Random Talk.

[Malyssa Rahl]

Adding large numbers, whether on your hands or in your head is simple. Break it down like you would on paper. 143781 + 216218 for example could be easily broken down to

First digit, 1+2 = 3

second digit, 4+1=5

third digit, 3+6=9

fourth digit, 7+2=9

fifth digit, 8+1=9

sixth digit 1+8=9

for a total of 359999

Of course, if any of them added up to more than 10 you'd need to add 1 to the previous digit, or work from the right instead. But either way, you get the right answer, and can do it 100% on your hands if you can't count in your head.

[Dae314]

The problem I've always had with that method is trying to cache more than 3 answer digits in my head while also keeping track of the next power of digits to be added. After 3 cached answer digits I normally begin to forget them.

[Malyssa Rahl]

So write them down as you answer them if it's that hard to remember.

[† Shazi]

thats how i have always done it. they teach that in primary school!

[Dae314]

The point of doing the addition/subtraction/multiplication/division by hand (or mentally on mental hands) is so that I don't have to write things down . If I'm going to write things down, I'd rather pull out a calculator (which conveniently hangs out in my pocket all day and goes by another name: phone) or browse to wolfram alpha for hard calculus questions (believe it or not I find those outside of a school setting...) or open up an instance of python so I can programatically solve a problem when necessary.

Binary multiplication, which can be done on your hands as long as none of the numbers go over 1023 since you only have 10 fingers, is generally much easier than integer multiplication (addition, subtraction, and division are pretty much the same as integer). Just like with integers and powers of 10, multiplying and dividing by powers of 2 is pretty trivial also. The difference there is that I think people want to multiply and divide by powers of 2 (more likely just 2) more frequently than they want to multiply or divide by 10. Mastery of binary digits up to 1023 means being able to do that in an instant. As long as the base number is below 1023, you can easily cache the overflow bit in your head.

The problem with all this is that it's a pain in the ass to learn after memorizing everything in base 10 all your life. That's why I say that I would teach it to my kids since they're more open to learning new things. Teaching that to them would basically just be a little life hack that's unnecessary but potentially helpful in the future ^^. Plus on the off chance that they're self motivated enough to learn things alone, it's possible to convert numbers to tons of different bases, all of which become trivial to work multiplication/division with when using a power of the chosen base. At that point the speed of doing a multiplication/division operation would be limited only by how quickly the person can convert numbers from base-10 to base-n and back.

[Malyssa Rahl]

*shrugs* For most commonly used applications of addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, I have the answer by the time I could have pulled out a calculator.

Granted, most of the time it's simply calculating the price per ounce on various groceries to determine the best deal, or deciding if the sale price of whatever the fuck I'm looking at makes it fit into my "play" budget or not. But it's important damn it!

[Kyle_Dimetri]

downloaded all of 10 years albums today. Damn that band is awesome

[Dae314]

I would also want to give my kid personal lessons in how to speed read correctly (yet another thing that is possible to learn, but most adults and college kids are too lazy to do so), and I want to teach them how to perform this walk. The walk would probably come later in life though because I would be loathe to have them walk like that permanently . However, it's a good thing to have in the toolbox of life hacks that I wish to impart to them. I should start writing some of these things down before I forget...

The speed reading thing is something I keep wanting to train myself in, but can never remember to keep the training up longer than a week T_T. It would be awesome if I had learned and trained in the art earlier so that I could just automatically read at blinding fast speeds . Imagine how much more I could learn if I only spent 10 seconds reading long pointless posts like the ones I make?

[† Emotional Outlet]

I don't envy your future children, Dae.

That kind of walk would be a terrible habit to have if they ever enlisted/commissioned, or even did something like J/ROTC in high school/college. There was a girl in my basic flight who walked like that and there was no end to the haranguing she suffered as a result. It's possible that drill won't be a factor in the future, but I doubt it.

I'm all for teaching my kids cool stuff that I would think is useful, but I don't want to treat them like a science experiment or like I'm trying to min-max an RPG character, haha. And if there's one thing I learnt, very few people I've known have raised their kids entirely in the way they intended. Detailed plans seem to get tossed to the wayside once the little one shows up.

Edited November 22, 2012 by Emotional Outlet

[Dae314]

That's half the fun of making the plan though . You know that your plan will never actually be accomplished on your kids so you pack it full of junk and see what manages to fall onto the plate! I also look forward to the day I can sit down and go through stuff like http://youshouldhaveseenthis.com/ with my kids so they can be officially introduced to the internet ^^.

[Malyssa Rahl]

I never learned traditional speed reading, but I read pretty damn fast.

When I read I tend to take in multiple lines at a time, with a story, 2-4 lines each "sweep" across the page. With educational material, if it's boring, I tend to pick up an extra line or two to get through it faster. I still retain more than 98% (based on several tests) of what I read while doing this.

It doesn't help me at work, other than keeping me entertained on my break, and I certainly can't make money at it, but I've never had to worry about late fees at the library, or renewing books I've checked out.

[NickthePwn3r]

Lol wow I feel like i read as slow as a turtle compared to that Mal, I even catch myself backtracking sometimes haha

[Dae314]

Without actually learning "speed reading", most people can increase their reading speed naturally simply by reading more. The problem is most people (at least when they're kids) don't like to read that much ^-^;. The techniques of speed reading are basically an algorithmic way to speed up that process through targeting certain essential skills to speed reading.

Mal, you actually do speed reading just fine without any formal training . Usually the first step in the process of formally learning speed reading is to train your eyes to "sweep" as you say across the line you're supposed to read. Instead of stopping at each word to process, it's much faster to scan the line at a constant rate. The next thing that speed reading training tries to increase is what I will call "reading area". At first this refers to the lateral area. So you're encouraged to start scanning from a few words from the start of the line to force your eyes to process words in a larger area. The idea of this is to get you from seeing a stream of single words as you scan to seeing a stream of 2 words, 3 words, or more as you get faster. This increases your line scanning speed without sacrificing comprehension. Then finally, you're supposed to increase your vertical reading area as in reading 2 lines or more at a time then using your memory to connect them at the end. At first, you're encouraged to use your finger as a guide and move your hand at a constant rate across the page to train your eyes to move at a constant rate. In the second stage you also use your finger to force your eyes to start reading from further in. By the final stage, you're expected to have dropped the finger dependency since scanning one line with your finger blocks the next line ^^;

I'm not sure if a child would appreciate me teaching them this from a young age or hate me for doing it xD. Sure homework time, especially for reading assignments, will be drastically reduced, but if they ever need to fly on a plane they'll need like 2 or 3 books ^^.

[Malyssa Rahl]

I've always enjoyed reading. It's a great escape from the troubles of the world.

[† Shazi]

I haven't read in so long, i feel like i have forgotten how to! D= this makes me sad and i can't wait until i move and finish all my homework so i can finally have time for things like reading and writing again

[† Emotional Outlet]

I read all the time, haha. It may not be paper books, but I go through a lot of text on my computer. And I flip through the occasional book while at the library and on my Kindle.

[lolrawr]

I hardly ever read unless I'm required to do it. I was looking through some common interview questions to prepare for mine last Tuesday. One of them was what was the last book you read and what did you think of it? I was like um well hm... My last book was my accounting book and I don't like it because that class is hard! lol. (obviously the wrong answer )

But yeah I was always the best reader in elementary school and such when we had to popcorn read during class. I just never had an interest in reading on my own time.

The only thing I guess I do read on a consistent basis is subtitles in anime lol.

[† Emotional Outlet]

Reading is fun, though. Even Rainbow Dash admits as much!

You just have to read stuff that interests you. I read young adult because I do what I want. Some people look down at it, but what I read has no bearing on anyone and they don't get to dictate what I do for fun. Even if it's just reading the articles on Cracked, at least it's something. If all you're into is urban science fantasy and supernatural romance, at least it's something!

You could also look into visual novels. There's still the reading aspect, but there's also art to look at. Some have mini games and RPG-like elements, while others are more artsy and just about reading a story.

Some people even wrote VNs for NaNo. Jelly.

[Dae314]

If you like anime and you like reading, you should know that there's a whole largely untapped sea of content for you waiting in the form of Light Novels and Visual Novels. A lot of anime are based on LNs and VNs, so reading/playing them will sometimes give you new insights to your favorite stories and characters that you never knew before because the anime simply didn't have enough time to cover it! I was reading the Baccano light novels for a while, but the story was starting to get repetitive so I stopped ^^;. Before I stopped though, I got to learn a lot more about that world than the anime let on to. There's also lots of anime (e.g. Zero no Tsukaima, Umineko No Naku Koro Ni) that simply cut off with an implied sign saying "and now play the visual novel to learn the rest of the story because we're done animating this."

The big question here though is where in the heck do you get those things . I don't really know where to get VN's because I'm not really interested in them, but baka-tsuki is a great place to start with light novels. Baka-tsuki will link you to other LN translation blogs/sites as you go through which will help you expand your options .

While on the topic of VNs and LNs, I just played through one of the best non-Japanese VNs ever . "To the Moon" is the title, and it's something like $10 when it's not on sale in steam. The game's fairly short, but the story it tells is top notch ^^. I am now 2 for 2 with loving every visual novel I've ever played (the other VN I've played is Lux Pain for DS).

[† Emotional Outlet]

If you want to locate some VNs, there's something called the Visual Novel Database. You can dig through there, see what interests you, and request them from the premium section if you don't feel like buying the ones for purchase.

There are also free ones, but most of the ones I know that are free tend to be otome, haha. You can check out some of the ones people are talking about over here in the VN thread. You'll see that Katawa Shoujo has made a few mentions through the thread--maybe give it a shot if you have the time. It took me most of an afternoon to play through once, haha. I'm taking a break from it before I go through and collect the rest of the endings.