Archive for the ‘Fun’ Category

An evil twist on an old idea

Sunday, August 1st, 2010

From OhGizmo! This gadget is pretty evil. It's an alarm clock that won't turn off until you solve an arithmetic problem. If you're not awake enough some morning to disarm the alarm, take solace in this quote from the OhGizmo! article: ... I wouldn’t actually worry about it becoming too annoying since ...

A fun moving cube kids can make

Sunday, July 18th, 2010

Here's a great craft project for kids to make using wooden cubes and duct tape. An adult will need to help with the cutting of the image to place on the cubes. I think it would be extra fun to design two images that work in such a way that ...

What do you get when you cross a manual typewriter with an iPad?

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

[ Ok, so this post is way off topic. Fortunately, it's my blog. ] I grew up with an Underwood manual typewriter. If I only still had that typewriter I could hook it up to any USB-capable computer. USBTypewriter.com provides design documents, assembly instructions, kits to do it yourself, and you ...

Sneaking Math into children’s diets

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

[ Editor's note: This is a guest post by Caroline Mukisa, who took me up on my offer to promote web-sites that are non-commercial (or that are slightly commercial but have tons of great free content. ] Caroline Mukisa is on a mission to help parents to support their childrens Math ...

Review: Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks is just that, a book of jokes for people who like Math. I particularly enjoy reading Math jokes that non-Math people won't get. This book is chock full of them. "What happened to your girlfriend, that really cute math student?" "She's not my girlfriend any more. She ...

How far would Mantle’s mighty smash have traveled, had it not smacked the upper façade?

Monday, April 19th, 2010

Princeton University Press is interviewing its authors in April for Math Awareness Month. This year's theme is Mathematics and sports. This morning Princeton University Press published an interview with Mike Huber, author of Mythematics, a book I reviewed last October. It turns out that Huber is passionate about baseball, especially about ...

Happy Pi Day: interview with pi poet

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

Happy Pi Day, everyone! Today I have a special treat. I had the opportunity to interview Pi poet, Mike Keith. Mike is into constrained writing and Pi, among other things. Mike recently published a book, Not A Wake, that demonstrates the constrained writing: A collection of short stories, poetry, plays, puzzles, ...

Rhythm, Rhyme, Results: rapping about Math for Pi Day

Friday, March 12th, 2010

[ Editor's Note: Taunia from "Rhythm, Rhyme, Results" wrote to me asking if I'd blog about her education site. The site sells fun educational music and, in particular, has some Math songs in their Pi Day Collection. I wrote back letting Taunia know that I rarely plug commercial sites but ...

Slide rules rule

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

The March/April 2009 issue of the Stanford Magazine had this delightful letter to the editor. GOLDEN RULES The article on Tom Wyman and his slide rule collection (“Calculating Collector,” Red All Over, January/February) takes me back to 1972, when Hewlett Packard introduced the HP-35, its first pocket scientific calculator, priced at $395. ...

Winner: Cool caption crafting contest

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Happy New Year Everyone! A week before Christmas I posted a contest asking folks to come up with the best caption for this picture (click to enlarge.) Well, I got 63 submissions and I had the tough job of picking the one I liked most. What I did was read each caption ...