Sunday: Hili dialogue

57 thoughts on “Sunday: Hili dialogue”

1. Today is also the birth date of Thomas Hardy – June 2, 1840. He is one of my favorite novelists. The first of his novels that I read was A PAIR OF BLUE EYES. The story held my interest intently. After reading only about a third of the novel, I thought that nothing else could possibly happen, but Hardy was a wizard at devising plots! My favorite Hardy novel is THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE.

   1. I liked Hardy, though I have to say, more for his obvious love of the Wessex countryside than for his characters.

      cr

2. There certainly are some bizarre ideas behind Common Core teaching. I’ve not seen that method before but I have seen that memorizing the multiplication tables is no longer emphasized. Instead, kids are taught to make big tables on the side of their work, for instance in the 3 times table, they’d make this chart 1 3
   2 6
   3 9
   4 12… and so on, so they can just add three to each row until they find the answer. Quite tedious. And of course three weeks out of the last month of school is MAP testing, instead of three weeks of learning. The past generations were educated in such a way that humans were able to invent nuclear power, computers, TV, the internet, and go to the moon. This upcoming generation is being educated in such a way that they can sit at home and watch youtube videos of people playing video games which they think is a sport (seriously, E-Sports?!) while denying vaccines and the moon landing. Progress!

   1. The approach described in the video does have some merit – if one needs to work without pencil and paper.

3. That method for multiplication was quite the big thing in the UK over the past 10yrs or so. Faded away a bit now but there is now MORE emphasis on times-tables: the Government is introducing a compulsory National Test for 8yr Olds next year.

   1. I wonder what the thought is behind this? Memorizing is hard, but not THAT hard. Are they trying to reduce mental stress? Go figure.

      1. They’re trying to teach the principle of the thing.

         30×10 + 30×2 + 5×10 + 5×2
         = 300 + 60 + 50 + 10 = 420.

         Actually I do something like that in my head, 35×10 (=350) + 35×2 (=70) = 420.

         By breaking it down into manageable chunks, it then just becomes a matter of addition.

         Trying to explain any method e.g. long multiplication step by step would appear just as slow.

         cr

         1. That sounds reasonable for getting a good understanding. It should probably not be a substitute for memorizing the tables.

            1. I agree and in fact having the ‘tables’ memorised greatly facilitates the above method.

               ’80-20 rule’ applies – 80% of the multiplications you need to do involve the range covered by ‘the tables’.

               cr

         2. When I was in high school (which was over 20 years back) my Calc teacher, who was in his mid thirties, talked about his experience of attending a magnet school as a child where essentially the same method as shown in the common core video was taught, and which he claimed made it so much easier to do three or even four digit multiplication in his head.

            So these ideas are definitely not new or anything.

            1. I had a calc teacher (college level) who had memorized log tables which allowed him to multiply any length numbers in his head. When he did it, it seemed like magic. Still does.

            2. That’d be amazing!

               I had an epiphany over logarithms. I was sick, off school, the day the theory of logs was explained. So while I knew perfectly how to use them, for years I never knew why they worked.

               I did also know that 10^(a+b) = 10^a x 10^b i.e you add the exponent to multiply the powers. e.g. 10^5 = 10^2 x 10^3.

               Then one day I was trying to explain logs to a junior and the penny dropped – the log of a number is just the exponent! Bingo!

               cr

            3. errm, that should read “you add the exponents to multiply the original numbers (which are powers of 10 in this example)”.
               Oops.

               cr

         3. Agreed. And it’s also an introduction to simple algebra: (a+b)times(c+d) = ac+ad+bc+bd.

            1. Arithmetic IS algebra (the mechanics in positional notations, any base). Every written value is a polynomial, and the arithmetic operations are the same as the operations that would be done manipulating a polynomial.

               For those that think the model shown is silly and takes too long, recall,if you will, the months learning the tables, and the months of practice to learn how to multiply two digit numbers the “fast way”. In the 1960’s and 70’s, this was roughly two years of school (traditional, not ‘new math’) in the US. What is shown here takes about the same time to learn, and, once mastered, is as fast, with the added benefits already mentioned re: understanding and knowledge transfer.

            2. I was never taught that method or whatever is the “fast way” but I think something like it comes instinctively.

               Say I want 23×69 – okay, it’s natural to do 20×69 and 3×69 and add the two.
               1380 + 207
               It does help enormously to write down the intermediate products rather than trying to keep ‘1380’ in memory while doing 3×69 – much muttering goes on if I don’t have a pencil handy. The keeping-it-in-memory part is much harder than the multiplications.
               Also much easier to avoid errors.

               cr

            3. I would do 70 x 23 = 1610, then 1610 – 23 =1587.

            4. Yes that’s a valid dodge. (It’s how I got 3×69 = 207, by the way; 3×70, minus 3)

               cr

4. I’m worried about Cyrus.

   1. I know dogs generally age faster than cats, and the larger dogs more quickly than the smaller dogs, but I’m feeling old now, too–I remember when Cyrus (or Hili?) first showed on the scene, and Jerry was afraid that Cyrus would make a nom of Hili.

      1. Hili came first but Cyrus was already a fully grown dog when he moved in. At first, I wanted them to get rid of him because he and Hili did not get on at all.

         However, they soon buried the hatchet and became firm friends. I’ll be very sad if this is the end for Cyrus.

         1. The bond between pets can be very moving to observe. My daughter lost one of her 4 dogs recently, and later on she saw that one of the remaining was still missing her. When they arrived home from an outing, they would each jump out of the back of the car. He would come back and check for one more friend to jump out. He was counting.

5. There’s a typo in the date of Timothy McVeigh’s conviction – definitely not 1967!

   1. The bombing took place in 1995.

   2. Fixed.

6. I suppose the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 was the worst case of domestic terrorism but certainly far from the last in this country of gun happy people. Lots of folks are morning in Virginia Beach while we wait for the next event.

   1. McVeigh & Nichols used a rental van filled with drums of fertilizer.

      The Virginia Beach killer used two legally purchased pistols.

      What specific legislation do you propose to prevent similar attacks from occurring?

      1. It was anfo, not just fertiliser. The ‘fuel oil’ in McVeigh’s case was nitromethane. I think there may also have been aluminium powder (that adds enormously to the effectiveness of most explosive mixtures) but I can’t confirm that. And it all requires substantial primers to ensure proper detonation. (He also added Tovex blasting explosive and cylinders of acetylene – I’m not sure if there was any point to the latter. Acetylene in commercial cylinders is dissolved in acetone which is soaked into a porous solid filler. As such, you can drop one off a truck and it won’t go off. Pure liquid acteylene is worse than nitroglycerine in its shock-sensitivity, quite unmanageable.)

         So, not just a few bags of NPK with a detonator stuck in them.

         However, the number of deaths caused by McVeigh are tiny compared with the number of deaths caused by guns. I only mention that since you asked…

         cr

7. Jumbo the elephant died in 1885 so the poster would be from at least 1885.

   1. I’m not sure where the 1835 date comes from for the start of Barnum’s circus career. He would only have been 25 at the time, and he didn’t get into the circus business ’till he was 60 years old.

      Yes, that would be a later poster too. He toured Jumbo for four years ’till he was killed by a train and then exhibited the skeleton.

8. I really see nothing wrong with the multiplication method used there. It’s just a graphic application of FOIL combined with an understanding of what base 10 numbers mean. The video is a cheat, merely showing that you can work a problem faster than a teacher can demonstrate a method to a class. Get off my lawn.

   1. + 1

      cr

   2. + 1

      Total agreement, as well with the posters above who point out that it demonstrates the algebra behind the usual “fast” algorithm. This kind of thing sets you up to calculate just as quickly if not faster than the old way, with fewer errors, and even without paper. Simultaneously it builds in understanding of the algorithm (notice that if you did it on graph paper then the sub-boxes would contain exactly that many grid squares.)

9. That memorial should of course read “murdered” rather than “hanged”…

   cr

10. “So, my Kiwi, Aussie, and Canadian friends, you have a Queen!”

    And?

    We knew that. What of it? Nobody here seems to be nearly as exercised about it as PCC seems to be.

    cr

    1. 1776 and all that stuff.

    2. As Canada has a Governor General appointed by the PM to act as head of state the queen bit is somewhat irrelevant. It will fade away one day.

    3. Royalty seems a rather pointless and anachronistic institution to maintain three centuries or so after the Age of Enlightenment.

       1. “Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.”

          Dennis the Peasant, speaking to King Arthur

          Monty Python and the Holy Grail

    4. Knock it off. I can be as exercised about it as I want, and your comment “what of it” is snarky.

11. The Italy Chile footage is, of course, Very Bad. I disapprove, technically. But I also laughed myself hoarse all the way through. It’s ruddy hilarious. How did only TWO players get sent off??

    My favourite bit is that one of the players gets sent off for leaping boot first into another player’s head…but it was all precipitated by the latter player very straightforwardly punching another player in the face a few minutes earlier, and not even getting a yellow card. The cherry on the cake is David Coleman’s quivering outrage at it all.

    What a brilliant video!

    Although it’s very bad behaviour obviously, and I disapprove.

    1. I couldn’t help think these men are terrifically restrained. It’s always amusing how they decide to fall down and grab a convenient appendage to fake an injury whenever they are lightly brushed. Compared to hockey, this is a picnic. 😎

       1. It seems this horrific video did not have the effect it was expected to have 🙂

          I watched it and was, like, when’s it gonna get to the good bit?

          cr

    2. I gather from Wiki that the referee of that match, Ken Ashton, later invented the yellow and red cards, albeit not directly after this brawl.
       He invented it after the 1966 World Cup final where some players were cautioned and one sent off, but contended they did not realise it and were very confused.
       The system of yellow and red cards, and the booking of offenders, makes things much clearer, and probably did prevent quite a few scenes like the one shown.

12. Just in case someone gets confused: the otter juggling rocks in the first video is not a sea otter.

    1. Any idea what it is?

13. On June 2, 455, the Vandals began their sack of Rome, plundering the city for two weeks.

    Afterwards, Romans were without water because the pumps didn’t work.

    1. What kind of pumps?

14. note the label, which says “Charcoal on Constitution”

    Pencil on charcoal.

    1. A 33% error rate. Wow. Pencil on constitution.

       1. I kind of missed the point of that.

          I got the point of M C Escher’s original, I’m not sure what extra Pliny’s version brings.

          cr

          1. One hand – the smaller of the two – is erasing the other.

             1. Oh, right.

                Is that a tRump-like face on the forefinger of the small hand or am I indulging in a bit of pareidolia?

                cr

15. The treefrog in the video is drinking. Frogs don’t “drink” in the conventional sense (by mouth). They have highly vascularized tissue in the skin where the hind legs join the abdomen that absorbs water. During droughts where I live we see treefrogs sitting on the edge of the birdbath with the rear ends in the water rehydrating.
    I used to find treefrogs in the halls of the school where I taught that were so dehydrated they looked dead. I plopped the butt end of the treefrogs in a shallow dish of water for 10 to 15 minutes and they revived. Most of them. My students were amazed.

16. ‘M.C.Erasure #6’ is brilliant, Pliny!
    Based on M.C, Escher’s ‘Drawing Hands’, we see 45’s ok sign and little hand erasing the legacy of 44, I got that far, but why the ‘#6’?

17. Re the Battle of Santiago, the referee was Ken Aston, who was a head master at a primary school in east London and officiated in 1966 in a rather less violent game I played in.

18. The guy in this video explains the “Area Model” shows why is actually useful in teaching mathematics.

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