Canadian grad student pees all over Iraqi-born Swedish teenager’s party

Regular readers will remember this story:

An Iraqi-born 16-year-old reportedly has cracked a math puzzle that has gone unsolved for over 300 years.

Mohamed Altoumaimi, who immigrated to Sweden six years ago, took only four months to find a formula that explains a sequence of calculations known as the Bernoulli numbers, a code that had stumped some of the best experts in the field, Agence France-Presse reported.

Odds are you only remember that story because of this picture…

…and because I offered an Eyes It Willy to whomever correctly cited the movie whence it came. Which reminds me: I still don’t know who the winner, DLJessup, is, and therefore cannot make good on his (her?) prize.

Anyway. Canadian grad student Nathaniel Johnston says it isn’t all that big a deal:

…the “probable solution” (what does that mean, exactly?) was not under some mysterious mathematical lock-and-key. It was well-known and even included on the Wikipedia page describing the Bernoulli numbers (at the time of this writing, it is about halfway down the page under the section titled “Connection with the Worpitzky number”). Uppsala University has even issued an official statement saying that the news articles are false.

So while the boy’s derivation of the formula is indeed impressive considering his age (if he did indeed derive it himself rather than following the steps outlined on the wiki page), the story about this “puzzle” being solved is almost entirely false.

Thanks for the link, Nathaniel. Back atcha!

The thing is, I read that Wikipedia page, and didn’t understand a single thing. They could have put the answer right there in 72-point type with flashing arrows pointing at it, and it wouldn’t have made the tiniest bit of difference.

So. The kid is still smarter than me, but still can’t do this:

At least, I don’t think he can.

But doesn’t race trump gender?

How does it go? Race trumps gender, sexuality (as long as it’s homosexuality) trumps race…

Eh, I forget. And so did William Jacobson, I think. He writes:

What Sandra Day O’Connor Said

In my post yesterday, I noted that Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus wasn’t “buying” the Obama administration spin that Sonia Sotomayor made a “poor” choice of words or misspoke in her speech in 2001 when Sotomayor said “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Among Marcus’ reasons for believing that Sotomoyor “meant what she said and said what she meant” was that Sotomayor “was deliberately and directly disputing remarks by then-Justice Sandra Day O’Connor that a wise old woman and a wise old man would eventually reach the same conclusion in a case.”

Jacobson goes on to suggest, with evidence, that O’Connor was rejecting a “new feminist” approach, and maybe she was.

If so, her arguments were incomplete: the infinite pliability of liberal rationalization is such that Sotomayor could easily shift from gender to race. When Sotomayor said “…a wise Latina woman…would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male,” she could as easily have said “white woman.”

Maybe she was just being polite, not wanting to direct her comment right at O’Connor. Who knows.

I am putting words into her mouth, now – or, rather, I’m putting meaning into them that she may or may not have put there herself. Dunno.

Regardless, I still think that Sotomayor’s views on race are not nearly as important – or as potentially damaging – as her Second Amendment views. And when I say damaging, I mean both to her nomination and, failing that, to the rest of us.

Get that farmer on a plane!

The GOP needs him for a photo op!

This giant feral pig was shot on a Pilbara, Australia, cattle station after it was spotted eating a dead cow.

Eating a dead cow? A whole dead cow?

The picture has been circulating on the Internet alongside claims the boar was killed at various locations across the continent. It had been written off as a hoax by many, including the local Department of Environment and Conservation, and sparked much debate when published on the Web site for newspaper PerthNow.

Just how, exactly did the cow die? Did the pig kill it? You don’t normally think of pigs as predators. Scavengers, maybe.

But The Sunday Times of Australia confirmed that the pig was shot at a Pilbara cattle station near Newman, 744 miles northeast of Perth.

Sources close to the family of the man in the photo have confirmed he is Pilbara pastoralist John Anick and the picture was taken on his property three years ago.

A pastoralist is somebody who raises livestock. If this story wasn’t three years old, I’d sense fame and fortune for this guy.

No word on what happened to the pig after the picture was taken, but the area did report a serious shortage of charcoal in the month following the incident.*

*Speculation on my part, based on what I’d do with it.

And while we’re talking about North Korea…

‘New GM’ will get $30B in last lifeline

It’s the word “last” that kills me.

General Motors will file for bankruptcy in exchange for more than $30 billion in assistance from the federal government, the Obama administration announced Sunday.

The company will seek an abbreviated, two-to-three months of bankruptcy protection Monday in court in exchange for the assistance, after which, senior administration officials said, they expect to provide no additional support.

Stop! Or I’ll say stop again!

I don’t think that makes a whole lotta difference to North Korea

Stop! Or I’ll say stop again!

(CNN) — The United States will not accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Saturday at an international conference.

If we couldn’t stop them from getting nukes when they didn’t have nukes, how are we going to stop them when they do have nukes?

And why does it take a blogger working by the dim light of the bioluminescent fungi to ask these questions?

The scariest email virus warning…ever

Got this from non-blogging (as far as I know, anyway) friend George today:

If you get an e-mail stating “Nude pictures of Sarah Palin attached”, DO NOT OPEN IT! It contains a virus.

If you get an e-mail stating “Nude pictures of Nancy Pelosi attached”, DO NOT OPEN IT! It contains nude pictures of Nancy Pelosi.

Thanks, George!

Lord, I hope I don’t start getting hits from people searching “Nancy Pelosi nude.” Hits may be hits, but…please, no.

Hydraulic grippers grab you by the ankles, bend you over, and – well, let’s just say the ride’s over when we say it’s over.

Best line of the weekend.