20080930

fail: (time, care) → fail

So, it was not uncommon for us in high school to randomly graph things against other things, usually as a form of humor, and sometimes as a form of venting frustration.  Especially popular was graphing variables against the fail-axis.

Frequently, we would graph "fail" versus things like time of day, time of year, weather, teacher, amount of homework, amount of Halo involved, how much coffee was available, side of the room you sat on, amount of time sleeping the previous night, volume of music... et cetera.  At the end of senior year, as a way or reminiscing, many of us would plot our Care vs Time Since Freshman Day 1 plots on the same plane to compare.

But now I'm in multivariable calculus, so no more of these petty 2-D constructions!  Here's my latest graph: it's basic, but it's a start.  Keep in mind that fail is not necessarily the reciprocal of care.
The average student tends to follow the path represented by a plane cut through the graph at any point such that the plane is normal to the origin.

Note that the more you study, the more you stretch the graph along the care axis... but no matter how much you study, enough time spent on an assignment will inevitably lower your care values and fail will go up.

+ 20 points to whoever can figure out why the paper is upside down.  I did it on purpose, and there is a good reason.

Finally, on a side note, I'd like to let everyone know that I did some research and that John McCain was assigned as an Ensign to the USS Enterprise on Stardate 14161.8.  However cool this is, though, it still doesn't make up for his Palinitis.  Read Araba's blog for some views on the almost-Ms. Alaska.

8 comments:

  1. Well, Matthew, the very best values are under the sun.

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  2. What? Multivariable calculus? My head is spinning! I think I might get it eventually...

    and petty two-d graphs? No, those were works of genius, almost worthy enough to be on Indexed.

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  3. What? Multivariable calculus? My head is spinning! I think I might get it eventually...

    and petty two-d graphs? No, those were works of genius, almost worthy enough to be on Indexed.

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  4. lol. as I told you, i'm going to see if we can't compile a magnet class-of-08 care vs time graph.

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  5. I think it's important to note that when you say "we", you alienate people outside of Jessica Hagy and your own ivory tower egghead AMHS friends by bringing to the very forefront of their minds that they, in fact, have NEVER done anything like this.

    Thanks.

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  6. despite the fact that jessica hagy's drawings far out-class and out-wit mine, I've never seen her do a 3d graph. but wait... hold on. are you implying that there were other high schools?

    but in all seriousness... you never randomly graphed things against other things as a form of humor?

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