Seen this morning on the eastbound platform of High Park subway
station: a discarded day-old boutonniere sitting on top of a pay phone.
I’ve seen enough dates to semi-formal school dances gone wrong — many
of them my own — to imagine scenarios that would’ve led to this:
Advent Calendar Day Seven: Even people who took some math in unversity
have a little trouble defining what “calculus” is in layperson’s
terminology. Ask a techie what calculus and s/he’ll probably tell you
something along the lines of “it’s the branch of mathematics that has
to do with derivatives and integrals”, an answer that is meaningless
unless you also cover the definition of derivative (rate of change of quantity in relation to the rate of change in another; for example, speed is a derivative of distance) and integral
(even tougher to define — “the inverse of a derivative” or “the study
of the accumulation of quantities” is the sort of answer that I fumble
for).
Even less inituitive is calculus itself. I have spent a good chunk of
school solving problems like what the water level in a conical tank filling
at a quarter-litre a second is after 15 seconds, and let me tell you,
that’s one of the easy ones. Calculus is so mind-bending that in most
cases, it often becomes an exercise in attempting to turn hard-to-solve
integrals into
simpler ones by memorizing or looking up substitution rules like
this one:
Worse still, we sort of take it on faith that the above identity is
true. Give me a pen and paper and I can quickly whip up an
layperson-friendly illustration that shows why 3 times six equals
eighteen. With a little more paper, I can draw a couple of diagrams
that show why the sine of 30 degrees is .5. But a layperson-friendly
explanation of the identity above? I’d have to look inside my old
calculus text in order to work out just the standard math proof from
first principles, never mind a layperson-friendly explanation.
That’s the problem that all calculus teachers face: it’s a tough branch
of math. It also gets pretty dry, especially when you hit that part of
integral calculus where you have to learn all kinds of substitutions
like that identity shown above. How can you keep students motivated?
Bikini Calculus represents one attempt to solve this problem. The
premise is simple: have women in skimpy clothes teach calculus, padding
the lesson material with cleavage shots and sexual innuendo.
(Okay, it’s not going to get heterosexual girls into calculus, but
what’s wrong with a little hot girl-on-girl action in mathematics? What
are you, some kind of homophobe?)
Here are a couple of screen captures of the video in which the
exponential rule is covered. Here’s Paige explaining the derivative of ax with respect to x:
…and here’s Jamie Lynn explaining the corresponding integral form. You have to credit them for being thorough.
And there you have it: today’s Advent Calendar goodie, from Newton
and Leibniz to Paige and Jamie Lynn’s to Accordion Guy to you: the gift of calculus.
I present two videos:
If you’d like more, there’s a DVD featuring more titillating calculus lessons and a bonus “jacuzzi and pizza interview”.
Yes, it’s quite obvious that neither Paige nor Jamie Lynn would know a Riemann Sum
if it bit either of them on the ass (I’ll let you enjoy the mental
image for a moment) and yes, their cue card reading skills could use a
little work. But these women have taken time from their presumably busy
schedules of waiting tables, shopping at H&M
(my wife likes to call that store “Target for whores”) and possibly
lapdancing to improve the general population’s knowledge of
mathematics. Even Stephen Freaking Wolfram himself couldn’t do what these ladies do (and even if he could, you couldn’t pay me to watch him flash his man-cleavage).
(Note: There’s probably a good “right-hand rule” joke in here somewhere, but that’s linear algebra, not calculus. We have standards here at Accordion Guy, you know.)
While channel-surfing with my lovely wife, we ended up catching the final segments of What Not to Wear. The episode featured a young woman living in Manhattan. Her “after” pictures looked great.
“I wonder what the ‘befores’ look like,” I said.
As if in response, the show cut to her “before” pictures. They were
mostly a cross of college “schlump” outfits and stuff that was locked
permanently in 1987. She looked more New Jersey than New York.
“She lives in the city,” I said, “she should dress a little.”
Wendy recoiled in horror.
“Was it something I said?” I asked.
“No, it’s how you said it. You sounded just like my mother!”
Oh, great. I think I just cancelled the next fortnight’s nookie, and I
didn’t even do anything fun like coming home completely smashed with
the boys to play Grand Theft Auto.
Advent calendar, Day Two: today’s goodie is a novelty tune from the 80’s that I’m certain figures into a number of trivia games: Joe Dolce’s Shut Up You Face [2.9MB MP3]
I notice that yesterday’s goodie — “pick-up guides”
— elicited no comment, which I found kind of surprising. I thought I’d
get at least a couple of comments such as “Those are right on!” or
“Those are way off!”
I’ve already described Advent calendars in a posting I just made to The Farm, so I’ll simply repeat it here:
Advent, in case you’re not familiar with the term, is the name for the four weeks leading up to Christmas. It’s derived from the Latin adventus, meaning “arrival”.
One traditional arising from Advent is the Advent calendar, used for counting down the days from December 1st until Christmas. They’re typically boxes with 24 pieces of chocolate, each piece placed its own compartment, with one compartment for each day leading to December 25th. When I was younger (and not worrying so much about my sugar-and-carb intake), an Advent calendar was one of the delights of the Christmas season.
In the spirit of the season, The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century, will feature an “Advent Calendar” entry every day from now until the 24th. Each of these entries will feature some kind of downloadable goodie that I think you’ll find interesting or amusing.
The fun won’t stop on the 24th. The 25th marks the first night of Chanukah. I started celebrating it last year with Wendy and her family and ate enough latkes to make the baby Atkins cry. This year, we’re kicking it up a notch chez deVilla — Wendy and I picked up a menorah for our place (her usual one’s in storage back in Boston) and Mom’s picking one up for the 1st annual extended family Chrismukkah party on the 27th. Hopefully Wendy’s parents will be able to fly up for this bash, a rather Norman Rockwell-ish affair complete with group singing — not just karaoke (mom has two karaoke machines) but with real live instruments with Mom and cousin Anna on piano, Uncle Jorge on guitar, cousin Kara on her flute and me playing you-know-what.
All that is a preamble for this simple statement: for the eight nights of Chanukah, I’ll also post some kind of downloadable goodie.
(Attention British readers: I believe the equivalent slang term for “picking up” is “pulling”.)
The first Advent goodie is inspired by a couple of things.
The first is Tel Aviv is a Really, Really Small Town, an entry in Lisa’s blog, On the Face.
The entry talks about a pick-up artist in Tel Aviv who has seduced her and a number of her friends, using the same “script” each time.
The second is a handful of emails I’ve received over the past few months, the gist of all being “Hi Joey, I’ve been reading your blog for a while now and thought you might have an answer to this: how can I get a wife?” Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer to this question and as far as I can tell, they don’t hand you some kind of answer key to dating when you get married.
(Here a hint, though: there is a difference between being nice and being too nice. Respect is a part of love, and you can’t respect a doormat.)
So here’s the goodie: a handful of ebooks explaining pick-up techniques [511KB, .zip archive of PDF documents]. They are:
These books come without endorsement from Yours Truly. Having skimmed them, I can say that there are some gems of truth in them; there are also some suggestions that I would say are silly and some that I would strongly advise against. No guarantee or warranty is implied in my posting these. Feel free to discuss the content of these books in the comments.
Super bonus fun: Read these books right after watching Magnolia for that extra-special feeling.
Respect the magnificent pork sword!
Here’s a clever business: “SaveMyAss is a personal assistant that helps you make your girlfriend or wife happy by sending her flowers on your behalf, on a regular but semi-random basis.”
Click the comic to see it on its original page.
Chicks can be so touchy, man.