“I ran George Zivkovic’s toll charges (C8) through WolframAlpha, a kind of ChatGPT for ‘arithmomaniacs’ on the off chance it could make sense of the new charges,” writes Jack Dikian of Mosman. “After quite a long wait it returned the answer ‘Undecidable.’ I looked up the meaning of undecidability in mathematics and surprise, surprise, here’s what I’ve found: ‘The undecidability of a problem means that an algorithm is impossible to build.’ And ‘No algorithm is presently known.’ Here’s proof of what we’ve always known – there’s simply no rhyme nor reason how these toll increases have been calculated.”
More on Kombigate (C8), with Andrew Brown of Bowling Alley Point stepping up on behalf of Marion Newall, to the extent that Tim Blatch may even have to re-Dak Dak his comments: “Any family who has travelled around in a Kombi knows that the hand pump for the sink gets water from a tank below the vehicle. How else do you wash the dishes?”
Marion’s UK drought observation, however, is another matter: “It’s true that having no rainfall for even as short as two weeks can result in a drought. The reason is a shortage of land mass to sustain such a large population,” says Susan McLaren of Windradyne. “Hence the saying from my youth ‘Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink’.”
“Years ago, a service station attendant asked me: ‘How’s your water?’ I told him to mind his own business,” says Laurie Le Claire of Epping.
The octogenarian aspirations (C8) of Peter Miniutti of Ashbury are rather lofty: “I would love to see my Tigers win another game before I’m 80. There’s only 15 years to go.” And 81-year-old pole vaulter Albert Gay of Raby appears to have become emboldened from getting a run on Friday and adds “I forgot to say that I’m also much better looking than Tom Cruise.”
By the time he gets to 80, Alan Smith of Toowoomba (Qld) just wants to “die at the hands of a jealous husband.”
“Keen to follow the printed stir-fry method in a Thai cookbook, I was Bairstowed (read stumped) by the following: ‘Add garlic until become yellow. Add meat chicken or elephant.’ Can any Column 8-ers suggest how many cloves of garlic I should use if I choose the elephant option and does anyone have an elephantine wok I could borrow?” asks Robert Bradley of Bowral.
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