Philosophical principles in real life:
1) Husband: "Will you stop worrying? Worrying does no good."
Wife: "Yes it does. 90% of the things I worry about never happen!"
(Correlation does not mean cause-and-effect)
2) Psychiatrist: "Do you believe you are dead?"
Patient: "yes"
Psych.: "Do dead men bleed?"
Patient: "no"
[Psychiatrist takes a pocket knife and cuts the patients finger, which starts bleeding]
Psych.: "What does that tell you?"
Patient: "Well, whadda you know? Dead men DO bleed!"
(Assinine Assumptions Produce Confused Conclusions)
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
The Calculator in Your Head
I like calculators a lot. I like TI's: I have a TI-82 graphics, and a couple of solar-powered TI-30XIIS. My favorites however are HP's with RPN (Reverse Prefix Notation); I have a few old ones that stopped working because I can't find any replacement batteries. Computer software? I enjoy using Microsoft Excel and Corel QuattroPro. What can I say? I am a CCG: Certifiable Computer Geek. I am just a number-crunching kind of guy! However, as much as I like calculators and computers, I have a calculator in my head. You do too!
You didn't know that? Most people don't seem to. Now, before you give up on me and go to Youtube to see what new inane video has been posted recently, or go off to play yet another round of Angry Birds, give my thoughts a read. Do I mean that at birth the doctor implanted chips in your head? No. I mean that you have a marvelous organ in your head, a brain that is more powerful than any calculator or computer that has ever been invented. Yes, you have a supercomputer between your ears that makes IBM's Wilson look like a play toy.
Doctors tell us that human beings only use a small fraction of their brain power. I have heard that Albert Einstein only used about 10% of his brain capacity. I fear that I, as well as most of the rest of us, use far less than that!!
My dad told me about this when I was young. He demonstrated his point when I was in eighth grade and was enamored with my first slide-rule (ok, so I am a hopeless geek). He and I had a contest multiplying numbers: me with my slide-rule, and dad with his mental capacity (which I am sure was a lot more than mine). He beat me every time. The reason for this, he told me, was because he had the multiplication tables up to 12's chiseled into his brain in elementary school.
Memorization? How arcane! How old school! Everyone knows that memorization isn't the answer, that new math is the key! Are you serious? If memorization is so bad, how come our grandparents know more history, poetry than we do, and can do arithmetic better? Got CRN disease (Can't Remember Nothin')? Uh huh. Sing to me your favorite song from your teenage years. Can you remember the theme song from Gilligan's Island? Happy Days? How about the Barney Song? How about last year's lineup of the Royals or the Chiefs (or whatever your favorite team is)? And of course, how about your ABC's? I thought so. You can memorize whatever you want to memorize. My kids have almost the entire scripts of their favorite movies memorized.
You want to make the most of your brainpower? Memorization is the key. In my next post, we will explore this further.
You didn't know that? Most people don't seem to. Now, before you give up on me and go to Youtube to see what new inane video has been posted recently, or go off to play yet another round of Angry Birds, give my thoughts a read. Do I mean that at birth the doctor implanted chips in your head? No. I mean that you have a marvelous organ in your head, a brain that is more powerful than any calculator or computer that has ever been invented. Yes, you have a supercomputer between your ears that makes IBM's Wilson look like a play toy.
Doctors tell us that human beings only use a small fraction of their brain power. I have heard that Albert Einstein only used about 10% of his brain capacity. I fear that I, as well as most of the rest of us, use far less than that!!
My dad told me about this when I was young. He demonstrated his point when I was in eighth grade and was enamored with my first slide-rule (ok, so I am a hopeless geek). He and I had a contest multiplying numbers: me with my slide-rule, and dad with his mental capacity (which I am sure was a lot more than mine). He beat me every time. The reason for this, he told me, was because he had the multiplication tables up to 12's chiseled into his brain in elementary school.
Memorization? How arcane! How old school! Everyone knows that memorization isn't the answer, that new math is the key! Are you serious? If memorization is so bad, how come our grandparents know more history, poetry than we do, and can do arithmetic better? Got CRN disease (Can't Remember Nothin')? Uh huh. Sing to me your favorite song from your teenage years. Can you remember the theme song from Gilligan's Island? Happy Days? How about the Barney Song? How about last year's lineup of the Royals or the Chiefs (or whatever your favorite team is)? And of course, how about your ABC's? I thought so. You can memorize whatever you want to memorize. My kids have almost the entire scripts of their favorite movies memorized.
You want to make the most of your brainpower? Memorization is the key. In my next post, we will explore this further.
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