Category: Sad

My oldest daughter is working on long division in her math class. This is their new method they’re learning to do it (sorry about the poor quality — it was a crappy phone cam image and then I tried to make it more readable in Photoshop).

Now how does this new method made things easier? It involves several more steps, and gets a helluva lot more complicated as you had more digits to the dividend. And this is followed several pages of pretty pictures that is supposed to make this make more sense. As an old math geek, this personally makes less sense to do it this way, as it involves more steps in the long run. There are then pages of pretty pictures that try to make it easier, but it just confuses me even further. My daughter’s smart enough to understand the old-school method, and prefers it to the new-fangled method.

Am I missing something here, or does the attempt to make all math into pretty pictures just make folks understand it less?

…but I have a TV on in the back room, and sadly turned it on to see Christina Aguilera screw up the national anthem.

Not only were the lyrics messed up, but seriously: Why can’t anybody sing the song normally, without doing the vocal gymnastics that some of these folks do when they sing it? Oh that’s right: It actually requires talent to hold a long sustained note, something that I don’t know if Christina Aguilera actually has. When sung right, our national anthem can bring you to tears. This had the same affect, but for different reasons.

Or just an average person? Yes, it’s an older marketing campaign that’s been ripped apart, but the point remains: How did we get here?

Along the same lines, a great write up on how we should just close the Washingoton Monument and a Q&A with the folks from Wired’s Danger Room.

I personally am also wondering why the media is flipping out on the WikiLeaks cable disclosures when, really, Julian Assage is doing the job those same reporters should be doing. A great read on that subject. Really, is it Assage’s fault for publicizing the documents, or US security for letting them out? The Aussies blame the US.

A great quote I just found from the day after 9/11: “If terrorists are able to make us curb freedom of assembly, freedom of speech…they’ve won more than we can imagine.”

Calvin and Hobbes launched 25 years ago today. Reddit is discussing their memories about the comic and I agree: I never looked forward to reading the comics like I did then.

If you want to go back and check them out or find your favorite comic, there’s a great Calvin and Hobbes search engine. The complete collection will always be on my wish list

And Don’t forget: tigers will do anything for a tuna fish sandwich.