Nice people thread part 6 - thrice by twice as nice :)

PasturesNew

LydiaJ wrote: »

.... 7x8=56 .... completely stumped by 8x7 though.

Clearly the answer is 65

chewmylegoff

Lydia and Viva are most welcome to come and work in the legal department. I'm putting Lydia in charge as she has the skills to keep the rest of you in line and make sure there's no slacking off whilst I'm off playing golf.

misskool

Nikkster wrote: »

What are you studying missk? Apologies if you've already said and I just missed it

I didn't say because it makes me a total nerd I'm learning how to programme in R so I can do cool statistical analyses. :cool:

edit for zag: It's an online learning programme, complete with quizzes and assignments. I'm also completing a 600 credit postgraduate certificate this year. I an masochist I think

Nikkster

misskool wrote: »

I didn't say because it makes me a total nerd I'm learning how to programme in R so I can do cool statistical analyses. :cool:

edit for zag: It's an online learning programme, complete with quizzes and assignments. I'm also completing a 600 credit postgraduate certificate this year. I an masochist I think

I know who to pester if I manager to pull enough data together to need some stats then (I don't have any software, or really any sort of a clue!!)

kabayiri

misskool wrote: »

I didn't say because it makes me a total nerd I'm learning how to programme in R so I can do cool statistical analyses. :cool:

edit for zag: It's an online learning programme, complete with quizzes and assignments. I'm also completing a 600 credit postgraduate certificate this year. I an masochist I think

R does look interesting, even though I am not the biggest statistics fan.

I prefer mathematical models like Kalman Filters, aka Linear Quadratic Equations. You can find discussion groups for all these arcane topics on LinkedIn, even though some of it goes completely over my head.

Oh, and does a Nerd graduate into a Geek or the other way around?

michaels

Nikkster wrote: »

The meaning of life? (reaches for calculator to double check)

Of course affiiciuonados will know that the question has nothing to do with 6x7 : "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?"

misskool wrote: »

I didn't say because it makes me a total nerd I'm learning how to programme in R so I can do cool statistical analyses. :cool:

edit for zag: It's an online learning programme, complete with quizzes and assignments. I'm also completing a 600 credit postgraduate certificate this year. I an masochist I think

Funnily enough the link to sign up for this course also came round where I am working at the moment (but the 5 ish hours per week or was it month put me off). I think you can get an excel addin to give an R interface to use R to do those bits of stats (like PCA) that excel doesn't offer. I also discovered the other day that excel won't support multiple regression with more than 16 input factors which is a pain when you are thinking of using some square and cross terms. Insead I will try spss which I have never had any training or even seen a manual but then I managed to use it for pca so how hard can it be.

PS I can't even understand how anyone could find long division difficult even if they had never learned it, surely it is just obvious...which is why I woulod never make a good maths teacher, numbers just make sense so it is impossible to understand how they coudl fail to make sense to anyone....

michaels

And Viva definitely gets my vote for NPT7

kabayiri

michaels wrote: »

...
PS I can't even understand how anyone could find long division difficult even if they had never learned it, surely it is just obvious...which is why I woulod never make a good maths teacher, numbers just make sense so it is impossible to understand how they coudl fail to make sense to anyone....

I worked in AI and knowledge engineering way back when. It was basically an excuse to go on loads of courses I think.

Anyway, they wanted to illustrate why it wasn't easy to teach a computer to learn how to do things which involve "common sense".

The method to prove this was to explore the way people do basic maths in their head.

You might think everyone approaches it pretty much the same way, but when you analyse their thinking it becomes clear there are lots of subtle differences.

E.g someone will just 'remember' that 7 x 9 is 63. Someone else will work it out as 7 x 10 - 7. Someone who works as a garage mechanic will basically round it up to 70 quid "if you can do cash" :rotfl:

MiddyMum

I can do long division, and at the grand age of 25 I finally mastered simultaneous equations. I recently retook my GCSE Maths, it felt really strange being the oldest one in the exam hall as everyone else was 15/16. I felt very stupid too, but it had to be done. I can't believe I found them so difficult when I was doing my GCSE's, I must have gone up a few IQ points since then. Although, I was elated when I got my result last month (A*) I got a D when I was 15, and I retook it 6 months later and still got a D, so I thought I would be eternally doomed where maths was concerned as I clearly didn't have natural aptitude. But then I realised that being good at maths is about being really good at memorising lots of formulas and then being pretty accurate at adding up and taking away and you have pretty much nailed it. I think I have always had a good memory though, took it upon myself to memorise the entire periodic table in order at school and strangely I have still been able to retain every single one of them....always a great party trick when I appear thoroughly wasted and conversation lacking. So, I just reel off the elements and leave people shocked and for just that moment I feel intelligent lol.

Nikkster

MiddyMum wrote: »

I can do long division, and at the grand age of 25 I finally mastered simultaneous equations. I recently retook my GCSE Maths, it felt really strange being the oldest one in the exam hall as everyone else was 15/16. I felt very stupid too, but it had to be done. I can't believe I found them so difficult when I was doing my GCSE's, I must have gone up a few IQ points since then. Although, I was elated when I got my result last month (A*) I got a D when I was 15, and I retook it 6 months later and still got a D, so I thought I would be eternally doomed where maths was concerned as I clearly didn't have natural aptitude. But then I realised that being good at maths is about being really good at memorising lots of formulas and then being pretty accurate at adding up and taking away and you have pretty much nailed it. I think I have always had a good memory though, took it upon myself to memorise the entire periodic table in order at school and strangely I have still been able to retain every single one of them....always a great party trick when I appear thoroughly wasted and conversation lacking. So, I just reel off the elements and leave people shocked and for just that moment I feel intelligent lol.

In a lab where I spent a few months, one often may lab games was 'quick fire' periodic table, basically a race to draw a group/ period/ whole table. Super cool :cool: