• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Who’s Who
  • Archive
  • Lauren Stuff
    • Lauren’s To-Do List
    • Bacon Mat Gallery
    • Preschool Quotes
    • Bat Bugs and You
    • Hilarious!
    • Pot Pie recipe
    • Utility Bills
    • Gas Bills
    • Building Committee CDC
  • Lloyd Stuff
    • Lloyd’s To-Do List
    • 50 Best Movies for Middle School
    • Good High School Websites
    • Fantasy Baseball Files
    • Website Rubric & Programming Rubric
    • I Want to Bake Bread
    • I Want to Forge Swords
    • Sorry Chuck. Sorry Brad.
    • The Lloyd Gallery
    • Narnia in Pop Culture
    • myMiniCity WordPress Plugin
    • Settlers Record
  • Prius Camping
  • Brazil
    • Martin Hofman Diaries – 1946
Lloyd and Lauren website logo

LaurenandLloyd.com

where our wasted time becomes your wasted time

  • Most Popular
  • Drawings
  • Videos
  • Worst day ever
  • Journal
  • More
  • Brazil

math

December 21, 2015 by Lloyd 4 Comments

I was grading math tests the other day. Things were going along more or less like they always do when you’re grading. One of the nice things about teaching maths is that the grading is pretty straightforward. At least it was until I got to Kyle’s test:

ninja1

I didn’t know what to do. I was stymied for a long time. I put it aside and graded some other, more poorly defended, tests. Eventually I came up with a plan. It took a trip to the art room and more time than it took to grade the test, but I eventually worked around his clever ploy.

ninja2

I taped the ninja to my monitor.

https://laurenandlloyd.com/2015/12/21/25858/

Filed Under: Journal, Lloyd, School Tagged With: grading, math, students, tests

Sort of a mystery

June 9, 2014 by Lloyd 10 Comments

Some of you know that we have a Sommerer Family Website. Recently I posted some pages from a notebook that my Grandpa used from 1937 to about 1945. It’s where he kept notes about farm stuff. I find it fascinating in general, but I was especially intrigued by what appeared to be random ciphering on some of the pages…

click to enlarge
click to enlarge
click to enlarge
click to enlarge

First, a quick summary:

  1. 77 + 51 = (not finished)
  2. 4356 x 23 = 100188 (scribbled out)
  3. 4356 x 7.7 = 33541,2 + 100188 = 43560.00
  4. 4356 x 51 = 222156
  5. 43560 x 51 = 2221560 + 3357120 = 5575680
  6. 43560 x 51 = 2221560
  7. 43560 x 77 = 3354120
  8. 43560 x 51 = 2221560 + 3354120 = 5575680
  9. 77 + 51 = 128
  10. 43560 x 128 = 5575680

So, we see from 5, 8 & 10 that figuring out the correct answer to 128 x 43560 is important enough that Grandpa did it 3 times in 3 different ways. But why would that be so important? And although that’s what the over half of the ciphering is about, what is the importance of 2, 3 & 4 which appear only somewhat related.

I spent a fair amount of time looking at the numbers 77, 51, 23, 128 and 4356 thinking that that was the key to the problem. In hind-sight that was obviously the wrong take. I was thrown off by the 4356 and didn’t really notice the 43560.

Twenty years ago I was really familiar with the number 43560. Twenty years ago a routine part of my summer was figuring out what the average number of corn plants was per acre in a corn field. 43560 is the number of square feet in an acre.

So it seems pretty obvious now that Grandpa had a good reason to figure out that square feet in a field of 128 acres or maybe the total square feet in fields of 77 and 51 acres.

But those are really big fields for Mid Missouri in the 30s and 40s. So maybe they were fields of 7.7 and 5.1 acres respectively? Cipher #3 seems to point in that direction. Maybe Grandpa just figured he would drop the decimal point and just lop-off a zero at the end (was grandpa good at math?).

So then the only odd calculation is #2. Where does that 23 come in? Is there a field of 23 acres (or 2.3 acres) somewhere? Why doesn’t it enter into the calculations at the end like the others do.

But then a really odd number jumped out at me. The calculation for #3 uses the answer to #2. And the answer to #3 is our old friend 43560, the number of square feet in an acre. Did Grandpa just derive the number of square feet in an acre? It seems like a really strange coincidence for that particular number to come up in this context otherwise.

And if that’s what he did, how did he do it? I can never remember the number of square feet in an acre either, but I do remember that there are 5280 feet in a mile and that a square mile is 640 acres, so it’s easy to get square feet in an acre from that. But what about those other numbers? How does (4356 x 23) + (4356 x 7.7) give you the number of square feet in an acre?

And, of course, why did Grandpa need to know the number of square feet in those particular fields?

Filed Under: Lloyd, Nerd Tagged With: grandpa, math

More From Stat Boy

April 17, 2013 by Lloyd 19 Comments

I’ve done a few other posts on the number of comments that people have made, but it’s been over a year since the last one. Lets see where things stand now. This is not a complete total; just the posts since the last summation (which happened on January 2, 2011)…

Name Comments Position (Change)
Peggy 962 1 (same)
Brad 937 2 (same)
Lauren 787 3 (same)
Kristi 495 4 (+1)
Lloyd 443 5 (-1)
Gretchen 268 6 (+13)
Beth 207 7 (-1)
Deborah 205 8 (+3)
Lauren’s mom 130 9 (+8)
Lauren’s Dad 117 10 (+4)
Karla 93 11 (-4)
Curt 81 13 (-5)
Jane Sommerer 81 13 (+7)
Mark 77 14 (+2)
Mary Ellen 72 15 (+66)
Kris 67 16 (new)
Jill 65 18 (+4)
Michelle 65 18 (+8)
Christina 63 19 (-7)
Amy 49 20 (-5)
Tammy 33 21 (new)
CousinSam 25 22 (+2)
Kitt 24 23 (+2)
Annette 21 24 (-6)
Quiana 20 25 (+4)
Keren 18 27 (-14)
Ribs 18 27 (+11)
Matt Haden 17 28 (new)
bekahcubed 16 32 (-5)
Deanne 16 32 (-23)
John and Kate Brady 16 32 (new)
thetruthisoutthere 16 32 (new)
Fran 14 35 (new)
Nigel 14 35 (-5)
Rachel Sommerer 14 35 (-25)
Richard 13 36 (new)
RON ROYUK 12 37 (new)
Jill J 11 38 (+21)
I suggest these 10 40 (new)
Kim Marxhausen 10 40 (+41)
Allison 8 43 (+16)
flash from the past 8 43 (new)
Marisa 8 43 (-10)
morningside 7 46 (new)
Stephanie 7 46 (new)
Tamara 7 46 (-10)
Gman 6 48 (new)
Samuel 6 56 (new)
Acealot 5 56 (new)
Adriane 5 56 (new)
Amused Lurker 5 56 (new)
Brady G. 5 56 (-27)
Jaro 5 56 (new)
Karen M 5 56 (new)
Rachel S 5 56 (new)
Steve Lokie 5 56 (-22)
kathryn 4 58 (new)
Mrs. B 4 58 (new)
Aunt Lolly 3 73 (new)
bert 3 73 (new)
Christine 3 73 (new)
Elizabeth 3 73 (-36)
Heather 3 73 (new)
Jake Jones 3 73 (new)
JuneBug747 3 73 (new)
Kelley 3 73 (new)
Kristin T. 3 73 (new)
Maggie 3 73 (new)
MEB 3 73 (new)
Nicola 3 73 (new)
Roberta 3 73 (new)
Stephannie 3 73 (new)
Tom Triumph 3 73 (new)
Anita B 2 100 (new)
another sue 2 100 (-54)
Becky 2 100 (new)
Britney 2 100 (new)
Caroline Fowler 2 100 (-41)
Charles 2 100 (-77)
Heather 2 100 (new)
Heather 2 100 (new)
John R. 2 100 (new)
Katie 2 100 (new)
KDF 2 100 (new)
Kim 2 100 (new)
Kurt Knecht 2 100 (new)
Laura Burns 2 100 (new)
Laurie 2 100 (new)
leoglenn 2 100 (new)
Maggie 2 100 (new)
MJ 2 100 (-54)
Nick Nightngale 2 100 (new)
Paul Marxhausen 2 100 (new)
Peggy 2 100 (new)
Rachel 2 100 (new)
Renske 2 100 (-79)
Shelley 2 100 (new)
Sherri 2 100 (new)
Todd Peperkorn 2 100 (-54)
UT IT Dept 2 100 (new)
176 people 1 276 (hard to say)
Gretchen demanded a graph
Gretchen demanded a graph

Filed Under: Lloyd, Nerd Tagged With: comments, geek, math, Meta, stats

Prepare to be bored…

February 4, 2010 by Lloyd 21 Comments

I was noticing something the other day whilst reading a book. I said to myself, “There are a lot of pages in this book.” I’ve been reading for while now, and I know about how big books are. So when I looked at this seemingly normal book and noticed that I was on page 500, I knew that something was up.

I went down to the basement and pulled several other similar sized books off the shelf (and one bigger and one smaller) and started to compare them. I almost immediately noticed that they all had pages. Then I noticed that one of them probably belongs to Brad and that I’ve had it since maybe high school.

One of these is REALLY over due.

Looking at those books, you’d probably imagine that the five in the middle are roughly the same size. Except now, with two paragraphs of build-up you’d probably imagine anything at all but. Well, here’s the data…

Book Year Cost Pages Words ¢ / kWords in 2009 dollars
tEotW 1990 $6.99 814 320,000 2.2 3.1
E 2006 $7.99 638 265,000 3.0 3.2
tRotK 1986 $3.95 543 182,000 2.2 4.3
M 1984 $3.50 358 142,000 2.5 5.1
BA 1983 $2.95 327 121,000 2.4 5.3
Mot5M 1980 $2.25 373 131,000 1.7 4.5
BtH 1948 $0.75 158 78,000 1.0 8.6

 

So, what’s the point? There are probably lots of points you could make from that mess. Some of them might even be true. My point? I had no idea that you could make a page half as wide as another page. I mean, pages are already pretty thin. Do they just split them down the middle?

For years I’ve been watching the price of books go up. I started buying books my freshman year in high school, and my memory was that they typically cost between $1.95 and $2.25 each. Lately they cost more like $6.99 and up. It was starting to get my goat until I did the calculations for that last column. Adjusting for inflation, I’m actually paying quite a bit less per word. It sort of makes you feel sorry for authors.

Filed Under: Lloyd Tagged With: books, math

Primary Sidebar

Recent Comments

  • Brad June 15, 2025 at 11:03 pm on Inspired by BethDang it! You're posting again? And I've missed all these posts? I like your veggie tray. I should eat more[more]
  • Beth June 8, 2025 at 11:47 am on A clothes shaveI own a couple clothes shavers. I like them very much.
  • Kristi June 7, 2025 at 8:27 am on A clothes shaveGREAT post title, Lauren! I didn't know you could shave your socks. How long would it take to shave one's[more]
  • Kristi June 5, 2025 at 12:58 pm on Berry nice, Dad!Blackberries grow very well in our neighborhood. A friend gave us thornless blackberry plants from her patch. Man, they yield[more]
  • Jill June 5, 2025 at 7:45 am on MayhemYay, a post! And a STUNNING cross. Wow. Beautiful, thanks for sharing.

Friends

  • Brad
  • Deanne
  • Gretchen
  • Kitt
  • Kris
  • Kristi
  • Top

Sites

  • CSTA Nebraska
  • Lincoln Lutheran
  • Lorenz Family
  • Preschool Pointers
  • Programming Class
  • Sommerer Family
  • St. John CDC
  • Weber Family
  • WP Login

Tags

add art auction Bacon bathroom birthday brad camera cat cats choir christmas clothing computer Cricket family fire food Gadget game garden geek green hair house ipad iphone kitchen laundry mail Meta movie movies music mystery omaha Peggy preschool reunion royuks School seward Small Town tv ukulele

Brad Quote

Brad Royuk doesn’t NEED lesson plans.

Copyright © 2025 · Genesis Sample on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in