Saturday, May 24, 2008

Great Podcast for Math Whiz Wannabes

I just heard a great podcast of Arthur Benjamin doing his mental math tricks. The second half of the podcast is him explaining how he does it, which I think is much more interesting than the tricks themselves to those of who are math-inclined.

Something I found really interesting is that he does math by hearing or words, rather than visually. I'm visual, which is why I can do math in my head about as fast in Spanish (which I learned as an adult) as I can in English (my first language). Benjamin's room full of geeks appears to have been overwhelmingly visual as well, but he says that most rapid mental math calculators (humans) are auditory.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Guts

Alberto Contador, last year's Tour de France winner, riding with a broken arm, finished second in today's individual time trial at the Giro d'Italia, a 39.4 km ride in 56 m 49 s.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Children's Festival

Marc went to the Children's Festival in Vanier Park with his Mom and Kindergarten. Here are the photos:

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Playland

We live a few blocks from the Pacific National Exhibition grounds, which are home to Playland. Playland is an amusement park that's open from Easter until Hallowe'en. I guess I should consider us lucky that Marc made it to six years old before he figured out that he should be able to ask for a trip to Playland whenever he wants. We negotiated once a month as a compromise. The season's pass for a kid Marc's age isn't that expensive, but there's no season's pass for the guardian. That's where it's going to get expensive.