One rather flattering hypothesis suggests that I have so many interesting things to write about that what lesser writers would consider ‘time sensitive’ pieces tend to end up on the backburner (2). These reading reviews proved no exception – in fact, some would argue they proved both sides of the coin (3).
However, in the case of these reviews, I think what happened is that I wrote in so many different directions that I often lost the main thread of reviewing the book. No matter – but the process of reintegrating these ideas forced some extra work in terms of organizing the final posts. And extra work, of course, means delayed posts.
What I have for today is a little treat for you, reader. It is a list of some thoughts I ended up removing from the final posts about the book. For some unknown reason, they all have something to do with math. And I think, if taken all together in this format, you will get a good sense of what a chaotic process writing anything actually is.
Enjoy, patient reader.
Let's start with a bad math joke.
Why?
No, X...
Well, this is more about counting…
One of the wild tangents I got into during these posts led me to this little gem of a quip:
Must I judiciously remind the reader of the three strikes law? This law uses (or at least references) FUCKING BASEBALL – aka, the world’s whitest sport until 1947 (and perhaps still is thanks to its huge lead) – and its arbitrary rule governing strikeouts to bury mostly black people into the deepest recesses of the legal system. Does Brazil use a ‘two yellow cards’ law to legally discriminate against its citizens?Luckily, I was able to reformat that outburst into a more coherent post.
Somehow, I thought the following number-crunching was related to The Argonauts…
At one point in these posts, I wrote about some book I read in fifth grade:
The first reading memory I have that threw off my understanding of ‘when life starts’ was a novel about a ten-year old Chinese immigrant named Shirley Temple Wong. One of the hidden details in this story is how Shirley presents herself as ten but is in fact closer to being eight. This comes from the system used in her homeland to calculate age – she was one at birth and becomes a year older on every New Year’s Day.Got it, reader? No?
Let’s use a quick example. I was born on December 28. In the birthday system we all use today, I turned one on the first December 28 after my birth. In the system described for Shirley Temple Wong, I would have turned one at birth and two on the next New Year’s Day. When the first December 28 after my birth rolled around, I would be two (and just about to turn three). If I were in Shirley Temple Wong’s position, I would have been almost two years younger than my classmates just by using a different birthday system. And even in the best case scenario - a January 1 birthday - I would still be a year younger than my classmates.
Is this birthday system any more or less logical than mine? It doesn’t seem very logical and yet, it is hard to argue with the thinking. I suppose in some cases a thought process is ‘logical’ to the extent that someone else uses the same thought process as me.
Must we use math to explain abortion?
No. This was just a stray thought that I'm admitting to having at some point in the last six months. That's as far as it got, though. Even I know that just because math is a hammer does not mean every controversial topic is a nail.
QED…
Still, I did write a little more about math in other contexts. At one point, I wagged my finger at the false assurances provided by the subject itself…
When a math person needs to solve a problem, he or she usually says “let’s solve for x.” But this isn’t always as clear as the plan indicates. It implies, for one, that all problems have one and only one solution.Some math problems have multiple solutions. Others have no solutions.
You can see why some people hate math, right?
Footnotes / the editor responds to some of the ridiculous thoughts from this post
1. Wonder what?
Editor’s note: the posts are late because TOA is woefully disorganized, inherently lazy, and often distracted by his aimless alter ego(s).
2. Where are these so-called interesting pieces?
Editor’s note: a hypothesis is often disproved.
3. Who is arguing this?
Editor’s note: those familiar with the basic judicial process will recall that in each case there is a losing argument.
