Those of us who understand commutative properties handles multiples of 10 and 5 more easily by instantly thinking "10% of 30 is 3, 2*3 is 20%. The other 5% is half of 10%, so 3/2, so the answer is 6 + 1.5, 7.5".
I did £30 - (30 / 2 / 2), which seems about as fast as any method with ¼ or ¾.
But for a general 5n × m, I'd do 10n × m/2.
The really easy way of doing that is by using associative and commutative properties with multiples of 10 and adding up the numbers. 23 * 47 = 20 * 40 + 3 * 40 + 20 * 7 + 3 * 7.
I'm with the "most people" here. I'd never thought of doing that before, and have never factorised something not containing a variable. Yet I did all the mathematics I could at school, including "Further Maths" (which only a tiny, tiny number of people do), and then ½ a year of maths at university.
I tried to do 23 * 47 =... actually, I'm too tired to type. No wonder I went wrong. (00:30 here.)
Fortunately, all shops (online and brick) in the UK display all prices including VAT. It's a legal requirement (apparently only since 2004, so probably the law was made to stop people trying to compete with "lower" prices in advertisements).
My primary school, like most in the 1990s in England (AFAIIA), didn't set "homework" in the usual sense, apart from learning spellings or "times tables" once a week.
But I did have to read books at home. When I was five to six/seven these were part of special series to help children to learn to read ("Roger has a red hat. Percy has a green hat. Jenny has a yellow hat. Billy has a blue hat." was the first). From when I was about six/seven we had to choose a book from the school library and read that. At the end, I think we had to explain to the teacher why we liked it (or didn't like it). From about age eight I had to write a review.
There was time for reading in class, probably about half an hour a week. During that time the teacher would have one child sit next to her and read quietly to her, sometimes from her own book. (She was assessing reading ability.)
There were some extra teachers who taught one or two children at a time, for a few hours a week (depending) outside normal classes, if they were struggling.
Presumably there were parents who didn't bother to read the book with their children, but I wasn't really aware of it. From the age of 11 we never did reading in class, but I still had to choose books from the library to read, and keep a 'diary' of what I'd read.
This was 15 years ago (or 10, I'm pretty sure my younger brother had the same thing), so I'm not sure what happens now. It's a real shame if parents won't read with their children.
For comparison, in England in the 1990s-2000s I spent about 1 hour a week on art, 1 hour on music and 1 hour on PE, plus one afternoon at "games" (sport, but less structured than PE). Theatre (we called it drama) was compulsory for about an hour a week for 1 term, for one year.
Anyone interested in any of the above could do more in their own time (lunchtime or after school as a school-supported activity, or outside school).
We had 5h20m of lessons each day, roughly an hour each, two in the morning, a 20 minute break, another lesson, an hour for lunch, then two more lessons. I don't have an old timetable, but I think we had at least 3 hours each of English, Maths and Science; plus 2 hours of Geography, History, French (or German or Spanish), plus 1 hour of technology (or 2?), 1 hour of IT, plus other stuff (Religion/theology/philosophy, health/social). That adds up to about the right number of hours.
Over here in the UK (and according to plenty of Europeans I know), it's certainly not "cool" either. It's just society in general really considers it to matter once you reach a certain age.
It might not be cool to be ignorant when you're older, but it's certainly acceptable to be "bad at maths".
Demonstration: find a store with a sale, "25% off marked price". Pick something that's marked £30, walk to the checkout and hand over £22.50 (exactly) before the barcode is scanned. Many people will be impressed.
It's not acceptable to say "I can't read", or "I can't write a letter", but it is acceptable to say "oh, I'm no good at maths" or "I can't understand my gas bill".
Consider the oil pipeline helping feed the 21 million barrel a day US oil usage.
Then there is natural gas
Such hazardous goods perhaps aren't suitable for transport in large quantities through an undersea tunnel. Aren't there already pipelines in Alaska?
They can have a train run down that ever 20 minutes if they wanted to, and certain times of day they could run both rails in one direction to double the cargo heading east 2 west.
You underestimate the capacity of a rail tunnel. There is a car shuttle train every 15 minutes from England to France, plus a high-speed passenger train every 20-30 minutes, plus the drive-on lorry (truck) shuttle train every 12-?? minutes, plus some normal freight trains (no idea how many). You don't need to leave much space before the train in front with modern signalling systems.
A road tunnel is probably far too dangerous to be worth the risk. The chance of an accident is far higher -- note how often there seem to be accidents in the road tunnels in the Alps.
Instead, putting cars/lorries on trains, like they do for the Channel Tunnel, is a better option. But I don't really see much demand for this. Folkstone and Calais are relatively near big population centres, and within a few hours drive (at most) of millions of people. That's not the case for Alaska or Siberia, the people may as well drive to a city and take a fast passenger train.
The minimum speed for a railway to be called "High Speed" in the EU is 250km/h (155mph). Stuff being built now is generally aiming for at least 300km/h (185mph), if not higher (360km/h). However, there aren't any high speed trains in Poland, Belarus, Russia, Canada, or the US, and building something like that from Berlin to Florida really adds to your cost...
(Except France/UK, the borders within the EU are irrelevant, the train won't need to stop for them. See "Schengen Area".)
However, if it takes less than two weeks I can see people doing it. If it takes longer, I can see people doing part of it. Thousands of people already do trips within Europe by rail (especially young people, American students included). The same for Moscow to Vladivostok (or Beijing), although those people tend to be a little older. And I'd like to see some of the US by rail, I know people that have done big trips there using Amtrak.
Compare an average sleeping cabin with a hostel bed, and it doesn't look so bad. Sell a one-way ticket with the chance to interrupt travelling in cities along the route and tourists will love it.
I don't see business travellers using it for huge distances, but they'd certainly consider one night's worth of travel (e.g. get a train at 20-24:00 or later, wake up in the destination at 7-9:00).
No, luckily for you Manchester isn't the village I'm referring to in the GP post.
We have a saying here in England; "It's grim up North." Usually this refers to anyway North of Manchester, including the North of Manchester! Places you want to avoid include Preston, Harpurhey and Collyhurst.
I was born and grew up in the Midlands, but for some reason my parents never really visited the North with me. We went to Scotland many times, and also Wales, and SE and SW England, but the only place north of Derby I remember visiting is York. I was 6.
I know "it's grim up North", although I've lived in London since I was 18, and round here, that's anywhere north of Zone 1, Camden Town, Watford, the home counties, or somewhere in the Midlands (Nottingham, say), depending who you talk to... I choose north of Nottingham to be "North", but the grim can be anywhere. Avoid Slough, Chatham, Luton, all of Essex... I suppose the weather's better, but the people aren't.
Since finishing university, and in an effort to see more of my own country, I've stopped around in the north whenever I've passed through. So far, I've seen Durham, Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford, but I've not really been in the countryside yet. I didn't like Bradford, and Durham was unexpectedly boring, but I found nice things about the other cities. I'm sure I will for Manchester.
My favourite example of northern (well, not southern...) people being friendly is a child in a park in Scotland (but only just) offering me a swig of his Frosty Jack's Strong Cider. That wasn't what I was expecting...
Maybe you should educate your child and allow him / her to contribute positively to your conversations social life rather than expecting them to play dumb games and keep quiet?
How old do they need to be for this?
My housemate's friend + wife + 18 month old daughter visited recently. I very rarely get to talk to babies/children, so I hung around for half an hour. I didn't really approve of how they were caring for her -- strapped in a carry cot in a garden on a sunny day -- but I wasn't going to interfere. She was pretty boring, but I decided it was probably because she was stuck with nothing much to do.
(So, the baby couldn't talk, which prevents conversation, but it doesn't prevent interaction or communication.)
Speaking from personal experience here. Learning == Rebelling where I'm from (a small English village in the Northwest - a bit like your deep south - think Christian Rednecks!)
I've not been to North West England, although I'm going to Manchester on Monday for an afternoon/evening. I really, really hope you're exaggerating by many orders of magnitude...!
Agreed, I think. At least, I buy only wholegrain pretty-much-everything (bread, pasta, rice, wraps, muesli). I often take my phone with my to the toilet at work (I don't like leaving it out on my desk, so I pick it up as I walk away). It's generally still in my hand when I open the cubicle, but experience tells me I have time to read about half a short email.
the ipad is a killer cook book. i have hundreds of recipes including video of how to do some things on mine
That's the one time I think I prefer a netbook (though I don't own a tablet). The netbook screen is propped up from the counter, and stays that way while I have dirty fingers.
Package GIMP on a CD (i.e. copy the installer), and sell it to the university for $1. Might they then install it?
Or, show that there's a need for you to use software that's affordable in the developing / academic / whatever world. Where I work I'm hoping "no, we must use MySQL/Postgres as our partners in African countries can't afford the higher-up-in-government mandated Oracle, and we have joint projects with them as a key part of what we do" will work. (It's worked before, apparently we're told to use some other system every few years.)
Windows and OS X (assuming they don't have it) need the KDE / Gnome / general unix WM thing where holding a key on the keyboard (usually Alt or the Window key) and dragging any point in the window with the left mouse button moves a window; the right button resizes it. I use this every day, and it's the single window manager feature I miss most on Windows.
It's still called The GIMP. And the Linux fanboys can't figure out why their adoption rates are poor. Can you imagine getting up in front of a board and being asked what tool you used? Or trying to start a company initiative to switch people over to The GIMP?
I think you'll be fine.
Last time someone mentioned The GIMP, I made a joke about the name. This backfired completely, since no one else knew what I was talking about. Someone Googled the word and then asked how I knew about it. "Oh, a friend of mine..." wasn't the correct way to start my reply...
(And it is just a friend of mine. I tagged along to a fetish nightclub once, but didn't really enjoy it any more than a normal nightclub.)
The Japanese celebrate Christmas as pretty much a secular holiday. There's something to be said for a holiday whose primary functions are getting people together, spending time with family/friends, showing your appreciation for others in a positive way, and injecting a little levity into the darkest (literally) part of winter.
Some/many (depending what you want to interpret the statistics to mean) in Europe celebrate a secular or mostly-secular Christmas, although probably not to the extent as in Japan, as most countries still have Christian-influenced traditions. It will vary greatly between countries, and within countries.
For Britain: - 44% of 7-11 year-olds regarded Christmas day as a celebration of the birth of Jesus - although in Northern Ireland the figure rose to 71%. - 2.66M people (out of ~60M) went to a church service on Christmas Eve in 2007. - 51% agreed with the statement "The birth of Jesus is irrelevant to my Christmas" whilst 46% disagreed with the statement - 61% agreed "Christmas is mainly for children" whilst 38% disagreed - 36% said they would be attending a Christmas service this year. 62% said they would not be going to a service, 2% were unsure. - A survey commissioned by The Children's Society in 2010 found that only 10% of adults think that it's religious meaning is the most important thing about Christmas. only 4% of 25-34 year olds thought the religious aspect was important whilst 20% of those over 60's years feel that it is the key aspect of Christmas. 67% of all adults said spending time with family was the most important thing about Christmas. Source.
Christmas as a child for me generally involved: - in the week before Christmas Day, going to see a pantomime (not every year. An alternative was to go to the nearest city and look at the decorations in the main square) - on Christmas Eve (24th), going to the local pub until about 5-8pm (later as I got older), -- eating fish. I think my mum had some religious/traditional reason for cooking fish, although mostly it was an excuse to buy expensive fish -- leaving a mince pie and a glass of sherry for Father Christmas by the hearth (100 year old house, with chimney), hanging a very large "stocking" - on Christmas Day (25th), waking up my parents in their room and opening some small presents - waiting for my grandparents to arrive - waiting some more - and more - and more - my grandparents arriving - opening larger presents - eating a roast turkey dinner, followed by Christmas pudding - watching the Queen's Christmas Message on TV, or antagonising my parents by refusing to watch it - watching re-runs of sitcoms on TV and/or playing with toys while the adults slept - eating a very small something before my grandparents left - on Boxing Day (26th), going for a walk was the only regular activity. Until I was about 14 we went to the nearby reservoir and watched the birds, after that we went to the pub...
I went to a church service once, when I was about 12 -- a friend was singing in the Cathedral Choir, and he said he'd like me to go. I don't remember much, except I couldn't see my friend from where we were sat.
Now if only we could get rid of all the terrorist crap associated with Ramadan and Eid
That must be a different kind of Ramadan and Eid to what happens here...
Well, at least the Government (that nobody voted for) will be there to discuss their role in the riots too!
Didn't we? 16 million people voted for either Conservatives or Liberal Democrats, and a little less than that voted for someone else. Seems like we got what we asked for.
I don't know what highschool you went to, but in mine I was carrying the math and science grades of 12 (yes, I said TWELVE) other students, year round, for YEARS.
What does that mean? I don't understand the American English. I'm not sure if you mean your grade was equal to the sum of their grades, or if you were doing the work for the 12 athletic students.
When I would enquire about this fact, teacher after teacher would tell me that there was nothing they could do about it, and totally circumnavigated the issue.
If it's the former, what do you want them to do about it?
Prior to this meeting, and as a direct result of my decision to fail spectacularly, I had managed to make pretty much the entire A-team uneligable to play, had ruined their chances for athletic scholarships, and had literally received death threats in the hall.
How?
(So many questions, but the whole thing is completely alien to me, and probably most people in the UK. I might know more if I watched Glee...
At schools here performance on the sports field has absolutely no effect on grades. It's still generally "cool" to be good at sport, although those that aren't don't care.)
Moving a container halfway round the world costs between $1000-4000, according to quotes on jctrans.net. At a rough estimate, you can fit over 30,000 iPhones in a container. The trans-ocean shipping cost is tiny, compared to all the other costs.
There isn't much profit on iron and steel pieces, and they cost more to ship (assuming they don't fit well in containers). Note that specialist steel stuff is still manufactured in the west (the UK and Germany, where I've seen the factories, but presumably other places too).
Aside from that, I can't help but wonder who in the hell wants to friend their teachers on a social network.
You might not, but it's still important to defend your freedoms.
Even if I can tolerate you until the school bell rings at 3pm or 4pm, that doesn't mean I ever want to have anything to do with you outside of class. You're a teacher; not my buddy.
Facebook didn't exist when I was at school, but there were several adults I knew that I might have added on Facebook. Some of them happened to be teachers -- parents of my friends. They were much more friendly towards me outside school.
Slashdot Mirror
The UK is doing just that. Writing in my phone, so you'll have to search UK cookies law ICO to find the details.
I think the law will make (or clarify that it already is?) Google analytics illegal.
Those of us who understand commutative properties handles multiples of 10 and 5 more easily by instantly thinking "10% of 30 is 3, 2*3 is 20%. The other 5% is half of 10%, so 3/2, so the answer is 6 + 1.5, 7.5".
I did £30 - (30 / 2 / 2), which seems about as fast as any method with ¼ or ¾.
But for a general 5n × m, I'd do 10n × m/2.
The really easy way of doing that is by using associative and commutative properties with multiples of 10 and adding up the numbers. 23 * 47 = 20 * 40 + 3 * 40 + 20 * 7 + 3 * 7.
I'm with the "most people" here. I'd never thought of doing that before, and have never factorised something not containing a variable. Yet I did all the mathematics I could at school, including "Further Maths" (which only a tiny, tiny number of people do), and then ½ a year of maths at university.
I tried to do 23 * 47 = ... actually, I'm too tired to type. No wonder I went wrong. (00:30 here.)
Fortunately, all shops (online and brick) in the UK display all prices including VAT. It's a legal requirement (apparently only since 2004, so probably the law was made to stop people trying to compete with "lower" prices in advertisements).
My primary school, like most in the 1990s in England (AFAIIA), didn't set "homework" in the usual sense, apart from learning spellings or "times tables" once a week.
But I did have to read books at home. When I was five to six/seven these were part of special series to help children to learn to read ("Roger has a red hat. Percy has a green hat. Jenny has a yellow hat. Billy has a blue hat." was the first). From when I was about six/seven we had to choose a book from the school library and read that. At the end, I think we had to explain to the teacher why we liked it (or didn't like it). From about age eight I had to write a review.
There was time for reading in class, probably about half an hour a week. During that time the teacher would have one child sit next to her and read quietly to her, sometimes from her own book. (She was assessing reading ability.)
There were some extra teachers who taught one or two children at a time, for a few hours a week (depending) outside normal classes, if they were struggling.
Presumably there were parents who didn't bother to read the book with their children, but I wasn't really aware of it. From the age of 11 we never did reading in class, but I still had to choose books from the library to read, and keep a 'diary' of what I'd read.
This was 15 years ago (or 10, I'm pretty sure my younger brother had the same thing), so I'm not sure what happens now. It's a real shame if parents won't read with their children.
For comparison, in England in the 1990s-2000s I spent about 1 hour a week on art, 1 hour on music and 1 hour on PE, plus one afternoon at "games" (sport, but less structured than PE). Theatre (we called it drama) was compulsory for about an hour a week for 1 term, for one year.
Anyone interested in any of the above could do more in their own time (lunchtime or after school as a school-supported activity, or outside school).
We had 5h20m of lessons each day, roughly an hour each, two in the morning, a 20 minute break, another lesson, an hour for lunch, then two more lessons.
I don't have an old timetable, but I think we had at least 3 hours each of English, Maths and Science; plus 2 hours of Geography, History, French (or German or Spanish), plus 1 hour of technology (or 2?), 1 hour of IT, plus other stuff (Religion/theology/philosophy, health/social). That adds up to about the right number of hours.
Over here in the UK (and according to plenty of Europeans I know), it's certainly not "cool" either. It's just society in general really considers it to matter once you reach a certain age.
It might not be cool to be ignorant when you're older, but it's certainly acceptable to be "bad at maths".
Demonstration: find a store with a sale, "25% off marked price". Pick something that's marked £30, walk to the checkout and hand over £22.50 (exactly) before the barcode is scanned. Many people will be impressed.
It's not acceptable to say "I can't read", or "I can't write a letter", but it is acceptable to say "oh, I'm no good at maths" or "I can't understand my gas bill".
Consider the oil pipeline helping feed the 21 million barrel a day US oil usage.
Then there is natural gas
Such hazardous goods perhaps aren't suitable for transport in large quantities through an undersea tunnel. Aren't there already pipelines in Alaska?
They can have a train run down that ever 20 minutes if they wanted to, and certain times of day they could run both rails in one direction to double the cargo heading east 2 west.
You underestimate the capacity of a rail tunnel. There is a car shuttle train every 15 minutes from England to France, plus a high-speed passenger train every 20-30 minutes, plus the drive-on lorry (truck) shuttle train every 12-?? minutes, plus some normal freight trains (no idea how many). You don't need to leave much space before the train in front with modern signalling systems.
A road tunnel is probably far too dangerous to be worth the risk. The chance of an accident is far higher -- note how often there seem to be accidents in the road tunnels in the Alps.
Instead, putting cars/lorries on trains, like they do for the Channel Tunnel, is a better option. But I don't really see much demand for this. Folkstone and Calais are relatively near big population centres, and within a few hours drive (at most) of millions of people. That's not the case for Alaska or Siberia, the people may as well drive to a city and take a fast passenger train.
But maybe if it's built people will come.
The minimum speed for a railway to be called "High Speed" in the EU is 250km/h (155mph). Stuff being built now is generally aiming for at least 300km/h (185mph), if not higher (360km/h). However, there aren't any high speed trains in Poland, Belarus, Russia, Canada, or the US, and building something like that from Berlin to Florida really adds to your cost...
(Except France/UK, the borders within the EU are irrelevant, the train won't need to stop for them. See "Schengen Area".)
However, if it takes less than two weeks I can see people doing it. If it takes longer, I can see people doing part of it. Thousands of people already do trips within Europe by rail (especially young people, American students included). The same for Moscow to Vladivostok (or Beijing), although those people tend to be a little older. And I'd like to see some of the US by rail, I know people that have done big trips there using Amtrak.
Compare an average sleeping cabin with a hostel bed, and it doesn't look so bad. Sell a one-way ticket with the chance to interrupt travelling in cities along the route and tourists will love it.
I don't see business travellers using it for huge distances, but they'd certainly consider one night's worth of travel (e.g. get a train at 20-24:00 or later, wake up in the destination at 7-9:00).
By that logic a Conservative-Labour coalition would have been fairer still, since they were the two most popular parties.
It would, sort of. The idea is they argue it out in Parliament, on behalf of their voters, and find a compromise.
No, luckily for you Manchester isn't the village I'm referring to in the GP post.
We have a saying here in England; "It's grim up North." Usually this refers to anyway North of Manchester, including the North of Manchester! Places you want to avoid include Preston, Harpurhey and Collyhurst.
I was born and grew up in the Midlands, but for some reason my parents never really visited the North with me. We went to Scotland many times, and also Wales, and SE and SW England, but the only place north of Derby I remember visiting is York. I was 6.
I know "it's grim up North", although I've lived in London since I was 18, and round here, that's anywhere north of Zone 1, Camden Town, Watford, the home counties, or somewhere in the Midlands (Nottingham, say), depending who you talk to... I choose north of Nottingham to be "North", but the grim can be anywhere. Avoid Slough, Chatham, Luton, all of Essex ... I suppose the weather's better, but the people aren't.
Since finishing university, and in an effort to see more of my own country, I've stopped around in the north whenever I've passed through. So far, I've seen Durham, Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford, but I've not really been in the countryside yet. I didn't like Bradford, and Durham was unexpectedly boring, but I found nice things about the other cities. I'm sure I will for Manchester.
My favourite example of northern (well, not southern...) people being friendly is a child in a park in Scotland (but only just) offering me a swig of his Frosty Jack's Strong Cider. That wasn't what I was expecting...
And in which languages does the word for that particular location translate into "place to take a shit?"
NB:
"Toilet" is a fixture within that room
In British English, a "toilet" is also the room containing the WC ("who left the light on in the toilet?")
But, with help from a thesaurus: garderobe, latrine, privy.
"Lavatory" is a place for washing
In current British (and probably elsewhere) usage, a lavatory only means a room containing a WC.
I'll invent "scatory".
Test n~: ñ
How about while in the bathroom -- that being the room with the bath in, according to Proper English. Some people read in the bath...
(I didn't realise the article was talking about using the tablet while on the toilet at first. Silly language!)
Maybe you should educate your child and allow him / her to contribute positively to your conversations social life rather than expecting them to play dumb games and keep quiet?
How old do they need to be for this?
My housemate's friend + wife + 18 month old daughter visited recently. I very rarely get to talk to babies/children, so I hung around for half an hour. I didn't really approve of how they were caring for her -- strapped in a carry cot in a garden on a sunny day -- but I wasn't going to interfere. She was pretty boring, but I decided it was probably because she was stuck with nothing much to do.
(So, the baby couldn't talk, which prevents conversation, but it doesn't prevent interaction or communication.)
Speaking from personal experience here. Learning == Rebelling where I'm from (a small English village in the Northwest - a bit like your deep south - think Christian Rednecks!)
I've not been to North West England, although I'm going to Manchester on Monday for an afternoon/evening. I really, really hope you're exaggerating by many orders of magnitude...!
You people need to eat more fiber.
Agreed, I think. At least, I buy only wholegrain pretty-much-everything (bread, pasta, rice, wraps, muesli). I often take my phone with my to the toilet at work (I don't like leaving it out on my desk, so I pick it up as I walk away). It's generally still in my hand when I open the cubicle, but experience tells me I have time to read about half a short email.
TMI?
the ipad is a killer cook book. i have hundreds of recipes including video of how to do some things on mine
That's the one time I think I prefer a netbook (though I don't own a tablet). The netbook screen is propped up from the counter, and stays that way while I have dirty fingers.
Package GIMP on a CD (i.e. copy the installer), and sell it to the university for $1. Might they then install it?
Or, show that there's a need for you to use software that's affordable in the developing / academic / whatever world. Where I work I'm hoping "no, we must use MySQL/Postgres as our partners in African countries can't afford the higher-up-in-government mandated Oracle, and we have joint projects with them as a key part of what we do" will work. (It's worked before, apparently we're told to use some other system every few years.)
Windows and OS X (assuming they don't have it) need the KDE / Gnome / general unix WM thing where holding a key on the keyboard (usually Alt or the Window key) and dragging any point in the window with the left mouse button moves a window; the right button resizes it. I use this every day, and it's the single window manager feature I miss most on Windows.
It's still called The GIMP. And the Linux fanboys can't figure out why their adoption rates are poor. Can you imagine getting up in front of a board and being asked what tool you used? Or trying to start a company initiative to switch people over to The GIMP?
I think you'll be fine.
Last time someone mentioned The GIMP, I made a joke about the name. This backfired completely, since no one else knew what I was talking about. Someone Googled the word and then asked how I knew about it. "Oh, a friend of mine..." wasn't the correct way to start my reply...
(And it is just a friend of mine. I tagged along to a fetish nightclub once, but didn't really enjoy it any more than a normal nightclub.)
The Japanese celebrate Christmas as pretty much a secular holiday. There's something to be said for a holiday whose primary functions are getting people together, spending time with family/friends, showing your appreciation for others in a positive way, and injecting a little levity into the darkest (literally) part of winter.
Some/many (depending what you want to interpret the statistics to mean) in Europe celebrate a secular or mostly-secular Christmas, although probably not to the extent as in Japan, as most countries still have Christian-influenced traditions. It will vary greatly between countries, and within countries.
For Britain:
- 44% of 7-11 year-olds regarded Christmas day as a celebration of the birth of Jesus - although in Northern Ireland the figure rose to 71%.
- 2.66M people (out of ~60M) went to a church service on Christmas Eve in 2007.
- 51% agreed with the statement "The birth of Jesus is irrelevant to my Christmas" whilst 46% disagreed with the statement
- 61% agreed "Christmas is mainly for children" whilst 38% disagreed
- 36% said they would be attending a Christmas service this year. 62% said they would not be going to a service, 2% were unsure.
- A survey commissioned by The Children's Society in 2010 found that only 10% of adults think that it's religious meaning is the most important thing about Christmas. only 4% of 25-34 year olds thought the religious aspect was important whilst 20% of those over 60's years feel that it is the key aspect of Christmas. 67% of all adults said spending time with family was the most important thing about Christmas.
Source.
Christmas as a child for me generally involved:
- in the week before Christmas Day, going to see a pantomime (not every year. An alternative was to go to the nearest city and look at the decorations in the main square)
- on Christmas Eve (24th), going to the local pub until about 5-8pm (later as I got older),
-- eating fish. I think my mum had some religious/traditional reason for cooking fish, although mostly it was an excuse to buy expensive fish
-- leaving a mince pie and a glass of sherry for Father Christmas by the hearth (100 year old house, with chimney), hanging a very large "stocking"
- on Christmas Day (25th), waking up my parents in their room and opening some small presents
- waiting for my grandparents to arrive
- waiting some more
- and more
- and more
- my grandparents arriving
- opening larger presents
- eating a roast turkey dinner, followed by Christmas pudding
- watching the Queen's Christmas Message on TV, or antagonising my parents by refusing to watch it
- watching re-runs of sitcoms on TV and/or playing with toys while the adults slept
- eating a very small something before my grandparents left
- on Boxing Day (26th), going for a walk was the only regular activity. Until I was about 14 we went to the nearby reservoir and watched the birds, after that we went to the pub...
I went to a church service once, when I was about 12 -- a friend was singing in the Cathedral Choir, and he said he'd like me to go. I don't remember much, except I couldn't see my friend from where we were sat.
Now if only we could get rid of all the terrorist crap associated with Ramadan and Eid
That must be a different kind of Ramadan and Eid to what happens here...
True, but nobody voted for both - which is what we actually got.
Getting both is much fairer than somehow choosing one or the other.
Well, at least the Government (that nobody voted for) will be there to discuss their role in the riots too!
Didn't we? 16 million people voted for either Conservatives or Liberal Democrats, and a little less than that voted for someone else. Seems like we got what we asked for.
I don't know what highschool you went to, but in mine I was carrying the math and science grades of 12 (yes, I said TWELVE) other students, year round, for YEARS.
What does that mean? I don't understand the American English. I'm not sure if you mean your grade was equal to the sum of their grades, or if you were doing the work for the 12 athletic students.
When I would enquire about this fact, teacher after teacher would tell me that there was nothing they could do about it, and totally circumnavigated the issue.
If it's the former, what do you want them to do about it?
Prior to this meeting, and as a direct result of my decision to fail spectacularly, I had managed to make pretty much the entire A-team uneligable to play, had ruined their chances for athletic scholarships, and had literally received death threats in the hall.
How?
(So many questions, but the whole thing is completely alien to me, and probably most people in the UK. I might know more if I watched Glee...
At schools here performance on the sports field has absolutely no effect on grades. It's still generally "cool" to be good at sport, although those that aren't don't care.)
Moving a container halfway round the world costs between $1000-4000, according to quotes on jctrans.net. At a rough estimate, you can fit over 30,000 iPhones in a container. The trans-ocean shipping cost is tiny, compared to all the other costs.
There isn't much profit on iron and steel pieces, and they cost more to ship (assuming they don't fit well in containers). Note that specialist steel stuff is still manufactured in the west (the UK and Germany, where I've seen the factories, but presumably other places too).
Aside from that, I can't help but wonder who in the hell wants to friend their teachers on a social network.
You might not, but it's still important to defend your freedoms.
Even if I can tolerate you until the school bell rings at 3pm or 4pm, that doesn't mean I ever want to have anything to do with you outside of class. You're a teacher; not my buddy.
Facebook didn't exist when I was at school, but there were several adults I knew that I might have added on Facebook. Some of them happened to be teachers -- parents of my friends. They were much more friendly towards me outside school.