Toroid Planet

[ysabetwordsmith]

 So these are possible.  Now consider the oodles of stars in the Milky Way and other galaxies.  If it's possible, then somewhere out there is a planet shaped like a donut.  

Comments

[lightbird]

That is so cool!

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I need remedial advanced maths, stat!

*laugh*

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yeah, my mind went right to "How can I use this as a setting?" too.

Re: *laugh*

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Well, yes, that's probably where it would lead. I'm not bad at math, I'm less certain with somethings (I have to count days on my fingers, but it means my solutions are right) and I keep being interested past my knowledge.

I'm no use to NASA, but I did test better than 90% of college bound boys on the SAT. Which I think should worry us about their caliber.

I am utterly sickened at the amount of fail and wasted time that could have been better used shoring up my quirks while I waited for others to catch on, because I know that I was not alone or the last.

Re: *laugh*

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I'm no use to NASA, but I did test better than 90% of college bound boys on the SAT. Which I think should worry us about their caliber. <<

Awesome. Go you.

The really alarming thing? I tested better than 66% of students in my pre-college tests. And I suck at math. By suck I mean that I am lucky to get the same answer three times running on the same equation, and my anti-math knack is contagious to people or equipment standing near me. In one of my worst subjects, I'm still ahead of the middle of the pack. O_O

>> I am utterly sickened at the amount of fail and wasted time that could have been better used shoring up my quirks while I waited for others to catch on, because I know that I was not alone or the last. <<

School actively diminished my learning opportunities. In almost all classes, I was held back while other people studied things I learned years ago. But in math, I was shoved forward without regard to my ability to learn the material. What happened is that I spent years wasting several hours a night cramming for math tests to scrabble past them, only to lose almost everything; and doing the rest of my homework in a few minutes. I will never forgive society for that.

What I needed was free access to pursue my interests, teacher support for when I got stuck, and help figuring out how to compensate for the anti-math knack so that I could do things like figure out how much groceries were going to cost. You know where I learned the kind of math I could actually use? History books talking about archaic math tricks.

Education system = FAIL.

Re: *laugh*

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Ah! That kind of math suck. I have that with spelling, and boy was there a lot of rote work there. Eventually they stop overtly testing for it; I keep on the homophones and choose close enough synonyms when I couldn't pull spelling. The tech they use for search engines helps when I'm too far from my paper dictionary, but I learned good strategies back in the day.

There is a problem that consistency of result is valued over productivity. That is to say, a person that's smart but abject at one thing shakes them. I recall reading something about a researcher that wondered why street kids (they'd started a part day intervention so the kids could still eat) were so bad at math when he knew they could make change perfectly. Eventually he got them where their aptitude could shine (don't know the specifics in the instruction, and it might not parse in English. They had that as a problem with ESL math classes...)

Glad you found a fix, sorry that it took so long.

Re: *laugh*

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I have that with spelling, and boy was there a lot of rote work there. <<

Bummer.

>> There is a problem that consistency of result is valued over productivity. That is to say, a person that's smart but abject at one thing shakes them. <<

Yes, that too. Almost nobody is good at everything. A gifted person will typically be boosted higher, but still have better and worse areas. People really don't want to accept that. I told them they were just fucking stupid, and incompetent educators, to be missing something right in front of them. *chuckle* They especially hated it when I cited references, since a few educators have actually figured out that genius kids sometimes suck in one or two areas.

>> Glad you found a fix, sorry that it took so long. <<

Well, I found ways to work around the anti-math knack, some earlier and some later, but other people were just useless for that. Most things I need done, I have to do myself.

Re: *laugh*

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Numeracy is a privileged skill, just as in another age a good hand was. I was never held to the handwriting (which would have been rich since that's when I was pulled out) and I figured out for myself which misspellings could be looked over and deployed good dictionary methods when not in a timed environment.

See, they tell a myth long enough they believe it. And 2e isn't talked about much in educational training. Actually, giftedness is given very short shrift and learning disabilities are largely still in that low denominator remedial. It's like the social passing they did rather than truly intervene when some kids couldn't read or do sums because they hadn't been taught. I remember when they didn't have schooling for kids with Downs'. The difference is World Shattering.

While it shouldn't be the case, there have been more than a few teachers that are in it for the wrong reasons, their own and society's. You probably read further off into the rushes so you found what you needed, while they didn't know.

I blame the departments of education, because they do know the research unless they've hid under rocks and stuck fingers in their ears.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

That's like something Larry Niven would dream up... and a setting that deserves a similarly awesome story.

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

My first thought looking at that was to wonder how I could use it as a setting, and where it could go. The obvious place would be the Eris Arm in my main SF setting, a little curl of stars with an above-average weirdness level. But the hole in the middle makes me think of the Lacuna. It kind of depends whether or not I want aliens on it, and I'm not sure, because that setting would lend itself to awesome biosculpting, but there are bound to be challenges unforeseeable with my level of science skill.