Boost your life the Urawaza way...

This sounds like the subject line of an e-mail you'd have deleted when it got by your spam filter, but it's not. Urawaza (Japanese for "secret tricks") are little fixes to simple (but perplexing) problems. I prefer to think of them as "life hacks". Example: what's the trick to keeping a band-aid from falling off your finger when it gets wet? Find out by reading this Wired article.

The shame of it all...

Sigh.

I had to do it. I had to drop my math class.

It was just SOOO much work. It stopped being fun and became an adrenalin-driven chore. I really really wished that it could work out, but to do justice to the subject and to myself would have have meant that I would have to devote more time to homework and studying. To what end?

I don't know how single-parent families manage to complete high-school night courses. Or, for that matter, older adults who decide to return to high school so they can get their diploma.

So what did I learn from this?

Well, I learned that (a) I have a deep interest in math; (b) I can learn it if I decide to take the time to review my materials and do my homework; (c) math is fundamental to any science. (I know that this is a no-brainer, but there are so many applications! No wonder anything that is of use is founded in math - and that includes art). In fact, I'd venture that if one is well versed in mathematics, that this will open doors into the other sciences.

Math is great exercise for the mind. I'm sure this comes as no surprise to many people, but it was a surprise to me. It uses a different side of the brain, I'm sure. For some reason, the beauty of math reminds me of some lyrics from "Lined Up" by Shriekback (if you remember the 80's):

Lined Up

Tired of all this crawling around
Realising the joke was on us
Reaching out to the obvious
Starting with an answer not a question
Our most acceptable businesses
All aligned in just one direction
Organised on the same lines
With one face - one side

We got all lined up
We got all lined up
We got all lined up
All lined up
All lined up

Back at the all night party
We're getting clearer all the time
Refined to one shape - frozen like crystal
It has the symmetry of perfect design
One line leads to another
They cross at the corners run straight at the sides
It reads the same way in any direction
Two red circles and a thick black spine

We got all lined up
We got all lined up
We got all lined up
All lined up
All lined up

Let it fall into place
We could tie it to a tree
We could point it at you
We could make it a habit
We could leave it outside or
We could give it our full understand it or we could ignore it
Holding all our past in the one hand
We showed those people in a way they understand
Shiny little eyes on a big red bus
The ones we point at work for us
One sharp point between distinction
Going this way for X amount of time
Frame - line - and convergence
From the first to the final
This intention is mine

We got all lined up
We got all lined up
We got all lined up
All lined up
All lined up

Go figure.

Bob's Xcellent Math Adventure - or maybe not

Well, maybe not so excellent.

I've had a long-standing interest in math (in spite of having atrocious marks in high school and in undergrad) and I decided I would try (re-)taking my high-school math for the pleasure of it. You might ask what kind of warped sense of pleasure do I have? I'm not sure, I'm still trying to figure that out...

Anyway, I enroled a few weeks ago in a high-school math course, because I couldn't find it in the non-credit continuing education guide. Why aren't there hordes of people lining up to take Advanced Functions and Introductory Calculus for fun? Go figure. Anyway, it's not like I needed the credit - I took a similar course 30+ years ago. Note I say "similar" and not "identical." Now that I've spent some time in the course, it appears there were at least 2 major revisions of the curriculum since my butt has last warmed the seat of a school desk, and I'm seeing first hand the changes that have been made.

I've just gotta tell about my experience. So here they are, in no particular order:

1. Homework. Man, what a rough ride. Too much to do, not enough time. What with stuff to do around the house, cooking, etc. I just don't have enough time to get on top of things. I actually took a Friday off so I could devote myself to doing homework early on in the course. Interesting thing is that I didn't even see the hours go by - I missed lunch without realizing it. I figure I was in a state of hyperfocus. The downside is, if you don't do your homework (for whatever reason), that Big Black Train of Math starts to pick up speed as you frantically try to keep pace and jump on board. Nowhere did it hit me harder than last night when I "bombed" our weekly test. In a moment of paralyzed insight, staring at my blank piece of foolscap. Yup, I shoulda stayed on top of that homework.

2. Satisfaction. The most interesting realization I've had is that I'm an inveterate puzzle-solver. I think that's why I like math. Solving math questions is exactly like solving a puzzle. Kinda like Sudoku On Steroids and Adrenaline.

3. Frustration: Oh, I could spend a lot of time on this one. With time, I could describe a veritable taxonomy of frustration related to math. Let me just hit the big ones.

Attention to detail. A big chunk of my frustration with myself is I make what I consider an inordinate number of errors of attention: errors of transcription, forgetting to put a minus sign, writing "3" when I meant "13", you get the idea. But what alarms me is that I make A LOT of mistakes. Out of at least 50 problems I have worked on and gotten wrong the first time around, in at least 45 cases I went back over my math to realize that I mistranscribed or whatever. VERY frustrating. I wonder if I must suffer from some kind of AADD. But that's for another blog entry.

Gaps in understanding. Ah, this is like an old but unwelcome friend come to visit. I'd actually forgotten that particular feeling until last night, when I lost track of what the teacher was saying as he explained a particular problem. Maybe I should have termed it more precisely "a gap in attention." Whatever it was, I didn't quite understand as the teacher went through the problem, and I frantically wrote down the solution in the hope that I'd be able to go back over my notes and work out where my Big Black Train of Math Thought got derailed. I spent 5 minutes SOLID looking over the notes on that particular section and figuring out how we were supposed to come to the solution. I'm STILL not sure I understand it rightly.

Failure of memory: This one is the cousin of Gaps in Understanding and has a very ugly brother called Over-Confidence. This very "odd couple" also came to visit me last night during my test. There's nothing like that warm fuzzy feeling that you get reading over your notes before a test and thinking "yeah, I'll remember this" or "yeah, I know how to do this one" and, when you're looking at that piece of foolscap when the test has started, you don't. At that moment, you realize that you have something in common with that particular piece of paper: the word fool.

So why, you may ask, are you going through this? You don't NEED this course, you're getting frustrated by it, you're spending two weeknights from 6 to 10 PM feeling your bum get numb sitting at a cramped desk, getting poor grades, and most everyone thinks you're cMy short answer to this is: I don't know.

No, just kidding. I DO know the answer, I'm just not telling you (or myself, for that matter). There is a reason, only I haven't quite figured it out, yet. There's a certain lemming-like quality to the feeling around the reason. For now, it's enough for me to know that I enjoy math, it's fascinating, it's a puzzle, and I want to understand it more.

More later.

re: BBC News: Pope 'meant no offence' to Islam

This is insane.

Muslim anger is expressed because of the Pope's recent remarks in Germany. (see BBC NEWS: Pope 'meant no offence' to Islam)

Has anyone gone so far as to read the text of the speech that was delivered to the assembly? If one takes the trouble to read it, it's clear that the media, and people who chose to be inflamed by the story, took the quotes out of context.

While the Pope might have chosen a different example, say from other non-Christian (or even Christian!) sources, IMO the over-reaction we see around the world is inexcusable...

New Scientist News - Popular curry spice is a brain booster

Now all we have to do is compare it to Mexican cooking, and the experiment will be complete...

New Scientist News - Popular curry spice is a brain booster

Surroundings play a key role in diet: study

This is yet another one of these "no-duh" stories.

What's interesting is that some companies are starting to clue in to the idea of limiting servings, by using 100 calorie packaging. I wonder if MacDonald's has heard about this?

See CTV.ca Surroundings play a key role in diet: study for the story.

Internet users do fewer household chores: study

Here is another "why is this not a surprise" item.

I have been guilty of parental / spousal neglect, partly because of my internet habit (read: addiction).

IMHO, it's not the Internet itself which is the addiction. It's like saying using a telephone or watching TV is an addiction. The Internet, like the technologies which precede them, is simply a vehicle for reading news, chatting, watching videos, listening to music, playing computer games, as well as posting ideas, art, writing, and so on.

So although sitting on one's butt at a computer enables us to do all these different things, these things soak up time that might be otherwise spent interacting with the real world, i.e., spouse, kids, friends, relatives, dog...

None of these activities in itself is "bad", but it's always a question of balance.

Anyway, here's the story: CTV.ca Internet users do fewer household chores: study