Messages

31

Unwashed Village / Life,books, the universe, books, and everything, but mainly books

« on: September 28, 2013, 08:22:27 AM »

hey guys how are you great I am great too whatever

Has anyone read David Drake's RCN series?  I would really like to discuss them with someone.  I would love to discuss David Drake with someone!  Come on, a-holes, 15 years ago this was the most erudite place I knew, when I was 12 and didn't understand why nobody else wanted to talk about books, the board came through.  COME THROUGH AGAIN.

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Unwashed Village / Re: Love

« on: September 28, 2013, 08:15:56 AM »

Hey man, congratulations.  That's a pretty wonderful thing, my man.

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Unwashed Village / Re: I been smokin'!

« on: September 28, 2013, 08:14:15 AM »

I feel  bamboozled.

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Unwashed Village / Re: I been smokin'!

« on: August 24, 2013, 09:38:35 AM »

dude, why aren't you more angry?  I'm reading your story over and over and it's hell of great for getting mad about

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Unwashed Village / Re: New school year is about to start!

« on: August 20, 2013, 08:18:37 AM »

TK, I appreciate that you were on my side, brother.  I think he was just reacting to some stuff I said to him the other day though, I don't think he was being serious.

Seriously though, teenagers are dumb.

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Unwashed Village / New school year is about to start!

« on: August 16, 2013, 06:59:09 AM »

This year I've gotta teach algebra 1, and I'm kinda nervous about it!  A bunch of dumbass 14 year olds?  My heart tells me to try to talk to them like they have the capacity to reason, but my brain tells me that my heart is dumb as hell, and I need to yell at them until they learn how to math.  You know that in middle schools in virginia, you can't get held back?  You can fail everything and you still move on to the next grade.  As a result of that, I'll probably have some kids who can't perform addition.

Ahhhhhhhh decisions decisions.  It's so hard to be strict!  I'm such a moron, I think of myself as basically 14, it's hard to remember that apparently I'm a grown man on the outside.

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Unwashed Village / Re: Hey Blue! And other people, I guess.

« on: August 10, 2013, 11:34:59 AM »

p.s. stop using age as an excuse.  You stop using age as an excuse, I'll stop using my raging booze problem as an excuse.  You're a little bit older than I am; I have a massive substance abuse problem.  We all have problems.  LET'S BAND TOGETHER AND VOW TO WRITE FICTION

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Unwashed Village / Re: Hey Blue! And other people, I guess.

« on: August 10, 2013, 11:30:50 AM »

Dude, you remind me of me.  A lot.  It's half that you're lazy; I'm pretty lazy.  But, well.  The other half is that I'm a pussy.  Now, I'm not calling you a pussy, I'm just saying that I'm a pussy and you act exactly the way I do in every particular.  Writing is scary, man.  People might read it and say mean things!  BUT WE MUST OVERCOME.  All you have to do to be a writer is write.

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Unwashed Village / Re: Heard from the lawyers today

« on: August 05, 2013, 03:10:12 PM »

Dude, what?  Xerxes, I think you completely missed my point!  Look at the stuff I said first, where I said "I am interested in your life" and "just vent, man"!  That wasn't, like, irony or bullshit or whatever.  The point I was trying to make was that you clearly wanted to vent but you didn't want to be the kind of asshole who just blathers on like I do, so you posted a bunch of coy bullshit to invite people to ask, but you don't have to do that, man!  Here's where I did think you were being a little silly; I was saying you were, like, baiting us to ask you about your current situation so you had an excuse to talk about it.  But I wasn't saying don't talk about it; I was saying you don't need an excuse.  If you wanna talk about something, just fucking talk about it.  I'm sure I'll be interested! 

In conclusion:  I was not trying to tell you not to talk about your stuff.  I was trying to tell you to talk about your stuff, but I did it poorly because I'm a drunk.

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Unwashed Village / Hey Blue! And other people, I guess.

« on: July 31, 2013, 10:47:52 PM »

So I've succeeded in becoming a damn good teacher.  The only dream I have left is writing!  When you and I and other guy tried last time, I rapidly faded away, and I'm not sure what was going on with you guys.  Collaboration is always a delicate balance between direction and pride.  Anyway, we could try again, eh?  I'm amped on life right now.  I get to teach a class on discrete mathematics this year!  IT'S SO EXCITING.

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Unwashed Village / Re: Heard from the lawyers today

« on: July 31, 2013, 10:42:47 PM »

Dude, Xerxes, I'm interested in your life, man.  I feel like we've both been bouncing around the board for like, almost a decade at this point.  That being said, "IF ANYONE ASKS QUESTIONS I WILL ANSWER THEIR QUESTIONS"?

Come on, man.  Just blather.  I'm interested!  I'm sure as fuck not gonna respond to a demand for a response though.

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Unwashed Village / Re: My name is Horatio Cornblower, and I am curious about your opinions

« on: July 25, 2013, 12:03:42 PM »

Anyway, when all that matters is numbers on paper, we're no better than those drones in China who memorize facts but dont really understand them.

Dude, I have some opinions about the Chinese educational system and all, but you know this is a global board with members from all over the world, right?  I mean, it used to be, I don't know what our demographics are like any more.  Anyway, uhm.  Maybe don't try to make an argument about social injustice while being insanely racist.

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Unwashed Village / Re: My name is Horatio Cornblower, and I am curious about your opinions

« on: July 23, 2013, 12:07:58 PM »

Thanatos...the high school teacher? 
Man, I'm having trouble wrapping my head round that image, lol
Bizarrely though, I suspect that behind the self-deprecation, there lurks an extremely competent teaching fellow. Radical perhaps, unconventional certainly, but most worthy I'd say. Well done indeed!

I mean, that was my first year.  In American public high schools right now, the most important thing is to pass the SOL, which is a standardized test that stems from the "No Child Left Behind" act.  I have a whole speech about that that I will bring up later if anyone asks, but the point is, in American education right now, there are three standards of self-judgement:

Feedback from your students
Feedback from yourself
Feedback from your school (aka how many kids passed the SOL).

My SOLS went fine, I was a first year teacher so I was mainly teaching geometry.  Obviously, because I'm me, I had the best pass rates for geometry.  Next year I'm doing mainly algebra 2.  Hooray, promotion!

I got emails from several students about math and how they were more interested in it now and how I helped them and some bullshit.  I'm not gonna go into the specifics, but I had a girl who failed math for the last two years, and this year she got a Pass (Advanced) on the federal standardized test, and I think her mom may have orgasmed.

The mom sent me a really nice email about how the daughter was enthusiastic about her goal to become a scientist again after several years of being depressed.  I mean, that girl didn't need me, she had talent, I don't understand why her previous teachers were such douchebags.  Her 7th and 8th grade teachers claimed she wasn't good at math?  I talked to her for six seconds and it was clear that she was just nervous so I left her alone except when I ASSAULTED HER IN FRONY OF THE CLASS WITH A DEMAND TO ANSWER A MATH PROBLEM.

Seriously, being a teacher is fun.  Best part is that at the very beginning of the year the girl's mom emailed me to make sure I was professional and I was looking out for the girl's best interests.  Just get out of my way, lady.

I sent the "My daughter loves math again!" email to my mom and my sisters.  I'm not gonna lie, I was really happy about it.  I mean, I'm talking about it now.  Obviously I'm a little proud.

But finally,

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Unwashed Village / Re: My name is Horatio Cornblower, and I am curious about your opinions

« on: July 23, 2013, 11:46:50 AM »

Peirce was a smart guy, but he wasn't really a mathematician.  Logic and mathematics are hella related but they're seriously not the same field.  I respect the motherfucker because he basically cleaved boolean algebra into existence with the machete of logic, but I don't know if he even knew what an integer is.  He did some stuff with statistics but that isn't really mathematics either. Logic and math: frequently related, but correlation does not imply causation.

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Unwashed Village / My name is Horatio Cornblower, and I am curious about your opinions

« on: July 19, 2013, 12:12:43 PM »

So I don't know if anybody remembers this, but a while ago I said I was gonna be a high school teacher.  Some people said "Jesus that's a bad idea" and some people said "Hooray!"  I assume the latter group didn't know me that well.

Anyway, I did it, I just finished my first year as a teacher, and now I'm about to go into my second.  I'm working on my master's in education, and I have to write SO MANY PAPERS. 

My master's program is so politically correct that it's kinda racist.  I just finished a paper on "non-Western contributions to discrete mathematics."  I'm about to started a paper on "non-Western contributions to measurement systems."  P.S., it specifically says in the assignments that Western means "USA OR BRITAIN."

I find it kind of annoying.  Respect your audience, graduate program.  If someone asked me about historic mathematicians, although they exist, I would not default to British.  And I certainly wouldn't default to American; I don't think there have even been any American mathematicians!   Jefferson was a hack and Franklin was a fucking hedonist, and both of them were capitalists before anything else!

But hey, I cannot be trusted to be not-racist, so thank god my graduate program is making me read about the history of math.  I don't really like to read, so.  You know.  Huge thumbs up.