Math doesn't suck, you do.
Every time I hear someone say "I suck at math," I immediately think he or she is a moron. If you suck at math, what you really suck at is following instructions. This shirt is birth control. Sucking at math is like sucking at cooking. I'm tired of eating shitty food because you're too much of a dipshit to follow a recipe. Also, I'm tired of hearing people brag about how they can't cook like it's some kind of badge of honor. Math is exactly like cooking: just follow the recipe. Math isn't some voodoo that only smart people understand. Theoretical math is cool as shit. Ever heard of Pascal's triangle? No, because you're too busy saying the same tired excuse every other dickhead spews out about math: "when will I ever use this in life?" First of all, if you're leading your life in such a way that you never have to do math, congratulations, you are a donkey. Why is math the only discipline that has to put up with this bullshit? People didn't invent this stuff because they were bored.
5 Psychological Experiments That Prove Humanity is Doomed
Cracked.com's new book is now on sale. What follows is one of 22 classic articles that appear in the book, along with 18 new articles that you can't read anywhere else. Psychologists know you have to be careful when you go poking around the human mind because you're never sure what you'll find there. A number of psychological experiments over the years have yielded terrifying conclusions about the subjects. Oh, we're not talking about the occasional psychopath who turns up. The Asch Conformity Experiment (1953) The Setup: Solomon Asch wanted to run a series of studies that would document the power of conformity, for the purpose of depressing everyone who would ever read the results. Subjects were told that they would be taking part in a vision test, along with a handful of people. The Result: Questions the subjects were asked were like the puzzle shown here: All they had to do was say which line on the right matched the one on the left. ... and make sure you conform to it perfectly. C.
Five Editor-Approved Tips for Media Literacy in Any Class
In 2015, a year before murmurs of “fake news” became omnipresent, textbook publisher McGraw-Hill was under fire for a World Geography book illustration. The section, on patterns of immigration throughout American history, referred to a wave of “immigration” in which African “workers” arrived in the United States. Parents, students and teachers were outraged by the sugarcoated and outright false history of slavery being shared in classrooms across Texas. Clickbait headlines and polarizing politics have made it a daunting challenge for teachers to find factual, reliable information inside and outside of the classroom. Fact-checking and looking for bias are no longer just skills needed in journalism class or at the school paper. Here are 5 editor-approved tips for teaching these skills to students across curriculum and subjects: Rule #1: Check Your Own Bias First This is something journalists often have to think about. What do you hope the text you’re reading will say?
Should we erase painful memories?
One of the most tenacious themes of 20th-century memory research was the idea that people tormented by the memories of terrible experiences could benefit from remembering them, and from remembering them better. The assumption — broadly indebted to psychoanalysis — was that psychological records of traumatic events often failed to be fully “integrated” into conscious memories. As long as these records remained “dissociated,” the sufferer was compelled to “relive” them instead of benignly remembering them. The more fully and appropriately one remembered terrible events, the more attenuated would be their emotional power. But in the 1990s — a time when psychoanalytic assumptions were being challenged as never before — neuroscience researchers developed a new framework for thinking about remembering, forgetting, and the mind’s record of past events. One result was a highly controversial new paradigm for treating traumatic memories.
Game Theory 101: Game Theory Made Easy
The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit)
Recently, someone asked Reddit for a list of the best science fiction books of all time. Being a fan of sci-fi, and wanting to expand my own reading list, I thought it would be helpful to tally the results and preserve them here for future reference. I've also included selected quotes from the comments, as well as my own notes on the books I've already read. PS: All book images in this post are copyright Amazon, and were retrieved using my Big Book Search Engine. So, without further ado, here are the Greatest Sci-Fi Books of All Time, ordered by upvote count: Dune Frank Herbert - 1965 "There's a reason it's the global top selling science fiction book of all time." - NibblyPig If you have a chance, track down the excellent full cast audiobook (unabridged!) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams - 1979 "I really love the cool combination of humor, philosophy, and sheer nuttiness of the entire series." - Scarbrow Ender's Game Orson Scott Card - 1985 Foundation Trilogy Isaac Asimov - 1942
If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only
If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is Scanning Electron Micrographs of Diatoms Title: John von Neumann
Iberian Peninsula
Iberian Peninsula ISS030-E-010008 (4 Dec. 2011) --- One of the Expedition 30 crew members aboard the Earth-orbiting International Space Station photographed this night time scene of the Iberian Peninsula on Dec. 4, 2011. The city lights of Spain and Portugal define the peninsula.
A Visual, Intuitive Guide to Imaginary Numbers
Imaginary numbers always confused me. Like understanding e, most explanations fell into one of two categories: It’s a mathematical abstraction, and the equations work out. Deal with it.It’s used in advanced physics, trust us. Just wait until college. Gee, what a great way to encourage math in kids! Focusing on relationships, not mechanical formulas.Seeing complex numbers as an upgrade to our number system, just like zero, decimals and negatives were.Using visual diagrams, not just text, to understand the idea. And our secret weapon: learning by analogy. It doesn’t make sense yet, but hang in there. Video Walkthrough: Really Understanding Negative Numbers Negative numbers aren’t easy. But what about 3-4? Negatives were considered absurd, something that “darkened the very whole doctrines of the equations” (Francis Maseres, 1759). What happened? Rather than saying “I owe you 30” and reading words to see if I’m up or down, I can write “-30” and know it means I’m in the hole. Uh oh. Wrong. or
