turned on edge when JKR is done with them. I 
> see her laughing her royal buttocks off with anticipation at the 
> unseen look on her readers face when we finally get the next 
> installment. I think this is really why she likes this book so much. 
> JKR and Dumbledore are indeed one and the same in their likeness of 
> spooning information on a need to know basis
and the next spoonful 
> may not be sugar
and I have a feeling not at all to the FAITH reader.

Kneasy:
As Talisman points out in her post JKR believes that there will be 
those who won't like the new book. As with most of her comments this
can be interpreted at least two ways -  either the fluffies will hate it 
(yippee!) or the non-fluffies will hate it (boo! hiss!).

I hope it does take us by surprise -  at least so long as there's some
fairly credible thread that traces back to hints or clues no matter how
arcane or subtle in the previous volumes. And I can't believe book 6 will 
be fluffy (though book 7 might be). Something nasty. Yes please! Deaths,
Harry going off the rails, betrayal, all that good stuff, with a lovely dollop
of clues that'll allow us to keep on speculating until the last book appears.
Not too much, it'd be an absolute tragedy if it gave so much away that 
the final installment looked as if it were a foregone conclusion.