{"id":2128,"date":"2023-07-17T14:40:33","date_gmt":"2023-07-17T14:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dbaustin.com\/wlbott\/?p=2128"},"modified":"2025-02-14T18:41:35","modified_gmt":"2025-02-15T00:41:35","slug":"the-hungry-goat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/?p=2128","title":{"rendered":"The Hungry Goat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Unindicted co-conspirator #2 called from Oslo to ask the following question:

Here\u2019s a simple-sounding problem: Imagine a circular fence that encloses one acre of grass. If you tie a goat to the inside of the fence, how long a rope do you need to allow the animal access to exactly half an acre?<\/cite> – Quanta Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Late breaking…. UC#2 has solved it, without the necessity of buying the farm….<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cider consumed during the solution process<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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As the paterfamilias<\/a>, I suggested that UC#2 purchase a farm with an existing circular irrigation system. Additional purchases include: goat (1), rope (1). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I suggested that the problem is basically one of Venn diagrams. We have to look for the intersection of crops that are grown using circular irrigation, and food which goats enjoy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This raises many questions. How long should the food be? One foot? One meter? What is browsing? What is a goat’s preferred browser?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Goat Preferences: Internet Browser<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Brutally honest, but perhaps a bit speciesist. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Cost Effectiveness<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So the standard circular irrigation system covers 130 acres (with a pivot arm of 1\/4 mile (0.402336 km), but for our research we need only one acre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So, we need a pivot arm that is 1\/2 of 166.5267465 feet (1\/2 of 5075.73523332 cm).
Note that the diameter of a hydrogen atom is about 0.00000001 cm, so we will need some really precision tooling.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Going Gets Weird<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When accessing the Quora query, we get the following screen:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I consider this a major failure of the Quora AI advertising algorithm. What individual that spends his\/her su\/ella time researching math\/agriculture\/goat problems, and would actually have a boyfriend\/girlfriend?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cute Baby Goats<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Goats of Anarchy<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Video!<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Goat Pajama Party (USA Today)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unindicted co-conspirator #2 called from Oslo to ask the following question: Here\u2019s a simple-sounding problem: Imagine a circular fence that encloses one acre of grass. If you tie a goat to the inside of the fence, how long a rope do you need to allow the animal access to exactly half an acre? – Quanta […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[32,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mildly-interesting","category-random-acts-of-wlbottness"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2128"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44643,"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128\/revisions\/44643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}