Phew! It’s only been like three weeks since I last posted but in Internet time that’s forever. Sorry about that. I’ve got about two weeks left in my Master’s program, and I’ve been completely inundated by papers and presentations. My thesis is basically eating me alive. I seriously don’t know how I’m going to get (more…)
You know, It’s funny. When I sit down to write one of these, I usually have a rough sketch in my mind of how the question’s going to go. But half the time, the problem completely evolves into something else by the time I’m done with it. I’m not sure why that is. It could (more…)
As I’m wont to do once in a while, I’m going to expand on an idea here that might otherwise disappear forever into the murky depths of Tumblrdom. This post is inspired by (and borrows heavily from) this Q&A response. I’m revisiting it here because I think it’s a nice contrast between me and many (more…)
I don’t know if you followed the kerfuffle between Jonathan Coulton and Glee a few weeks back. It’s old news now, but I watched it unfold at the time with great interest, and I’ve been thinking about it again the last few days. The incredibly short version: Jonathan Coulton is a fairly popular musician (on (more…)
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a challenge question. There are two main reasons: my own schoolwork, and the fact that most of my PWN time in the past month or so was dedicated to the Essay Guide. Now that I’m done with that, it’s time to get back in the swing of things (more…)
This post was inspired by a question that someone asked me on my Tumblr Q&A page. You can read the original question and response here. I get a lot of questions about fancy calculators, especially the TI-89 and TI-Nspire families: “Should I buy a TI-89 for the SAT?” “Will my Nspire help me get an (more…)
It’s been over a year since I published the first edition of the PWN the SAT Math Guide, and I’ve received a boatload of really helpful feedback from you guys since then. Recently I decided to give the book a tune-up based on what y’all have said, and now the 2nd edition is just about (more…)
My holiday book giveaway is still going strong until January 1, and you can still get your name in there to try to win the daily random drawing, but I figured it was high time for another challenge question. The first person to post a comment on this post with the correct answer will win (more…)
Someone requested recently at my Q&A page that I post a challenge question about direct and inverse variation. I quickly agreed, but it’s taken me longer than I wanted it to because I’ve been having a hard time hitting the right level of difficulty for a challenge question. I’m still not sure I’ve nailed it, (more…)
Someone on the Q&A page asked me to do one of these “point A to point B” questions, so I figured I’d try to come up with one worthy of being called a challenge question. I think this is a bit easier than the usual. I expect someone to get it pretty quickly. Please note: (more…)
A little while back, when Apple announced the iPad mini, they also announced something WAY more exciting: LaTeX for iBooks Author! That means it’s possible to display complex formulas in an ebook now. I know, right? SO cool. Anyway, I decided to play around with it a bit and made a short little book out (more…)
Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, this has been a rough week for a lot of people. If you’re feeling charitable, please note that I am still giving away Math Guides for donations to the Red Cross. Let me note, before we get into this, that these challenge questions are WAY harder than anything you’d see on (more…)
Since you guys tore up my last challenge question so quickly, I figured I’d make this one a tiny bit harder. Let’s see if I can’t stump you for more than 8 minutes. First correct response in the comments gets a free Math Guide. Usual contest rules apply. Ready? Here we go! In the figure (more…)
Just a quick FYI: I’m planning to do a bunch of Math Guide giveaways over the next few weeks. Some will be your standard math challenge questions. Others will be more…creative. Many of them will involve Facebook. There won’t be one every day, but they will be fairly frequent. They will all go live at 8pm eastern (more…)
Hey guys. Hope you’ve been well. I’ve been buried under mountains of work for grad school. It’s awesome. I’ve also been answering a ton of questions over at my Q&A site, which is really awesome, minus the sarcasm inherent in the previous usage of “awesome.” Anyway, I was thinking about you guys the other day, (more…)
