#between 12 and 15 missing calculus assignments

[somelamefandomreference]

legit sick to my stomach. backed myself into a corner with my assignments and major projects. again. 100% in the deepest shit I’ve ever managed to find myself in academically. I can only blame myself.

It’s like, I want to learn, but when there’s a short time limit or a deadline my brain automatically goes “nope. not doing it. it’s too much” until maybe five minutes before. And when there’s a long deadline or other time limit my brain just goes “ughh not now” forever until the inevitable time limit/deadline does come and then it’s “oh my goddd why didn’t you do this you pigeon shit” and honestly I’m just tired of existing in this particular consciousness can someone please factory reset my brain

[times-new-roman-font]

20 Useful Free Apps For High School (+Junior High & College)(Part 1)

I have tried every single app listed here, for at least a short time. Some of which I use on a regular basis, while others I just tried because I wanted to have twenty different apps on this list, or because there are five choices that do the exact same thing so I only use my favorite. Anyways here we go towards the list of 20, and if any of you are interested in singular reviews on any of these apps, just ask, because I have nothing but time and would be happy to help. Also tell me what you want next. I mean it could be the part two (as one would be easy to make with the amount of apps there are, I've not even really touched the tip of the iceburg), or another certain type of post, whether it be studying tips, a website version of this, or a recommended list of classics to read.

Homework/Studying Apps:

1. Quizlet - A studying app/website with flashcards, games, quizzes, and tests. Useful for learning languages, vocab, and terms, but also has other features such as diagrams. It's one of the mobile studying apps of it's type, though it doesn't have all the features the actual website provide.

2. Cram.com Flashcards - Another studying app like Quizlet, though unlike the mobile version of quizlet it has more games than just match, and just different features and set up.

3. Kahoot - A quiz app focused on the younger audience, as it's played like a game more than studying. You have options between playing live games with a host, a challenge between multiple players, or a single player practice.

4. Khan Academy - A learning app that lets you learn anything it offers for free of charge, there are math courses that range from early math to AP Calculus to Linear Algebra, along with Science, Economics, Arts and Humanities, Test Prep, and more.

5. Photomath - A "camera calculator" that brags to be the smartest one on the market, you can take photos of your math equations or type them in and you will receive the answer and step-by-step instructions on how to get that answer.

6. Duolingo - Probably the best app for learning a language die there being so many choices including English, French, German, Italian, Romanian, Greek, Polish, Swahili, and more. You can learn as many of these languages as you want at once, and there are multiple choices for native languages, so you can learn French even if you're just say fluent in Spanish. There are also groups that you can join in-app.

Planner/Checklist Apps:

7. School Planner - There are multiple on the market, though the one being mentioned is by Andrea Dal Cin. It has tabs for a calendar, an agenda, a timetable, grades, subjects, teachers, attendance, and recordings. That and a complete overview for the day and week.

8. School - This exact application is by Flaring App, and it offers tabs for schedules, homework, handbook (It's actually formulas for math, physics, chemistry, and information about countries), time to end (which is a time table), books, people (sorted into teachers and friends contacts), trigonometry, and notes.

9. Egenda - Another planner/organization type app that has two main tabs, what's due and completed, and then customizable class tabs where you're assignments can be sorted by class.

10. Study Planner - As the name suggests this app is a planner and organization app. It includes side tabs for a dashboard, agenda, calendar, class schedule, study time, subjects, and teachers.

Communication Apps:

11. Remind - A school communication platform that allows you to talk to the class, a group, or an individual. Allows you to be in multiple class's and/or club's groups, it translates messages, and you are also able to share photos and flyers.

Learning/Courses Apps:

12. Coursera - An app filled with online courses in programming, math, music, languages, business, and more from some of the top universities. It seems to be the one with the most courses or at least out of the ones I've found. Ever course I've found so far has been free, though certification usually isn't.

13. Stepik - Another online course app, with free courses, though the amount of courses on this app are very limited with less than a dozen available mostly focusing on coding and English.

14. Edex - Another online course app, with courses offered by top universities, and like Coursera it mostly has free courses with paid certification. It has a good amount of high level STEM classes, business classes, law classes, and architect type classes. It also has high school courses such as introduction to algebra and introduction to geometry, which are both actually currently going on.

15. TubeStudy - Just another course app, although this one you learn through videos, most of which seem to be free. Videos cover a large variety of topics all the way from Chess to Geometry to Python to German.

Etc. Apps:

16. Libby - An app I recommend if you have a library card, as it links to your local libraries ebooks and audiobooks, letting you check them out and then leaving automatically when you time runs out.

17. All Formulas - An app that offers a list of math, Physics, and Chemistry formulas though the list is limited and certain formulas are missing such as the equation of a circle.

18. Math Formulas Pack - Another app that offers a list of math formulas, the set up is a little simpler than the appearance of all formulas, but unlike like it, it only has math formulas. It seems to have more math formulas than the other, though I haven't checked. Also like most realistic apps, it is missing formulas.

19. Career Guide - While not exactly a school app, it has it's relations definetely for those who are trying to see just how many jobs are out there. It's probably one of the best apps I've found out there when it comes to selection and information, though I've found, and had to use, websites that offer a lot more information. (Though I have to say certain aspects of the site are based around the careers in India, including the monetary aspect.)

20. Free books and audiobooks - An app that offers free books and audio books, most of the books that they offer are older but many great and well-known classics are there, including works by Jane Austin, Lewis Carroll, and Mark Twain.

[ramrodd]

The Deep Meaning of "O Come O Come Emmanuel

COMMENTARY:

This is one of my favorite carols. I've always associated the minor key with Matthew's nativity narrative. David's lyre employed a 5 / 7 note octave of the music of the 7 base numerology of the Mythos before the 8 note chromatic scale of the 8 base numerology of the Logos of Greece. David's lyre employs basically the black keys on the piano while the piano key board reflects the synthesis of the Mythos and the Logos if you want to establish the Hegelian aspects of process theology in the biblical narrative.

As I say elsewhere, part of my mission is to promote the Holy Spirit as a capitalist tool. As I say, Jesus is exactly who He says He is in Mark 14:62, so I am not here to debunk your theology, per se, but to demonstrate the degree to which you are being cheated by the protocols of Solo Scriptura mandated by the Pro-Life Evangelical business model. You are more right than wrong in regards to the nature of Christ, but what you are wrong about contributes directly to the spiritual pollution in the Zeitgeist that is driving the suicide rate of combat veterans. In that regards, everything connected to Robert Jeffress sustains the heresies that generate that spiritual pollution. As I say in the comments to your video on who wrote the Gospel According to Mark, if boldness in the search of Truth is what you seek, I'm the answer to your prayes.

The application of Mark 3:29 is to restore the broken relationship between men and The One as a consequence of Free Will, a subtext of the Book of Job. The theme of the Book of Job is God the Father humbling Himself before Mankind for unintentionally abusing this consequence and His promise to make it right with the ransome paid by God the Son of Man on the Cross. The meaning of Mark 15:38 is partially correct that the veil between Mankind and God in the Holy of Holies is rent, but the full meaning is completed if that meaning is expanded to include the Jewish custom of "rending" (διαρρήξας) their garments in the face of blaspheme like the high priest in Mark 14:63 and in lamentation at the death of a loved one. In the case of Mark 14:38, it is the sorrow of the God of the Broken Heart that reconciles God to Mankind by the propitiation of God the Son. And Melchizedek is the intermediary in the delivery of the ransom.

To deny the Holy Ghost is to refuse this ransom. Verse One is a celebration of this ransom as the Baby Jesus. Each of us is Israel and we each celebrate Emmanuel ESPECIALLY when we accept the presence of the Holy Ghost as restoration of the relationship between I, a person, and The One in real time and in the eternal here/now of the Kingdom of God on Earth as it is in Heaven.

The belt buckle of the Wehrmacht uniform had "Gott Mit Uns" emblazoned thereon as they reduced the Warsaw Ghetto, just to keep things anchored.

The refrain is the application of Mark 3:29; the coming of the Holy Ghost is the coming of Emmanuel.

Verse Two is a portrait of Yaweh, Queen of Battle, a feminine aspect of The One. The Torah is a military document, a series of field manuals. so to speak, documenting the cultural transformation of the Children of Moses from slaves to a sovereign people which has persisted, lo, these 4000 years. Moses was a prince of the realm of the Pharaoh's and. like Prince Harry and Princess Elizabeth, had a formal military education. A strong argument can be made that the first recorded narratives were military in nature and the Torah falls into this catagory.

As such, Moses goes to a great deal of trouble to obscure elements of the technology involved, including the ontology, that is, the various aspects of The One, generally, and, in particular,  the feminine nature of Duty as exemplified by Yaweh as the Queen of Battle. The Coat of Arms of West Point includes the helm of Athena/Minerva, who is the Greek and Roman analogue to Yaweh as Wisdom and She Who Must Be Obeyed. As a combat veteran, I know Yaweh, as did Cornelius, who had the same relationship with Her as Jesus, which authentically astonishes Jesus: "Not in all of Isreal have I found such faith".  The binding of Isaac, the Apology of Socrates and the Cross are studies in the nature of Duty as a response to Yaweh. ��As they say, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and, in the profession of arms where devotion to duty is the standard of excellence, the coin of the realm is valor as defined by John 15:13.

From the perspective of Wisdom in Verse Two, John 15:13 trumps John 3:16 relative to the Book of Job, Mark 15:38 and as the ransom of Verse One. Rejoice, Rejoice, for the benefits of the Holy Spirit include the intellectual constructs of Plato reflected in Genesis 15:5 and the firmament in Old Glory; and the epistemological methods of Aristotle reflected in Genesis 28:12 and the stripes of Old Glory. The purpose of the Bible is epistemological and the scientific method is a direct legacy of that purpose. Verse Two is a celebration of that legacy of the Wisdom of the Bible.

I have skipped Verses Three and Four because they get into the issues of the Law of Moses and death. As a combat vet, I am a devout coward and your glib assertions of "giving your life for Christ" sound like Peter promising to go down fighing with Jesus. I sold life insurance for a while after I got back from Vietnam and kept running into men about your age who had never seriously confronted their own death as a contingency, much less a certainty. The least interesting clause of the Apostle's Creed for me is "...the resurrection of the body...". In the imperatives of the Mission, Men, Self priorities of military servant leadership, personal survival is not a metaphysical necessity. The fact is that much of tactical contingencies can come down to a choice between getting killed and committing suicide: thoughts of suicide are a professional hazard in the combat arms when the potential for becoming a POW is factored into the personal calculus. And the Law of Moses is problematic for the same reason it was for Jesus.

In Verse Five, the Key of David is the Davidic Covenant in 2 Samuel 7 which is found in the current expression of the 7 Mountain Mandate that Lance Wallnau is currently flogging in the corrupted manner that Solo Scriptura produces. The core technology of the Harvard Business model, Scientific Management, is a format for achieving the intended outcomes of the Davidic Covenant as an operation of the Holy Ghost as a capitalist tool. The Key of David is a continuation of God's promise to provide humanity the resources we need for dominion over all we survey, including the protocols for secular government anticipated in Romans 13:1 - 7, which is something of a recapitulation of Socrates' Apology and which has found expression in the US Constitution.

The Star of Jesus in Verse Six is the epistemological trajectory that runs straight as a laser from Melchizedek through Socrates  and the Cross to Isaac Newton and out beyond the horizon after passing through Apollo 11. In the 5th century, when these lines were composed, the validation of the God Hypothesis was the light guiding humanity forward and the Holy Spirit was the constant presence of The One along side the individual pilgrim. The point of Mark 3:29 is that the 2nd Coming is already arrived: to live for the resurrection of the body is to deny the Holy Spirit. Verse Six is a celebration of the Liberation Gospel as the Salvation Gospel is to dwell in the past. looking for Jesus in an empty tomb. Jesus is to be found on The Way, working along side  Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter building houses with Habitat for Humanity, hands to work, hearts to God. It's like Song of Myself:

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

Verse Seven is a little application for you, personally, in regards to your ignorance of the numerology of the Bible. In the Beginning  was the Word, but, before the Beginning, Number IS the great I AM. As a practical matter, The Word emerges out of Number: the gematria of Hebrew begins with Number and not as a consequence of assigning numbers to the alphabet. And Topology is the mathematics of the human unconscious and the Mind of The One. Zip Codes are a combination of the two artifacts, the existential boundaries of the American topography and the numeric inventory of their location. The numerology of the Bible in the numerics, textual numerology and the mundane numerology of chapter and verse are all playgrounds of the Holy Spirit.

The numerology of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is pretty consistent with the numerology of the Bible, in particular Verse Seven. 7 is the perfect number of Jewish numerology and it represents the moment in process theology when the mechanics of human creation have been completed and the dynamics of natural law and the action of the Holy Spirit must obtain. It is not an end product, per se. It's the moment after the yeast has been added to the dough and must be left alone to rise before being completed in the oven. The Creation Narrative in Genesis is actually 9 days, with all the busy work done in the first 6 days and the 7th a liminal stage, actually a threshold, going from one state to another, the 8th day in the Garden of Eden when the Free Will of the Book of Job emerges in the human condition and the resulting state of awareness completes the 9th day of Creation as humanity begins to acquire dominion over the universe. The role of Melchizedek is to introduce 9 base numerology into the Hebrew theology and that process establishes the epistemological trajectory that is codified in the Epistle to the Hebrews and conveyed, straight as a laser, to the technology that sustains the symbols in the sentence that your eyes are running across to convey the meaning of this commentary.

The Holy Ghost says "Hi!"

[mathematicianadda]

Student Buy-in and Student Resistance

Posted on: 

Tuesday, August 20, 2019 - 7:01pm

Written by: Dr. Christine von Renesse and Dr. Philip DeOrsey.

We use inquiry in all our classes, in particular in our mathematics for liberal arts (MLA) classes. In our typical MLA class, students work in groups on mathematical explorations, and then share out their thinking in whole class discussions .

Student Resistance

Unfortunately, teaching with active learning strategies like inquiry-based learning (IBL) often leads to student resistance. “Felder and Brent (1996) note that enthusiasts of student-centered or learner-centered instruction are in for a ‘rude shock’ […] when they begin to actually implement updated pedagogies in their classroom.“ (Tolman, page 2. See references below.)

Tolman defines student resistance as “an outcome, a motivational state in which students reject learning opportunities due to systemic factors.” They further go on to state that “resistance is a motivational ‘state’ and an outcome of multiple interacting factors; it is not a ‘trait’ that endures over time or exists as part of a student’s personality or genetics.”

If you have facilitated an active learning classroom you may have experienced some of the following from your students:

Unwilling to engage in any task (anxiously or passive aggressively).

Openly rejecting tasks: “Why do I have to do this? When do I ever use this?”

Aggressive when questioned about their reasoning. “This is the correct answer, who cares how I got there?”

Acting helpless: “I can’t do this!”

Demanding different teaching style: “You are not teaching us!”

Sound familiar? Which student behaviors, if any, have you encountered that fall under “student resistance?” Do you understand why your students behaved the way they did?

To make inquiry-based learning work we want to lower student resistance, but to do this we first need to understand student resistance more deeply. One great resource is Tolman’s book “Why Students resist learning: A practical model for understanding and helping students”. He uses the Integrated Model of Student Resistance (IMSR) to explain how metacognition, cognitive development, negative classroom experiences, and environmental forces (work, family, culture/racism, disabilities) influence student resistance. It is tempting to think that student behavior only results from our facilitation during class but that is rarely the case. Seeing all the reasons that may lead students to resist can help us understand students’ feelings and behaviors and help overcome resistance.

Tolman explains that students either act to “preserve self” or to “assert autonomy”, and that they can do so actively or passively. It is helpful to understand that an expression of frustration can really mean that a student needs to assert autonomy, or that a student that seems afraid and reluctant to work is possibly trying to protect themselves from failure and humiliation. The more we, the facilitators, understand about why students resist the better we can support them in choosing to instead engage in learning again.

Makira [page 45] claims that “despite all of the literature-based evidence pointing to the importance of student–faculty interaction in college, many faculty overlook, or underestimate, the impact they have on their students. There is often a tendency for faculty to assume that talent and hard work alone will get students through the course, when in reality many other factors—including their own behavior toward students—can play important roles. In their study, the three variables that correlated to positive student outcomes (comprising the student–faculty relationship factor) were the student looking up to the professor, feeling comfortable approaching the professor, and feeling that the professor respects the students.”

Similarly, Tolman writes that “Communication theorists have also revealed some important ways that professor-student relationships shape learning and resistance. In this literature, immediacy refers to the amount of interpersonal warmth and social connection that an instructor demonstrates toward students.” [...] By understanding that sometimes students may be reacting to our own misbehaviors, including not adequately preparing students for tasks or not helping them understand the reasons for assignments[...], we may discover opportunities to alter our behavior to enhance student learning. By understanding the important role that immediacy plays in fanning or damping student resistance, we can seek to develop our social connection with students.” (Tolman, page 10)

When student buy-in is missing, e.g. resistance is up and students are blaming the facilitator, it is tempting for the facilitator to blame students - instead of looking for solutions to the problem. This can lead to a vicious cycle in which learning becomes harder and harder.

Student Buy-In

Zumbrunn et al. provide an interesting perspective in their study showing that belonging plays a crucial role for students’ engagement and achievement. Belonging is defined as the extent to which students feel accepted and supported by teachers and peers. They “argue that a supportive classroom environment predicts belonging and that belonging likely predicts self-efficacy and task value [value beliefs for learning tasks]. These motivational beliefs, in turn, independently predict engagement and engagement predicts achievement.”

This implies that for learning to be possible we as facilitators need to create a supportive classroom environment so that students feel that they belong. There are some strategies available on how to get students to buy-into their college classes, for example Dana Ernst' blog about setting the stage in mathematics and Tolman's book (more general), but successfully getting buy-in seems to depend on many factors, such as facilitator behavior, beliefs, and personality.

(Some of) Our strategies for Student Buy-In:

We describe ten general strategies that we use to encourage student buy-in. We relate each of these strategies to the revised model of classroom support for motivation as described in [Zumbrunn]. These connections are noted in parentheses for each strategy. Not all strategies listed are employed by us both, but we chose to list them jointly. You can see it as a menu to choose from, with probably many more good ideas missing.

Early success (belonging and/or task value)

Facilitators make sure that all students experience success early in the semester. To this end we choose shorter activities in the beginning - with an especially low threshold - that we know to be doable for everyone. In our experience if students fail to find early success they can quickly feel like they do not belong in the class.

Reflection (self-efficacy)

Students watch short video clips and write journals 2-3 times during the semester. Topics range from growth mindset, mind set and physiology, productive failure, persistence, (lack of) diversity in mathematics, injustice in mathematics, to applications of mathematics.

Trust (supportive classroom and belonging leading to self-efficacy)

As facilitators we truly believe that all students can be successful and make sure to tell them repeatedly that we believe in them and trust them.

Positivity (supportive classroom)

As facilitators we stay positive during class, especially when our students make negative comments or show other forms of resistance to our class environment.

Immediacy (supportive classroom and belonging)

In order to show our immediacy we often come to class early to sit with students and ask them questions beyond the classroom (“How are you doing? How are your other classes? How is your family? Do you have plans for break?” …). We make sure to tell them some stories about ourselves as well. The idea is to create a personal connection and to show students that we care about them as people.

Classroom Norms (supportive classroom and belonging)

In group and class discussions, we generate norms for our classroom community. These norms can include beliefs about mathematics, for example “Mistakes are valuable”, but they can also include how we want students and facilitator to act in class, for example: “Acknowledge the difference between intent and impact.” We like the Anti-Oppressive Resource for Establishing Norms for Discussion and Jo Boaler's Resource for Norms in a K-12 Mathematics Classroom.

Community Building (supportive classroom and belonging)

We consciously work on building a class community in the beginning of the semester. For example, we regularly change the grouping of students to make sure that all students know each other. Grouping students according to needs later on can be helpful as well.

Engagement

To help students stay engaged we make sure to provide activities that allow all students to work at their learning edge.

Belonging and Equity

We also specifically support student minorities, making explicit that we welcome all students and do not accept any microaggressions.

Art (Achievement)

Most students appreciate some form of art. Connecting mathematics to creating art is a powerful tool to motivate students. If students already know how to create art it is likely that they will enjoy this. If not, the promise of being able to is enticing. Of course you can choose any other form of achievement for this section, for example an applied project for a calculus class.

References:

Cavanagh, A. J. et al. 2017. Student Buy-In to Active Learning in a College Science Course. Cbe Life Sciences Education. 15(4). 15:ar76, 1–9.

Makira, M., Pasos, P. 2012. Connecting to the Professor: Impact of the Student–Faculty Relationship in a Highly Challenging Course. College Teaching, 60: 41–47.

Tolman, A. O., J. Kremling (Eds). 2017. Why Students resist learning: A practical model for understanding and helping students. Sterling, Virginia: Stylus Publishing, LLC.

Zumbrunn, S., C. McKim, E. Buhs, L. R. Hawley. 2014. Support, belonging, motivation, and engagement in the college classroom: A mixed method study. Instructional Science. 42(5). 661-684.

from Discovering the Art of Mathematics blogs from Blogger https://ift.tt/2NlXxQM

[swipestream]

New Release Roundup, 15 September 2018: Fantasy and Adventure

Victorian detectives, magical girls, superheroes, and half-orc henchmen fill this week’s roundup of the newest releases in fantasy and adventure.

The Atlantis Cipher (The Relic Hunters #2) – David Leadbeater

A lost world. An ancient code. A deadly chase.

Five ancient statues have been unearthed in South America, each containing a mysterious coded message hinting at an origin many thought impossible: the mythical world of Atlantis. As word of their discovery spreads, the prized figurines become a treasure bounty hunters will kill for.

CIA agent Heidi Moneymaker calls in the only team for the job: Guy Bodie and his posse of relic-hunting thieves. If they are to find the ancient civilization, Bodie and his team must decode a series of clues—starting with the cipher on the statues themselves—that will take them across the world and to the deepest depths of the ocean. But they are not alone in their mission.

Pursued by mysterious forces intent on keeping the legendary empire hidden, hunted by Chinese special forces and the relic hunters’ lethal foe, the Bratva, the team races to find the lost land—and Bodie’s enemies will stop at nothing to be the first to discover Atlantis’s secrets.

Barnabas Tew and The Case of The Nine Worlds – Columbkill Noonan

Hold your flying horses!

Barnabas Tew and Wilfred Colby are back, and, once again, they’re in a bit of a pickle.

Barnabas and Wilfred, two earnest but bumbling Victorian detectives, travel through the Nine Worlds of Norse mythology, trying to stave off the impending end of the world – an event which the locals call Ragnarok. This time, however, the intrepid twosome has some help: a brave Viking seer named Brynhild and her flying horse.Can the two plucky detectives and the fearsome Brynhild outwit those who would bring about Ragnarok? Will they survive the harsh conditions and terrifying creatures of the Norse afterlife?

Will they save the world…again?

Jake & the Dynamo: The Wattage of Justice – D. G. D. Davidson

Jake Blatowski can’t wait for high school: basketball, calculus, and a cafeteria that isn’t under investigation by the health department. Well, he’s going to have to wait: a computer malfunction has assigned him to the fifth grade.

It’s bad enough that he bangs his knees on the desks or that Miss Percy is going over long division … again … but Jake’s sitting next to Dana Volt. She’s a perpetually surly troublemaker who doesn’t even have to exert herself to make his life a living hell. But no, it gets better: Dana secretly belongs to a coalition of girls protecting humanity from the horde of deadly monsters that plagues the city. But Jake’s no hero; he just wants to get to varsity tryouts!

When the monsters choose a new target, Jake’s not at all surprised that the target is him. Sure, why not? That’s the kind of week he’s having. Now the impulsive and moody Dana is the only one who can save Jake from certain death—but Jake is the only one who can save Dana from herself.

Kingdoms and Chaos (King’s Dark Tidings #4) – Kel Kade

The future of the Ashaiian haven, the newly founded Kingdom of Cael, is anything but secured. Rezkin must seek recognition from the King of Gendishen if his people are to maintain possession of their island home and the enchanted secret it contains. In an unexpected twist, events overtake Rezkin, and he is thrust into a frustrating adventure to seek a worthless prize. He finds that his carefully constructed reputation as an indomitable foe has consequences as others seek to use his strengths for their own gain. Meanwhile, friends are confronted with too many truths, power and strength might be more than some desire, loyalties and friendships are tested, and at least one of Rezkin’s friends might be headed for a miserable demise.

Light of the Realm (Son of Sorcery #3) – Robert Ryan

Gil has not discovered how to defeat the sorceress who threatens the realm. And time has run out. Ginsar commands not only blood magic, nor just the terrifying Horsemen, but also a vast army – and it is massed mere days away.

But Gil’s people will not cower behind walls of stone. No enemy has ever breached the city defenses, but aided by sorcery this one will. So, Gil leads the army on a sudden march to take the fight to Ginsar before she is ready. It is a desperate gamble, and one that could turn to ruin and despair.

Strategies come to fruition, ploys unfold and traps are set. Prophecies for the future vie with secrets hidden in the past. It is a time of turmoil, a time of chaos, and a time where gambles could triumph – or destroy worlds. Gil is at its heart, ready to be king, but perhaps fated to see all that he loves burned to ash and smoke…

Run Like Hell (Wandering Monsters #1) – Elliott Kay

Bloody, broke, and face down on the floor is no way to end a job… even for a “monster.”

Life hasn’t been easy for Scars of No-Clan. The king has a bounty out on all monstrous folk, leaving half-orc warriors like Scars no choice but to work for the local evil wizard. Now adventurers have hit the wizard’s dungeon, wiping out years of hard work along with most of his co-workers. He’s left with a handful of survivors: an outcast goblin scout, a heretical gnoll, the wizard’s bizarre apprentice, a bandit cut loose from the stockade, and a murderous knife-fighting lady bugbear. They have to escape before the adventurers find them–and the only way out is through the darkest reaches of the dungeon.

Scars wanted to walk off this job the day he was hired, but going out like this is going to look terrible on his résumé.

Rulebreaker (Chuck Dixon’s Avalon) – Chuck Dixon and Frank Fosco

Detective Ben Church is hot on the heels of the vigilante who murdered a city councilman in broad daylight. But agents of the UN Superhuman Protection Council are interfering with his investigation, even as they claim that they can help him clean up Avalon City. Should he believe them? More importantly, can he trust them?

Meanwhile, King Ace has dealt with his partner-in-crimefighting Fazer’s little slip-up with regards to the unwritten Hero’s Code, but that doesn’t keep them from going after the notorious crime boss, Nicodemus Vukovich, together. The problem, King Ace discovers, is that there is a lot of temptation to be found in a wealthy crime lord’s uptown apartment. Perhaps too much temptation for anyone….

Unknown Evil (Noah Wolf #12) – David Archer

Noah and the Team take some well-deserved time off at the Manor in England, but that always seems to be when things go crazy. The Queen’s Ambassador, Catherine Potts, suddenly calls Noah to tell him that there is a single terrorist in the country who has the power to wipe us out, but he’s an unknown. MI6 has been unable to break through the secrecy around him to track him down, so the Queen has asked for Camelot’s help.

They’ve got less than thirty-six hours before disaster happens, and only a handful of clues that don’t seem to fit together.

This will be a race against time, and in the end it may not just be civilians that Noah and his team must end up saving.

Sword of Odinson – Benn James

Jorvik, 999AD. And everyone’s got Millennium fever.

Between the paranoid Earl, a vile Lord, and the masked Satanists the good town of Jorvik stinks of more than just pig dung and wood smoke.

Olin Odinson, the fabled Crow of War, has been dragged back home from exile. Now he must uncover the truth about the red skulled demons murdering the townsfolk before the people of his hometown are put to the flame.

But first, he’s got to face his past. And take up his sword, one last time.

  The War in Paris (Alt-Hero #4) – Vox Day and Cliff Cosmic

Inspired by the German government’s crackdown on nationalists in Berlin, Antifa is now on the march in Paris. And despite being hunted by the police and the Global Justice Initiative, Jean-Michel Durand is determined to stand with his generation against the enemies of France. But how can even the most steadfast nationalists hope to stop Antifa when the riot police, a United Nations Incident Team, and Captain Europa himself stand in their way?

“This story is shaping up to be epic. With the simultaneous events going on in the US and in Europe with its contemporary setting. I am liking everything I see and have been surprised by the story development. The story is developing, the artwork is improving, the coloring looks great and the visualization of the action, especially in Number 4, is striking.”–Reader Review

Yellowstone: Hellfire (Yellowstone #1) – Bobby Akart

Millions of people visit the Yellowstone National Park every year blissfully unaware they are on top of the greatest killer man has ever known – the Yellowstone Supervolcano.

Beneath this primal allure simmers a catastrophic threat. A caldera the size of Mount Everest, created hundreds of thousand of years ago, which holds back super-heated magma, rising and falling, looking for release.

Scientists agree, the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano is long overdue. Events have been set into motion that lit the fuse of the greatest disaster mankind has ever known.

Is it going to happen? Yes. Do we know when? Anytime, or not within our lifetime, hopefully.

But if it does … The eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano will be more than a spectacle to grab our attention. It will be the end of the world as we know it.

The Wayward Journey (Sorcerous Stabber Orphen #1) – Yoshinobu Akita

Orphen is a Sorcerer drop-out from the prestigious Tower of Fangs. His journey to save Azalie, a girl he looked up to like a sister, has brought him to the bustling city of Totokanta. Here they are reunited for the first time in five years. But what is the truth behind her monstrous transformation, and just what secrets lurk behind the Sword of Baldanders��?

New Release Roundup, 15 September 2018: Fantasy and Adventure published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

[filiplig]

Ellenberg, Jordan - How Not to Be Wrong

page 6 | location 81-86 | Added on Sunday, 1 February 2015 17:10:59

“Mathematics is pretty much the same. You may not be aiming for a mathematically oriented career. That’s fine—most people aren’t. But you can still do math. You probably already are doing math, even if you don’t call it that. Math is woven into the way we reason. And math makes you better at things. Knowing mathematics is like wearing a pair of X-ray specs that reveal hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of the world. Math is a science of not being wrong about things, its techniques and habits hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, sounder, and more meaningful way. All you need is a coach, or even just a book, to teach you the rules and some basic tactics. I will be your coach. I will show you how.”

 page 6 | location 81-86 | Added on Sunday, 1 February 2015 17:11:40

“Mathematics is pretty much the same. You may not be aiming for a mathematically oriented career. That’s fine—most people aren’t. But you can still do math. You probably already are doing math, even if you don’t call it that. Math is woven into the way we reason. And math makes you better at things. Knowing mathematics is like wearing a pair of X-ray specs that reveal hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of the world. Math is a science of not being wrong about things, its techniques and habits hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, sounder, and more meaningful way. All you need is a coach, or even just a book, to teach you the rules and some basic tactics.

 page 15 | location 224-226 | Added on Sunday, 1 February 2015 17:28:05

We tend to teach mathematics as a long list of rules. You learn them in order and you have to obey them, because if you don’t obey them you get a C-. This is not mathematics. Mathematics is the study of things that come out a certain way because there is no other way they could possibly be.

 page 16 | location 235-237 | Added on Sunday, 1 February 2015 17:30:10

prosthesis that you attach to your common sense, vastly multiplying its reach and strength. Despite the power of mathematics, and despite its sometimes forbidding notation and abstraction, the actual mental work involved is little different from the way we think about more down-to-earth problems.

 page 42 | location 635-642 | Added on Tuesday, 3 February 2015 17:20:58

What’s the numerical value of an infinite sum? It doesn’t have one—until we give it one. That was the great innovation of Augustin-Louis Cauchy, who introduced the notion of limit into calculus in the 1820s.* The British number theorist G. H. Hardy, in his 1949 book Divergent Series, explains it best: It does not occur to a modern mathematician that a collection of mathematical symbols should have a “meaning” until one has been assigned to it by definition. It was not a triviality even to the greatest mathematicians of the eighteenth century. They had not the habit of definition: it was not natural to them to say, in so many words, “by X we mean Y.” . . . It is broadly true to say that mathematicians before Cauchy asked not, “How shall we define 1 − 1 + 1 − 1 + . . .” but “What is 1 − 1 + 1 − 1 + . . . ?” and that this habit of mind led them into unnecessary perplexities and controversies which were often really verbal.

 page 52 | location 790-794 | Added on Tuesday, 3 February 2015 17:42:46

Dissatisfying as it may be to partisans, I think we have to teach a mathematics that values precise answers but also intelligent approximation, that demands the ability to deploy existing algorithms fluently but also the horse sense to work things out on the fly, that mixes rigidity with a sense of play. If we don’t, we’re not really teaching mathematics at all. It’s a tall order—but it’s what the best math teachers are doing, anyway, while the math wars rage among the administrators overhead.

 page 66 | location 1004-1006 | Added on Wednesday, 4 February 2015 17:27:34

50%. That’s how the Law of Large Numbers works: not by balancing out what’s already happened, but by diluting what’s already happened with new data, until the past is so proportionally negligible that it can safely be forgotten.

 page 91 | location 1390-1391 | Added on Sunday, 8 February 2015 16:43:33

The point of Bennett’s paper is to warn that the standard methods of assessing results, the way we draw our thresholds between a real phenomenon and random static, come under dangerous pressure in this era of massive data sets, effortlessly obtained.

 page 109 | location 1666-1669 | Added on Sunday, 8 February 2015 17:18:38

If only we could go back in time to the dawn of statistical nomenclature and declare that a result passing Fisher’s test with a p-value of less than 0.05 was “statistically noticeable” or “statistically detectable” instead of “statistically significant”! That would be truer to the meaning of the method, which merely counsels us about the existence of an effect but is silent about its size or importance. But it’s too late for that.

 page 145 | location 2217-2223 | Added on Tuesday, 10 February 2015 17:38:22

For Neyman and Pearson, the purpose of statistics isn’t to tell us what to believe, but to tell us what to do. Statistics is about making decisions, not answering questions. A significance test is no more or less than a rule, which tells the people in charge whether to approve a drug, undertake a proposed economic reform, or tart up a website. It sounds crazy at first to deny that the goal of science is to find out what’s true, but the Neyman-Pearson philosophy is not so far from reasoning we use in other spheres. What’s the purpose of a criminal trial? We might naively say it’s to find out whether the defendant actually committed the crime they’re on trial for. But that’s obviously wrong. There are rules of evidence, which forbid the jury from hearing testimony obtained improperly, even if it might help them accurately determine the defendant’s innocence or guilt. The purpose of a court is not truth, but justice.

 page 165 | location 2528-2536 | Added on Wednesday, 11 February 2015 17:25:27

In the Bayesian framework, how much you believe something after you see the evidence depends not just on what the evidence shows, but on how much you believed it to begin with. That may seem troubling. Isn’t science supposed to be objective? You’d like to say that your beliefs are based on evidence alone, not on some prior preconceptions you walked in the door with. But let’s face it—no one actually forms their beliefs this way. If an experiment provided statistically significant evidence that a new tweak of an existing drug slowed the growth of certain kinds of cancer, you’d probably be pretty confident the new drug was actually effective. But if you got the exact same results by putting patients inside a plastic replica of Stonehenge, would you grudgingly accept that the ancient formations were actually focusing vibrational earth energy on the body and stunning the tumors? You would not, because that’s nutty. You’d think Stonehenge probably got lucky. You have different priors about those two theories, and as a result you interpret the evidence differently, despite it being numerically the same.

 page 294 | location 4500-4503 | Added on Tuesday, 17 February 2015 17:37:56

In math there are many, many complicated objects, but only a few simple ones. So if you have a problem whose solution admits a simple mathematical description, there are only a few possibilities for the solution. The simplest mathematical entities are thus ubiquitous, forced into multiple duty as solutions to all kinds of scientific problems.

 page 308 | location 4713-4715 | Added on Wednesday, 18 February 2015 17:34:55

Darwin showed that one could meaningfully talk about progress without any need to invoke purpose. Galton showed that one could meaningfully talk about association without any need to invoke underlying

 page 315 | location 4824-4827 | Added on Wednesday, 18 February 2015 17:47:04

“Lives in the same city as” is transitive, too—if I live in the same city as Bill, who lives in the same city as Bob, then I live in the same city as Bob. Correlation is not transitive. It’s more like “blood relation”—I’m related to my son, who’s related to my wife, but my wife and I aren’t blood relatives to each other. In fact, it’s not a terrible idea to think of correlated variables as “sharing part of their DNA.”

 page 319 | location 4883-4885 | Added on Wednesday, 18 February 2015 17:53:10

Keep this in mind when you’re told that two phenomena in nature or society were found to be uncorrelated. It doesn’t mean there’s no relationship, only that there’s no relationship of the sort that correlation is designed to detect.

 page 330 | location 5050-5056 | Added on Wednesday, 18 February 2015 18:12:40

So we don’t and can’t know the exact expected value of launching a campaign against eggplant or vibrating toothbrushes, or tobacco. But often we can say with confidence that the expected value is positive. Again, that doesn’t mean the campaign is sure to have good effects, only that the sum total of all similar campaigns, over time, is likely to do more good than harm. The very nature of uncertainty is that we don’t know which of our choices will help, like attacking tobacco, and which will hurt, like recommending hormone replacement therapy. But one thing’s for certain: refraining from making recommendations at all, on the grounds that they might be wrong, is a losing strategy. It’s a lot like George Stigler’s advice about missing planes. If you never give advice until you’re sure it’s right, you’re not giving enough advice.

 page 340 | location 5199-5201 | Added on Thursday, 19 February 2015 18:02:02

Public opinion doesn’t exist. More precisely, it exists sometimes, concerning matters about which there’s a clear majority view. Safe to say it’s the public’s opinion that terrorism is bad and The Big Bang Theory is a great show. But cutting the deficit is a different story. The majority preferences don’t meld into a definitive stance.

 page 376 | location 5754-5757 | Added on Sunday, 22 February 2015 13:25:05

I once met a historian of German culture in Columbus, Ohio, who told me that Hilbert’s predilection for wearing sandals with socks is the reason that fashion choice is still noticeably popular among mathematicians today. I could find no evidence this was actually true, but it suits me to believe it, and it gives a correct impression of the length of Hilbert’s shadow.

 page 386 | location 5906-5912 | Added on Sunday, 22 February 2015 13:47:40

But most of the mathematicians I work with now weren’t ace mathletes at thirteen; they developed their abilities and talents on a different timescale. Should they have given up in middle school? What you learn after a long time in math—and I think the lesson applies much more broadly—is that there’s always somebody ahead of you, whether they’re right there in class with you or not. People just starting out look to people with good theorems, people with some good theorems look to people with lots of good theorems, people with lots of good theorems look to people with Fields Medals, people with Fields Medals look to the “inner circle” Medalists, and those people can always look toward the dead. Nobody ever looks in the mirror and says, “Let’s face it, I’m smarter than Gauss.” And yet, in the last hundred years, the joined effort of all these dummies-compared-to-Gauss has produced the greatest flowering of mathematical knowledge the world has ever seen.

 page 409 | location 6267-6269 | Added on Sunday, 22 February 2015 14:21:58

flows with vastly augmented force. The lessons of mathematics are simple ones and there are no numbers in them: that there is structure in the world; that we can hope to understand some of it and not just gape at what our senses present to us; that our intuition is stronger with a formal exoskeleton than without one.

 page 409 | location 6271-6277 | Added on Sunday, 22 February 2015 14:23:10

Every time you observe that more of a good thing is not always better; or you remember that improbable things happen a lot, given enough chances, and resist the lure of the Baltimore stockbroker; or you make a decision based not just on the most likely future, but on the cloud of all possible futures, with attention to which ones are likely and which ones are not; or you let go of the idea that the beliefs of groups should be subject to the same rules as beliefs of individuals; or, simply, you find that cognitive sweet spot where you can let your intuition run wild on the network of tracks formal reasoning makes for it; without writing down an equation or drawing a graph, you are doing mathematics, the extension of common sense by other means. When are you going to use it? You’ve been using mathematics since you were born and you’ll probably never stop. Use it well.