Tuesday, May 01

Anime

Rocket Girls Ep 2

Win!

What are the values of Δv
1 and Δv2?
But some of those numbers have seven digits...
You have a calculator, don't you!?
Right, right! ... the heck is this!? There's no equals key!
Of course not! Don't you know Reverse Polish Notation?
Of course not!
Oh, really?  In that case... I'll take five minutes to cram its operation into your head. When I'm done with you, you'll never be able to use a regular calculator again!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:39 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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1 I know, I was too hard on them, but the goddamn helicopter was just too awful. It was too hard to swallow. I know that GiTS did the same thing. I just can't help it!

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Tuesday, May 01 2007 03:23 AM (9imyF)

2 The helicopter scene in episode one?  Yeah, that was a bit much.

I'll say one thing for this show: The story moves right along.  That long-running subplot they established right at the beginning?  Already over.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, May 01 2007 08:41 AM (PiXy!)

3 So she khows what happened to him already?! You're winning me over.

You know, I only watched MKM because of wonderful fanboyism at AoMM. I did not know the greatness of emo facial distortion before I read about it.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Tuesday, May 01 2007 02:08 PM (9imyF)

4
So she knows what happened to him already?!
More than that, but I won't spoil it for you.

This is the second show this season (the other being Lovely Complex) that has taken what looked to be an annoying long-term subplot and nailed it shut in the first couple of episodes.  It's a really encouraging development. smile


Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, May 01 2007 02:41 PM (PiXy!)

5

Wait, wait, wait...  THERE REALLY IS SOMETHING CALLED "REVERSE POLISH NOTATION"???

This isn't some engineering joke?

Posted by: Wonderduck at Sunday, May 06 2007 12:41 AM (VdgKc)

6 Wonderduck, the actual term is Lukasiewicz notation. But as you might imagine, few people remember that name, so it became known as "Polish notation".

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Sunday, May 06 2007 08:46 AM (+rSRq)

7 The fansub translates it as "reverse Polish calculation", which is actually pretty good if you assume that they've
never heard of it.

The calculator in that episode is clearly an HP-41.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, May 06 2007 12:01 PM (PiXy!)

8 I only knew it as "Polish Notation". It may be that Russo-Polak animosity which expunged Lukasiewicz. On the other hand, Rusty Russell gets all upset when he heards people calling his hypervisor "Rustivizor". Maybe Dr. Lukasiewicz was like that too, who knows.

Still, despite being educated enough to know about the notation, I cannot remember which is straight and which is reverse between N M Op and Op N M.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Sunday, May 06 2007 12:22 PM (9imyF)

9 My god, there really IS such a thing as Reverse Polish Notation!  That's the most wonderful thing I've never heard of.

Posted by: Wonderduck at Sunday, May 06 2007 02:18 PM (VdgKc)

10 Mr. Duck, you just lost about 20 technogeek cred-points. I can't believe you've never heard of this before.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Sunday, May 06 2007 03:30 PM (+rSRq)

11 There are other ways to be a geek than to carry a calculator in a holster, Steven. Heck, I barely passed basic algebra in high school (though I rocked in geometry)... who's ever seen an X, and why does it matter that three of them plus two Ys equals 38?

Posted by: Wonderduck at Sunday, May 06 2007 04:55 PM (R/R0E)

12 Heh... as a heavy user of HP scientific calculators in school (Texas actually has an academic contest based around calculators*), I had to deal with RPN a lot... but I haven't used it in years.  Today's TI-8x series (and I assume similar HP models) just make things too easy with their big, multi-line screens that allow you to replace "thinking backwards" with just typing entire formulas into the computer.

*For years before that (and still today), they also had a contest where you had to do arithmetic completely in your head; don't worry about them going soft on kids, at least not those who compete.

Posted by: Big D at Sunday, May 06 2007 05:12 PM (JJ4vV)

13 Heh, the old Number Sense competition? Used to do those when I was a kid. Man, they gave out beeeeeg trophies, too - darn near as tall as I was back then.

Steve's right - even if you're not a math geek, you should have at least HEARD of reverse Polish notation... maybe only a ten-point deduction, though.

Posted by: AvatarADV at Monday, May 07 2007 04:44 AM (PyY3O)

14 Hmmm... that must've been at invitational meets, the UIL official awards were just medals (I never got to State in anything but Current Events, but the medals they handed out were pretty uniform across contests).

I always wondered why more states don't do things like that... UIL Academics did wonders for kids in my classes.  I still use a lot of the old Number Sense math shortcuts today.

Posted by: Big D at Monday, May 07 2007 06:27 AM (JJ4vV)

15 I just saw the damn thing. Woa. I understand how it can get one excited. Downloading ep.3 now.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Monday, May 07 2007 06:29 AM (9imyF)

16

"even if you're not a math geek, you should have at least HEARD of reverse Polish notation... "

Why?   Seriously, why?  If I (or anybody else) has never had a need to know advanced algebra/RPN/whatever, and high-end calculators like the one in Rocket Girls didn't exist for the general public when I was in high school, give me one legit reason that I should have heard of something like "Reverse Polish Notation." 

"You're a geek" is not an acceptable answer.  I came to my geekdom via the performing arts track, not the math track.

Posted by: Wonderduck at Monday, May 07 2007 09:57 AM (VdgKc)

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