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What more can I say ... |
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Colins Blog |
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Well, it was much more expensive than we thought, in part because we booked late, but not late enough to get the seats they are desperate to sell, and in part because the price quoted was nothing like the price paid. Once you paid for checked luggage (OK, we didn't have any) and check-in (OK, so we checked in online and that was free) we then had a confusing experience with selecting seats, and for some reason seemed to get charged because we had chosen some seats. How we could avoid doing that I'm not really sure, but I digress ...
Then we had to pay to get from CDG to central Paris, which turned out to be Euro 8.70 each, each way, so that adds more, but I digress ...
The real major bmibaby fail was that they've sent me an email advertising something or other when I specifically, explicitly, every time I was asked, clicked the box to say "Do not email me your special offers."
I'm not going to complain to them, evidence suggests it would be useless, and given that they haven't listened to me yet, why would they listen to that. So I'll tell people - bmibaby will email you, even if you ask them not to.
Thanks, bmibaby. Fail.
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OK, so at no point did I ever think maths was no fun but this limerick was too good to pass up ... |
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What more can I say ... |
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This is a bona fide rant, with very little basis in research, or
indeed in facts at all. I've ranted based on random snippets I've
heard, and a degree of frustration that I get second hand from some
of the teachers I have the honour of working with.
And I don't say "honour" lightly. I get to work with dedicated teachers who are occasionally struggling against the odds to impart an eduction despite the best efforts of the students, the parents and the system. Indeed, sometimes against the best efforts of their colleagues. This is not a rant against teachers, it's a rant on their behalf. If I've got it wrong, email me and tell me. I'll definitely be listening. |
To me, it just seems to be surface area, but you only count some faces of the item in question. For a cylinder you don't count the top or bottom, for a prism you don't count the top or bottom, for a pyramid you don't count the bottom, and there is no top.
What about a frustum? That didn't seem clear. What about a hemisphere? I found no mention of that.
Perhaps the thing to do is to teach areas of faces, and then separately decide that sometimes we don't want some of them, such as the top or bottom. Then the students can work out which bits should be computed, and which bits to ignore.
But no doubt the students will say "Just tell me the answer!" and won't want to think about it. Thinking is hard, and to be avoided at all costs.
"Just give me the answer!"
No wonder so many people are left with the impression that maths is just a bunch of disconnected, unmotivated and arbitrary rules. After all, that's what the student actually ask for.
Finally the 21st Century is drawing me in, like some simile a good writer might use. I've started to use twitter and Facebook, and so my extraordinary amounts of spare time (snort) have found another sink.
Recently I mentioned to James Grime that 10! seconds is exactly 6 weeks, and the response has been surprising. It seems that this is new to people, and it's been re-tweeted and re-tweeted. If only I'd thought to tweet it rather than just mention it in random conversation.
So I've started to tweet these random things. There are many more to come, but I've just mentioned that there are pi seconds in a nano-century.
But now there's a problem. I need to write these things down somewhere, and then cross them off when I've used them. I'll look stupid if I repeat too many, and it's daft to bring them all out at once. I need somewhere to write them down and keep track. I need an external brain.
Recently I've started to use these web pages for exactly that, but I can't use them, because then people will find them.
Argh! Perhaps I'm just paranoid, perhaps it's all too complicated, perhaps I should go back to pencil and paper.
Perhaps I should worry less and get on with life ...
ADDED LATER: OK, I've now got a Random Factlets page ...
I've just been visiting the National Rail web site to try to get train times. Giving the number of talks I do I often have unusual requirements, so I torture the site somewhat until it confesses. On this occasion, though, I am stumped.
I'm going to Hemel Hempstead, and so I asked for trains from my local station. No problem. I wondered if there was any difference if I went via London. The options given were similar. Then I wondered about going via Liverpool instead of Chester, so I asked for services via Liverpool.
When it gave me the same options as before I was curious, so I asked for details. Sure enough, despite asking for a train via Liverpool, I got trains via Chester.
Useless. More than useless, it gave me the wrong answer, and took 10 minutes to do so.
Then I went to the scheduling service on a German web site:
Two and a half minutes, result.
Don't bother with the National Rail web site unless you're happy not only to be bombarded by ads, and give them your money, but also to give them 30 minutes of your life for the wrong answer.
Nothing changes. (Actually the "quotation" isn't, but it would be nice if it were.) |
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Do you realize that the only time in our lives
when we like to get old is when we're kids? If
you're less than 10 years old, you're so
excited about aging that you think in fractions.
"How old are you?" "I'm four and a half!" You're never thirty-six and a half. You're four and a half, going on five! That's the key. You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead. "How old are you?" "I'm gonna be 16!" You could be 13, but hey,you're gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life . . you Become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony ... YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!! But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There's no fun now, you're Just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed? You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone. But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would! So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60. You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday! You get into your 80s and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime. And it doesn't end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; "I Was JUST 92." Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. "I'm 100 and a half!" May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!! - Sometimes attributed to George Carlin, but source unconfirmed. |
The average life expectancy is now around 67. That includes many, many deaths due to poor sanitation and poor nutrition, so if we take the life expectancy in the countries where most deaths are from old-age, cancer, etc., then life expectancy is around 80.
So suppose 60 is the upper limit of "middle aged". That makes 60 to 80 "old age", and I guess we should assume that the middle years are also 20 in number. We become middle aged at 40.
But now that means that we don't really become people until we're 20. That accords somewhat with a semi-jocular, semi-serious contention I've had for a while, that children aren't human. They're exceptionally intelligent aliens, who acquire the knowledge to become human, and gradually do so through their teens. We all know that teenagers most definitely aren't human.
So there we are. From 0 to 13 (or so) we are aliens, then from 13 to 20 we mutate, becoming fully human at about 20, although obviously that varies from individual to individual. Then we have 20 to 40 not really thinking about our age, we hit 40 and become middle-aged, go on to old age at around 60, and then we're on borrowed time. It all fits.
I'm not entirely convinced I find that comforting.
And it was blatting down.
She was getting quite wet, and I thought - if that were me, I'd like a lift.
But I couldn't stop and offer one, because no doubt I'd get a look that asked what rock I'd crawled out from under, and what kind of a pervert I really was, and did I really think she was stupid enough to get into a car with someone she didn't know, even if she was getting half-drowned and would prefer to ride.
But I figured she didn't know me, so even if she thought I was demented, and even if she refused point blank, nothing would be lost. So I stopped and offered a ride to a perfect stranger who was getting very wet. Those who know me will know that it's the sort of thing I would do.
What I didn't realise was quite how much vitriol could be inserted into what might otherwise be a polite declining of a simple offer to help.
I won't do that again. Shame, really.
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That was closer than I realised, closer than people said.
Of course, it's night, the fires were bright, perhaps they're not as close as they look. For many they were closer. Much closer.
Too close.
See Time Functions ...
See Graceful Degradation ...
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