Hellos, and goodbyes. Goodbye, Facebook and X. Hello, BlueSky. If you’re looking for me, read this post to find out where to find me, out there on the Internet.

Posted on 22 November 2024 by RobertLovesPi

Like many people, I’ve lately become sick of so many things. It isn’t just Donald Trump and Trumpism, nor toxic forms of religion, nor anti-science attitudes, nor Elon Musk, nor the website X (formerly known as Twitter), nor Facebook, nor Mark Zuckerberg, nor billionaires in general, nor political parties, nor the war on women, nor anti-vaxxers, nor fascists on the far right, nor Communists on the far left, nor mass incarceration, nor the wars at home and abroad, nor people who hate friends of mine just because they want to change things about themselves, such as their own bodies and names. I’m sick of people trying to destroy public education and teachers’ unions. I’m sick of all these things, and more.

Quite frankly, if you’re friend-requesting me on Facebook just to immediately send me a private message, which I call “flirtspam,” I’m sick of you. I’m married, and am not looking to change that. I’m sick of people posting advertisements on my Facebook wall, without even asking for permission first. I’m sick of of Trump and his MAGAs. I’m sick of proselytizing, for or against religion. Frankly, if you’re part of any of these problems, I’m sick of you.

It’s all these negative things, and more, that I want to leave behind. There’s poison in all this hatred, and I don’t want to die from it. Therefore, just like I left the toxic practice of drinking ethanol behind (hopefully for good, this time), on July 20, 2023, I am now leaving my negative social media exposure, with this post.

This is my last post on Facebook and on X. I’m not going to deactivate them; I just won’t be posting anything new on my own FB-wall or Twitter-feed any more. My blog is staying right where it is, at http://www.robertlovespi.net. You’re welcome to follow it, “like” my posts, or comment on them. I usually respond to my blog-comments, especially if I’ve been asked a question. More blog-posts are coming; they just won’t be shared on Facebook or X any more. My blog even has a tip jar, if you’re so inclined, but it’s completely optional and voluntary. You can see everything there for free.

You can also interact with me, if you’re seeking to form or maintain honest, healthy friendships, in one other way, on a new social media website. If you’re also sick of all this toxic hatred, which is literally poisoning our minds, our society, and our world, I will let you know where you can find me. I’ve got a lot of friends on Facebook, after all, and a few on X/Twitter, and I invite those friends to join me in the mass exodus away from those two sites, and toward the new social media platform known as BlueSky. It’s a little bit like Twitter, and a little bit like Facebook, except that it is, so far, not infected with any terminal disease. My profile page there is at https://bsky.app/profile/robertlovespi.bsky.social. All I ask is that you be willing to “give peace a chance,” if you look me up there.

Hello, BlueSky!

Elementary School Mathematics Education Mysteries

Posted on 8 August 2015 by RobertLovesPi

Since these two problems are really the exact same problem, in two different forms, why not just use “x” to teach it, from the beginning, in elementary school, instead of using the little box? The two symbols have the exact same meaning!

To the possible answer, “We use an ‘x’ for multiplication, instead, so doing this would be confusing,” I have a response: why? Using “x” for multiplication is a bad idea, because then students have to unlearn it later. In algebra, it’s better to write (7)(5) = 35, instead of 7×5 = 35, for obvious reasons — we use “x” as a variable, instead, almost constantly. This wouldn’t be as much trouble for students taking algebra if they had never been taught, in the first place, that “x” means “multiply.” It’s already a letter of the alphabet and a variable, plus it marks spots. It doesn’t need to also mean “multiply.”

Why are we doing things in a way that causes more confusion than is necessary? Should we, as teachers, not try to minimize confusion? We certainly shouldn’t create it, without a good reason for doing so, and these current practices do create it.

These things may not be mysteries to others, but they certainly are to me.

[Note: for those who do not already know, I am a teacher of mathematics. However, I do not have any experience teaching anything at the elementary level. For this particular post, that’s certainly relevant information.]

My New Middle Initial and Name: A Mathematical Welcome-Back Gift from My Alma Mater

Posted on 27 June 2015 by RobertLovesPi

I just had a middle initial assigned to me, and then later, with help, figured out what that initial stood for. With apologies for the length of this rambling story, here’s an explanation for how such crazy things happened.

I graduated from high school in 1985, and then graduated college, for the first time, with a B.A. (in history, of all things), in 1992. My alma mater is the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, or UALR, whose website at http://www.ualr.edu is the source for the logo at the center of the image above.

Later, I transferred to another university, became certified to teach several subjects other than history, got my first master’s degree from there (also in history) in 1996, and then quit seeking degrees, but still added certification areas and collected salary-boosting graduate hours, until 2005. In 2005, the last time I took a college class (also at UALR), I suddenly realized, in horror, that I’d been going to college, off and on, for twenty years. That, I immediately decided, was enough, and so I stopped — and stayed stopped, for the past ten years.

Now it’s 2015, and I’ve changed my mind about attending college — again. I’ve been admitted to a new graduate program, back at UALR, to seek a second master’s degree — one in a major (gifted and talented education) more appropriate for my career, teaching (primarily) mathematics, and the “hard” sciences, for the past twenty years. After a ten-year break from taking classes, I’ll be enrolled again in August.

As part of the process to get ready for this, UALR assigned an e-mail address to me, which they do, automatically, using an algorithm which uses a person’s first and middle initial, as well as the person’s legal last name. With me, this posed a problem, because I don’t have a middle name.

UALR has a solution for this: they assigned a middle initial to me, as part of my new e-mail address: “X.” Since I was not consulted about this, I didn’t have a clue what the “X” even stands for, and mentioned this fact on Facebook, where several of my friends suggested various new middle names I could use.

With thanks, also, to my friend John, who suggested it, I’m going with “Variable” for my new middle name — the name which is represented by the “X” in my new, full name.

I’ve even made this new middle initial part of my name, as displayed on Facebook. If that, plus the e-mail address I now have at UALR, plus this blog-post, don’t make this official, well, what possibly could?