Oshkosh John

bio:Retired layabout, racanteur, boulevardier, etc.
website:Oshkosh John

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Commented on Do you understand my first-grade child's homework?
This is from number theory. What's weird for me is that number theory is a college-level course, usually presented after a couple of semesters or more of calculus....
Commented on Rupert Murdoch vows to take all of Newscorp's websites out of Google, abolish fair use, tear heads off of adorable baby animals
Tell me again, how did Rupert Murdock become a bazillionaire? Verily, the stupid is strong in this one. As print media becomes more and more irrelevant, how does boycotting the new media grow ones business?...
Commented on Arizona Republic quotes psychics as experts on the future
I knew something like this would happen sooner or later, when BOTH my daughters got degrees from an accredited four-year private college without taking more than a semester's work in either mathematics or science. Forty-five years ago, at a state...
Commented on It's Gadhafi Mania!
Take off the fez and tribal cloak, replace it with a fucked-up cowboy hat and cowboy suit, and you have Bob Dylan!...
Commented on Radley Balko on NY Times photo: " I can’t really conceive of a scenario where it wasn’t staged."
I've been in a car where the driver was steering with his/her knees while rolling a joint!...
Commented on Tiburon, CA will photograph and record license plate of every visitor to town
A town near where I live is a famous speed trap. It is well-known, and surprisingly few tickets are written any more. However, you don't want to exceed thirty miles per hour going through town! It's a crossroad town, and...
Commented on Afghanistan: US discouraged inquiry into mass killing of Taliban prisoners
"If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without...
Commented on LA cop union buys stake in newspaper, demands critical writers be fired
Look for the union label . . . stuck to the underside of the table....
Commented on Republican clown college photos
Yo, juggalo homies and juggalettes... you ain't think up this horrors show what's next, what's comin, what's around the corner? you want to see the real wicked shit, where the wicked at? channel 2, 4 and 7, they be kickin...
Commented on Landlord harasses murder victim's mother for early termination fees because her son was killed before his lease ran out
O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us! -- Robert Burns...
Commented on Phil Spector and his spectacular hair convicted of murder
Whatever became of the smarmy, little ferret in the back seat of the limosine in the opening of Easy Rider?...
Commented on Cold dead hand of Frank Herbert reaches up from grave, stabs Dune Second Life megafans in the back
I read the books a long time ago, and enjoyed them thoroughly. I subsequently saw the movie on cable television, and I enjoyed that, too. That was the end of it for me. Now LotR, on the other hand, THAT'S...
Commented on We found the chip inside the new iPod headphones...but is it DRM? (Update: It is not!)
I'll keep my Sansa C-series MP3 player, thank you. It cost fifty dollars two years ago. The basic device has two gigabytes of memory, and there is a slot for a miniature memory chip to be inserted. The FM radio...
Commented on Searching for an Honest Bank
Try a local or regional bank with only a few branches in one or two states or cities. Associated Bank of Green Bay is an example. http://www.associatedbank.com/ Credit unions are another good idea, as some people above have already suggested....
Commented on AIG has insured $1.6 trillion in derivatives
If George Bailey was worried about going to jail, then the motherfuckers at AIG should have to sweat, too!...
Commented on More unsold inventory piling up: Toyota stores unsold cars aboard ship
Two solutions . . . 1. Destroy them by either shredding them or throwing them into the ocean. 2. Dutch Auction....
Commented on Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street
"#36 posted by js7a , February 24, 2009 8:42 AM Don't stop math, Xeni, it's just back to the good old days of multivariate regression and amortized Bayesian statistics for actuarial work." The problem is that finally business is...
Commented on Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street
Back in the sixties, it was determined that business school students would benefit from learning calculus. "Take my derivative . . . please!" Applying techniques of calculus to numbers pulled from one's ass does not cause magical things to happen...
Commented on Something For Those Who Hate Mondays
I work at Social Security. One of my tasks is preparing judicial hearing folders. When a disability claim has been denied and then appealed and denied again, the claimant is entitled to a judicial hearing. I have to prepare the...
Commented on When is a free credit report not a free credit report? When it's from freecreditreport.com
Seriously, who bites on things like this any more? Frankly I am glad for the existence of unsophisticated consumers, sometimes less-kindly referred to as "rubes," because then the scammers will go after the easy meat instead of bothering me....
Commented on NYPD cop: videoing me breaking the law is a terrorist act
You people who think cops are breaking the law when they "park illegally" are wrong. A cop may park his official cop vehicle anywhere he wants, even on the sidewalk. If there is an actual emergency which needs a fire...
Commented on Growing up poor can impair kids' prefrontal cortex activity -- but it can be restored with games
When my two daughters were growing up, there was never very much money. We ate, we had decent clothes, and the rent and utilities were always covered. However, the ladies were encouraged to read, and read, and read some more....
Commented on Obama's Voices
I would not want another President with whom I could share a beer or smoke a joint. I want a President who is a lot smarter than me, and now we have one! Barack Obama's speech and prose are a...
Commented on Obama's "Change" Inspires Controversy in Arab Online Media
Change starts when people get sick of "the way things are." There are many possible outcomes for revolt, most of them not very happy for the revolutionaries. Your change can be co-opted by corporations, as was the American Hippie movement...
Commented on Tales of cranky book sellers
I once happened on a pile of old baseball cards someone else was throwing away. I took them to work with me, and showed them to a person who collected such things. I told him I wanted 100 dollars for...
Commented on Tales of cranky book sellers
I once happened on a pile of old baseball cards someone else was throwing away. I took them to work with me, and showed them to a person who collected such things. I told him I wanted 100 dollars for...
Commented on Fart Party Interview
The worst thing that a new factory in a small town can do is to con the local government into selling revenue bonds to get free plumbing, tax relief, etc. Then the little town grows an infrastructure to meet the...
Commented on Games are recession-proof earners?
My wife and I have very little money for extravagances. When a bit more than we need comes in, we always buy cool toys to get us through hard times. We may be eating beans and rice, and living in...
Commented on Quintessential TSA stupidity: taking airline cutlery away from a pilot
Everything the TSA does for us comes down to SECURITY THEATER. I never fly anywhere. One's movements are still anonymous when driving!...

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sugaku commented on Do you understand my first-grade child's homework?
Oddly enough, this is how I taught myself to quickly do math on pairs I couldn't remember well. If I wanted to add 8+6, I'd do 8+(2+4) then (8+2)+4 then (10)+4 then 14. Of course, this was the "wrong" way to do it, and I needed to "memorize" more...but it's mathematically sound and *if* it works for you, that's great. As other posters have said, it's probably an extension of a lesson, with a matching section in the textbook. Since this is the newest flavor for teaching that subject, the best thing to do might be to make sure that...
Blaatann commented on Do you understand my first-grade child's homework?
I agree that teaching kids to view 8+3 as 10 and 1, the one "spilling over" is a good idea, this is exactly how I visualize adding large numbers. But they could have taken the time to line up the numbers, text and graphic. I think the reason I had to check the comments to understand what was going on was that I just couldn't decipher the meaning due to the wonky text alignment....
TomChicago commented on Do you understand my first-grade child's homework?
This is one of many different strategies to solve basic facts problems and it's a very good one. The ability to break apart numbers here will serve kids very well down the road when they add larger numbers (302 + 153 is easy to add mentally when you think of it as 300 + 150 + 2 + 3) or when you estimate. The number 10 is taught to kids as early as grade K as a benchmark number as our number system is based on tens. So, they first learn in grade K different combinations of numbers that make...
Yooper commented on Do you understand my first-grade child's homework?
Homework in first grade, why? I am quite sure I have read that research as found no benefit to HW this young. Instead for your child, read a book, walk in the woods, play with hand puppets - they'll learn a lot more. This practice sheet was surely closely tied to the lesson. I suspect it was meant to be in-class practice. Please don't complain about the lack of clear insturctions - they are FIRST graders! For any innovative curriculum, parent-teacher/school communication via PTA meetings and/or parent conference days are critical but very hard to put in practice. But parents...
beameup commented on Do you understand my first-grade child's homework?
770-625. Your way: 0-5, can't do, borrow from the 7, add 10 to the 0, 15-5=5, 6-2=4, 7-6=1, read off the answer left to right: 145. This requires no understanding of place value, and for most people requires paper and pencil. Students that have learned the filling 10s method can move on to filling 100's. For this problem, I need 75 more to get to 700, add that to 70 = 145. Very quick, very simple, deepens understanding of place value and number. I think learning the mental math techniques is very valuable. BUT, like you, I do think it...

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