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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2010-10-22 04:15 pm
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I don't want to sound like a bigot

I'm really annoyed at how completely I've forgotten calculus.
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[identity profile] icecreamempress.livejournal.com 2010-10-22 04:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Today's xkcd reminded me of the bigotry of trig. Trigotry, if you will!

Chief Sohcahtoa weeps a single tear.
sanguinity: woodcut by M.C. Escher, "Snakes" (Default)

[personal profile] sanguinity 2010-10-22 05:40 pm (UTC)(link)
:: Chief Sohcahtoa weeps a single tear. ::

Ouch. I think I just threw my brain out. I'm blaming you.

[identity profile] bwross.livejournal.com 2010-10-22 10:15 pm (UTC)(link)
Oddly enough, I've never used that mnemonic[1] precisely because I'm just as likely to come up with the wrong syllables like in the strip[2]... so I got used to deriving it with the basic triangles and the curves whenever I forgot it.

[1] Actually, I forgot it even existed. It took me a while to figure out what the joke was.

[2] I'm the type of person that when I was told that "you can tell which hand is your left because when you hold it up it makes an L", I instinctively hold up both hands in the way that makes both have an L... because that's what I'm looking for.

[identity profile] xiphias.livejournal.com 2010-10-22 11:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Usually, when I can't remember which hand is right and which is left (which is most of the time), I can't really remember which way an "L" is supposed to go, either.

So I just imagine that the direction I'm facing is the front of the boat, and then remember that "port" and "left" both have four letters, and then I know that the side which would be port is left, and the side which would be starboard is right. Easy!

(Note: I learned to sail in small craft on the Charles River. Messing up "port" and "starboard" usually meant swimming in water which, at the time, wasn't really something you wanted to swim in. It's much better now, but "port" and "starboard" were really, really drilled into me.)

[identity profile] skunkboy.livejournal.com 2010-10-23 04:27 am (UTC)(link)
I don't know how widely this applies, but within the SCA groups I've played with, steering directions are almost always given as "Sword side" and "shield side"

[identity profile] kpreid.livejournal.com 2010-10-23 12:30 am (UTC)(link)
Since xkcd does not have dates in its archive, for the benefit of future historians of James Nicoll I provide a link to said xkcd: Los Alamos.
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