Tuesday, September 28, 2010

I don't know how to use these things

Blogger
Bicycle tire pumps (let all air out)
Pliers (why do they get stuck in this position - look left?)
Revolving Doors
The Greater Than/Less Than Symbol (and it's not just me, see this post from a parent on the Math Forum: http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/58433.html)

Greater Than and Less Than Symbols

Date: 05/30/2000 at 09:25:07
From: Angelo Gagliano
Subject: Greater/Less Than

I am assisting my Middle School Son with his Math Homework.

His teacher claims that '> 25' represents greater than 25. I was
taught that it meant less than. The number that the angle points to
was always less than and the wide angle was greater than... perhaps
his teacher erred?

Can you help?

Thank you.

2 comments:

  1. Google makes this shit so difficult to comment on. Those are vice grips, not pliers. Greater Than is always open to the left, Less Than is open to the right. Enter revolving door on the right hand side (it rotates counterclockwise from a bird's eye view). Tire pumps are all easy, you just have to know the difference between a schrader and a presta valve. Blogger is fucked in the head and I can't help you there.

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  2. Well beloved Google showed those as pliers; and I selected that pic because the tool's maw was open wide, in the very position my actual pliers get stuck in. Someone smart just told me it's getting caught on the slip joint, which is fine, but for a tool that's been around awhile, why is it always getting stuck on the slip joint?

    I really didn't know to focus on the right hand side of the revolving door, I thought I could squeeze in on the left side real fast (I am left-handed).

    Thanks, now I understand that you read greater than left than symbols from left to right, like a sentence, and that the symbols ARE fixed, but I still maintain that these symbols create existential dread when they don't have TWO numbers flanking them on either side, because they point to nothing, or gape at nothing, not even a respectable algebraic x.

    As for those valves, that's not going to happen, I'm not going to learn this, I am using the cells I have left to learn about new foods.

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