Finally getting back into Math Mojo mode after a long absence.As you may have noticed, the Math Mojo Monthly (”Comes out Yearly, Mostly”) hasn’t even lived up to that meager expectation. Why hasn’t it?
In a few words – FEAR OF SUCCESS.
When I started up I was full of spit and vinegar, and I was learning a lot about math, putting up a website, communicating, sharing, and even selling. At some point I wanted to learn more, and started taking Computer Art courses at my local college. Then I got into the “perfectionist” mode.
You know what a “perfectionist” is? It’s someone who doesn’t do anything – because no one can do anything perfectly.
I am 49 years old, and actually became afraid that I would make mistakes and that visitors to the MathMojo site may notice.
What a maroon! (That’s not a typo, it’s a Bugs Bunny quote.) Of COURSE people will notice! BF deal! (That stands for Brian Foley deal, OK?) I was making the worst mistake any learner can make, and it is the same mistake I usually take other learners to task for. I was avoiding taking chances to learn.
Guess I can’t get away with that forever.
See, if I don’t expose my ego to mistakes, I will also never expose some really great, inquisitive people who visit my site of an opportunity to learn about math insights, speed-math, and get encouragement about learning from MathMojo. And that just wouldn’t be fair to you.
So Math Mojo is back.
This blog is meant to fulfill some very important functions.
Some are important for my readers, some are important for me, and some are
both.
Here’s the poop on the blog:
• I’ll be using it to gather my thoughts and explain anything I feel is relevant to you, to help you learn math and make it meaningful to you.
• You’ll be able to find out about new developments, methods and insights about math, the MathMojo site, and corollary information.
• You’ll be able to post comments and questions to most of the posts.
• You’ll eventually (soon) be able to subscribe to an RSS feed for this blog, and the MathMojo site, as well as the MathMojo Monthly newsletter. If you don’t know what an RSS feed is, don’t worry. As soon as I make it available, I’ll post all the relevant info here.
• I want to keep this site clean from outside advertisers. I was thinking attaching a Google Adsense advertising bar on it, but I decided against it for lots of reasons. I will be advertising MathMojo booklets, downloads and other related things on this blog, but very aesthetically. I won’t bombard you with baloney, I promise!
I will also probably add an Amazon.com sidebar with advertisements for books that I highly recommend (only those I have personally read and found valuable) and can endorse. Most will be math books, some will be about philosophy, and there will certainly be some James M. Barrie books up there, because he is my favorite author by far. I’ll need to put this advertising stuff up there in order to support the site. I am not going to charge for anyone to subscribe to it. This blog is for you.
The simple rules about comments:
• Anyone can feel free to comment on anything. You’ll have to register to leave comments, but registering only takes a few seconds.
• Comments will be moderated. That means that when you post, your comments may not be immediately published on this blog, until I have read them in order to clear them.
• All comments must be kept decent. That means no foul language (unless I am the one using it!) It also means that there will be no name-calling, flaming, ridiculous arguing over sex, politics or religion – no kidding!
I have nothing against any of those things, but I don’t want them here, unless it is to make a point about them using reasonable principles of logic. I will often try to raise insights about other things by applying insights you can gain from studying mathematics, and patterns.
• Check your facts before you post. Try to check your spelling and grammar, too. I promise not to be a nerd about that, but please, at least put in some effort, ok?
• If you read something that you don’t understand, go ahead and ask about it. I will do a lot of pontificating (no, don’t ask for definitions unless you have looked up the word first and still don’t know what the heck I’m talking about) and when I do that, sometimes I might lose you.
Of course, sometimes that is my fault, right? So if you don’t understand something, don’t assume it’s your fault. Try your best, then if you still don’t get it, ask about it in a comment. I really want to hear from you. Yeah, I’m a busy guy, but I like curious people. I’m not too busy for smart kids who like to learn, either. I’m still one.
I suppose that’s more than enough about rules.
Hey, be patient with me, ok? I need moral support as much as you do. I promise to keep putting up good math, learning and motivational material as long as I can tell there is a positive response to it.
Today’s project is to put up a page on the MathMojo site about learning math and getting insights about life. It’s written, now I have to format and post it. I also need to update the “Birthday of the Week” link.
In case you’re not familiar with that link, I try to post a short reference to some important person, like Galileo (whom I named my male golden retriever after), Archimedes (whom I named a character in a series of short stories after) or Marie Curie, Yuri Gagarin, Rosza Peter, etc. (whom I didn’t name anything after, but were very important people anyway) each week. Gagarin was last week.
Who will it be this week? You gotta check out the MathMojo site to find out…
Thanks for blogging with me.
Brian
