6÷2(1+2), 8÷2(2+2), 9-3÷1/3+1; the way I see it, all of these expressions are equivalent to 1. Much of the internet holds some other opinion, usually that the answer is absolutely 9, or something more nuanced. Most people agree that the controversy relates to the use of an obelus (÷), and some also recognize that the implicit multiplication is causing some confusion. Fewer still discuss the role that rules and conventions should have in math. I've spent maybe a little to long thinking about this so I need to write this to justify it.

The first thing to be addressed is the order of operations- PEMDAS or GEMDAS or BODMAS or BIDMAS, or whatever you think it is. In the case of 6÷2(1+2), whe do the parentheses first, so 1+2 becomes 3, then we do the division between 6 and 2 and the multiplication between 2 and (3). By one convention (which, for some reason, some people treat as authoritative), the operations have equal precedence and happen left to right, meaning 6 by 2 is 3, then 3 of (3) is 9. That feels wrong to many people, and for a good reason. There is just as much, if not more, justification for preforming the operations in the reverse, yeilding 1.

Notice I haven't used a symbol for the multiplication; I'm trying to emphasize that the multiplication is implicit (or by juxtaposition). Most people (but maybe not most calculators) agree that implicit multiplication has higher precedence than division, which is why 1÷2x or 1/2x is not usually interpreted as half of x. Alternatively, one might consider that 2(1+2) implies factoring, with the reverse being distribution. You could argue that factoring and distribution falls under grouping (or parentheses) in the order of operations.

Regardless of how much you believe your version of the rules for evaluating expressions is the "right" one, you must recognize that the expression "6÷2(1+2)" is ambiguous. At the end of the day, the conventions for writing expressions are just for communicating math, and not prescriptive logic in the way 1 and 1 makes 2. The very fact that there is controversy precludes a definitive right or wrong in this case. Even if I think it is 1, I must respect that different interpretations may not be wrong, but are simply using different conventions than mine.

Unless the question is not just "what is 6÷2(1+2)?", but instead "what did the person mean by the expression 6÷2(1+2)?". It's probably immpossible to know, unless we locate and ask them and assume they aren't lying, but it does give me more things to think and write about. If we try to get into the head of this likely hypothetical person, we can guess at a few reasons why they might have used the obelus instead of the far less ambiguous fraction bar.

Maybe they are young, or for some other reason, have only an elementary understanding of math and aren't aware of using fractions to represent division. After all, the obelus is still taught in early grade school, despite not being used in modern mathematics. I would guess that such a person would not have realized the 6 divides by the 2 and not the 2(1+2), and meant by the expression 1. Of course, it could go either way.

Or maybe the expression isn't "modern mathemetics" at all- maybe it was from back when the obelus was in common use. Depending on when, there might not have even been the convention yet to go left-to-right instead of multiplication first. Generally, however, the ÷ was used to separate the entire expression into numerator and denominator, meaning it was the top-level operation and always preformed last. In this use, the expression most likely is meant to equal 1.

Perhaps the most likely reason is that whoever wrote with expression intended for it to be ambiguous. The controversy drives engagement, which means social media algorithms show it to more people, causing it to "go viral". The fact that am writing about this at all is in itself good evidence for this one. In the unlikely case that whoever wrote it meant for there to be a correct answer, it would probably be whichever is the opposite of the more popular guess. From what I've seen, this would probably mean it is 1.

So in conclusion, the expression 6÷2(1+2) is probably equal to 1. Or maybe we should just stop using infix notation, or never use symbols for multiplication or division, or draw trees for our mathematical expressions.

I made a page about the prevalence of trucks and SUVs in today's America (and UK) and the problems it causes, linking to sources supporting the major points.

It serves well as a reference in arguments discussions.

For a while now, but especially recently, I've used two laptops: My main one, a Windows Dell that always sits on my desk with a second monitor, and my 'project' laptop, which is the subject of this post. It is a tiny MacBook Air that many years ago was the first computer that was 'mine'. Its over 12 years old at this point, but instead of throwing it away I decided to use it to experiment with different operating systems.

After some very quick research, I picked Arch Linux as my new OS. My choice was based mostly off its minimalism, which I figured would help with the laptop's limited specs (Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM, 64 GB disk space). Now with more experience, I can see that Arch was an even better choice than I initially knew. I've now spent many hours configuring various aspects of my system and solving various problems, all the while learning more about operating systems and a wide variety of other computing technologies. As long as you're willing to put in the time, setting up Arch can be fun and only sometimes extremely frustrating! (As a side note, I also now see how Arch users get their perceived superiority). Arch is the perfect distro for a 'project' laptop: low stakes, and meant to take time and effort.

Though such a personalized system is not really ever done, the laptop is now at a point where its pretty usable for everyday tasks. It can be kinda slow, but as long as I don't keep more than a few Firefox tabs open it's not too noticeable. In fact, I'm seriously considering replacing its dying battery and using it as a proper laptop; its tiny size and weight makes it easier to take places than my hot, bulky Dell.

For those interested, I sometimes push some of my dotfiles to https://github.com/owencompher/dotfiles. I use a custom stumpwm build, st, Palemoon, and vim.

I also spent a fair amount of time designing a new color theme to use. I previously used a variant of my old Desatur8 palette, which didn't map well to the classic terminal colors (yellow was orange and cyan was yellow) and also I was getting bored with. At first, I just adapted it to the classic terminal colors, but I decided I wanted something slightly more interesting than "desaturated". I borrowed the average color of the universe (and its name) and ended up with Cosmic Latte. My goals were more "neutral" colors for UI elements, a redder background/UI color, and a limit of 16 colors while still being usable as a terminal theme. I'm very happy with the result, and I've even started using for my website's theme.

Recently I've gotten back into origami and have rediscovered how annoying it is to find diagrams online. I'm not a huge fan of video tutorials, and other than Jo Nakashima and a few others, YouTube is full of low quality or simple and unoriginal tutorials. Gilad's Origami Page has a great database of designs and the books they are found in, but in order to access the diagrams I have to hope there is pdf of the book floating around. This can take some time and is of dubious legality. I felt it would be nice if I could pay a few bucks for easy access to online diagrams, instead of relying on piracy or paying $20 and waiting a week for a book full mostly of models I'm not interested in.

So thats how I got the idea for my most recent project/'learning experience': a website for finding and sharing (or possibly buying and selling) origami diagrams, similar to YouTube or iTunes or Spotify. I knew it would probably be one of my larger projects so I started by learning Docker, then starting with the Laravel framework. It was annoying to set up so I switched to Django and all the configuartion still felt unnescessary so I stopped using Docker and switched to Flask. I liked having more control of the way the project is organized.

Anyways I'm pretty proud of what I have and put the beta of 'origami app' up at https://origami.owencompher.me until I come up with a name and get the domain. I also still have a fair amount of things I want to do with the project, including actually finding content I can legally put on the site. If anyone actually reads this and is interested (first of all, hi!) you can make an account on the website and check out the repository at https://github.com/owencompher/origami-app.

I thought it would be cool to have some place to have a kind of notes.txt file- but on the internet. The idea is that I can easily access it from any device that has a browser and an internet connection. Instead of having a text file on my laptop, and the notes app on my iphone, and emails to myself, I just type into a webpage and click a button, and the content is immediately stored on my cloud sever. I have it up at files.owencompher.me/whiteboard.

The other property is that it is public. Even if I never find a good use for that fact it is still a pretty cool concept. It's also why I thought 'whiteboard' might be a good name for it; it's kinda like how people put little whiteboards on their dorm room doors for passing classmates to write things on. Right now it's password protected, but if you promise to not grief it the password is "whiteboard-unflexing-oriented-grouse!". I might eventually make a couple different versions, with different levels of privacy/security.

The tech is pretty simple: PHP to load the text file into a form textarea, and to overwrite the file when submitted with the correct password. I know there's probably some huge security issues, but I'm not too concerned; I don't plan on keeping anything sensitive anywhere near it.

In the last couple of days, I've been exploring the indie web and adding to my website/server. It started with some interest in feeds, but I've discovered a lot of different little things.

To subscribe to feeds, I set up the Miniflux feed reader on my web server. It works perfectly for what I was looking for, and for the past week I've been adding feeds and using it in addition to reddit, though I want to transition to using it alone. I strongly recommend the software to anyone else who is thinking about self-hosting feed aggregation. You are also welcome to use my instance, if you email me I'll make an account for you.

I also made an account on status.cafe, and have been using it along with the forum. It was created by m15o, who also made a whole bunch of other things I've come across, almost too many to list. A lot of it is focused on blogging and journaling, like nightfall.city and a lot of the things linked on it. I think the general mission of providing small, non-commercial social spaces is admirable, and as I transition away from increasingly enshittified spaces, these sites provide a nice alternative. I've also been thinking about getting into more Mastodon instances.

Some other things I've done:
- a clone of Neon Kiosk
- a personal DAViCal server

Since I've stopped using most social media the last few years, and since the reddit blackout/loss of apollo, I've started subscribing to rss/atom feeds and using that as my main source of entertainment. It has inspired me to create my own feed.

My idea for content is not to start blogging or making any kind of content, but instead a kind of manual aggregation of anything I post anywhere. Anytime I significantly update/add to my website or post on any social media I will document it or link to it here. If I ever do feel like writing a blog post or publishing some other kind of thing, I could always just do it here, instead of having to find it's own spot for it.

Basically, I don't think any other categories of content I publish deserve their own feed, so I'm making one for everything. Hopefully that will allow the frequency of posts stay somewhere about once a month.