Category: Funny

Evolution of Teaching Math

Got this one from a co-worker who knows I used to be a total math junkie…

Last week when purchasing a burger at Burger King for $1.58. The counter girl took my $2 and I was digging for my change when I pulled 8 cents from my pocket and gave it to her. She stood there, holding the nickel and 3 pennies, while looking at the screen on her register. I sensed her discomfort and tried to tell her to just give me two quarters, but she hailed the manager for help. While he tried to explain the transaction to her, she stood there and cried.

Why do I tell you this?

Because of the evolution in teaching math since the 1950s:

Teaching Math In 1950: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1960: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1970: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?

Teaching Math In 1980: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

Teaching Math In 1990: A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers.)

Teaching Math In 2005: Un hachero vende una carretada de Madera por $100. El costo de la produccin es $80.

How Do You Handle Bend’s Roundabouts?

If you’re looking for something to give to your out-of-town friends that will help them manage the city’s foreseeable 10,000 roundabouts, print up and give them this handy guide.

On a side note, Chris sent me a high-resolution version of this formatted to fit a tri-fold brochure. I’m going to print up a few of them on some tri-fold card stock here and run them through our color laser printer here at the office. If you want to pass them around, feel free to download the ten-megabyte 600-DPI PDF here (on my server, as I didn’t want to kill Chris’ site — and no, zipping the file didn’t decrease the file size enough to make it worth the trouble).

If you need a brochure, and are out in the Sunriver area, let me know and I’ll print one up for you!

The World’s Ugliest Sweaters

We were cleaning out one of our homes, and noticed a couple of items that were left in the home. These have to be, by far, the ugliest sweaters I’ve ever seen:

 

Now, the pictures of these things don’t really do them justice (which is no fault of my co-worker who is holding them). Those various painted items you see on the sweaters (the anchor, boat, sea horses, etc…) are all made of wood that’s about a half inch thick. There is a small hole in the top of each of the items where thread is run through and then sewn into the sweater, causing the little wood trinkets to flop around like ornaments on a Christmas tree.

I’d like to meet the person who wore those things. Actually, maybe I don’t.

Rules For Trolls

If you’re going to troll or otherwise try to bad-mouth a professional writer or columnist, at least follow some basic rules (thanks Barn for that link).

Like To Drink But Don’t Like To Read?

Then turn your books into a bar.

Mythbusters Lost Experiments

Yes, I know this link has made it around the Web a few times lately, but I know many folks reading this may not have seen it. Hilarious videos of moments you’ll never see on the show.

The History Of The BASIC and C Programming Languages

You really have to be a geek to appreciate some of the humor here, but the history of BASIC and the C family of languages.

Never Believe Anything You Read At Auction News Sites

BBspot, a great geek satirical news site, wrote a satirical story about eBay implementing a one-click bidding feature. I mean, I have a hard time believing that people can read stuff like this…

Users like Harold Sweiss have been ecstatic about the new feature. “I’ve been trying to purchase a copy of Vanilla Ice’s To The Extreme on vinyl for several years, but I kept getting outbid at the last minute. But now, with one-click bidding, I finally got my prized possession, and I only had to pay $1,454,248.23!”

…and still take the article seriously. Or maybe they just didn’t make it that far.

Just the same, the article was quoted as a news source in not only one, but two articles (screenshot of the latter in case it goes down).

Link via the BBspot mail bag.

There’s A Robber On The Loose

A ski-mask robber made a couple stops last night, and, reading the story, it looks like he may have been involved in other robberies in the past. But I think the crime will be easily solvable as I think Chris has found an undesputable pattern in the robberies: it’s all about the fake cheese.

New Rules

While these kinds of things that get sent around via e-mail are usually attributed to George Carlin, he had nothing to do with this one (as usual). These hilarious “New Rules” are by one of my favorite comedians, Bill Maher, and this list is excerpted from a few of his shows on HBO (and thanks Barney for these):

New Rule: Stop giving me that pop-up ad for Classmates.com! There’s a reason you don’t talk to people for 25 years. Because you don’t particularly like them! Besides, I already know what the captain of the football team is doing these days: mowing my lawn.

New Rule: Don’t eat anything that’s served to you out a window unless you’re a seagull. People are acting all shocked that a human finger was found in a bowl of Wendy’s chili. Hey, it cost less than a dollar. What did you expect it to contain? Trout? Luckily, it was only a finger! If it was a whole hand, Congress would have voted to keep it alive.

New Rule: Stop saying that teenage boys who have sex with their hot, blonde teachers are permanently damaged. I have a better description for these kids: lucky bastards.

New Rule: Ladies, leave your eyebrows alone. Here’s how much men care about your eyebrows: do you have two of them? Okay, we’re done.

New Rule: There’s no such thing as flavored water. There’s a whole aisle of this crap at the supermarket, water, but without that watery taste. Sorry, but flavored water is called a soft drink. You want flavored water? Pour some scotch over ice and let it melt. That’s your flavored water.

New Rule: The more complicated the Starbucks order, the bigger the asshole. If you walk into a Starbucks and order a “decaf grande half-soy, half-low fat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one Sweet-n’-Low and one NutraSweet,” ooh, you’re a huge asshole.

New Rule: Just because your tattoo has Chinese characters in it doesn’t make you spiritual. It’s right above the crack of your ass. And it translates to “beef with broccoli.” The last time you did anything spiritual, you were praying to God you weren’t pregnant. You’re not spiritual. You’re just high.

New Rule: Competitive eating isn’t a sport. It’s one of the seven deadly sins. ESPN recently televised the US Open of Competitive Eating, because watching those athletes at the poker table was just too damned exciting. What’s next, competitive farting? Oh wait. They’re already doing that. It’s called “The Howard Stern Show.”

New Rule: If you’re going to insist on making movies based on crappy, old television shows, then you have to give everyone in the Cineplex a remote so we can see what’s playing on the other screens. Let’s remember the reason something was a television show in the first place is the idea wasn’t good enough to be a movie.

New Rule: No more gift registries. You know, it used to be just for weddings. Now it’s for babies and new homes and graduations from rehab. Picking up the stuff you want and having other people buy it for you isn’t gift giving, it’s the white people version of looting.

New Rule, and this one is long overdue: No more bathroom attendants. After I zip up, some guy is offering me a towel and a mint like I just had sex with George Michael. I can’t even tell if he’s supposed to be there, or just some freak with a fetish. I don’t want to be on your web cam, dude. I just want to wash my hands.

New Rule: When I ask how old your toddler is, I don’t need to know in months. “27 Months.” “He’s two,” will do just fine. He’s not a cheese. And I didn’t really care in the first place.