OT: well, not completely

[Doug Winterburn]

Math is hard

Math teaching then and now. This one has been going round the Internet for a while, but non-mathematical readers might have missed it. It demonstrates the changes in math teaching techniques across the years.

Teaching math to American kids in...

- 1950: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

- 1960: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

- 1970: A logger exchanges a set "L" of lumber for a set "M" of money. The cardinality of set "M" is 100. Each element is worth one dollar. Make 100 dots representing the elements of the set "M." The set "C", the cost of production, contains 20 fewer points than set "M." Represent the set "C" as a subset of set "M." Answer this question: What is the cardinality of the set "P" of profits?

- 1980: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

- 1990: By cutting down beautiful forest trees, the logger makes $20 profit. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the forest birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down the trees? There are no wrong answers.

- 2000: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $120. How does Arthur Andersen determine that his profit margin is $60?

- 2010: El hachero vende un camion carga por $100 La cuesta de produccion es.....

[skeezics]

lmao...sad but true/ hehe

skeez

[Mark L.]

-2004 A logger makes a call to customer service to get help repairing his saw and winds up talking to Punjab in India who can only advise him to reformat the saw's hard drive and reinstall the OS.....

[J T]

Fri, Jul 30, 2004, 5:34pm (EDT-3) [e-mail] (Doug=A0Winterburn) says: Math is hard

Hmm, you seem to have left out the part about, "How much will go into some politician's pocket for allowing cutting in National Forests, and then selling the lumber oversea, at less than market value?".

JOAT The highway of fear is the road to defeat.

- Bazooka Joe JERUSALEM RIDGE

[Mark & Juanita]

... and MarkL is charged under the Digital Millenium Copyright act for violating the terms of service of the chain saw by publishing on Usenet the advice given by Punjab the technical service person. Seems the saw company views all such advice to be proprietary and subject to review and corporate approval before public release. Since the saw contains a hard drive and software, the shrink-wrap agreement on the saw is considered enforceable.

[Charlie Self]

JOAT responds:

Sigh. I got some poplar--aspen type--from a cabinetmaker pal a couple weeks ago. Nice looking stuff, 15 plies (3/4"), turns out it is from China, and MUCH cheaper than anything local (goes up against 7 ply birch around here). It is cheaper for the Chinese plywood mills to buy the logs in the U.S., off the western slopes, transport them to China, make the plywood and ship it back here for sale at very low prices.

It's an amazing world we live in, but sometimes not too sensible.

Charlie Self "Did you know that the White House drug test is multiple choice?" Rush Limbaugh

[George]

Do you want a stinky, noisy, messy veneer plant in your neighborhood?

Sort of like the Californians and high gas prices who won't allow the expansion of a refinery.

Little bit different up here so far. Tourists see the steam over the trees, smell the wet lumber, and ask "what's that smell?" The locals answer "money."

[Charlie Self]

George notes:

Sort of like Big Island's paper mill. No one except the people who work there like the smell.

Charlie Self "Did you know that the White House drug test is multiple choice?" Rush Limbaugh

[J T]

Sat, Jul 31, 2004, 1:35pm (EDT+4) [e-mail] (Charlie=A0Self) says: Sort of like Big Island's paper mill. No one except the people who work there like the smell.

Many years ago, I stopped in a small plastics molding company, for a job application. The smell was enough to gag a skunk. And that was just in the office area, hard to imagine what inside the plant proper would have been like. I passed on applying, I wasn't that hungry. Strange tho, no odor at all outside, all inside.

JOAT The highway of fear is the road to defeat.

- Bazooka Joe JERUSALEM RIDGE

[Doug Miller]

Having grown up in a city where papermaking was one of the major industries, I have to suspect that the folks who work there don't like the smell either, they've just learned to ignore it. It's not pleasant.

On a trip with my ex many years ago, driving into a small town in Maine, I said "There's a paper mill in this town." She wondered howinthehell I could possibly be so sure of that in a place I'd never been to, and said I must be making that up. Just then, we turned a corner and there it was. She figured it was just a lucky guess. But then, she didn't grow up with the smell.

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

Get a copy of my NEW AND IMPROVED TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter by sending email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com You must use your REAL email address to get a response.

[Lazarus Long]

What's the problem with the smell? I go into these all the time. That stuff puts money in my pocket.

[Rich]

Rich

[Swingman]

Know the feeling. When I was a kid the family often had to drive through Bogalusa, Lousiania to get to family outings ... the smell of the paper mill always woke me up miles before we got there.

[Tim Douglass]

Even more amazing is that a lot of that stuff doesn't actually go to China, but only to a chinese-owned mill-ship just outside of US territorial waters. Lots of saw-milling is done that way now. Haul the logs a hundred miles by ship and avoid all the environmental regulations and everything.

Tim Douglass

[Phil Crow]

That mill is still going. Well, it was a year and a half ago (last time I went through Bogalusa).

I saw "Anchorman" tonight, and there was a bit in there dealing with a horrible smell. Some of the descriptions were 'a turd covered in burnt hair,' 'a used diaper filled with Indian food,' and one that got cut in editing, 'the inside of someone's prosthetic leg.'

-Phil Crow