Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences

As always, click on image to enlarge.

• One million seconds will pass in the next 12 days.
• One billion seconds will take 32 years.
• One trillion seconds will pass in 31,688 years.

Time is money, right? If you make one dollar every second, you will have a million dollars in twelve days. You will be a billionaire in 32 years, but it will take you more than 31,000 years to make a trillion dollars.

Want to read about Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences?

The Most Useless Machine Ever?

I don't think so. If only this could of been installed on Pandora's box...



Build instructions can be found for this device here.

Electric Drag Racing

This is a pretty fascinating article (and video) mostly for you guys. I have one question which doesn't seem to be brought up in this story and one comment.

What does this cost overall? How much was paid for the "just in time" delivered battery pack?

I remember in the early 90's asking a long time friend of mine who had become a successful artist what he had paid for his futuristic flatbed computerized image scanner. I was taken aback when he told me it cost him 10K! Last year, I purchased a far more advanced and compact model (in fact it was designed for "briefcase travel"), on sale for $19.95!!

That gives me hope that the costs for new Lithium battery packs will allow me to consider drag racing as a choice of new hobbies in my future.

Enjoy!

Thanks to my buddy DSG for this entertainment.

Basic Laws of The World Wide Web

Here's a few important laws you need to be aware of when surfing the web and especially when reading blogs:

• Skitt’s Law - Expressed as "any post correcting an error in another post will contain at least one error itself." It is an online version of the proofreading truism of Murphy’s Law, also known as Hartman's Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation: "any article or statement about correct grammar, punctuation, or spelling is bound to contain at least one eror."

• Pommer’s Law -Proposed by Rob Pommer on rationalwiki.com in 2007, this states: “A person's mind can be changed by reading information on the internet. The nature of this change will be from having no opinion to having a wrong opinion.”

• The Law of Exclamation - First recorded in an article by Lori Robertson at FactCheck.org in 2008, this states: "The more exclamation points used in an email (or other posting), the more likely it is a complete lie. This is also true for excessive capital letters." It is reminiscent of the claim in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels that the more exclamation marks someone uses in writing, the more likely they are to be mentally unbalanced. According to Pratchett, five exclamation marks is an indicator of "someone who wears their underwear on the outside".

50 Ways to Never Waste Food Again

This is good. Simple ideas that make a big difference in your food budget and help save resources too.

I actually remember seeing this 49 years ago...

CREDIT TO: FAMILY SECURITY MATTERS - A MUST VISIT LINK!!

A (soon to be) Famous Quote

"As long as you make your bed in the morning, life will go on."

- My Mother

For all of you know it alls...

From the people at Time magazine. A nice glossary of terms and an explanation of why some of them have become such issues in the health care debate.

I found it quite useful.

- Larry