Overview of Functions

Imagine you have a blender. To your blender, you add a couple scoops of ice cream and some milk. Then you press the buttons on the blender. Soon, you have a delicious vanilla milkshake. Next, you add strawberries and press buttons again. The result is even better than before: a strawberry milkshake.

Input

Output

Of course, strawberries aren't the only option. Suppose that, instead of strawberries, you added cocoa powder and avocado. The result is a chocolate-avocado milkshake. Or you could have added some mint leaves, for a mint milkshake. Or some peaches, for a peach milkshake.

In each of these cases, you pick the ingredient, and get a different milkshake. Whatever ingredient you pick, the result is always a milkshake. In other words, the blender took your ingredients, and returned a flavor of milkshake.

The blender is like a function.

Is MSG Safe?

Monosodium glutamate, commonly abbreviated MSG, is a very common chemical used to enhance flavors in food. MSG works by activating the "umami" receptors on the tongue, effectively enhancing flavors and making food taste a lot better. This is similar to the way sodium chloride (table salt) works, but MSG is much more powerful, so sodium content can be reduced by adding MSG to food. For this reason, many food companies use MSG as a food additive.

Despite these apparent advantages, most people would agree that MSG is unhealthy and should be avoided. Sensitive individuals even experience negative side effects after consuming food containing MSG. But what exactly is wrong with MSG? If a person is not MSG sensitive, is it okay for them to consume it in their food?

Nature GIFs

I recently created a couple of nature-themed animated GIFs. (Click the images to view larger.)

The first image is a blossoming tree. I thought the tree looked pretty, but I realized that part of the beauty came from the gentle swaying in the wind. So I decided to animate the image.

Major Change of Ideas

Edit: April Fool's. The article completely fails to answer for the benefits of math and science (including medicine and natural disaster prediction). It grossly exaggerates the negative aspects of math and science. Incidentally, math and science have made a large positive difference in my life.

Good morning, everybody! I decided to write a blog post to say that I will be completely changing the way I view knowledge and the purpose of life.

Photo credit: my sister

Basically, "higher" knowledge (including logic, science, mathematics, etc.) is completely useless. There is no point in learning these subjects, which is why I have dropped all my college classes and will not be going to school today.

Instead, we should go to the fields, with a shovel and a rake, and grow crops. I will therefore end my blog and begin life as a worker at a ranch in Wyoming.

5 Methods for Approximating Pi

Happy super-π day! π-day falls on March 14 every year, because the month-day combination results in 3-14, which are the first 3 digits of π. But this π-day is particularly special: include the year, and you get 3-14-15, the first 5 digits of π. We won't get another π-day like this for another 100 years, so you better enjoy this one!

A particularly special time will be at 9:26:53 PM tonight, when we'll get 3-14-15 9:26:53, or the first 10 digits of π.

In honor of the occasion, I'm going to post 5 simple methods for approximating the value of π.