Year of the Pitcher? Nah. Year of the Fielder.
Some thoughts and math into the huge offensive decline this season.
If You Meet An Alien
An infographic suggesting what you should do if you just so happen to be the first ever human to meet one.
Super Crunchers
An awesome book I have been reading about how statistical regressions are slowly but surely replacing expert intuition in pretty much every industry. Fuck you Mr. wine connoisseur, I have data and equations!
The coin flip is a fundamentally unfair proposition.
I’ve always suspected the difference in mass on each side of a coin could affect the result.
A printable chart of dough an batter ratios.
Super useful! A PDF is apparently coming soon so we can print at home.
Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking.
Michael Ruhlman has a new book and it’s about the place where math and food meet. In other words, he wrote it especially for me.
I Am Building A 6-Foot Diameter Sphere
Maybe I can get into the details of what my school is like some other time, but regardless, there is a Curriculum Fair coming up in May. At this fair, the entire student body’s (Pre-K to 8) work will be displayed. I’m in charge of the math area, and I have decided to display the work on gigantic three-dimensional objects (cube, pyramid, sphere for now). The solids with actual vertices will be easy but…
3.
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3305727036 5759591953 0921861173 8193261179 3105118548
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Learn some math
In a case of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, I just found a link titled A Gentle Introduction To Learning Calculus. You see, a few days ago, Sammy and I were talking about Math and how Sammy wished he knew some more advanced math. I said something to the effect of “oh, you should head on reddit and check out the math subreddit. They post stuff like that all the time.” Sammy suggested that maybe I should post these things here because people might be interested. I didn’t believe him, but I guess we’ll see. Cause I’m posting it here.
Bookshelf
I’ve been listening to oldies, drinking Heineken, and operating a table saw all afternoon/evening. I made a goddamn bookshelf and I feel great. More to come… I’m going to go admire it and then put on a layer of primer (I decided to paint instead of stain).
When the last time you hammered while hammered?
The Monty Hall Problem
I feel like arguing. So here’s a classic Game Theory problem I heard at Rowan that we can argue about:
You’re on a gameshow and you have to pick between three doors. One door contains a car, the other two doors contain goats. You pick a door and the host opens another door, revealing a goat, and offers you a chance to switch doors.
Do you switch? If so, what is the probability of being correct? If not, what is the probability of being correct?
A New Arithmetic
Apparently kids are learning a new way to do math that involves less memorization and factoring and such and more creative methods. One example caught my interest:
When they multiply 23 times 5, they’ll do five 20s to get 100, and then add five 3s to get 15, and they put that all together and get 115.
This is how I’ve always done math in my head. Percentages, multiplication, whatever, I break it down into mini problems and add them or half them or whatever. But apparently kids are having a lot of problem learning this way.
How did you folks learn it? How do you do it now? Any of the parents here have any thoughts?
Advanced Complexity Theory textbook "beta'd" online
Once known as “chaos theory” and adored by Jurrasic Park fans everywhere, complexity theory has grown quite a bit and has applications on everything from the weather to computation theory. Apparently some very smart people at Princeton have written a new textbook on the subject and have uploaded a draft on the web. Definitely could make for some interesting reading on a rainy day.
Car Talk Puzzler!
I heard this on Car Talk earlier this morning. See if you can get it!
A woman driving her car first notices that the last 4 digits of her odometer are a palindrome.
One mile later, the last 5 digits of her odometer are a palindrome.
One mile after that, the middle 4 digits are a palindrome.
One mile after that, all 6 odometer digits are a palindrome.
What was the original odometer reading?