>> I'm good at understanding principles and elligant mathematical 
>> theories. I'm not good at memorising vast amounts of unstructured data.
> 
> If you think multiplication tables are "unstructured data"...   ;-)

It is conspicuous that all the times tables I can remember are the ones 
that have a trivial formula (i.e., you don't *need* to remember them).

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >> [Why do they make them so complicated? Is it a conspiracy to ensure you 
> >> get them wrong and hand over more money than you're supposed to??]
> > 
> >   You mean there are no tax returns where you live? That would be odd.

> It's complicated so the legislature can favor particular people and 
> companies and behaviors over others. And then when the rules interact 
> poorly and let some subset of people get away with having lots of money 
> and no taxes, they put together a second set of rules to deal with that.

  Expanding on my comment on the original idea expressed above, at least
here some kind of "conspiracy" to get people to pay excessive taxes by
mistake would be rather ridiculous. Ok, I understand that just having more
money, even if temporarily, is worthy, but still it would seem to be of
little use.
  If you pay too much taxes, the excess is returned at the end of the
following year, adjusted for inflation (which means the interest rate
is enormously higher than what you get in almost any bank; while a
typical bank account for a moderate sum of money gives you an interest
of about 0.3%, tax returns have an interest rate equal to inflation,
which is something closer to 3%; that's about 10 times as much as the
interest you get from a bank).

  If anything, paying too much taxes could even be seen as an investment
with a fair interest rate (at least compared to typical bank accounts).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   If you pay too much taxes, the excess is returned at the end of the
> following year, adjusted for inflation

Wow. If you withhold too much here (but less than 10% too much), you 
just get it back some couple of months after you file your taxes. No 
interest or anything.

If you withhold more than 10% too little, you have to pay hefty interest 
and penalties.

If you withold more than 10% too much, you *also* have to pay penalties, 
altho I don't know what they are since I never did that. I believe the 
reason is that the feds have already spent your money, so now they look 
at it as a hardship that they have to give you back the money they 
shouldn't have spent in the first place.

Of course, our tax system is pretty f'ed up here. No question, that.

I always figured the way to go would be to legislate that you could only 
spend *last* year's taxes this year. That way, there wouldn't be any 
withholding, the government would have a year of taxes in the bank (to 
spend this year), and there would be all kinds of incentives not to do 
stupid expensive stuff that doesn't work. Sort of like the "you can't 
vote for a raise that takes effect before the next election" rule.

I have *so* many good ideas for when I run my own sovereign country.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:486dea67@news.povray.org...

> For some reason, we live in a culture where it is seen as "desirable" to
> not be cleaver.

I had something cleaver to say about that, but I'll let it pass.

> People who are good at football are regarded as gods,
> but anybody who claims to be good at (say) trigonometry is regarded as a
> pathetic failure of a human being.

There's a difference between being good at something, and being good at
something and not anything else.

> Yes... this is my life...
>
> Everybody hated me for being the "teacher's pet". Just because *they*
> were a bunch of thick idiots... :-P

Again, being a "teacher's pet" is quite different from being good at math.
It's the attitude and self-presentation, not what you may or may not know
about obscure subjects, that's key in social interactions.

> So the question arrises... why does the media always portray technically
> talented people as freaks and weirdos? And why does it constantly
> reinforce the idea that mathematics is "hard", and that only "geniuses"
> can comprehend it? Where did all this come from?

Math is not easy, but that's not the point. It's that socially clumsy people
tend to take solace in focusing their energies into solitary endavours like
math, chess, bug collecting... etc. That's fine as long as one is aware that
being good at math will not do anything about acceptance while the root
cause of the social awkwardness remains, so he does not raise false hopes
and end up even more bitter.

As to math itself, beyond the rudimentary, it's useless for most people in
their daily lives. Also, watching someone do sports is entertaining.
Watching someone do math is not, so it's hard to blame the society for not
putting math geeks on a pedestal.

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>> People who are good at football are regarded as gods,
>> but anybody who claims to be good at (say) trigonometry is regarded as a
>> pathetic failure of a human being.
> 
> There's a difference between being good at something, and being good at
> something and not anything else.

True. But the comment I posted talks of somebody who was rejected just 
for liking maths.

>> Yes... this is my life...
>>
>> Everybody hated me for being the "teacher's pet". Just because *they*
>> were a bunch of thick idiots... :-P
> 
> Again, being a "teacher's pet" is quite different from being good at math.

And there's a difference between *being* the teacher's pet and merely 
being labelled as one. ;-)

> Math is not easy, but that's not the point. It's that socially clumsy people
> tend to take solace in focusing their energies into solitary endavours like
> math, chess, bug collecting... etc.

This rather echos the comment somebody posted saying that "only autistic 
people are good at maths".

My sister was quite good at maths. (Hell, she's an accountant now!) And 
she's about the most socially popular person one can imagine.

As for myself... I suspect I wouldn't *be* so socially clumsy if I 
hadn't gone to a school where there was a culture of praying on anybody 
who was regarded has having any sort of weakness. Even several former 
teachers from that school agree that it was a retched place...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible wrote:
> 
> Everyone always blames the parents.
> 
> As I said, I blame the endless cartoons where the cleaver people are 
> always the evil villans or the hopeless geeks who get beat up all day...
> 

I blame society (and Canada?).

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:486e6ace$1@news.povray.org...

> >> Everybody hated me for being the "teacher's pet". Just because *they*
> >> were a bunch of thick idiots... :-P

> > Again, being a "teacher's pet" is quite different from being good at
math.

> And there's a difference between *being* the teacher's pet and merely
> being labelled as one. ;-)

Maybe, maybe not. You of course realize that what we read from you can be
but one side of the story. But even here, you seem to seek
validation/admiration for your accomplishments, and those who do that at
every opportunity towards the teacher get that label. Of course everyone
seeks admiration - otherwise people would not post their POV renders, for
instance. There's a line, however, beyond which constant attention seeking
starts to annoy others.

> > Math is not easy, but that's not the point. It's that socially clumsy
people
> > tend to take solace in focusing their energies into solitary endavours
like
> > math, chess, bug collecting... etc.

> This rather echos the comment somebody posted saying that "only autistic
> people are good at maths".

I wouldn't overgeneralize, but different professions attract different
personalities. There's no reason mathematicians and actors should share
similar personality traits.

> My sister was quite good at maths. (Hell, she's an accountant now!)

Maybe it's my ignroance of the profession, but I didn't think any kind of
higher math was necessary for being an accountant. And with the invention of
the pocket calculator, even arithmetic skills needed are minimal. Not to say
an accountant cannot be a mathematician, just saying that it's not
necessary.

> And
> she's about the most socially popular person one can imagine.

Was she picked on for being good at math?

> As for myself... I suspect I wouldn't *be* so socially clumsy if I
> hadn't gone to a school where there was a culture of praying on anybody
> who was regarded has having any sort of weakness. Even several former
> teachers from that school agree that it was a retched place...

I don't know you from Adam, so I cannot comment on anything specific there.
You might well have a case. In general, however, it's easier blaming
everybody else.

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Invisible wrote:
> For some reason, we live in a culture where it is seen as "desirable" to 
> not be cleaver. People who are good at football are regarded as gods, 
> but anybody who claims to be good at (say) trigonometry is regarded as a 
> pathetic failure of a human being.
> 
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7435023.stm
> 
> The article focuses specifically on maths, but it seems generally 
> "fashionable" to be bad at anything that looks "technical". Maths, 
> science, computing, etc.
> 
> Some of the comments submitted are interesting too. My particular 
> favourite:
> 
> "I have always liked maths, but I remember that at school, being good at 
> maths was a sever issue. Those who made any effort towards being good at 
> maths and science were ostracized by the rest of the year group."
> 
> Yes... this is my life...
> 
> Everybody hated me for being the "teacher's pet". Just because *they* 
> were a bunch of thick idiots... :-P

I found that the most venom came not from the kids would were incapable 
of the higher challenges, but from the kids who were capable, but who 
had dumbed themselves down in order to get along.

The solution is for the math-adept people to build spaceships to another 
world and leave.  To keep those who lost the chromosome lottery from 
impeding our efforts, we will say that the planet we're going to has no 
beaches, skiing, or professional sports, and that once we're gone we'll 
quit making them take algebra classes.

Then, when we are safely away, we'll send occasional messages for the 
purpose of messing with the heads of the people we've left behind:

* Robots now do all the work.
* We were mistaken about the ski slopes.
* And the beaches, too.
* And silly us, we've realized that just because there are no sports 
doesn't mean you can't start some.
* There's an herb here whose sole effect is to cause excess body fat to 
melt away.  Unfortunately, this herb cannot be exported.
* Since the robots do all the work, we spend our mornings doing tensor 
calculus, and spend the afternoons skiing, playing other sports, or 
lounging at the beach.
* Immigration is closed for now.

Regards,
John

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John VanSickle wrote:
> To keep those who lost the chromosome lottery from 
> impeding our efforts, we will say that the planet we're going to has no 
> beaches, skiing, or professional sports,

I was in the movie theater today and saw an ad that showed clips of some 
of the recent 3D movies and said "You don't need to leave the 3D 
experience behind when you leave the movie theater!"

I thought "man, I thought *I* was a nerd. Apparently, there are movie 
goers who are also unaware of the Big Blue Room with the DayStar in it."

(Turns out it was an ad for a 3D computer monitor. :-)


BTW - Hancock wasn't nearly as bad as everyone says. It wasn't high on 
the list, but it wasn't notably worse than Speed Racer or Indiana Jones. 
It wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible either. :-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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Eero Ahonen wrote:

> I blame society (and Canada?).

Aren't those muturally exclusive?

*runs away*

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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