I Believe Two Things

This page comes from one of Sophie’s summer homework books. It’s just one of many practice exercises in adding and subtracting:

Real World Subtraction

Well, sure! My first thought whenever it’s raining out side is: “I wonder what the difference between the number of puddles here and the number of rain boots might be.”

This sort of infuriating problem is what leads to math being incomprehensible at higher levels. Subtraction isn’t a magical and arbitrary branch of abstract mathematics. It’s a tangible, everyday concept.

Sophie understands that when she spends money and gets change she can calculate the difference with subtraction. It’s an understanding not just of how but why. That’s harder to teach with higher-level mathematics. It shouldn’t be a challenge with elementary arithmetic.

Dear Longmont,

I’m pretty sure this isn’t how it works:

Cinco de Mayo?

But maybe later we can celebrate the Fourth of July on July 6th?

Dear Southwest Airlines,

I’m not entirely sure you’re using the phrase “on time” the way the rest of us are. Let’s review how you reported on Fight 1215′s status tonight:

"On Time" is just Another Word for "Delayed"

You’re acknowledging that when a flight leaves three hours later than scheduled it’s “Delayed”. But in what system of timekeeping did you conclude that a 12:30 am arrival for a 9:20 schedule is “On Time”?

I’ll tell you what happened. Your developer forgot about dates when writing code that probably looks something like this:

if (scheduledArrivalTime < publishedArrivalTime) { return "On Time"; }

See, even though 12:30 am is earlier in the day than 9:30 pm, the flight is still unquestionably delayed.

We’re just hoping the same person didn’t write the software that helps land the planes.

Sincerely,
Someone who will be leaving for the airport long after this plane should have been here

Dear JetBlue,

Since the fundamental purpose of the service you provide is to transport people to a particular location, shouldn’t you at least know which state each of your destination cities is in?

Where is Hartford?

Driving without air conditioning can definitely be uncomfortable. Fortunately, there’s an easy solution requiring only a spare air conditioner and some plywood!

Air Conditioner Repair

I was so obsessed with the air conditioner assembly when I pulled up behind this vehicle at a stop sign next to Wal-Mart that I didn’t even notice the spare tire attached to the roof with what looks suspiciously like duct tape.

For today’s lesson, let’s turn to Wikipedia for some information on the wheel:

The wheel is a device that enables efficient movement of an object across a surface where there is a force pressing the object to the surface. Common examples are a cart pulled by a horse, and the rollers on an aircraft flap mechanism.

I feel newly enlightened! But could we suppose for just a moment that if I’m researching the wheel on Wikipedia I am not already intimately familiar with an aircraft flap mechanism’s roller assembly?

Oh, hosting provider. I understand why you want to impose a limit on how much memory PHP applications can use on your servers, but you may be taking it just a little too far:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 64 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 54 bytes)

For the non-programmers out there, that means the application is asking for 54 more bytes of memory to store some information, but is being told it’s already used up the entire 64 bytes available to the entire application.

To put that in context, that error message (having 71 letters, spaces, and punctuation marks) takes up 71 bytes. So 64 bytes isn’t even enough to store a single error message, much less an entire application.

Put another way, when VisiCalc (often described as the “first killer app” for personal computers) came out in 1979, it wouldn’t run on low-end Apple II computers since they had only 16,384 bytes of memory available.

I spent a short while watching Craigslist for website “gigs” — people who just need quick help putting together a website. I gave up after I got to this ad:

PLEASE help me “create” a school transcript ASAP

I need a transcript constructed that looks as official as possible from my school. I need it to show that I got all A’s and B’s on the classes that I enrolled in and subsequently did not attend in favor of working on my blossoming career in show bid’ness.

…

If it is done properly, I can promise you that the “compensation” will be more than adequate!

I find having the word “compensation” in quotes to be the most alarming.

I stopped at a local coffee shop to get breakfast this morning, and at first was the only customer inside. A skinny man walked in behind me and had this exchange with the staff:

Man: I’d like a dozen bagels.

Clerk #1: That’ll be $8.50

Clerk #2: (starting to grab bagels) Is this for here or to go?

Nope. I’m just really hungry. Here’s your sign.

I’ve been looking for a map of Colorado, and this is the one Amazon recommended for me:

The Other Colorado

First, hasn’t Colorado historically been a bit… squarer? Second, what aspects of a map make “Home, Garden & Pets” an appropriate category? And third, how large is this map that it costs $117?