Location: Corvallis, USA
Last Sign in: March 27, 2008
Member Since: January 9, 2006
URL: http://www.mystrands.com/wendiwho
Watch the wendiwho Channel on MyStrands.TV
Here is an amazing (and scary) video from yesterday's storm in Portland. Not a good day to be on the road...
sliding cars
I think you need windows media player to see it.
As promised, here's a picture from the office doorway showing a bit more snow. Here in Corvallis we awoke to a couple of inches--just enought to make it pretty--and not so much that we will be particularly inconvenienced. All of it will probably be gone in a day or so.
I've heard that Barcelona is enjoying a very warm winter. Corvallis, on the other hand, seems to be enjoying a variety of weather--wind, rain, and today, a touch of snow.
Here's an early picture. I'll add some if the snow increases.
Yesterday, my son sent me a link to the Mysterious 6174. What's so mysterious? It turns out that 6174 is always the result of Kaprekar's operation. Say what? (That was my reaction...) Read the link for a complete explanation, or see below for an example of Kaprekar's operation in action.
Choose a four digit number where all the digits are NOT the same (i.e., NOT 1111, 2222, etc.) Rearrange the digits to get the largest and smallest numbers those digits can make, then subtract the smallest number from the largest to get a new number. Perform the same operation on the resulting number, and continue. Eventually, you will end up with 6174. At which point, if you continue the operation, you'll continue to get 6174 for the answer.
Here's an example, using 2007 as the starting point:
largest .... 7200 ... 7731 ... 6543 ... 8730 ... 8532 ... 7641
smallest... 0027 ... 1377 ... 3456 ... 0378 ... 2358 ... 1467
------------------------------------------------------------------
result ...... 7173 ... 6354 ... 3087 ... 8352 ... 6174!... 6174 (again!)
How's that for something to wow 'em at a party. (Um, guess it depends what circles you run in...)
Back in the day (I can use this phrase, since my daughter says I'm "ancient"), the SATs were something you showed up for on a Saturday morning early in your senior year of high school, sweated over for a few hours while filling in little dots with a number 2 pencil, and then worried about for a month and a half until the results arrived (at which point your future was etched in stone...or not.)
It seems that today's high school students don't have it so easy. Many of them attend multi-week SAT prep classes, take the test years early in preparation for the "real" version, and often repeat the prep/test cycle until they get the results they want.
I heard a report last weekend on a new approach for studying for the verbal portion of the SATs: a study guide, called "Rockin' the SATs" that puts the top vocab words to music. This seems quite intuitive--I remember that I taught my kids their address and phone number when they were three by putting the info in a song.
For example, here are a few lines from the song "Harbinger:"
You're a harbinger of good things to come
A sign that it's all changin' for me.
It's happiness, euphoria,
It's something out of a fantasy.
Life was so jejune, before I met you,
It was so ordinary.
Prosaic and banal,
Pedestrian, mundane.
Nothing extraordinary.
It's even better to music.
Here's a link to "Rockin' the SATs." You can listen to the report, and a few of the songs.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6732411
Enjoy, and pass it on to high school students you know. They might as well have some fun while studying.
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