Twelve times twelve by eleven
Comments
-
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/s ... ndworldwar
Read the last line of that report. Thats why wars happen.
Quick, email the Guardian a stupid picture of a man in a tin foil hat.0 -
Manc33 wrote:http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar
Read the last line of that report. Thats why wars happen.
Quick, email the Guardian a stupid picture of a man in a tin foil hat.
"More than 60 years after Prescott Bush came briefly under scrutiny at the time of a faraway war, his grandson is facing a different kind of scrutiny but one underpinned by the same perception that, for some people, war can be a profitable business."
That's not exactly ***BREAKING NEWS***
I'm not sure it supports your batshit crazy theory that wars are orchestrated by... - wait, by whom are wars orchestrated?Ben
Bikes: Donhou DSS4 Custom | Condor Italia RC | Gios Megalite | Dolan Preffisio | Giant Bowery '76
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ben_h_ppcc/
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/143173475@N05/0 -
But you're just highlighting my point - that Prescott S Bush can be caught red handed, tried in a proper court for Trading with the Enemy, then fined just one dollar and let go.
This wasn't funding Hitler before the war - that wouldn't actually be a crime - but this was funding during the war. Now that is a whole different thing.
Then his son becomes President as a thank you for pushing the agenda along. Why not also make his grandson President too for good measure, in a country where "anyone can grow up to be President".
Yes if you're a psychopathic ass kisser born into it, you can become President.0 -
12 * 11 * 14 =
in your heads - no calculator0 -
come on
come on...0 -
You have many theories regarding conspiracies. Thus you are a conspiracy theorist. Seems like a fair description to me. Do you think you are NOT a conspiracy theorist?Manc33 wrote:People call me a conspiracy theorist for saying this stuff is done on purpose but this stuff is done on purpose.
See? A theory regarding a conspiracy.Manc33 wrote:When you look into who it was that setup the "education" system its easy to see why it going the way it is. It is designed to eventually collapse.
Emmmm, you sure you've got that spot on?Manc33 wrote:15 year old kid in Victorian times:
- Risks his life cleaning chimneys all day.
- Knows trigonometry and algebra like the back of his hand.
Are you perhaps refering to George Orwell's book 1984? ...it was a film too, but read the book.Manc33 wrote:Yeah there was a film with something like that in it that goes "Oceania is at war with East Asia. Oceania has always been at war with East Asia"
I haven't gone and read the source material because, to be honest, I couldn't be bothered. However, given the two quotes you've used above is it possible to agree with their accuracy but still come out with a completely different "theory" than you? I think so. Have you considered that rather than everything being a grand secret conspiracy, there may be much simpler explanation. People, for the most part, do what's in their own best interests. Social and economic factors influence decisions and shape the world often in ways you would not choose if you stood back and said "how do I want things to be?".Manc33 wrote:....He mentions a good point - to get kids to pass these days they just lower the difficulty! Well if you're going to do that its pretty easy to appear clever when you're not. :roll:
"They don't want a population capable of critical thinking" damn right Carlin.
It's not a perfect analogy but I would draw some parallels between your views and those of creationists. Evolution describes how complex organisms and behaviours can come about from a set of rules without the need for sentient oversight. Creationists insist someone must be pulling the strings. While I concede there are some large organised corporate, religious and other groups undoubtedly working towards long term goals, I do not accept your theory that "they" are responsible for everything. That's the easy answer that absolves you and I from responsibility. And allows you to continue acting in your own best interest without a guilty conscience.
Let me give you an isolated example: If government is under pressure to demonstrate that they are resolving issues with pass rates in schools in underprivileged areas, there is clearly an incentive to make the metrics look better. How can that be done?
Option 1: You can improve the standard of education by providing an abundance of staff, facilities, incentives, work in the community to influence attitudes toward education, etc....
Option 2: You can simply tell the schools it's their problem and demand better results.
Option 3: You can officially change how you measure performance by changing the criteria and standards imposed on schools.
Option 4: You can change how you differentiate between schools and shift the definition of "underprivileged" schools.
Option 1 is VERY difficult, very slow and requires huge money and commitment. Basically, not something most politicians would tackle head on.
Option 2 is just passing on the problems downwards to those with less tools available to solve it. The likely result will be no change, short term change based on increased but unsustainable effort by individuals, or a tendency for easing the standards so the metrics improve even though the standard of education has not.
Option 3 like option 2 this is just moving the goalposts so you can give the answer people want but it's deception and doesn't achieve the goals the metrics are designed to measure.
Option 4 yet again is like option 2 and 3 in that it doesn't impact the quality of students, it just makes the metrics more palatable. Options 2, 3 and 4 are actually counterproductive since they do exactly the opposite to what the metrics were intended in the first place. The obscure visibility of where problems lie.
Nobody's stopping it? What does that mean? All social systems are being tweaked constantly and undergoing revolutionary changes periodically. You think in the next 100 years everything will progress along some orderly path towards destruction because "they" have ordained it so and no-one will intervene? Bull.Man33 wrote:It might take 100 years but of course the education system will collapse, no one is stopping it.
People talk about the dark ages being in medieval times but we never actually came out of it, oh well maybe one day eh.
Incidentally, I'd highly recommend having a look at a couple of talks Ken Robinson did for TED. They fairly well sum up my criticisms and hopes for education. I did well in school. I'm literate, I can add, subtract, multiply and divide competently in my head. I've been to University and got my degrees. I did it before much of the current "dumbing down" of qualification pass levels. However, I have no hesitation in saying that in very many ways the education system failed me. Many things have changed in the last 20 years. Some for the worse, no doubt, but many others for the better. It's over simplistic and ignorant to simply say it's all going to hell.
P.S.
Too long-winded? :oops:0 -
-
Why is learning your 12x table such a good matrix to measure? surely a better one would be a reduction in class sizes to say below 20, which would have a far better outcome on educational standards than spending a large amount of finite time on something that goes out the window once they reach secondary schools where calculators are then allowed.
but times tables ring true with a lot of voters, much like Majors "back to basics"
and is far cheaper than really raising standards, which costs an awful lot of time and money.
Can't believe people fall for this sort of stuff.0 -
Calculators are only useful if the person operating them is already comfortable with the sums; that comfort comes from practice IME. The premise is that this style of learning confers a certain comfort with manipulating numbers. It's a shame that the same level of importance is not placed on handling fractions IMHO.
Class sizes are not a performance indicator for students and the tories are not going to commit to something that would involve hiring more teachers anyway.- - - - - - - - - -
On Strava.{/url}0 -
For all of those banging on about times tables we need to consider that this is just 1 form of intelligence. If I knew every team that won the FA cup from its inception I would be great on mastermind however other than that not many people would give a toss. If I can calculate either in my head or on a bit of paper what 12 times 12 is then what is the problem.
The insistence that everything is learn by repetition does not work for every student. What is more important that they can do it and fundamentally understand how they arrived at the answer. This way they will be able to multiply any number with any other number and arrive at the answer successfully. Asking people what 12 times 11 times 14 is and expecting the answer immediately is the action of a moron as quite often they only know the answer because the worked it out in significantly less time that the recipient of this pointless game.
Times tables are for tits. Actually understanding how to multiply a number by another number is a useful skill.0 -
The education system only rewards people that have a good memory and memory doesn't equate to intelligence, as savants show us.0
-
Manc33 wrote:The education system only rewards people that have a good memory and memory doesn't equate to intelligence, as savants show us.
Everone accepts that intelligence is not the same as education.
Education is the learning of knowledge so yes it does reward people with good memory.
You are surely not suggesting rewarding people who can't remember what they have learned?
Intelligence is not much use without knowlege and knowledge is useless if you haven't the intelligence to use it.0 -
Ballysmate wrote:You are surely not suggesting rewarding people who can't remember what they have learned?
Sounds like politics.Ballysmate wrote:Intelligence is not much use without knowlege and knowledge is useless if you haven't the intelligence to use it.
Exactly.
I'm not religious but that stuff in the bible about not eating from the tree of knowledge must mean something.
Scientists say we only use 3% of our brains, I can readily believe it.
They don't know what the other 97% does! They say more than 90% of DNA is "junk" as well lol. Sure it is. What is junk... is science when they are saying things like that.
Look at how old the "Baconian method" is and look at the absurd limitations it imposes. It stuck because it is simple, but its daft. The notion that nothing exists because we ain't seen it yet is so diabolically ignorant I cannot find the words. If you only believe in stuff for which there is evidence, doesn't it mean nothing else can ever be discovered? How would you start on the path of discovery of something you currently believe to not exist? Science seems crude for doing that, or for making science only about that, it takes away all the imagination. In science you can't even have an imagination, pretty silly.
If I said we can fold space, or fold time, or we can fade out here and fade in somewhere millions of miles away, you'd laugh, but then you're never going to develop that technology thinking that way, see what I mean?
I got one for you...
Why does everyone make a big deal about Isaac Newton? All he did was watch an apple fall from a tree. Plenty of other people saw apples fall from trees before he did.
Yes its a joke.0 -
Why?Manc33 wrote:...I'm not religious but that stuff in the bible about not eating from the tree of knowledge must mean something.
Where did you get those figures? And which scientists are we talking about?Manc33 wrote:...Scientists say we only use 3% of our brains, I can readily believe it.
They don't know what the other 97% does!
There are plenty "scientists" who claim climate change and evolution are just theories. It's important to differentiate between isolated claims and generally accepted consensus.
I don't understand. What are you saying?Manc wrote:...They say more than 90% of DNA is "junk" as well lol. Sure it is. What is junk... is science when they are saying things like that.
That's hilarious......incidentally Newton made up the story about the apple many years later.manc33 wrote:I got one for you...
Why does everyone make a big deal about Isaac Newton? All he did was watch an apple fall from a tree. Plenty of other people saw apples fall from trees before he did.
Yes its a joke.
0 -
manc33, I get the feeling that Ai_1 might be working for a secret government agency that will try to discredit you at all cost.Ai_1 wrote:
Why?Manc33 wrote:...I'm not religious but that stuff in the bible about not eating from the tree of knowledge must mean something.
Where did you get those figures? And which scientists are we talking about?Manc33 wrote:...Scientists say we only use 3% of our brains, I can readily believe it.
They don't know what the other 97% does!
There are plenty "scientists" who claim climate change and evolution are just theories. It's important to differentiate between isolated claims and generally accepted consensus.
I don't understand. What are you saying?Manc wrote:...They say more than 90% of DNA is "junk" as well lol. Sure it is. What is junk... is science when they are saying things like that.
That's hilarious......incidentally Newton made up the story about the apple many years later.manc33 wrote:I got one for you...
Why does everyone make a big deal about Isaac Newton? All he did was watch an apple fall from a tree. Plenty of other people saw apples fall from trees before he did.
Yes its a joke.
Have you noticed that broadband van with the dark widows parked on your street at all hours? Just sayin.Pinno, מלך אידיוט וחרא מכונאי0 -
Rather than calling it "junk DNA" they could say "Let's be even more enthusiastic about finding out what this other 97% does" as opposed to just calling it junk because they don't know yet. Surely scientists aren't doing themselves any favours thinking that way! Doesn't officially calling it junk mean future scientists won't even look into it?seanoconn wrote:Have you noticed that broadband van with the dark widows parked on your street at all hours? Just sayin.
Don't make me look.0 -
0
-
ugo.santalucia wrote:NorvernRob wrote:I don't know about times tables or why it would even be relevant these days, but I guarantee you education today is of a higher standard than in the past. It isn't that easy though when 50% of the children at my wife's school have English as a second language (ranging from speaking none at all to pretty much fluent).
So one would expect rural communities with zero immigrants to do better? That might be one problem, but is it THE problem? I have no problems with the standard of written English falling, but maths transcends the background... it's the same everywhere you go
Better as in leaving with higher grades on average, yes.
But, that isn't how Schools are judged. For instance my wife's school may be an inner city school in a poor area with lots of non-English speakers, but it gets very good/outstanding OFSTED reports because of the level of improvement the children show. To get the same level of improvement a 'better' school has to take those pupils that start above average anyway, and not only keep them there but raise their achievements higher to be well above average.
Schools have never been tested so much, fail an OFSTED and they get put on special measures for 12 months with money thrown at them to improve, if that doesn't happen there is a very real chance they will simply be closed and a new school or academy built.
Btw did you know that academies (and private/free schools) can employ people to teach who haven't actually got any teaching qualifications?0 -
13 * 13 * 11 =
no calculator...
in your head...0 -
1859RideOnTime wrote:13 * 13 * 11 =
no calculator...
in your head...
Are these going to keep coming? Is there a point or you just want to see if eijits like me will answer?0 -
RideOnTime wrote:13 * 13 * 11 =
no calculator...
in your head...
Is this to show how multiplication tables don't always help?
My (undoubtedly ropey) mental process:
13*10=130
+(3*13=39)=169
*10=1690
+169=1859
I'm sure there's a better way of simplifying the sum!- - - - - - - - - -
On Strava.{/url}0 -
DesWeller wrote:RideOnTime wrote:13 * 13 * 11 =
no calculator...
in your head...
Is this to show how multiplication tables don't always help?
My (undoubtedly ropey) mental process:
13*10=130
+(3*13=39)=169
*10=1690
+169=1859
I'm sure there's a better way of simplifying the sum!
Carol Vorderman eat your heart out. 0 -
My way would be:DesWeller wrote:RideOnTime wrote:13 * 13 * 11 =
no calculator...
in your head...
Is this to show how multiplication tables don't always help?
My (undoubtedly ropey) mental process:
13*10=130
+(3*13=39)=169
*10=1690
+169=1859
I'm sure there's a better way of simplifying the sum!
13*13=169
1690*10=1690
1690+169=1859
Perhaps I broke the rules since 13*13 wouldn't be in multiplication tables in school but I do lots of calculation and at some stage 13^2, 14^2, 15^2 and 16^2 got stuck in my head.0 -
Ballysmate wrote:DesWeller wrote:RideOnTime wrote:13 * 13 * 11 =
no calculator...
in your head...
Is this to show how multiplication tables don't always help?
My (undoubtedly ropey) mental process:
13*10=130
+(3*13=39)=169
*10=1690
+169=1859
I'm sure there's a better way of simplifying the sum!
Carol Vorderman eat your heart out.
0 -
Don't worry, it really doesn't work like that. It's unfashionable to talk about 'junk DNA' if you're a biologist (unless you're deliberately trying to be provocative, which some people are!). Most prefer to talk about what proportion of the DNA is 'functional', but even this is tricky because it's harder to define than you might think. Only about 1-2% of the human genome is 'coding' in the classical sense (i.e., there's good evidence that it contains the instructions for making proper proteins). One recent study gave us a higher figure of about 8% for 'really functional' (i.e., it encodes proteins or has a regulatory function and tends not to change much between different species). An earlier study using a much more liberal definition of 'functional' (i.e., something we can measure is going on in this bit of the genome, like a specific protein sticking to it) came out with the controversially high headline figure of 80%.Manc33 wrote:Rather than calling it "junk DNA" they could say "Let's be even more enthusiastic about finding out what this other 97% does" as opposed to just calling it junk because they don't know yet. Surely scientists aren't doing themselves any favours thinking that way! Doesn't officially calling it junk mean future scientists won't even look into it?0 -
Anyone familiar with Richard Feynman?
The comments about it being a bit pointless to memorise multiplication tables reminded me of a story from one of his memoirs. The university system in the US (in the 30s I suppose it would have been) insisted that you couldn't just study "sciences" subjects. You had to do some "humanities" subjects too. So Feynman discovered biology was considered "humanities" and grudgingly did a module. When he had to write a paper involving cat anatomy he went to the college library and asked for a "map of the cat". Apparently he was supposed to memorise where all the bits were but couldn't see the point since all you needed was the "map".
I remember that being funny. Maybe I'm forgetting a bit. :oops:
Don't hold the above example against the originals. They're excellent books. I think there was more than one written by his son in law from verbal recordings made with him. I know one was called "Surely you're joking Mr Feynman" can't remember the other. Both are easy reading and very enjoyable but also fascinating. How many nobel prize winning physicists marked exam papers in strip clubs, played practical jokes at Los Alamos while working on the atom bomb, were obsessed with bongo drums and made NASA look rather silly on live TV. Well worth a read. Very interesting guy with lots of amazing and very amusing stories.0 -
Fooking calculators and times tables. Sheesh, this pees me off.
I'm 44, like maths, use maths every day and despite being reasonably capable at it, have also experienced struggling with it.
I did my times tables from 3 to 12 in 1st year of junior school. So what? Apart from a few exceptions, I work out most multiples in my head as I have an aversion / mental block to just learning stuff by rote. They are largely an irrelevance.
Calculators: I did the last year of O' levels. We did two papers of equal duration, one with and one without a calculator. One tested maths without a calculator, one tested us on far more complex mathematical problems without bogging us down in loads of tedious sums. This always made perfect sense to me. Why do so many have a problem with it. The calculator paper would have needed 2-3 times as long to be as rigorous in mathematical principle but without a calculator.0 -
What annoys me is you can either do it or you can't and yet you get scorned for not being "able" to do it. :roll:0
-
I have some difficulty with memorising formulae and have always considered it largely unnecessary anyway. I tend to do things from first principles or look them up. However, I don't understand an objection to learning multiplication tables. These are the building blocks of all the more calculations you can then do on paper, in your head or any other way you like. You say you work out most multiples in your head rather than learning them by rote. If you object to learning any calculations more complex than counting, that would make for some VERY cumbersome calculation. What about learning addition? Have you learned that 5+5=10 or do you need to count up 5 increments from 5 to discover it's 10? That would be ludicrous in my view and is really no different to learning basic multiples.morstar wrote:Fooking calculators and times tables. Sheesh, this pees me off.
I'm 44, like maths, use maths every day and despite being reasonably capable at it, have also experienced struggling with it.
I did my times tables from 3 to 12 in 1st year of junior school. So what? Apart from a few exceptions, I work out most multiples in my head as I have an aversion / mental block to just learning stuff by rote. They are largely an irrelevance.
Calculators: I did the last year of O' levels. We did two papers of equal duration, one with and one without a calculator. One tested maths without a calculator, one tested us on far more complex mathematical problems without bogging us down in loads of tedious sums. This always made perfect sense to me. Why do so many have a problem with it. The calculator paper would have needed 2-3 times as long to be as rigorous in mathematical principle but without a calculator.
Calculators, spreadsheets, software like MathLab, etc are great but I don't think they mitigate against learning the most basic maths. When you get change in a shop, do you do a quick calculation to check it's correct? Do you take out a calculator? or do you simply assume it's correct?
You need the building blocks and after that all the more complex stuff can be looked up and calculators used for the number crunching. I conisider basic multiples as basic building blocks.0
