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keithpeteron How Craig Barton wishes he’d taught maths

Going back around the millennium or before when I last taught A level maths at college, we had them in over the summer before term started for a two week intensive algebra and basics course.

Seemed to help.

The original author (Tim Gowers, a Fields medallist and professor of mathematics at Cambridge) has a totally hilarious blog post about being asked to coach a teenager doing A level maths...

https://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/what-maths-a-level-d...

keithpeteron How Craig Barton wishes he’d taught maths

Quotes from OA that struck me as on the button...

"A prejudice that was strongly confirmed was the value of mathematical fluency. Barton says, and I agree with him (and suggested something like it in my book Mathematics, A Very Short Introduction) that it is often a good idea to teach fluency first and understanding later."

Agree fully with Barton and OA here. Until recently I taught GCSE Maths re-take students aged 16 and over in a further education college. They were constantly tripping over really quite basic little skill issues and that prevented them from seeing how to tackle the longer and more complex problem solving questions.

"I would go for something roughly equivalent [in the solving of equations such as 4x - 8 = 2x + 2], but not quite the same, which is to stress the rule you can do the same thing to both sides of an equation (worrying about things like squaring both sides or multiplying by zero later). Then the problem of solving linear equations would be reduced to a kind of puzzle: what can we do to both sides of this equation to make the whole thing look simpler?"

The idea of just playing with the notation is one I fully intend to try but getting people to think in that abstract way is hard work.

keithpeteron Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

It would be ace if there was a way to get older stories. I am resorting to reader view generally.

keithpeteron FSF adds Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre to list of endorsed GNU/Linux distributions

From the hyperbola wiki Installation page [1]

"Since Hyperbola removed entire systemd support, we suggest you read about OpenRC which is our main default init system."

So one reason for having a look would be to see what OpenRC is all about.

Interesting distribution model: the iso is a dual architecture netboot image weighing in at CD-ROM size. You boot and (presumably) choose 64 or 32bit Intel as appropriate. Then do the Arch linux style install. I have a Thinkpad x61s with an atheros wifi card for which there are free/libre drivers so I'll try an installation in a bit.

Arch-style install coupled with command line system where you add Xorg and software implies aimed at a knowledgeable target group.

[1] https://wiki.hyperbola.info/doku.php?id=en:guide:installatio...

You have to scroll down about 2/3 of the page. No automatically generated section list is apparent.

keithpeteron A small notebook for a system administrator

A bit small as others have commented but I like the 'Swiss army knife' approach. Perhaps a slightly larger version could be the future for the 'non-endpoint' laptop? Sound artists and so forth might find a use for such a thing.

I find my ancient Thinkpad X61s is the one I actually take around, even though my slightly newer X220 is faster, has more memory and has a brighter screen.

keithpeteron Office 365 global authentication outage

http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/italy/

Less (immediate?) satisfaction but people seem to live longer.

keithpeteron Digitized minutes of Royal Society meetings taken between 1686 and 1711

Might be using the 'official' 25th March date for new year? [1]

The will probably be a 'readme' somewhere on the site about old style dates.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar#Beginning_o...

keithpeteron Boeing overhauls quality controls: more high-tech tracking but fewer inspectors

"By "small-batch" I often mean batches of one-offs, reducing the effectiveness of sampling for quality control!"

But increasing the importance of a sample retained for later analysis I imagine.

keithpeteron Boeing overhauls quality controls: more high-tech tracking but fewer inspectors

As automation moves on I think we will all have to think these issues through. Do I trust the mass of my fellow humans a bit more than an algorithm and its sensors?

keithpeteron Boeing overhauls quality controls: more high-tech tracking but fewer inspectors

Very interesting, thanks for posting.

No sampling at all? No samples retained for analysis in the event of a problem later?

keithpeteron Why I use old hardware

Yup! Or at least 'appliance' style end points

keithpeteron Why I use old hardware

A default install of Slackware from a 2.4Gb .iso will give you a similar environment that is reasonably functional on an X200 similar to the OAs. I actually use an X220 which is slightly more powerful but same ballpark.

x4 inflation over 20 years?

keithpeteron Why I use old hardware

Classrooms often use interactive whiteboards driven by PCs that can be quite slow to log in to the teacher's active directory profile as this involves pulling data over a network of variable speed. There can also be issues with software upgrades deciding to start at random times. The PC will need to be logged off and logged on 8 times a day...

Teachers don't talk to themselves in classrooms so time loss can affect a small percentage of up to 180 student-hours per day or 900 student-hours per teaching week per teacher. A typical '8 form entry' secondary school in UK will have around 100 teachers plus admin / head of subject / 'leadership'. School year is around 38 weeks.

I sometimes think something like ChromeOS but that can run IW software and just stay booted would be better. An appliance.

keithpeteron I Nearly Lost All of My Data

How often do you do the incremental backups on backup drive #2?

Some degree of cold storage would have reduced the OP's stress level when restoring their NAS mind you.

keithpeteron To Save the Sound of a Stradivarius, a Whole City Must Keep Quiet

Both harmonic and inharmonic overtones and a changing mix over time. Would be a big database.

https://www.pianobuyer.com/Articles/Detail/ArticleId/40/Digi...

Above reference discusses some of the issues for digital pianos - which are well-established and it is easy to find demonstration models in music shops.

keithpeteron Who Really Built the First Electric Rock ‘n’ Roll Guitar?

Just curious as to what difference the amplifier makes?

[1] has a collection of circuit diagrams /schematics for Fender amplifiers. The Champ circuits look very simple with basically a volume control.

[1] https://www.thetubestore.com/early-fender-guitar-amp-schemat...

keithpeteron ARP founder Alan R. Pearlman has died

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2U0q4lZiFg

Éliane Radigue has used the ARP 2500 for decades and has only recently started composing for acoustic musicians playing traditional instruments. Just one small byway this technology enabled...

keithpeteron The trouble with writing a pop-econ book

"Something about it seems like a just-so story. The inherent noisiness of economic evidence is lost, all the graphs are cherry picked to support his view. And yet you'd have to dig quite a lot to find specific things to complain about."

Perhaps your friend could do a really popular debunking book called 'Stop trying to manage noise' and make a fortune? I'm actually a bit serious, so many people do not understand the idea of sampling error and associated noise in data.

keithpeteron Iberia claims it is part of a department store to avoid Brexit shutdown

Some people. Remember that the demographic changes by about 750k each year (grim reaper and new cohort entering electorate).

Remember also that the majority of degree educated people under 50 voted against this. I'm not seeing any decrease in polarisation whichever way it goes.

Where I live, many people depend on the automotive supply chain. This is not a case of boutique cheese for us, it is a case of mass unemployment. I've lived through one of those episodes.

keithpeteron Iberia claims it is part of a department store to avoid Brexit shutdown

"I'm a Remainer. I'm Irish - Ireland is one of the most pro-EU nations - and I live and own a house in London. I think, despite my own interests, that the UK probably needs to leave the EU in order to resolve the splits in society and for the UK to figure out its place in the world."

I'm a UK citizen and I would really rather not have my economic future such as it is (I do not own a house in London, and would probably have difficulty raising a mortgage on a parking space there) flushed down the toilet for some mythical concept of 'control'.

Economics is really important as some of my pro-Brexit neighbours are beginning to realise.

keithpeteron Found: A plane wreck that could solve a 50-year-old mystery

I found the use of oral evidence from fishermen and dredger crews to narrow possible search areas interesting.

keithpeteron The Feynman Technique: The Best Way to Learn Anything (2012)

That sounds interesting.

I could do my maths/stats stuff with a whiteboard or flip-chart for occasional images.

How do the biologists or ecologists get on? Actual (large, paper) charts?

keithpeteron How the Valley treats experienced people

Thanks for commenting. I was looking at one of the European multi-port trips myself.

keithpeteron How the Valley treats experienced people

A cruise ship is basically a floating hotel. Depending on the severity of the storm, the crew probably did not want to be dealing with a significant number of sea-sick guests.

It used to be possible to take a berth on a cargo ship to/from Liverpool from/to Halifax. The modern equivalent is a ride on a container ship [1]. They will still avoid really bad storms but you are more likely to see some seas around autumn.

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/cruises/news/french-freig...

keithpeteron Found: The plane wreck that could solve a 50-year-old mystery

I posted this because I found the use of oral evidence from seamen to narrow the search area interesting.

keithpeteron DragonFly BSD 5.4

So I could recover previously saved versions of e.g. a word-processing file? Used to use that back per-millennium on a Novel network with shared drives and it was very useful indeed. I've always wondered why that feature wasn't available in later systems.

keithpeteron DragonFly BSD 5.4

Google tells me that this is a fork of FreeBSD from some years ago, and that there is some desktop support and some degree of support for laptops, especially Thinkpads from a few years ago.

Anyone else care to comment?

keithpeteron How a shampoo bottle is saving young lives

"His invention was inspired by something he saw while visiting Australia."

Exchange visits(+) a good use of money perhaps? - spark that innovation.

(+) not necessarily just to 1st world countries by the way

keithpeteron K-Cup creator John Sylvan regrets inventing Keurig coffee pod system

Try a mokapot. Much lower capital cost and just as resource light. Not so much crema though I have to admit.

keithpeteron K-Cup creator John Sylvan regrets inventing Keurig coffee pod system

I outwalked a traffic jam this morning as I often do (admittedly in a narrow time frame)