In a million years, I never would have thought that a spousal argument would occur over a calculator. Not just any calculator, but a TI-84 Plus…
Unfortunately we only have one — which cost something akin to buying a large appliance. I’ve been using it for my university statistical Math course; getting quite comfortable calculating t and z distributions of many sample proportions. Now with a month left (read: crunch study time), hubby comes along with his condensed Math 12 summer course and I’m sitting here with my unsolved binomial distributions. How will I ever know the probability of rolling a die 1000 times that it will roll a 6 fewer than 160 times?
Since we are on the same study/school/work schedule, we’ll have no choice but to purchase another, not a very sound investment, seeing as how both courses end Aug 7th and I’ll probably never touch a calculator again — unless I’m trying to figure out a tip (yes, my math is *that* good!) Now give me back my calculator!!!!
(In case you were wondering, there is a 28% chance of rolling a six fewer than 160 times.)
July 5, 2009
by libby
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Just a quick note that I picked up a brand new Acer Aspire One AOD150-1676 here in Canada. This is meant to replace my primary workstation and I must say that so far I’m very impressed.
The 1024×600 screen is brilliantly bright and colourful. The 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor is snappy and the new touchpad/buttons are a welcome change from the first generation of the AA1.
It’s not without it’s annoyances however…the Canadian models ship with an international EN/FR/NL keyboard, which features a half-size Shift key and moves the Enter key vertically under the backspace rather than horizontally above the right Shift. Also, the Acer recovery partition and related software made it a real bitch to add Arch Linux partitions without completely wiping Windows XP. I’ll post my workaround for that soon.
Apparently we grossly overestimate the length of the effect of misfortune in our lives and we eventually learn that one person’s crisis is another person’s walk in the park…or is it that every cloud has a silver lining?
The funny thing is that I almost forget the discomfort of shopping for our car, in fact looking back now I vaguely remember the frustration. But what I do remember were the endearments…the engaging grandpa from Fiji, the amazing snowfall that crippled us and the city within minutes, the shared laughs about salesman’s idiosyncrasies, and playing hangman by the faux fire in the restaurant we warmed up in.
And in the be careful what you wish for category, yes we now have two cars, two sets of gas bills, two sets of washer fluid jugs, extra keys on our key chains, endless shuffling and discussion about ‘who gets to park in the garage’ and have control over the godly door opener. Should the newer (thus perceived “nicer”) car get the protection from the elements? or does the older car deserve it because the heater doesn’t work (thus takes longer to warm up when parked outside on those cold mornings)? I think we might have settled that one, and despite the problems we thought having a second car would solve, it has somehow created issues we did not fully perceive.
… so for those eager to know what we finally bought? A 2000 Ford Focus, 4cyl, high kms, well maintained and in good shape, but now in need of a wash.
February 7, 2009
by libby
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