Lament 3: Cry Hard With A Vengeance

[Questor]

You know, it's funny, I rarely discuss my personal views on foreign policy, because I tend to irritate everyone. Here, in a couple sentences:

I concluded that any possible foreign intervention (at least outside of western Europe or Canada is far more likely to go badly than it is to go well. Because of this, I think the US should just tell everyone to fuck off. Not isolationism, but a complete rejection of use of force. If Germany, France, or Britain start conquering people again, I'll entertain FREEDOMIZING them, but Western European nations fall into the special case of: "we all dance roughly the same dance, and we all know all the steps." Outside of Western Europe, you get a pass unless you attack us, and then we do the whole Yankee capitalist air pirate thing.

Conservatives hat it because I'm not FREEDOMIZING the brown people, and liberals tend to hate it because I won't help the poor people that are being gassed.

[adr]

I'd love to live in a world where any of that was possible.

stranger things have happened....

...hell, the uk just voted no on joining one of america's military adventures! i would have thought that impossible last week, but it happened

[evilsoup]

yeah and that's actually restored my faith in Parliament a little

[Darksi4190]

SDN is down for the second day in a row. Wonder if it's another hardware failure?

[Big Orangutan]

Powerful state governments should stop treating less fortunate countries and regions as giant chess boards.

except this actually has very little to do with 'powerful state governments' and much more to do with the long term fight in the middle east between shia and sunni

Oh don't get me wrong, the Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds were knocking chunks out of each other in the Mesopotamia already as very long ago as the 15th/16th centuries, with the Syrian Civil War partially seen as aftershocks of the slow decline and sudden collapse of the Ottoman Empire. And it's fitting that France may be involved in the intervention when in the French Mandate period the French occupiers were allegedly more favourable in their treatment of the Alawites minority (which Assad's clan belongs to) than the more hostile, lumpen Sunni majority (recruiting the Alawites as colonial police, etc), so partially responsible for today's regional tensions.

[Count Chocula]

We have plenty of oil and natural gas within the borders of North America, Canada and the US get along pretty well, and nobody in the Middle East with the exception of Israel are our friends. I say get out. Oh yeah, and fuck Saudi Arabia.

[Agent Bert Macklin]

Euclid can lick my balls. Anyone have a Delorean?

[Questor]

I disagree with your characterization of the number of friends we have in the middle east. You are wildly optimistic.

[Count Chocula]

My glass is half full.

[Questor]

Of what?

[Count Chocula]

Horse piss, of course. It's a real thirst quencher.

[Questor]

Pour the bud light back in and wait for the CSIs, because you're clearly far more drunk thatn it should be making you.

[Questor]

Good vent: 4.0 through 13 units on my first semester returning to Uni.

[Phantasee]

just get a purse

Seriously tho whenever I have to carry a lot of stuff, a purse or "satchel" is great. There are so many things that are the domain of women according to…somebody that really don't make sense. Bags. Boots. Boobs. Everybody likes boobs.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Euclid can lick my balls. Anyone have a Delorean?

What's wrong with Euclid? His proofs were clever and elegant, considering they predate algebra and the Indian-Arabic numeral system (in the West).

If you want to see modern proofs as interesting, you'd have to look in Number Theory or Neutral Geometry, in my opinion. Calculus, Analysis, Abstract Algebra, etc., are all okay, but the proofs become somewhat samey and repetitive, with a lot of "brute force".

[Questor]

Number theory... Yum.

[Questor]

It's too hot to sleep, and I am beginning to think caffeine fueled exhaustion is affecting my mental faculties again. I'm certainly grouchiest EDIT: grouchier* than usual.

* see.

[Agent Bert Macklin]

Euclid can lick my balls. Anyone have a Delorean?

What's wrong with Euclid? His proofs were clever and elegant, considering they predate algebra and the Indian-Arabic numeral system (in the West).

If you want to see modern proofs as interesting, you'd have to look in Number Theory or Neutral Geometry, in my opinion. Calculus, Analysis, Abstract Algebra, etc., are all okay, but the proofs become somewhat samey and repetitive, with a lot of "brute force".

I just find the material difficult. In my class, we are proving things using his stuff. Only his stuff.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Is it his ..."prose style"? Most of his proofs were written before there was any kind of universal terminology, so the wording is hugely clunky. Some of the translations or reprints or whatever usually have a numbered proof paraphrasing his argument, as well as a labelled illustration, which I found very helpful.

Or is it the material itself? If so, which part of the Elements are you covering? There are simpler sections that build up to more complicated sections, with the simpler sections foreshadowing a lot of the work in the more complex sections. If you skipped some of the simpler sections, the proofs can seem very convoluted, especially if you're familiar with modern techniques. At least, that was my impression. I guess I'm asking what, exactly, you don't like about Euclid and if there's any way this internet stranger can help?

[Agent Bert Macklin]

My current homework assignment is to prove Proposition 6. Proofs aren't my strong suit when it comes to math. I prefer to be given a problem to solve through arithmetic rather than have to prove something. So, I am having trouble with this stuff. Luckily, I can follow the proof of Prop 6 myself, but when it comes to an exam, I don't think I'll do well because I have to memorize a lot of shit. Many of his definitions, Common Notions, Postulates, and Propositions must be memorized by Thursday.

[The Spartan]

Ugh. I had a course like that during my math degree. I only got through by the skin of my teeth and we didn't even touch upon Euclid, we only had to prove calculus theorems.

I forgot pretty much all of it as soon as the class was over, too, since I never used any of it again. It would have been handy if I'd gone on into a path where I'd have to do proofs, but I didn't. Even if I hadn't gotten my engineering degree I'd have been more on the applied side of math.

[Agent Bert Macklin]

Ugh. I had a course like that during my math degree. I only got through by the skin of my teeth and we didn't even touch upon Euclid, we only had to prove calculus theorems.

I forgot pretty much all of it as soon as the class was over, too, since I never used any of it again. It would have been handy if I'd gone on into a path where I'd have to do proofs, but I didn't. Even if I hadn't gotten my engineering degree I'd have been more on the applied side of math.

I don't think a prospective high school teacher needs to even be able to do this. How many students are going to inquire about why SAS (side-angle-side) is true? All I have to do if that happens is mention superposition and they'll hopefully get it. Or simply say "Euclid proved this in Elements." However, there's always a chance that a bright kid will want to see the proof, to which I'll pull out the copy of Elements I'll have in my classroom and show him or her.

[Darksi4190]

Ugh. I had a course like that during my math degree. I only got through by the skin of my teeth and we didn't even touch upon Euclid, we only had to prove calculus theorems.

I forgot pretty much all of it as soon as the class was over, too, since I never used any of it again. It would have been handy if I'd gone on into a path where I'd have to do proofs, but I didn't. Even if I hadn't gotten my engineering degree I'd have been more on the applied side of math.

I don't think a prospective high school teacher needs to even be able to do this. How many students are going to inquire about why SAS (side-angle-side) is true? All I have to do if that happens is mention superposition and they'll hopefully get it. Or simply say "Euclid proved this in Elements." However, there's always a chance that a bright kid will want to see the proof, to which I'll pull out the copy of Elements I'll have in my classroom and show him or her.

This is because you're majoring in Math right? They aren't going to make someone learn this if they want to teach say, History or Government or something like that?



Right?

[Agent Bert Macklin]

This is because you're majoring in Math right? They aren't going to make someone learn this if they want to teach say, History or Government or something like that?

Math education is not the same as a flat out mathematics degree. The program at my school has a huge portion of the degree devoted to education. It's about half and half, really, between math and education. But I am a firm believer that if I'm not using this material in the classroom, I'm wasting stress, time, and money.

Edit: I will say that while this is hard as hell to me, it's still fun.

[The Spartan]

My school did things slightly differently. A math degree required a "supporting field", which was basically a minor, but required a couple more classes than a minor would have.

If you were going to be a teacher you supporting field had to be certain education classes. If you wanted into banking then maybe accounting would be a good supporting field. Physics was a good one. Mine was engineering. Surprise, huh?