I keep saying this...

[altivo]

I think I've reached the limit of what I can derive of PI using my homegrown algorithm and the microprocessors I have handy. Except I've already said that what, three times at least? Today I coaxed up to the twelfth decimal place out of the Alpha DS10 I keep at work. Then I came home and ran the same code on the Alpha PWS 433au I have here. Took a while for it to run but it got the same results. To get there, I had to integrate the function in 10¹⁰ segments. Yes, ten billion. While I haven't run out of numeric precision in the variable space, the tiny errors in binary floating point representation are starting to add up to such a significant degree that I doubt I could get another decimal place using this method. To see what I mean, use a spreadsheet or BASIC or whatever to keep adding 1.0 to an accumulating total. Be sure the result is displayed with as many digits to the right of the decimal as you can get. As you keep adding, sooner or later you'll see a "1" creep into the rightmost digit. Then it becomes a "2" and a "3" and keeps growing and soon the "1" has shifted one column to the left while the rightmost keeps growing. This happens even though you are adding only 1.0 each time. It's a result of the way decimal values are represented in the computer's internal numeric language.

Thus we disprove something Heinlein had one of his characters say in Glory Road: "Democracy is doomed to failure. No matter how many zeroes you add up, it still comes to zero." As of the latest news I can get, it looks as if UK voters have disproved that claim by giving a significant number of seats to a third party for the first time in decades. I approve. Both the UK and the US need an electoral reform to get rid of the "winner takes all" election mechanism that almost insures that there will be only two parties and therefore only two diametrically opposed views in government.

So I say, "Well done!" to voters in the UK, who gathered enough courage to break the deadlock and force their politicians to compromise and cooperate in order to form a government. This is the way it really should be, in my opinion, rather than what we have in the US, where one party is the "winner" and gets to stomp all over the "losers" for the next four years. I hope you get the changes and reforms that you really want, instead of the empty nothingness that we got here by voting for a change advocate who belonged to one of the two main parties. Nothing is changing for us.

Comments

[farthing]

Time to move on from pies (pis?) and find the computer equivalent of cake instead? :-)

[altivo]

Oh, I could never give up on pies. I've spent too many years honing my ability to create them. ;p Gary used to say I won his heart by making a pie.

[hrrunka]

I think the third party (the Liberal Democrats) have actually lost seats since the last time. The big difference this time is that no single party has an absolute majority. I think this last happened in 1974. With a bit of luck this might make the big players slay one or two of their sacred bulls. Already we've seen the night's biggest loser suddenly embracing the idea of electoral reform...

[altivo]

Yes, I see in the latest reports here that the LibDems lost at least one seat. Personally I find it hard to understand why that should be, but I don't understand the way most people vote anyway. I'd have been rushing to vote LibDem precisely to show the other two parties that I was tired of their idiocy.

In any case, the hung Parliament is the consequence and frankly, I think it's a good thing. It will force some negotiation and compromise, AND give the third party a chance to actually be participants.

I only wish the US political system made this more possible, but it's nearly as probable as the chance that an asteroid will smack into the White House in the next hour.

[hrrunka]

There's still one constituency to declare, and the tally so far is 306 for
the Conservatives (a gain of 97, with 36.1% of vote), 258 for Labour (a loss of 91, with 29.0% of the vote), and 57 for the Liberal Democrats (a loss of 5, with 23.0% of the vote). Other parties have 28 seats. The disparity between proportion of the vote and number of seats won is obvious. Also, obviously, the two main parties have an interest in not changing the system, so whilst here may be much debate, but I don't expect the system to change any time soon.