The board and the children

[clint]

Originally Posted by Moose

...Some of us live in rural backwaters where finding others with some subset of my interests is nearly impossible...

Even in a big city it's not that much easier.

Usually you don't start a lunch conversation with:
"Hey, have you read about the new planet they discovered around 55Cancri?"
or "What do you think about moon colonization?"

[laurele]

Originally Posted by clint

Even in a big city it's not that much easier.

Usually you don't start a lunch conversation with:
"Hey, have you read about the new planet they discovered around 55Cancri?"
or "What do you think about moon colonization?"

If someone started a lunch conversation with me with one of those lines, I'd be thrilled!

[Argos]

Down here I have to flee from easy talkers, with their childish tales...

[RalofTyr]

Censor the sensors!!!


Here, everyone's too cool to talk about astronomy. It's like, nerdish, or like, something, like, like.

[Moose]

Withdrawn: Never mind, I reread that. What Ral said makes sense now.

In case you saw it, Ral, my apologies for the semi-snark. I'm in less than a good mood for reasons that have nothing at all to do with you. My bad. I shouldn't have let it spill over here.

[John Mendenhall]

Originally Posted by HenrikOlsen

You start writing in Danish and I'll be perfectly happy to point out all the mistakes you make.

If you're writing in English as a second language, I couldn't tell. Good job, I enjoy your posts.

My twit is with the amazing number of well educated native speakers of English that consistently use its (possessive) forms backwards. Reading an otherwise literate post with the error, it's (contraction) like cruising on the interstate and suddenly hitting a pothole where none should be. Shucks, there are many articles on the UT main page where the mistake is frequent. Even the MS Word processor grammar and spelling checker gets it (pun intended) wrong a lot of the time.

[ToSeek]

Originally Posted by John Mendenhall

If you're writing in English as a second language, I couldn't tell. Good job, I enjoy your posts.

My twit is with the amazing number of well educated native speakers of English that consistently use its (possessive) forms backwards. Reading an otherwise literate post with the error, it's (contraction) like cruising on the interstate and suddenly hitting a pothole where none should be. Shucks, there are many articles on the UT main page where the mistake is frequent. Even the MS Word processor grammar and spelling checker gets it (pun intended) wrong a lot of the time.

I had to use an operating system manual where that error was ubiquitous. It was like having someone scratch their fingers on a blackboard every time I had to access that manual, which unfortunately was quite frequently.

[Gillianren]

As I've mentioned before, I had a professor in college who threatened to start giving papers back in baggies if they made the it's/its mistake. He said we were in college, and there was no excuse for not knowing. He'd teach it once more, and that should be all we needed.

For those who cannot remember, consider this. "Ours," "yours," and "hers" don't have apostrophes, either. Possessive pronouns just don't.

Oh, and Henrik, I have always found your English to be very good indeed. Better than more than a few of the native speakers I've encountered on the internet, I assure you.

[tdvance]

Sometimes it's not knowing the difference, but often it's a typo. I know that from my experience--I'm always typing the wrong one though I've known better since early elementary school. There/their/they're, on the other hand, I type wrong less often, but not never. The way the human mind is wired, it is easy to make homophonic typos, not just transposed pair deleted/inserted letter, or changed letter typos. In my case, I'm sure I'm playing the sound of the sentence in my head as I compose it and type it, and if something interrupts the chain of thought, say, changing my mind about a word I'm going to type, I may type a word based on its sound instead of its meaning. (The "sound the sentence in my head" also means I often place commas wherever there are pauses, even if some disagree that a comma "belongs" there or not). Incidentally, at the most basic level, I don't think in words--words are a level of abstraction above thoughts for me. I suspect I'd not be much of a mathematician if I were required to think of mathematical concepts in words--or musician either for that matter.

[NEOWatcher]

Originally Posted by tdvance

Sometimes it's not knowing the difference, but often it's a typo...

...And lazyness. I did the too/to thing somewhere on the board today, but didn't bother to go back and fix it.

[HenrikOlsen]

It's also the classical problem of being unable to properly proofread yourself. You already know what it says so noticing when it doesn't actually do so is harder than noticing mistakes in the text of others.

Originally Posted by Oxford University Press, Edpress News

It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.

[Paul Beardsley]

Back in the mid 70s, when I was 11 or 12, I first got interested in astronomy. There were not many magazines on the subject - I knew of Sky and Telescope, but it was hard to get hold of in England - so I wasn't able to get much up-to-date information.

Then I discovered the Open University. They broadcast science programmes, some of which were about space travel and astronomy. One very good one was about the moon. The speaker was talking about lunar geology, landing sites and so on. Then suddenly he said, "This is where I landed." I realised he was an actual Apollo astronaut! (Almost certainly Harrison Schmidt.)

So I kept watching Open University broadcasts whenever I got the chance. They weren't often about astronomy, but it was worth watching just in case, not least because sometimes the other subjects were interesting in their own right.

One I watched was about catastrophe theory. They showed a graph that resembled a crashing wave. I understood very little about it then, and I still don't know much about it now... But the seeds were planted, and whenever I hear the term used, I tell myself I will find out more. Now I am planning on enrolling on an Open University maths course, so I will finally get around to it.

I also saw a few OU broadcasts about relativity. They were clearly not designed for my age group, but I did get something out of them.

So for all we know, there might be a fair few children coming onto BAUT and gaining more of an understanding of tensors and manifolds than we expect. And maybe many more aren't understanding it but are nonetheless intrigued, and in later life they might welcome their early exposure to it.

[HenrikOlsen]

Strange as it may sound, with me being in Denmark, I've actually done a couple of Open University courses.

Works great if you have the diciplin to follow a university level course on your own, with teacher feedback perhaps 4 times during each course.
At the time I took the courses they had, and I expect they still do, online forums for each course so students could discuss things with each other, which could be a real help for some.

For people who don't know what we're talking about, The Open University is the largest distance learning university in the UK, with a full range of studies.
They collaborate with the BBC which means that such parts of the course material that requires visualisation is sent to the students by being broadcast by BBC a couple of times each so the students can record it to watch when it becomes relevant during the course, this also means that anyone interested can watch hours of university level study material every day, which can be quite inspiring for a curious mind.

If the discussions here can have a similar effect, that would be wonderful.

[Doodler]

Originally Posted by Argos

Have fun like children?

The only part of growing up I have partaken in has allowed me to pay for my own toys.

[korjik]

Originally Posted by HenrikOlsen

Strange as it may sound, with me being in Denmark, I've actually done a couple of Open University courses.

Works great if you have the diciplin to follow a university level course on your own, with teacher feedback perhaps 4 times during each course.
At the time I took the courses they had, and I expect they still do, online forums for each course so students could discuss things with each other, which could be a real help for some.

For people who don't know what we're talking about, The Open University is the largest distance learning university in the UK, with a full range of studies.
They collaborate with the BBC which means that such parts of the course material that requires visualisation is sent to the students by being broadcast by BBC a couple of times each so the students can record it to watch when it becomes relevant during the course, this also means that anyone interested can watch hours of university level study material every day, which can be quite inspiring for a curious mind.

If the discussions here can have a similar effect, that would be wonderful.

Get a decent math editor put in the forum, and I would be more than happy to add enough math content to make your average persons head explode.

[Vanamonde]

Originally Posted by Kaptain K

Am I the only one who sees the difference between censorship and setting limits on private property?

No, not at all. I appreciate the time and effort that the Good People of BAUT have put in this Good Forum and certainly support your right to set limits - any limits that you see fit.

And I oppose censorship - when I define as someone else telling you what one can put on her own web page, T-shirt, yard sign, etc. But don't be hanging your sign on my garage, for example.

Just, there is a big difference and I see this discussion so many times on so many fora. <sigh>