Maths can be good.

Okay, most of you "regular readers" know that I'm an artist. And I have characteristics (or clichés) that are endemic to many OTHER artists.

My brain tends to wander quite often... I find myself daydreaming, or planning out a composition of a scene that is unfolding right before my eyes, all whilst my friend is discussing the latest fresh produce at the farmer's market.

I lean towards the left-y side of politics...

I consider myself to be an observer of humanity...

I hate maths.

You know... The basic "artist creed" sorts of stuff.

Anyhoo... Back to this "maths hatred"

(By the way, fellow Yanks... Brit's use the term "maths" as opposed to our Yankie "math" usage... Due to the fact that the word is a shortening of "mathematics" which has an "s" on the end... Therefore, I tend to agree with them now, even though many fellow Yanks think I'm crazy when I talk about my "Maths grade" back in school.... But I digress)

Maths as a subject or study is/are evil. I hate 'em. I can add, I can subtract, multiply and divide. But.... When you start throwing letter's or weird symbols into it... I just get confused. I remember my first "equation" back in 7th grade (I was about 12 years old)...

2a=8

The teacher tried to explain that you had to "solve" for "a". Of course, even in my own hatred of maths, I still know that a = 4.

However... When the teacher asked me what I thought the equation's answer was, I said:

"Two-ahhhh-eight."

I kid you not.

I never really moved beyond that... Seriously... I look at an equation, and I try to "read" the bloody thing like it were a sentence.

2a+4b/34q=8G

Isn't mathematical... No... To me, it's: "two-aaahhh-forb-three-fork, eight-geee."

Obviously, I then 'translate' it back into maths, but the FIRST THING in my mind is the above "sentence."

Okay, I'm weird.

Anyway, although I HATE maths, and am generally confused by them, I sometimes have to LOVE the idea of mathematics and statistics, and other fun applied science...

Human Family Tree: Shallow Roots is a brilliant article that explains how our "ancestry" is much closer and more intertwined than we thought. Basically, we can ALL trace a common ancestor by only going back a few years before the bible started.

When you think about it... All the Jews have Arab ancestry, and vice-versa... All us westerners have similar ancestral ties to a Yurk-maker in Uzbekistan.

How fricking cool is that? Not only that... How SAD is it that we continue to kill each other daily. Folks... We're all related, now let's just let the continued family squabble go, and make peace.

Well, it's an idea anyway...

-- Tuckmac