Ken Tone

I only heard "cheats, cheats, cheats..." Warned the cockles of my heart

The weird thing is that the criterion that ought to determine where students go to study.. namely the quality of the teaching , is given no weight at all in most of these ranking systems. Does it really matter to an 18 year old undergraduate that Prof X is the world expert in research into topic Y, when all the undergrad will get is only about 6 hours a week of lectures for only about 27 weeks of the year, and those lectures will never be given by Prof X, who sees such teaching as well beneath him? In fact nowadays much of the teaching will be done by post-graduate students, who may once have met Prof X at a faculty party, but who have had little or no training in how to teach.

Lol. That's a hanging offence on POL!

Wel if this consortium really has lodged $20m on an escrow account ,they have to be taken seriously. But why , if you haver that sort of money , wouldn't you buy a club that gave you better value for money ...Coventry say? Or man y others? Has to be something dodgy in this . Would be wonderful if the mystery names turned out to be Al fahim and co, or a friend of Gaydamak

Not confusing at all. Plain wrong, which is the point I made about the rubbish calculator on phones etc before. If you read the article you yourself posted it makes very clear that what amounts to BODMAS dates back centuries. Beginning to rrealise what it must feel like to be MLG!

Bournemouth have money now of course. Just a coincidence. Personally I'm going to corner the market in brown envelopes before the rush.

Sorry mate but you are wrong. Has been taught in schools since time immemorial. How the hell do you think you sorted out algrebraic expressions like 3y^2 as opposed to (3y) ^2 if you didn't use true algebraic logic, which is what BODMAs represents? Oh and I see your A level and raise you with my Maths degree, from 1974, and my first job , teaching Maths in the 70's, including of course BODMAS

I shall restrict myself to saying that your personal predelictions for 'entertainment', are entirely your own business Bearsy. I'm just relieved for the goat's sense of self worth and physical comfort

You mean they did it enough times to show an actual difference in success rates depending on whether you change or not? I've never seen that done. Always assumed it would take hundreds of attempts to get a clear pattern. Restores one's faith in theory!

3+4x5 = 23 Absolutely no doubt whatsoever -- basic rules of arithmetic. If you think it is 35, you were indeed taught 'wrong' and should sue the school! You may not have been taught the mnemonic BODMAS, or one of its variants , but you should have been told that multiplication and division (equally) take precedence over addition and subtraction (equally)...and that brackets , then any form of power, take precedence over the others. It is because, as you say, little kids do not understand powers (including fractional powers such as square roots) that some primary schools used to teach BODMAS ,with the 'O' as 'of' , as a stop gap to be replaced by 'order' later, but *I think that has gone out of fashion.

The 'goat' problem is a standard statistics/probability brain teaser. I remember one of my Maths lecturers at uni giving us this in the 1970's, albeit expressed as a 'find the lady' gambling game, but the same principle. The logic is ..... You should obviously change your mind if your first choice was wrong When you made that choice there was a 1/3 chance you were right and a 2/3 chance you were wrong. Therefore you were more likely to have been wrong and should change your choice.

Nothing to do with being taught any 'advanced way' ... just not being taught by an incompetent! BODMAS or its alternative forms is basic mathematical grammar in effect. Not being taught that is like not being taught to use a full stop in English. There is only one right way taught.

A proper calculator made any more recently than about 1985 and not just free with a packet of corn flakes , uses 'true algebraic logic' and does not justdo the sums as it goes along. How they get away with putting such crappy ones on tablets and phones I don't know.

BTW BODMAS is sometimes written as BIDMAS ( I =Index, ie powers), or indeed BOMDAS etc, and I've also seen the 'O' in BODMAS claimed to be 'of', ie fractions eg as in '1/2 of' with young children who do not understand the word 'order' in that context.

My favourite similar question is the simple 3+4x5, which, appallingly, calculators on many modern smartphones etc get wrong, and many otherwise intelligent people argue over as a result.

This raises the question of whether Birch would be allowing such signings, even for a month , if he were really about to liquidate.

Not that it really mattters, but I think swansea's attendances were abut the same as PFC's in the champinship, and presumably are higher now they are in the PL, so no even that claim is not correct. The trust definitely had 1670 pledges when they submitted their formal bid. The figure may well have risen since then, but their p.r. has always over-hyped the numbers. They were saying 'just under 2000' weeks before the 1670 became public for example. So their claims that many more have signed up recently probably mean they are still around 2000 maximum IMO, or they'd be saying "well over £2 million pledged" instead of claiming merely the £2 million. In any event, fair play to those c 2000, but as a figure for such a "big club", it is not very impressive.

He only said engineering. It's not as if it's proper Maths

Much the same as others have said on here PES, I do genuinely have respect for the efforts that the Trust members have been putting in. And yes, I do applaud the concept of a fan-owned club. It is the lack of realism in what some of their supporters say that causes derision ...and as MLG points out the, yet again, deluded "we're special" arguments, such as claiming to be the biggest or first such club, that causes anger. It is good to have sensible debate with PFC fans on this thread, nonetheless, rather than the sort of nonsense that Banker/Corp Ho used to spout. And I'm pleased that this forum allows it, in contrast to the paranoia on POL. I woud be genuinely interested for example to hear a pompey fan's view on where the trust plans to find the extra £6 million it needs to fund the £8.4 million compromise agreements with the ex-players. (Though I realise that if any PFC fan dares to ask that on POL they will be shouted down and banned as a scummer!)

It may reassure him to hear the old saying. ...... There are 3 kinds of people in this world - those who can count and those who can't.

Would it be condescending of me to point out that the POL poster has misspelt condescending?

I feel such a fool now!

Ah, but would it be a tape, or would you use a rule? Might get a bit of a catenary bend there with a flexible tape, even with near-zero gravity.

You see Schrodinger's cat right in front of you. Though to be fair, Heisenberg is a bit dubious about that. Oh, the old tacky-ones are the best!

So you really were one of the "pompey 17" .. there were only 16 pompey fans on line then -- at most! It's like an Agatha Christie story