Breaking Through, Travelling On

Goldiegirl

Sometimes you just have to focus on yourself - the financials can always wait to another day

rtandon27

Karmacat wrote: »

...Mm, not done anything financial today. Don't really care tho I probably will when my self assessment form is due to have been submitted ...

KC - don't worry overly, when the time is right it will get done!

edinburgher

Quants do this

Karmacat

Coo! Thanks ed - thats all a bit intense, isn't it! I bet you understand a lot of it tho Personally, I'm a bear of very little brain when it comes to maths - I can understand things temporarily, if I study them, but its "use it or lose it" with maths.

I have two strong memories of maths classes as a young teenager: shells on the floor, to explain the binary system (but there was no explanation of the visual) and the agony of focussing on the rows of numbers in log tables, never understanding, but just following the steps that I knew I had to do. And I was in the grammar 'A' stream! Terrible, terrible teaching, sorry all the teachers

ZTD

edinburgher wrote: »

Quants do this

They also do this: https://theamericanscholar.org/the-terminator-comes-to-wall-street/#.VK72FXWuPQQ

Nice to know we've learned so many lessons...

Karmacat wrote: »

Coo! Thanks ed - thats all a bit intense, isn't it! I bet you understand a lot of it tho Personally, I'm a bear of very little brain when it comes to maths - I can understand things temporarily, if I study them, but its "use it or lose it" with maths.

Unfortunately, the financial "whizzes" don't understand the maths either, leading to statements such as "We were seeing things that were 25-standard deviation moves, several days in a row."

That is not merely nonsense, but is dancing with dodo cheerleaders, and singing in a choir with Dr Seuss, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear and Salvidor Dali kind of nonsense.

Karmacat wrote: »

I have two strong memories of maths classes as a young teenager: shells on the floor, to explain the binary system (but there was no explanation of the visual) and the agony of focussing on the rows of numbers in log tables, never understanding, but just following the steps that I knew I had to do.

TBH, that's pretty much how they should work. The *actual* numbers aren't really important, only that they are the same base of logarithm. Base 10 and base e being the most common, but actually for what you're usually using it for in school, any base would do.

And it is carved into wood/plastic if you use a slide rule.

Knowing how it works, is like knowing how a calculator works - mostly irrelevant. Knowing how to operate it is far more important.

Karmacat wrote: »

And I was in the grammar 'A' stream! Terrible, terrible teaching, sorry all the teachers

If you had terrible teaching, then it's not you that should apologise...

edinburgher

They also do this: https://theamericanscholar.org/the-t.../#.VK72FXWuPQQ

Nice to know we've learned so many lessons...

Fascinating article, thanks :T

Karmacat

Bother, that article won't open up for me - I'll have to go non-wireless up in the office later on to read it

Ed, interesting about understanding vs operation - I've always been terrible for *needing* to understand before I can operate ... my bad, hey ho.

I'm just sleeping and taking it easy. Thank heavens so much of my financial life is online ... I'm managing to keep up with stuff, and of course so much is automated.

I just accepted an offer on ebay, for something I was selling at £9.50 - offer was £8.50, which is more or less 90% (I know its not ) so depending when they pay, the adventure will be to go to a post office and post the thing. I think I'm ready to do that.

Otherwise, just having a pootle around the forum.

Karmacat

And one of the SFX magazines just sold ... after ebay fees, it'll only be about £1 ... I might take more care with Amazon trade-ins before I do any more of those. Been reading about them on the Not Buying It thread, and they're mega, for some books anyway.

Goldiegirl

Karmacat wrote: »

Coo! Thanks ed - thats all a bit intense, isn't it! I bet you understand a lot of it tho Personally, I'm a bear of very little brain when it comes to maths - I can understand things temporarily, if I study them, but its "use it or lose it" with maths.

I have two strong memories of maths classes as a young teenager: shells on the floor, to explain the binary system (but there was no explanation of the visual) and the agony of focussing on the rows of numbers in log tables, never understanding, but just following the steps that I knew I had to do. And I was in the grammar 'A' stream! Terrible, terrible teaching, sorry all the teachers

Maths classes were very painful for me as a teenager.

I was in the same maths group as a set of mathematical geniuses (AKA The Briefcase Boys). The teacher was so delighted to have such interesting pupils, he focused on them, and us less talented kids used trail along in their wake.

I managed a grade B at O Level, which I was delighted with.

Amazon trade ins sound like a good idea, probably better than trying to eBay books etc.

Karmacat

Goldiegirl wrote: »

The teacher was so delighted to have such interesting pupils, he focused on them, and us less talented kids used trail along in their wake.

Yep! Thats it! I failed (grade 8!!!) but 18 months later passed with a Grade 5, I wanted to apply to St Andrews, and they needed a maths 0 Level, so I got one the maths teacher I'd had for 4 years didn't remember my name :eek:

Amazon trade ins sound like a good idea, probably better than trying to eBay books etc.

Definitely. I'm doing the addictive World War 1 genealogy right now, got to stop for the evening, and tomorrow I'll have to post the two sales, but next week I might just try for the trade ins. Got to start thinking about the tax tho!