Not me. I check the map if I can or ask around so I don't get taken for a ride. One of those rides that is 10 blocks away and the driver goes 30.

But of course, people could just tell by my salt of the earth, all American boy personna, that they could trust me. :kid:

One time, three business type visitors got in my cab at the Olympic Hotel, one of Seattle's top two. A man and woman in the back, and an older fellow in front, and it seemed like he was the senior partner of the three.

He asks in an authoritative southern accent, "Do you know where the Westin Hotel is?" (the other top hotel in town) I said, "Yes, no problem." (It was about 8 blocks away) He said, "Are you sure you know where it is?" I said, "Oh yes, I'm sure I can go right to it."

This ass wouldn't stop. "Are you SURE you know where it is?" he asked in a really leering tone of voice.

I said, "Well, seein' as how I've sat out in front of it for probably about 1,000 hours over the years, waiting for someone to walk out and get in my cab, I think I can find it." I could hear the people in the back fidgeting uncomfortably. They probably weren't accustomed to people getting the *********'s face like that. :D

One nice thing about driving cab: you didn't have to smile and take it like you would if you were a waiter in a restaurant. I never jacked people around with long routes and when they gave me $h!t on that score, I put 'em in their place.

The question that started this thread is why the calculus is a useful tool.

Of all the tools available to answering a question concerning rates of change, calculus answers it directly, quickly and as precisely as needs be.

B

I can see how it would be really useful. The hard part I imagine, is representing real phemomena with a mathematical equation, such that the answer you get from the pure math has validity.

In some fields of endeavor, that could be relatively easy. In others, not so much, but I'm talking through my hat somewhat. Unusual for me. :wacko:

Read what you wrote -- you described exactly why the calculus is a useful tool for rates of change.

let's say you want to model the atmosphere over time. the atmosphere is 3-d and curved parallel to the Earth's curvature. It is also dynamic -- density changes with temperature and chemistry and so forth. You have lots of ground data and you want to INTEGRATE in over time and through space.

let's ay you want to DERIVE a particular climatic condition from that data set at a particular time.

B

That might explain the phobia issue but not the idiot savant phenomenon. I still think a Math Appreciation class or a Math History class is the best way to educate portions of the population without the same degree of hard wiring capacity as Mathematicians.

I use ProTools or Nuendo almost EVERY DAY....

...and I don't recall ever needing to apply algebra to do so.

I do edits using my EARS, not what the numbers say.

Actually, I prefer to go one further and record with great PLAYERS whenever possible, so that extensive editing after the fact is not needed. :D

Mike

Unfortunately, my projects are relatively amateurish, and my circle of musicians don't grace the cover of "Rolling Stone" (my latest effort was an original rap track for my daughter's history project). I'm given very short lead times for these efforts, so sometimes, I have to crunch my edits mathematically.

And with everything else that goes on in my life, I pretty much have to re-learn everything in my studio every time I sit down to create something! :dizzy2:

The English language -- always full of nuance.

I was looking at some calculus on-line to refresh my memory. Oh mah God, half or more looks like Greek to me now. :D

I do remember getting a real kick out of that program I wrote, Newton's method for finding zero roots. Before the advent of computers, Good Lord, the application of that method to just one polynomial, let's say X to the fourth power on down, would take weeks of computation by hand.

Basically, you start with a number far to the left of the Y axis, plug it in, and reduce the number by regular increments until the sign of the result changes, meaning you just crossed the X axis. I would multiply the result of each trial and check to see if it was less than 0, meaning you had just entered a zone where the previous result was either positive or negative and the new result was the opposite sign, yielding a negative product. You then do a derivative of the graph at the point of the most recent result, the sign changing figure, and use that line as a pointer to take you back to the X axis at a point close to where the graph crossed, and repeat the process until you get as close to zero as you'd like. With my program, I could do equations starting with X to the tenth power in seconds. Oh man, what Newton or Copernicus would have given to be in my shoes.

Poor guys had to do lenghty cube root calculations and the like by hand. :eek:

I knew there was a reason you popped into my head when I saw the sticker:
“Drum Machines Have No Soul”, the other day.

Now if I could just figure out how my new Garrison has put my Taylor into the closet....

Hey, don't be so hard on drum machines...

They have their place...

Mine works great as a metronome to track to when I'm recording some REAL drums!!! ;) :P :D

Mike

Well - I can’t be too hard on them. Like I mentioned in the other thread. I saw that sticker when I was bringing home a Boss DR-880. Ironic, or what?

It does have it’s place here. So far - Mainly with the kids.

Hahaha...

Yes, they can be a convenient tool sometimes...

But machines don't make music. PEOPLE make music.

:D

Mike

I've never played a Garrison. Nice?