Rainbow Glitter Poo is still Poo.  Put your favourite caption in the comments.

So please, use this photo, caption it, and distribute it widely.  Please link back here whenever possible.

A young working-class lad of perhaps 23 sets himself up at a table and typewriter in my city of residence and, dressed in gentlemanly clothes and armed with a 17th century dictionary and copies of Shakespeare's comedic works, proceeds to produce for passersby unique, off-the-cuff "Shakespearean Insults" typed onto small slips of paper.

Some months ago while out for a promenade with the young lady I was courting at the time, We came upon this young man and he proceeded to produce for us, at no expense, two insults, and then instructed us to read them to each other "with gusto."

Well, my good sirs, I happily say we did just that and to this day the insult he had me read to my lady remains tacked to the corkboard in my study.

Anyhow, to get to the heart of my tale, my friend the OP might consider arming himself with the following phrase, provided to me free of charge by this most whimsical young Shakespearean Insulter:

"Thou errant doghearted flax-wench!"

As an aside for any who may be curious, here is the young man's website.
http://alejandroerickson.com/joomla/personal-projects/88-insulting-people-for-money

I have since retired the insult machine in favour of more lucrative pursuits, but I am nearly ready to revive it now.  It appears my audience took some creative liberties that I approve of.

18th Century French mathematician, Buffon, asked "What is the probability that a needle which falls on the floor, crosses one of the lines between the floor boards?".  It turns out that this number can be used in a Monte Carlo method to approximate π.

We dropped our "needle" 100 times, and got an approximation of 3.22, which is pretty close to 3.14 (considering the small number of trials).

You can read more and find a proof at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffon's_needle

I discovered this cool fact on http://io9.com/5862070/find-pi-with-a-sewing-needle which was posted on http://joindiaspora.com

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2011/11/16/toronto-school-balls.html

Who wants to start a soccer ball fund for abandoning soccer balls on the school's property, in protest of this new rule?

Kids get hurt having fun, period.  (and ironically, the rule was introduced when a parent was injured).

Our group, associated with Cativeiro, is very grass roots and intimate, with classes in Victoria and Duncan, BC.  Our graduation ceremony (called Batizado and Troca de Corda), was held in Duncan this past weekend.  My ceremonial fight was with invited Professor Formiga (which means Ant).  The take down he uses on me is called a tesoro (spelling?), and yes, the landing was a bit rough.  It is a common tradition that you are taken down by a professor or higher when you receive a belt.  At the end I was asked to name a capoeira god mother, and as you can see I was quite surprised by this.  I pointed at the nearest and fairest lady in the crowd (thanks!).

Capoeira is a combination of martial arts, dance, and brazilian folk music.  There is an uplifting energy that is felt when one plays capoeira, especially when you can put a few moves together.  I recommend it to anyone who is serious about doing regular exercise and rising to challenges.

Prof Formiga says "I sharpen my feet," at the start of the fight, and I avoid his take downs a few times before he gets me.

CRYSTAL TRIUMPH

Here is a sneak preview of the letters I used on the business card.  Your feedback will help me shape the rest of them and make it available on your computer!

The title of the newsletter comes from the story behind Fermat's last theorem.  He had written in the margins of his notebook:

it is impossible to separate a cube into two cubes, or a fourth power into two fourth powers, or in general, any power higher than the second, into two like powers. I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain. (wikipedia)

This article is a condensed version of a result in the conference proceedings: A. Erickson, M. Schurch, 2011: Enumerating tatami mat arrangements of square grids, in 22nd International Workshop on Combinatorial Algorithms, University of Victoria, June 20-22, volume 7056 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS), Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, 2011, p. 12 pages.

Abstract:

Tatami mats are the type of mats used in traditional Japanese rooms. Often, an arrangement in which four mats meet at a point is considered unlucky, perhaps because the word “four” sounds like the word “death” in Japanese. So, a “lucky” layout has no “+” shapes formed by the lines where mats meet. Compare the following two arrangements.

Tatami tilings are accessible and fun, so go ahead and take a gander!

You'll no longer be sitting beside that sexy marine biologist dressed up as a sea anemone wishing that you could have a research themed costume too.

Finally, there is a combinatorics themed halloween costume!  Sport this beautiful Arduino and LED based rendition of Cool-lex combinations (research by Aaron Williams and Frank Ruskey), and show off your nerd times 2.

Here is the technical stuff on the combinations:

http://webhome.cs.uvic.ca/~ruskey/Publications/Coollex/Coollex.html

I used adafruit's LDP6803 LEDs.  There are tutorials on how to use them on that page.