Comments for Reflections of a Math Teacher

Comment on Google vs. WolframAlpha by Tina

Tina — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:56:38 +0000

Haha, sometimes I use Google for currency conversion. I’ve never tried using Google as a serious calculator, and I just learned NOT to use it. At least, for computations of the order 10^20.

Comment on Google vs. WolframAlpha by bugsbane

bugsbane — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:11:54 +0000

That’s very Feynman-esque of you, Tinzky, to do that. Nice. I’m sure Richard Feynman is now chuckling at google… and stretching a ice-cold rubber o-ring.

Comment on Google vs. WolframAlpha by luckytoilet

luckytoilet — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:41:15 +0000

The perils of not using arbitrary precision big-integers.

Well, it shouldn’t be too much of a deal for Google because I don’t think many people use Google as a calculator when there’s Wolfram Alpha, as well as the regular calc.exe or whatever your system equivalent is.

Comment on List of Party List Candidates by andrew

andrew — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:47:37 +0000

Thanks. 20% is a significant number. Imagine their influence if they vote on laws as a solid bloc!

Comment on List of Party List Candidates by Tina

Tina — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:29:53 +0000

20% of the 260 seats in Congress will be allotted for party list representatives. Every 2% of the total party list votes gives a group a seat in Congress. A party list can have a maximum of 3 seats.

Source: http://cpcabrisbane.org/Kasama/2003/V17n3/PartyList.htm

Comment on List of Party List Candidates by andrew

andrew — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:46:51 +0000

Thanks for this comprehensive list. Do you know how many seats in Congress are allocated to party lists?

Comment on Election Countdown by bugsbane

bugsbane — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:06:55 +0000

Noynoy clearly doesn’t have the track record. So I’m not gonna defend him on that – the point nga lang was that I’d encourage people to vote who they think would be best and letting the chances of winning be determines by the results of a vote in integrity.

Pero Tina – the discourse actually brought to light one of our shortcomings: the lack of a forum for rigorous but honest discussion and analysis. Kung baga, sino yun “Nate Silver” natin sa Pinas? (if you haven’t heard of him checkout some of his analyses at fivethirtyeight.com).

blarg. Thanks for the post. Passion and love of country will win out. As Jacob says in Lost: “It only ends once. Everything else is just progress.”

Comment on Election Countdown by Tina

Tina — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 09:44:33 +0000

What I find annoying in Noynoy’s campaign is the fact that they are heavily relying on Ninoy and Cory’s name. Why aren’t they highlighting what he’s done, if any? And if you look at Noynoy’s site, the only achievement he’s proud of is fighting corruption. It’s practically empty of the plans he wants to implement when he wins. If that is all he is going to do when he becomes president, that is pretty lame. Because that fight is going to succeed only if he puts the right people into position: people who are not easily swayed by bribes or intimidation.

Comment on Election Countdown by bugsbane

bugsbane — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 19:27:17 +0000

OK that’s fair ’nuff. And in response, if the reason not to vote for Noynoy is just his ads – that’s pretty lamde ‘di ba? It is true that he may not have done anything concrete. Would his honesty / integrity be sufficient to recruit and manage a sufficiently strong cabinet that would work toward the good of the country?

In the end – yun pa rin yun payo ko: Nonwithstanding that the last 5.5 years haven’t been what you liked, it’s only when each player votes with integrity that the end result could mean a true mandate.

Persevere.

Comment on Election Countdown by Tina

Tina — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 08:13:21 +0000

Funny, I used to think that way in 2004. Look at what happened.

@whirlingstorm06, update mo ko pag na-invite na ninyo si Gordon. I wanna know his stand on the issue.