Chaos; Head

Another anime as I search for something as good as Full Metal Alcheist.  Chaos; Head has plenty of promise: a blossiming love story, mystery, and a unique weapon (the DiSword). However, it's only 12 episodes long.  If you would like to watch this series, go to: Chaos; Head on YouTube.

The Efficient Frontier

This is an very informative set of videos.  No one video will answer all our questions, but this a good set of building blocks to help us understand the efficient frontier.

Integration Practice

Again, nothing but a few video links.  This is for practice, not the initial teaching of the topic.

High Schoolers and Sexual Risk Behavior

Besides moral and/or religious grounds (not that one needs more rationale than morality/religion), can one tell a high school that sexual activity during high school has consequnces?  First, we need data to see the current landscape.  I found the following data from the CDC {Youth risk behavior surveillance—United States, 2011. MMWR 2012;61(SS-4).}  You can find it on the CDC website, but restated here for convenience:

Many young people engage in sexual risk behaviors that can result in unintended health outcomes. For example, among U.S. high school students surveyed in 2011¹

• 47.4% had ever had sexual intercourse
• 33.7% had had sexual intercourse during the previous 3 months, and, of these
  • 39.8% did not use a condom the last time they had sex
  • 76.7% did not use birth control pills or Depo-Provera to prevent pregnancy the last time they had sex
• 15.3% had had sex with four or more people during their life

Sexual risk behaviors place adolescents at risk for HIV infection, other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and unintended pregnancy:

• An estimated 8,300 young people aged 13–24 years in the 40 states reporting to CDC had HIV infection in 2009²
• Nearly half of the 19 million new STDs each year are among young people aged 15–24 years³
• More than 400,000 teen girls aged 15–19 years gave birth in 2009⁴

Can you go for a year without the internet? No texting, either!

A guy names Paul Miller did it and then wrote about it! Well, he did get paid to do it.  You see, he's a writer.  An online 'zine called The Verge was interested in the resulting story.  Miller writes, "At 11:59PM on April 30th, 2012, I unplugged my Ethernet cable, shut off my Wi-Fi, and swapped my smartphone for a dumb one. It felt really good. I felt free."  Miller's story is very interesting.  Here's another excerpt to pique your interest:

In one of the early months my boss expressed slight frustration at how much I was writing, which has never happened before and never happened since.  I lost 15 pounds without really trying. I bought some new clothes. People kept telling me how good I looked, how happy I seemed. In one session, my therapist literally patted himself on the back.

Go read Paul Miller's story about a year without the 'Net!

AP Report to the Nation

Have you seen the College Board's 9th Annual AP Report to the Nation?  The numbers are a bit white-washed and curated.  However, one can gleen some interesting trends.  For examaple, 29.2% of Maryland's high school graduates of 2012 scored a 3 or higher on an AP Exam while 8 States had 10% or less.  The USA average was 19.5%.  Although currently, the College Board is a not-for-profit corporation, its CEO earned over $1 million in 2009.  It is my beleif that, ultimately, this report is about increasing or maintaining the College Board's intake of money.  Still, given that the College Board's standardized exams do act as a gate for access to the best of USA society, being knowledgeable about the demographics of success on these exams is important.  Here's the demographic that I recall the most (click  to see a pop-up larger version):

Darling in the Frankxx

My golden rule when watching anime is to never watch a series that is unfinished.  By that I mean, only watch series that have ended.  This allows me to binge-watch or at least to always have the next episode available.  I suppose this satisfies a sense of control.  However, I think more important for me is that this way I do not have to wait a week for the next episode.  Like all of us who enjoy good movies or stories:  I want to find out what happens next.

Learn about Magnetic Fields and Forces

Watch:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fs9wSF_GSQ (about 10 min)
  This is a wonderful video that introduces Magnetics.  Most of this stuff is normally taught in a Physical Science class.  When you  watch this video, don't forget to THINK!!!
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLyGfLCvuzQ (About 6 min)
  this guy is a little crazy, but he does a nice job of emphasizing that the concept of "Field" is man-made to help us understand how forces can act over a distance.

Chrono Crusade

My favorite Anime of all time is probably Full Metal Alchemist.  Anime enthusiasts know there are two versions: FMA and FMA-Brotherhood.  Both are great, but Brotherhood had a complete story, following the original story line of the original author.  More on FMA later.  Today, I wanted to mention Chrono Crusade, the latest Anime I found in my search to find an anime that I enjoy as much as I enjoyed FMA.  You can find episode 1 (of 24) with English subtitles here: Chrono Crusade on YouTube.  Wikipedia has a great summary of everything you might want to know here: Chrono Crusade on Wikipedia.  My review to come later.

Learning About Rational Functions, Class 1

Watch videos on intro to RATIONAL FUNCTIONS

• This is by a great math teacher, Mr. Tarrou:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkUnSomHZdg (14:29)
  Please follow along with your notebook!!  This takes less than 15 minutes!!! Do it!
• The next video is by a different author.  It illustrates certain mechanical skills necessary when working with rational functions:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMk4tKoby54 (11:29)
  This one is about simplifying rational expressions.  Actually, there is a very small error in this video.

Differential Equations

Before successfully mastering Differential Equations in Calculus AB, you must have ALL the basic derivative/ anti-derivatives form MEMORIZED.

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday Video

Magnetic Fields and Forces, step 2

This is the "class 2" on Magnetic Fields and Forces

• Here Derek Owen goes over EXACTLY what we did in the first class on Magentic Fields and Forces!!  Watch and solidify your learning!
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ6m_w0TS_A (9:40)
• Watch the famous Dr Lewin,  but only the first 7:27 !!!!  Here he introduces F = qv x B
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8D3ikuyaGo (0:00 - 7:27)

Creating a Bootable USB for OpenSuse

I am about to swap out my motherboard and processor (Intel D955Xcs and Pentium duo).  I want to reuse those in a new computer case.  OS is Win 7 and Opensuse 12.1 dual boot.  In order to be safe, I am creating a bootable USB with Opensuse.

First step is to go see this "silent" video:  http://youtu.be/sRzVxw2tI5o (2:20)

The world's most sleep-starved students

Can't afford college example. What should I do?

I searched ("googled") the pharse, "What should I do if I can't afford college, even with loans?"  Here's a great thread that does not give an answer but certainly raises some points to consider, especially one's attitude.  I found it at CollegeConfidential.com at the following URL: 

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1497004-looks-like-i-cant-afford-college-what-do-i-do.html

Which Groups Have Higher Proportions of Unbanked Households?

PBS's Need To Know re-braodcast on Sunday April 21(perhaps original air date was a few days earlier) presented a program on Financial Literacy.  It highlighted a program in Missiissippi directed at educating kids (as young as 1st grade) and their parents about developing savings habits and the importance of having a bank account.  I got curious about the statistics.  The FDIC published results of a survey in 2011.  The information that follows comes from that survery, which you can find here: 2012 Underbanked Survery (or go to
http://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2012_unbankedreport.pdf  ).

Click for a larger graph.

No Milk Today

Every now and then, I do try to practice playing my guitar.  I am just good enough to be bad.  I have learned that when I do practice, using a song or music that I actually enjoy works best.  No matter how badly I play it, in my mind, it still sounds like the song I enjoy.  Thus, I have fun practicing.

Recently, I was in the mood for classic 1960's Brittish Invasion Rock-n-Roll.  I found  "No Milk Today" by Herman's Hermits on YouTube:

I used the tab music at tabs.ultimate-guitar.com.  About two weeks later, I ran into this version of No Milk Today by Joshua James & The Forest Rangers, which played in The Season 3 Opener of Sons of Anarchy:

Enjoy.

Migrating Thunderbird from Win XP to Windows 7

I had a Win XP crash due to a bad disk.  Since I would have to re-install XP on the new disk, I figured I might as well install a newer OS... WIndows 7 (and dual boot Opensuse Linux, but that's not relevant here).  Then I wanted to keep all my mailboxes in Thuderbird as they were.  I found the solution here:  http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=1774485

L'Hopital's Rule

No explanation.  Just two video links that will teach you L'Hopital's Rule in Calculus AB/BC fashion and even give you some practice applying it.