Question on learning arithmetic (re old Heart of the City strip)
leno...@yahoo.com
What do we need to learn this stuff for anyway? That's what
CALCULATORS are for! If I want to know what TIME it is, I just LOOK at
a clock - I don't need to know how a clock WORKS!"
So my question is, since that makes perfect sense to most children -
and quite a few spoiled adults, unfortunately - how DO teachers and
parents explain the need to memorize math procedures, ASIDE from, as
Adam@Home once put it, the chance that a super virus will wipe out all
electronics, including expensive watches, at a time that happens to be
bad for you?
After all, it's not usually enough just to say to kids "that's the
lazy way to do it," since adults constantly take the easy way out if
only so as to have more time to concentrate on the things they care
about most - and that happen to be truly important. Example: Whom do
you know who NEVER uses a washing machine and washes everything by
hand only for the sake of not "being lazy"?
Lenona.
aemeijers
Well, up to a certain point, the kids and lazy adults are right. If, and
ONLY if, they have internalized the concepts of the various mathematical
operations, using a calculator is a valid time saver. But the sanity
check in any school or real-world math problem is the human saying 'that
can't be right'. If the number-crunching is PFM to them, and they can't
even do a rough calculation in their head, they have to take it on faith
that the calculator or computer came up with the right answer, AND that
they interpreted the problem correctly and put the right numbers in.
Hey, I'm getting lazy and slothful in middle age. I use various
calculators and computers, and I use TurboTax. But if I had to, I could
still do it the old-fashioned way. I do keep pencil and paper, and those
big ancient books of Important Math Concepts and lookup tables, filed
away just in case. I would definitely do the stubby-pencil work 3 times
or until I got the same answer twice in a row, whichever comes first.
And as to washing clothes- I'm a guy and live alone. If they don't smell
or itch or have obvious stains or rips, I'm good to go.
--
aem sends....
Sherwood Harrington
> But if I had to, I could
> still do it the old-fashioned way.
Could you still extract a square root by hand without looking up how to do
it first? I don't think I could -- no, I'm *sure* I couldn't.
--
Sherwood Harrington
Boulder Creek, California
Paul Ciszek
In article <013525f1-2596-4b1e...@j38g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>,
Well, my reply would be that if you don't understand how arithmetic
works, if you don't have a feel for it, you can't properly add,
subtract, multiply and divide expressions in algebara.
Of course, the reply to this is most likely to be "Why do we have to
know math at all? We have geeks to do that!"
If on the slim chance that the student does acknowledge the usefulness
of math, they will reply that their calculator can do algebra for them
as well. My reply to that used to be that without a firm grasp of
algebra, you will never be able to hack calculus. But now they can
just point out that their calculators will do the calculus for them,
too--not just numerical integration and differentiation, but actual
analytical derivatives and anti-derivatives.
Sigh.
--
Please reply to: | "One of the hardest parts of my job is to
pciszek at panix dot com | connect Iraq to the War on Terror."
Autoreply is disabled | -- G. W. Bush, 9/7/2006
racs...@gmail.com
> After all, it's not usually enough just to say to kids "that's the
> lazy way to do it," since adults constantly take the easy way out if
> only so as to have more time to concentrate on the things they care
> about most - and that happen to be truly important.
You're assuming there is a necessary explanation beyond "no TV until
your homework is done."
I'm all in favor of dialogue with kids, but you have to recognize the
difference between a quest for dialogue and
bitching about homework. This is just bitching about homework, and the
response that comes to mind is the quote from, I think, James Thurber:
"'Shut up,' he explained."
If there is a time when homework isn't (literally) on the table, say
when you are in the car -- assuming you don't allow your children to
simply plug into electronics and ignore their families while driving
-- and your child, in a reasonable, conversational tone asks, "So, how
come we have to learn long division? Why can't we just use our
calculators?"
Then you might say, "You need to understand how it works. The idea
isn't to find out the answer to those questions. It's to teach you how
long division works. There's a lot of stuff you learn that you might
not use right away, but that you need to know to be the kind of person
who makes intelligent decisions."
That should open an interesting discussion that will be much more fun
than "why do I have to work when I'd rather slack off?"
Mike Peterson
http://nellieblogs.blogspot.com
Tove Momerathsson
Back in the day when teenagers still delivered newspapers, I had a
paperboy who carried a calculator so he could make change. He comes
to collect $9.50, I give him a $10 bill, and he punches in numbers
to determine that he has to give me two quarters.
More recently, a teenager working the register in a hardware store
tells me the total is $8.53. I bring out a $10 bill and - while I'm
still digging in my pocket to find three pennies - she enters $10
as the amount tendered and the register displays $1.47 as the amount
of change due. I'm starting to proffer the three cents and she
looks at them and tears start to form at the corners of her eyes.
So I put the three cents away.
Now, these kids may be absolute geniuses at what they think to be
important - Grand Theft Auto, an encyclopedic knowledge of Twilight,
whatever - but they are sadly unequipped for the real world. And
sooner or later, someone will take advantage of their ignorance.
</curmudgeonly rant>
Tove
Dann
news:ggc76l$tht$1...@blue.rahul.net.
> aemeijers <aeme...@att.net> wrote:
>
>> But if I had to, I could
>> still do it the old-fashioned way.
>
> Could you still extract a square root by hand without looking up how
> to do it first? I don't think I could -- no, I'm *sure* I couldn't.
>
Well I feel much better about admitting a similar inability. Always nice
to know the membership list before you join the club.
--
Regards,
Dann
blogging at http://web.newsguy.com/dainbramage/blog.htm
Freedom works; each and every time it is tried.
Mark Jackson
I, for one, welcome our new silicon-based overlords.
--
Mark Jackson - http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~mjackson
I do not believe in conspiracy theories, though
I do know that there is a secret international
organization that invents them. - Mike Lawrence
Mark Jackson
> aemeijers <aeme...@att.net> wrote:
>
>> But if I had to, I could
>> still do it the old-fashioned way.
>
> Could you still extract a square root by hand without looking up how to do
> it first? I don't think I could -- no, I'm *sure* I couldn't.
You can always apply Newton's method.
nickelshrink
Speaking as someone who dreaded and despised math,
and still finds it as difficult as contortion, but now
understands what it does for the brain - i don't think it's
possible to get a child to understand why s/he needs to
learn something to which s/he's not naturally inclined.
I have a terrible, horrible time with anything abstract.
Having to do it seemed not just painful, but pointlessly
so. It wasn't pointless, but the one and the only thing you
could have explained to me was, "You have to." That
kind of works to get a kid to do the bare minimum, but
only the minimum. I got a D- in algebra 1, and my school
required no more. I made sure i applied only to colleges
that required nothing more, and in the early 1970's,
they weren't so hard to come by.
--
pax,
ruth
Save trees AND money! Buy used books!
http://stores.ebay.com/Noir-and-More-Books-and-Trains
aemeijers
> aemeijers <aeme...@att.net> wrote:
>
>> But if I had to, I could
>> still do it the old-fashioned way.
>
> Could you still extract a square root by hand without looking up how to do
> it first? I don't think I could -- no, I'm *sure* I couldn't.
>
I could swag an approximation within an order of magnitude, which is
sometimes close enough. But to get to decimal-three, no, I'd probably
have to pull down a reference book, or at least an old HS textbook.
--
aem sends...
Beefies
>> still do it the old-fashioned way.
>
> Could you still extract a square root by hand without looking up how to do
> it first? I don't think I could -- no, I'm *sure* I couldn't.
>
machine to go "ding," I used to do exactly that. Pick a number, figure out
its square root. Logarithms, too. For fun.
I wasn't *that* big a freak (was I???). It just helped to have something on
the paper that looked vaguely sciency when the supervisor wandered by. On
the other side of the paper was cartoons.
Brian F.
http://brianfies.blogspot.com
Jim Ellwanger
Mark Jackson <mjac...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
> Sherwood Harrington wrote:
>
> > Could you still extract a square root by hand without looking up how to do
> > it first? I don't think I could -- no, I'm *sure* I couldn't.
>
> You can always apply Newton's method.
Forget about the whole thing and go eat some fig cookies instead?
--
Jim Ellwanger <use...@ellwanger.tv>
<http://www.ellwanger.tv> welcomes you daily.
"The days turn into nights; at night, you hear the trains."
Mike Beede
Sherwood Harrington <sherw...@SPAMrahul.net> wrote:
> aemeijers <aeme...@att.net> wrote:
>
> > But if I had to, I could
> > still do it the old-fashioned way.
>
> Could you still extract a square root by hand without looking up how to do
> it first? I don't think I could -- no, I'm *sure* I couldn't.
I never had to do it by hand, having started actual math
classes just after calculators became available (in the late
1970s). How *did* you do it? Log tables or trial and error
or some version of Newton's method seem like reasonable
solutions, but I'd have expected everyone to have used slide
rules. Heck, even *I* used a slide rule sometimes, since it
actually seemed like you had to _know_ something to make it
work and it just felt . . . well, *geekier*.
Mike Beede
Mark Jackson
> In article <ggc76l$tht$1...@blue.rahul.net>,
> Sherwood Harrington <sherw...@SPAMrahul.net> wrote:
>> Could you still extract a square root by hand without looking up how to do
>> it first? I don't think I could -- no, I'm *sure* I couldn't.
>
> I never had to do it by hand, having started actual math
> classes just after calculators became available (in the late
> 1970s). How *did* you do it?
http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/squareRoot.html looks familiar to me.
> Log tables or trial and error
> or some version of Newton's method seem like reasonable
> solutions, but I'd have expected everyone to have used slide
> rules. Heck, even *I* used a slide rule sometimes, since it
> actually seemed like you had to _know_ something to make it
> work and it just felt . . . well, *geekier*.
Slide rules, of a length that is practical to carry around, only give
you two or three digits. If that's good enough, they're good enough.
Sherwood Harrington
> Mike Beede wrote:
>> In article <ggc76l$tht$1...@blue.rahul.net>,
>> Sherwood Harrington <sherw...@SPAMrahul.net> wrote:
>>> Could you still extract a square root by hand without looking up how to do
>>> it first? I don't think I could -- no, I'm *sure* I couldn't.
>>
>> I never had to do it by hand, having started actual math
>> classes just after calculators became available (in the late
>> 1970s). How *did* you do it?
> http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/squareRoot.html looks familiar to me.
Yes, that's the method I was taught. Brian (Fies), is that what you used
to doodle?
LNER...@juno.com
Seek out the Dilbert cartoon where the cashier says something like
"Your total is $36.84" and Dilbert says, "Let me make it easy for you;
here's $42.09." Then he says something to the effect of "I always try
to advance the practical application of math" while the cashier is
tying himself in knots trying to do the math......
At least in an urban setting, I can always make the excuse to cashiers
to whom I do this kind of thing myself, "I need the %*&#@ quarters for
the %(*&@# parking meters, OK?"
aemeijers
Thanks a bunch. Now I'm gonna have Junior High flashbacks all night.
Thought I had finally blocked that out for good....
--
aem sends...
LNER...@juno.com
> More recently, a teenager working the register in a hardware store
> tells me the total is $8.53. I bring out a $10 bill and - while I'm
> still digging in my pocket to find three pennies - she enters $10
> as the amount tendered and the register displays $1.47 as the amount
> of change due. I'm starting to proffer the three cents and she
> looks at them and tears start to form at the corners of her eyes.
> So I put the three cents away.
>
there..........
About three years ago I was in a drug store buying my daily newspaper
and maybe something else, when I realized that tucked in my wallet was
a sample of a professional-magician's-prop one-million-dollar bill.
This was no cheap novelty; it was a hideously "accurate" item produced
on paper that was realistically close to the real thing, and even
incorporated fake watermarks. (The production bills sell for $25
apiece to pro magicians in Vegas and the like, and usually their
distribution is seriously restricted. This was a slightly flawed bill
sent as a sample to one of my clients, a pro magician who has worked
the White House and various embassies in DC.) Feeling mischievous, I
handed the youngish male clerk, a newbie I had never seen working
there before, the bill.
He cracked a big smile and said, "THAT'S not real....... is it?"
I, still in need of my second cup of tea that morning, managed to keep
a deadpan face and wearily reply, "You're probably gonna have to go to
the manager to break that this early in the morning......."
He promptly turned and went towards the manager's office. With the
bill.
Suddenly, the impact of what I had just done hit me. I started to
scream "No!" at him, but time instantly slowed like it does during
moments of such abject horror, and he didn't hear me. All I could do
was grimace and peek through my fingers as he actually handed the
older female manager the bill and said something. I didn't need to
hear it; the facial expressions alone indicated her voice went up an
octave screaming at him with incredulity and possibly a choice
expletive or two, and as he turned she swatted the back of his head.
I apologized as he returned, somewhat chagrined, reclaimed my "funny
money," and paid for my goods with dollar bills.
I never saw that guy working at that drug store again.
leno...@yahoo.com
wrote:
> On Nov 23, 12:20 pm, lenona...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> > After all, it's not usually enough just to say to kids "that's the
> > lazy way to do it," since adults constantly take the easy way out if
> > only so as to have more time to concentrate on the things they care
> > about most - and that happen to be truly important.
>
> You're assuming there is a necessary explanation beyond "no TV until
> your homework is done."
>
> I'm all in favor of dialogue with kids, but you have to recognize the
> difference between a quest for dialogue and
> bitching about homework. This is just bitching about homework, and the
> response that comes to mind is the quote from, I think, James Thurber:
> "'Shut up,' he explained."
Understood. Very well. (See my profile.)
I do believe that most of the time, if kids can't figure out the
reason for adults' rules on their own, they're just going to think
"that's stupid" when an adult tries to explain. (An obvious type of
exception would be, say, explaining to kids why doctors have to give
them shots now and then, since kids can understand that even if they
*claim* they'd rather get sick. At least they'll know that the doctor
isn't trying to be a bully.)
I just thought that, even though Heart was clearly being bitchy, she
really WOULD have liked to hear a reasonable explanation (given what
she said about the clock), even if she were to accept it only
grudgingly. (Though the last panel - in which Heart says something
smug and her mother rolls her eyes and says in effect "you just hate
work, period" implies otherwise, I admit.)
>
> If there is a time when homework isn't (literally) on the table, say
> when you are in the car -- assuming you don't allow your children to
> simply plug into electronics and ignore their families while driving
> -- and your child, in a reasonable, conversational tone asks, "So, how
> come we have to learn long division? Why can't we just use our
> calculators?"
>
> Then you might say, "You need to understand how it works. The idea
> isn't to find out the answer to those questions. It's to teach you how
> long division works. There's a lot of stuff you learn that you might
> not use right away, but that you need to know to be the kind of person
> who makes intelligent decisions."
Add to that aemeijers' first comment about needing to be able to sense
when the answer is wrong by even a hair - and being able to check it
by hand - and you've got it.
Lenona.
aemeijers
Funny, but you are lucky you didn't get locked up. Judge probably would
have thrown it out eventually based on common sense, but you technically
did try to pass a fake note. If it had gotten past local cops up to
Secret Service, they have a notoriously bad sense of humor about such
things, especially if they are not obvious fakes or stage money.
--
aem sends...
bllbickel
You were lucky: A year or two ago, some guy got arrested at Wal-Mart
for using a novelty million-dollar bill. sometimes "I meant it as a
joke" works and sometimes it doesn't.
Bill Bickel
http://www.comicsidontunderstand.com
http://www.crimeweek.com
Beefies
> to doodle?
That wasn't quite it, although I remember learning that method in school.
Mine was more like averaging and iterating. Guess 27, divide into the
number, then 27.4, divide again, then 27.43 . . .
Just found it: http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.sqrt.by.hand.html is
pretty much all I did. Not much to it, hope you don't think less of me.
I like doing square and cube roots on a slide rule--you don't even have to
*slide* anything, just read the line on the proper log scale. That's
probably one of the few instances where a slide rule remains easier to use
than a calculator (though as Mark says, not as accurate), and I think it
instills a good subconscious feel for what logarithms are all about.
To the original question of Why Bother Learning Math: Y'know, I really do
find myself using math up through at least the high school level very
regularly. Calculating square footages of flooring, what volume of topsoil I
need to cover a yard, what length of PVC pipe to buy, how many bookshelves
to build. Figuring averages, tips, gas mileage, food unit pricing. Once in a
while I bust out the Pythagorean Theorem or the volume of a sphere. It
actually is part of the fabric of my life that makes me a better consumer,
homeowner and citizen.
What I didn't really get until I hit calculus in college is that math (and
physics) are more valuable to me *philosophically* than as nuts-and-bolts
problem solvers. There quickly comes a point where equations stop being
about turning a crank to find "the answer" then modeling how an idea or
physical phenomenon works. I don't think I actually *solved* a single
calculation or equation for at least my last two years of university study.
For example, you don't take Schrodinger's wave equation, put in some
numbers, and get an answer of "42." Rather, you take that equation and ask,
"What does it tell me about how a hydrogen atom might act?" and then go see
if the atom does that.
Even though I don't use that level of math or even remember how to do it
anymore, I don't consider that education a waste. It changed the way I look
at the universe and trained my brain in ways that have been beneficial to
me. One example: calculating hundreds of integrals from zero to infinity
gave me the habit of looking at the extreme possible outcomes of situations:
what would happen if everybody did something; what would happen if nobody
did it? What if the opposite action were taken (i.e., integrating from
negative infinity to zero or positive infinity)? What if that awful thing
done by the Democrats had been done by the Republicans (or vice versa)? What
if a policy that applies to black people were applied to whites? Or women to
men? Would I feel differently about it? Should I?
Plugging in zero and infinity to see what happens is a helpful way to
analyze a math problem and I find it a helpful way to analyze life, as well.
Brian F.
http://brianfies.blogspot.com
Sherwood Harrington
> Not much to it, hope you don't think less of me.
Given the tour de force you wrote after that, I would be a fool to think
any less of you. That was worthy of being distributed to every high
school math teacher in the country.
JC Dill
> Plugging in zero and infinity to see what happens is a helpful way to
> analyze a math problem and I find it a helpful way to analyze life, as well.
Well said.
jc
LNER...@juno.com
>
> You were lucky: A year or two ago, some guy got arrested at Wal-Mart
> for using a novelty million-dollar bill. sometimes "I meant it as a
> joke" works and sometimes it doesn't.
>
can't be a "fake" if the real thing doesn't exist. Now, a $100,000
bill and several $10,000 bills exist.....
The trouble would start if the clerk had actually attempted to give me
$999,997.21 in change and I had actually attempted to take it.
Remember, the actual value of the money lies in the willingness of
both parties to actually ACCEPT the "legal tender" for all such
debts. Remember, persons can refuse to accept currency they truly
believe to be absolutely worthless or unsatisfactory--you don't have
to accept a hyper-inflated Bulgarian zmotksa or that Pakistani's goat
or that Inuit's salmon. If I hand you a certified million-dollar
check for the house you're trying to sell me, you and whatever agent
are still going to make a phone call or two first, no?
I've told this story to several store managers, security types, and
the like. Many of them say I basically did that store manager a
favor, inadvertently--if the guy was stupid/delusional/gullible enough
to actually take my bill, who knows what some really enterprising jerk
could pull?
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
On a bit of a tangent, I saw a very funny "true story" one-man show
at Spoleto USA a few years ago called "Man vs Bank". The guy got
one of those Publishers' Clearinghouse-ish $1,000,000.00 fake checks
sent to him and on a lark decided to deposit it and get a few laughs.
Then the check cleared..
Ted
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Harold Burton
<013525f1-2596-4b1e...@j38g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>,
<leno...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> In an old strip, Heart yells: "I don't get this stupid long division!
> What do we need to learn this stuff for anyway? That's what
> CALCULATORS are for! If I want to know what TIME it is, I just LOOK at
> a clock - I don't need to know how a clock WORKS!"
>
> So my question is, since that makes perfect sense to most children -
> and quite a few spoiled adults, unfortunately - how DO teachers and
> parents explain the need to memorize math procedures....
Someone has to learn them, or who will the next calculator models. :-)
And......I vaguely remember a sci-fi short story from about half a
century ago that addressed the issue almost perfectly but can't
remember its title...maybe by Asimov.
Harold Burton
<sherw...@SPAMrahul.net> wrote:
> aemeijers <aeme...@att.net> wrote:
>
> > But if I had to, I could
> > still do it the old-fashioned way.
>
> Could you still extract a square root by hand without looking up how to do
> it first?
Finding square roots using an algorithm at
http://www.homeschoolmath.net/teaching/square-root-algorithm.php
scroll down 2 screens
Mike Beede
Harold Burton <hal.i....@notmail.com> wrote:
> And......I vaguely remember a sci-fi short story from about half a
> century ago that addressed the issue almost perfectly but can't
> remember its title...maybe by Asimov.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power>
From 1958 or so.
Mike Beede
Tove Momerathsson
All sorts of interesting things happen with _real_ US money, too.
See <http://www.snopes.com/business/money/tacobell.asp> and
<http://www.snopes.com/business/info/tacobell.asp>.
Tove
leno...@yahoo.com
> > You were lucky: A year or two ago, some guy got arrested at Wal-Mart
> > for using a novelty million-dollar bill. sometimes "I meant it as a
> > joke" works and sometimes it doesn't.
>
> Actually, the manufacturer has been through this little loophole: It
> can't be a "fake" if the real thing doesn't exist. Now, a $100,000
> bill and several $10,000 bills exist.....
THOSE exist?
I heard once that $1,000 bills do not exist. (A bank robber demanded
his loot in those denominations.) Then I heard that they DO exist -
but they're not for public use.
Does anyone know?
Lenona.
Mark Jackson
> I heard once that $1,000 bills do not exist. (A bank robber demanded
> his loot in those denominations.) Then I heard that they DO exist -
> but they're not for public use.
>
> Does anyone know?
http://www.moneyfactory.gov/section.cfm/5/42
aemeijers
10,000 bill, but IIRC they were never in common circulation, but were
used in bank-to-bank transactions in the pre-electronic era. Lot of
people never trusted long-distance transactions and wire transfers- down
south, real estate deals with briefcases of cash were still common 50
years ago, and never you mind where it came from.
Keep in mind the inflation rate since then. 1k used to be three months
salary, and 10k bought most of a starter house. There was simply no call
for most people to ever need a bill of that size.
--
aem sends...
Heather Kendrick
<eac537ab-8c04-4c0d...@z1g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,
"pete...@SPAMnelliebly.org" <racs...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Then you might say, "You need to understand how it works. The idea
> isn't to find out the answer to those questions. It's to teach you how
> long division works. There's a lot of stuff you learn that you might
> not use right away, but that you need to know to be the kind of person
> who makes intelligent decisions."
Maybe this is just because I'm odd, but I find that I not-uncommonly
work out math by hand on scraps of paper -- most often multiplication,
but occasionally long division. Sometimes I'm not near a calculator and
I'm too lazy to get up and get one.
Heather
Joseph Nebus
I don't actually do arithmetic that way except for very rare
and special cases. What I usually fall back on is something like ``if
this were *that* instead, this would be an easy problem, so let me
pretend it is and solve that instead''. Its most frequent application
is in estimating my car's fuel economy, which is made particularly neat
since my driving habits make it almost unavoidable that I refill when
I need about ten gallons.
'Course, try teaching kids to skip the problem they're given and
do a similar-looking simpler one and you're headed for mischief.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
arfenarf
news:ggepp7$97i$1...@aioe.org:
> Plugging in zero and infinity to see what happens is a helpful way to
> analyze a math problem and I find it a helpful way to analyze life, as
> well.
Brian:
Is it not enough that you have published a book that I keep giving away and
having to buy more copies of it so I can give it away again?
Did you have to write the best essay I've ever seen on math, too?
Wow. That's an awful lot of admiration to pile on one mortal soul.
(Thanks)
--
Arfenarf
Sherwood Harrington
> Brian:
> (Thanks)
Wait 'til you see his next book. No math, no cancer, but a real joy
anyway.
Beefies
> and
> having to buy more copies of it so I can give it away again?
That's one of the nicest things anyone's ever said to me. Thanks, sincerely.
Brian F.
leno...@yahoo.com
Lenona.
arfenarf
@t2g2000yqm.googlegroups.com:
> May I ask the name of the book?
>
> Lenona.
Brian's first?
Mom's Cancer (http://www.momscancer.com/) was Brian's chronicle of his
family's journey through his mother's metastatic lung cancer. It is an
honest look at how Mom's disease hits many aspects of her family's
relationships and history. He published it on the web and flew it past us
here in RACS (I've been in and out for a long time) as it evolved.
Eventually, it was published on paper and won an Eisner Award, and so here
we are.
It is beautifully drawn and extraordinarily powerful. My first copy went
to the CBC Victoria. My second, to the local cancer clinic. #3 to a
friend whose mom was diagnosed, although I'm told the book has wandered its
way through several other families: and #4 just got handed off to a new
friend whose cancer has settled in her bones. She is handling her coming
death far better than her adult children are.
The new book is news to me, and I'm beetling off to go learn more.
--
arfenarf
Beefies
My first book was the graphic novel "Mom's Cancer," published in 2006 by
Harry N. Abrams. It's still in some bookstores. Amazon lists it as "Out of
Stock" due to an unfortunate gap while we wait for reprints to make the
long, slow boat ride from the printer. Luckily, other sellers still offer
new and used copies through Amazon, some at great prices (which does me no
good whatsoever, but never mind).
My next graphic novel is "Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?" and
is due out next spring (I'm guessing March-April), also from Abrams. Despite
currently existing only as electrons on my hard drive it's now available for
pre-order on Amazon, where it's currently ranked (checking, checking)
#234,696 (hey, last week it was like #3,000,000! I'm moving up!). Sherwood
and a couple other racsers helped me immensely by critiquing an early draft.
I didn't take all their advice, so don't blame them.
Thanks for asking.
Brian F.
http://brianfies.blogspot.com
Beefies
Brian
Joy Beeson
> 'Course, try teaching kids to skip the problem they're given and
> do a similar-looking simpler one and you're headed for mischief.
Unless, of course, you also teach them the art of refining the
approximation:
197 is almost 200, and 18 times 200 is 3600, so the number I want is
three eighteens less than 3600 . . . 3600 - 30 - 24 = 3600 - 54 =
3550 - 4 = 3646
Stop when the answer is close enough.
Joy Beeson
--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/ -- sewing
http://n3f.home.comcast.net/ -- Writers' Exchange
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.
Joy Beeson
<jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
> 197 is almost 200, and 18 times 200 is 3600, so the number I want is
> three eighteens less than 3600 . . . 3600 - 30 - 24 = 3600 - 54 =
> 3550 - 4 = 3646
Oops! = 3556
--
Joy Beeson
Joy Beeson
<jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
> > 197 is almost 200, and 18 times 200 is 3600, so the number I want is
> > three eighteens less than 3600 . . . 3600 - 30 - 24 = 3600 - 54 =
> > 3550 - 4 = 3646
>
> Oops! = 3556
AAAAAAARRRRRGGGH!
= 3546
--
Mark Jackson
Are we close enough yet?
Blinky the Wonder Wombat
> Joy Beeson wrote:
> > On Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:02:07 -0500, Joy Beeson
> > <jbee...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>
> >>> 197 is almost 200, and 18 times 200 is 3600, so the number I want is
> >>> three eighteens less than 3600 . . . 3600 - 30 - 24 = 3600 - 54 =
> >>> 3550 - 4 = 3646
> >> Oops! = 3556
>
> > AAAAAAARRRRRGGGH!
>
> > = 3546
>
> Are we close enough yet?
>
POTD
Joseph Nebus
>AAAAAAARRRRRGGGH!
>= 3546
And, of course, there are times calculators are perfectly
reasonable tools to use.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LNER...@juno.com
>
> According to Google, none printed since 1946. There also used to be a
> 10,000 bill, but IIRC they were never in common circulation, but were
> used in bank-to-bank transactions in the pre-electronic era. Lot of
> people never trusted long-distance transactions and wire transfers- down
> south, real estate deals with briefcases of cash were still common 50
> years ago, and never you mind where it came from.
>
"urban legend" or two even back when it was a reputable reference work
and not the piece of outright schlock it is today, used to report that
the 400 or so known examples of U.S. $10,000 bills then currently in
"circulation" in the mid-1970s nearly all ended up in Texas around
Christmas-time. Today, supposedly, the number of known examples is
probably around 300.
The reality is that any such discontinued high-denomination notes are,
unless seriously damaged, worth more as a collectible than their face
value.
John Duncan Yoyo
>Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> writes:
>
>>On Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:02:07 -0500, Joy Beeson
>><jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>
>>> > 197 is almost 200, and 18 times 200 is 3600, so the number I want is
>>> > three eighteens less than 3600 . . . 3600 - 30 - 24 = 3600 - 54 =
>>> > 3550 - 4 = 3646
>>>
>>> Oops! = 3556
>
>>AAAAAAARRRRRGGGH!
>
>>= 3546
>
> And, of course, there are times calculators are perfectly
>reasonable tools to use.
If you like easy precisoin and accuracy. The step of finding my
calculator and propperly keying in my problem often would take longer
than I am curious about the result.
If I can get a ballpark value I'm fine with that. I generally do that
in my head using Joy's method. Of course it would take as many trys
with the calculator in my phone to get it right given my big fingers.
Slide rules were great for two or three signicant figures.