Exchange rate

At present, the official exchange rate between UK pounds and US dollars is running at about $1.95 to the pound. However, if we compare the UK and US price of coffee in Starbucks and of burgers in Burger King, the functional exchange rate is $1.00 to the pound, give or take a few percent. Seeing as these organisations have to hire real estate, and pay the local wages, taxes, and overheads, the "coffee-burger" exchange rate of one dollar to the pound is a much more accurate estimate of the actual costs of living in the two countries.



10th February 2007

restaurant notice

restaurant notice
Originally uploaded by rabinal.

In the woods near Wood Street

Kaleidoscope

photographs through kaleidoscope

 

musical experience to share

musical experience to share
Originally uploaded by rabinal.

excellent stuff

FIIR Oshodi

FIIR Oshodi
Originally uploaded by rabinal.

Ted Jefferies had the idea for, set up, built, and was the first director of, the Federal Institute of Industrial Research in Nigeria. It is located at Oshodi, which is close to Lagos Airport. This is an early picture. There is a link here to Margaret Jefferies' 1951 Nigeria Trip diary, which predates this picture and the building of the institute, by several years.

quartic mandelbrot 060703

quartic mandelbrot 060703
Originally uploaded by rabinal.

MGJ sent me a link to visionsofchaos, whose software generated this image which comes top of the popular/interesting rank at www.flickr.com/photos/rabinal/

I am now trying to recover some old C programs, by writing a new image driver for them using GD and the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for C/C++ at Bloodshed (google it).

The original chaos work and fractal generation dates from the early 1980s, before I became Editor of the IJE.

Mathematics and Clergy

The Vicar and the Virger are standing in front of the church looking up at the West door, over which is inscribed the year when the church was built.

Vicar:- "It's funny, but that number is the sum of the squares of the ages of my cousin's two daughters"

Virger:-"I can't tell you their ages uniquely. Are they the same age?"

Vicar:-"If I was to tell you that, you'd be able to do the problem, so I'm not telling you."

Virger:-"Aha Vicar, now I know uniquely" and he tells the Vicar the ages of the cousin's two daughters.

When was the church built?

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credit David W Masser, Nottingham, 1970s.