new-age math, singing, and expensive trips

Today I learned that in the 1990s people taught kids new-age math, where you are supposed to use a calculator and become proficient at estimating things, and with that kind of background, it turns out that then kids don't learn things like addition. The funny thing is that based on my experience, if you teach people regular math first and then the 'new-age' concepts, they end up being physicists. [Ed. note: tangent alert] It seems to me that if physicists were aware that what they did was new-agey, they might have to get all PC and rename their reverse Polish calculators, but we're just a bunch of socially-clueless geeks. And yes, I'm still a geek, despite the fact that I'm so popular that I actually know what my call-waiting signal sounds like on my house phone and my cell phone. The cell phone thing I learned today, but still.

In other news, singing is good for your immune system, and tripping over curbs is expensive. I learned that last one from my dad, a veteran backpacker who, on Friday the 13th, tripped over a curb and broke his elbow. He got it screwed back together on Wednesday and reports that with one arm immobilized, contact lenses are a real challenge.