The North Richmond Medically Supervised Injecting Room is back in the news. Following on from a substantially positive review released last month, Dictator Dan Andrews has confirmed that the injecting room, which began as a trial in 2018, will become permanent. This news has shaken the usual nuts out of the usual tree, and my daughters’ school, which sits next door to the medical centre housing the injecting room, has also been in the news. This has been annoying, with the familiar, annoying reporters, and the familiar, annoying pleas:
Tag: mathematics
Remembering Mike Deakin
It’s not my thing to repeat posts, and I don’t do InstaTicker, or whatever is the current social medium sinkhole. But it is seemingly a good time to humbly remind readers of this post, on the mathematician Michael Deakin. I had promised then to write about Mike in the “future”, but the future came quicker than I anticipated. I still plan to write more on Mike soon (for some value of “soon”). Continue reading “Remembering Mike Deakin”
Yet More Mathematics Books, Free to More Homes
Same as last time, and last last time. This pile is mostly graduate texts, with quite a few classics, but there are also some excellent undergraduate texts, and some oddballs.
Please comment below or email me if you have any interest in any of the books or if you have any questions. Quickly. I’m happy to consider meeting up here or there in Melbourne, but I definitely won’t be mailing any books this time. I’m tired of people not saying thanks.
Continue reading “Yet More Mathematics Books, Free to More Homes”
Putting Putting Two and Two Together Together
More Mathematics Books, Free to More Homes
UPDATE (25/11/21)
OK, all done. Thanks to those who expressed interest, and thanks in particular to MyCool, for playing the role of sweeper. Books will be handballed as arranged.
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Or the same homes. I couldn’t care less.
This pile of books is not nearly as extensive or as high quality as the last bunch, and I’m not going to work hard to find homes, or to deliver the books to the homes. Still there are some good books there for undergraduate maths and engineering folk, and a few classics. Continue reading “More Mathematics Books, Free to More Homes”
Richmond, Drugs and the Injection of Bullshit
Just a word about Richmond West Primary School, which has been in the Melbourne news for all the wrong reasons in the last couple days. What follows is obviously our point of view, and is not intended to represent the School or any other person.
Our daughters go to RWPS and, with the caveat that all primary schools are screwed up by the Australian Curriculum and modern education nitwittism, we and our daughters love the school. We commute very non-trivially for our daughters to go there. In particular, we have regarded the school as perfectly safe.
Notoriously, RWPS is next door to the North Richmond Community Health Centre, which houses Richmond’s safe injecting room. The injecting room is there because the drugs and the druggies are there. It was a dodgy area long before the injecting room, and it still is, although if anything our understanding and perception is that it’s probably less so. One is watchful, and it is not unusual to see a down-and-outer, drugged or otherwise. But before this week, for four years, we did not see or hear of anything remotely extreme or threatening near the school. What our daughters have experienced more than anything is lessons in empathy, to think compassionately about people who are doing it much tougher than themselves.
The incidents at RWPS this week were obviously much more serious. What is not obvious, however, is what exactly the incidents were, or whether they carry any deeper meaning. The incidents do not appear in any way linked, and we’ve read nothing to suggest that they’re in any way linked to the injecting room. We’ve seen nothing to suggest that such incidents are likely to recur. It is natural to question what is going; two such incidents in a week demands it. But it should be kept in mind that perhaps nothing is going on, that, accepting the area is dodgy, the incidents may have been coincidental and rare.
What doesn’t help is shopping misinformation and fear-mongering, in particular by shit-stirring Murdoch stooges and their fellow travellers. We’ll be reading and looking to find out more. But, we won’t be reading nasty, populist fuckers, and we suggest others avoid this as well.
UPDATE (24/03/21)
And more populist bullshit today. Fuck Tom Cowie and fuck David Estcourt and fuck Anthony Piovesan, and fuck you TV vultures around when school lets out. All of you, either you have no fucking clue, or you’re lying through your fucking teeth.
UPDATE (29/03/21)
And further “Fuck you”s, to the Age’s Rachel Eddie and ABC’s Zalika Rizmal. And a special “Fuck you” to pompous Liberal toad, Matthew Bach.
Mathematics Books, Free to Good Homes
For a peculiar reason,* we have inherited a very nice collection of mathematics texts. They are mostly calculus/engineering texts and advanced applied mathematics, but there is a range, and there are a number of classics.
We are now looking for homes for these books. So, take a look at the photos below, and comment (or email me), indicating what you might like. Also feel free to pass on the offer to whomever you think might be interested. Here are the rules:
1) There are no rules: this is Calvinball. We’ll make it up as we go along.
2) The books are free, but you could consider making a donation to Tenderfeet. If you’re in Melbourne, we can arrange pick-up or drop-off, and otherwise I can mail the books, and we’ll figure out the postage somehow.
3) You can request as many or as few books/categories as you wish, with whatever levels of enthusiasm and specificity seem appropriate.
4) It is definitely not first come, first served. I’ll do my best to handle overlapping requests in a reasonable manner, with some preference given to starving students.
5) Would you like fries with that? If you express interest in a book, I might suggest similar books from the pile.
6) Most of the books should be identifiable from the photos, but feel free to ask for further details on any book. The books are roughly sorted into topics, so if you cannot identify a book, it’ll probably be similar in content to its neighbours.
7) See Rule 1.
Go for it, and thanks.
*) People are stupid.
UPDATE (06/01/21)
Thanks to everyone for contacting me. There are plenty of books still up for grabs, and people are still welcome to make requests. In a couple days, I’ll look to rationalise the requests thus far, and I’ll contact everyone to arrange the handovers.
UPDATE (09/01/21)
OK, I think I’ve replied to everyone who has requested books, to arrange pick-up/drop-off. If you think I missed you, please give me a nudge with a comment below. (There are still plenty of unclaimed books, particularly on mechanics, and modelling and the like.)
UPDATE (15/01/21)
OK, all the books have now been assigned. The plan is for one big Traveling Salesman tour of Melbourne on Wednesday 20/1. So, unless other arrangements have been discussed, please reply to my email to you, to confirm there’s a safe place to drop the books if need be.
FINAL UPDATE (04/02/21)
All done! All the books have been picked up or delivered or mailed. Along the way, it was great to meet, or re-meet, a bunch of you guys. (Hopefully the mailed books will arrive shortly, if they haven’t done so already. I’m sorry, but it was prohibitively expensive to mail them with tracking.)
Thanks to all of you who offered a home for these excellent but otherwise-God-knows-where books, and I hope they’ll be of interest and use. Thanks also, very much, to those who donated to Tenderfeet.
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What Should We Talk About?
Here’s a question. We’ve been invited to give a presentation to maths teachers. So, what should we talk about? What might one say to maths teachers that will make any difference? And, harder, what might one say that maths teachers will come to hear and that will make any difference?
UPDATE: And here we go.