I've had a couple of second opinions for far less serious stuff in recent years. In both cases the original doctors suggested major surgery pre-emptively, even though they were very different types of thing. In the…
We're about to get a heatpump (in the UK) and our pipework is fine but we need to replace pretty much all the radiators, both the old ones, about 45 years old, and the newer ones, about 15 years old, in order to be able…
Based on the research mathematicians I have known, I'd disagree with 'they'd probably be doing something else if they had absolute freedom over their time' for at least a large number of them, although it probably…
In the UK, you could always choose to go 'ex-directory'. More and more people did over time I think and the personal part of the phone directory got slimmer and slimmer, basically just leaving the business part.
I believe that compactness has a different meaning in topology than in logic btw (though my degree was so long ago now that I'm rusty on it all!). I do find it implausible that you'd need the type of background that I…
Having got a tutor for one subject for one of my children, I'd say that tutors are about motivation/structure/instilling confidence not just subject matter. Our tutor has been great as a general mentor during the period…
I recommend map-making-app for wandering around (https://map-making.app/) which is what all serious geoguessr players use.
As somebody who has spent a bit of time accessing archives both in real-life and online for history research, my natural reading of 'private collection' is privately-owned not private as in not-accessible to the public.
PhD in maths here, no longer a mathematician, partly because I wanted to do stuff more connected with real life. I actually want to see interesting theories and mathematical ideas come out of proofs more than I want…
I think intuition is hard to test in a way that feels 'fair'. You can do it - I doubt you could have got a first when I was at Oxford just by learning and understanding the material, but you should probably have been…
It might still be a bit too early to tell I would have thought - Scratch 2.0 was released in 2013 so a child who was 7 when that was released would only be 20 now. It might also be hard to disentangle from the effect of…
It's very hard to not give them internet access at all though even if you don't give them a phone, because they need it for homework and you can't and don't want to supervise them every moment they are doing homework.
A lot of parental control systems stop working when they turn 13 so you have a system that works fine and then suddenly it stops working. I know a lot of parents who have complained about this.
Likewise at Oxford - only the final exams counted (though you had to pass first year exams to continue to the second year). But you had tutorials each week, and if your tutors thought you weren't doing enough work they…
I do feel that if there were actually decent parental controls on the most used systems out there then we might not have got to this point in the first place! It is either a nightmare or impossible to set any sort of…
In maths, if you do well enough in the exam, you have to really mess up the interview to not get in though I would say. If you're borderline, the interview is important though - the interviews will usually be 95% maths…
Having interviewed maths applicants for Oxford, I don't think it's just corruption or biases - there are just more really bright students that you have places for and have to reject some people! We all tried really hard…
When my son was about 4 or 5 he used to draw pictures with pens in both hands simultaneously which I was always amazed he could do!
I am a fan of Anki for lots of things but it always puzzled me people trying to learn analysis and group theory by memorising lots and lots of parts of their lecture notes. I would test myself on the main steps of some…
I don't agree with age verification, but there isn't anywhere 'set your children's ages in their device accounts' that limits their access to inappropriate content and social media. You can set age in Google Accounts,…
Thanks! That's interesting. It is only for pre-teens, but it's certainly a start. I do wondering if all the threats of legislation might finally encourage tech companies to actually come up with sensible solutions for…
Ah that makes more sense then!
Anecdotally from personal experience (gave birth to one child on back, the other in a squatting position, didn't have an epidural for either), the pain didn't depend on position - very painful both times! But pushing…
It's a bit weird to see the BBC reporting on this happening in Finland, when plenty of 'Libraries of Things' exist in the UK! I think they tend to be run as community efforts rather than by public libraries. though.
Children obviously access the internet in other ways too - it's not uncommon for them to share computers with adults or even access the internet via the family television. I definitely remember during covid, most…
I've had a couple of second opinions for far less serious stuff in recent years. In both cases the original doctors suggested major surgery pre-emptively, even though they were very different types of thing. In the…
We're about to get a heatpump (in the UK) and our pipework is fine but we need to replace pretty much all the radiators, both the old ones, about 45 years old, and the newer ones, about 15 years old, in order to be able…
Based on the research mathematicians I have known, I'd disagree with 'they'd probably be doing something else if they had absolute freedom over their time' for at least a large number of them, although it probably…
In the UK, you could always choose to go 'ex-directory'. More and more people did over time I think and the personal part of the phone directory got slimmer and slimmer, basically just leaving the business part.
I believe that compactness has a different meaning in topology than in logic btw (though my degree was so long ago now that I'm rusty on it all!). I do find it implausible that you'd need the type of background that I…
Having got a tutor for one subject for one of my children, I'd say that tutors are about motivation/structure/instilling confidence not just subject matter. Our tutor has been great as a general mentor during the period…
I recommend map-making-app for wandering around (https://map-making.app/) which is what all serious geoguessr players use.
As somebody who has spent a bit of time accessing archives both in real-life and online for history research, my natural reading of 'private collection' is privately-owned not private as in not-accessible to the public.
PhD in maths here, no longer a mathematician, partly because I wanted to do stuff more connected with real life. I actually want to see interesting theories and mathematical ideas come out of proofs more than I want…
I think intuition is hard to test in a way that feels 'fair'. You can do it - I doubt you could have got a first when I was at Oxford just by learning and understanding the material, but you should probably have been…
It might still be a bit too early to tell I would have thought - Scratch 2.0 was released in 2013 so a child who was 7 when that was released would only be 20 now. It might also be hard to disentangle from the effect of…
It's very hard to not give them internet access at all though even if you don't give them a phone, because they need it for homework and you can't and don't want to supervise them every moment they are doing homework.
A lot of parental control systems stop working when they turn 13 so you have a system that works fine and then suddenly it stops working. I know a lot of parents who have complained about this.
Likewise at Oxford - only the final exams counted (though you had to pass first year exams to continue to the second year). But you had tutorials each week, and if your tutors thought you weren't doing enough work they…
I do feel that if there were actually decent parental controls on the most used systems out there then we might not have got to this point in the first place! It is either a nightmare or impossible to set any sort of…
In maths, if you do well enough in the exam, you have to really mess up the interview to not get in though I would say. If you're borderline, the interview is important though - the interviews will usually be 95% maths…
Having interviewed maths applicants for Oxford, I don't think it's just corruption or biases - there are just more really bright students that you have places for and have to reject some people! We all tried really hard…
When my son was about 4 or 5 he used to draw pictures with pens in both hands simultaneously which I was always amazed he could do!
I am a fan of Anki for lots of things but it always puzzled me people trying to learn analysis and group theory by memorising lots and lots of parts of their lecture notes. I would test myself on the main steps of some…
I don't agree with age verification, but there isn't anywhere 'set your children's ages in their device accounts' that limits their access to inappropriate content and social media. You can set age in Google Accounts,…
Thanks! That's interesting. It is only for pre-teens, but it's certainly a start. I do wondering if all the threats of legislation might finally encourage tech companies to actually come up with sensible solutions for…
Ah that makes more sense then!
Anecdotally from personal experience (gave birth to one child on back, the other in a squatting position, didn't have an epidural for either), the pain didn't depend on position - very painful both times! But pushing…
It's a bit weird to see the BBC reporting on this happening in Finland, when plenty of 'Libraries of Things' exist in the UK! I think they tend to be run as community efforts rather than by public libraries. though.
Children obviously access the internet in other ways too - it's not uncommon for them to share computers with adults or even access the internet via the family television. I definitely remember during covid, most…