Introduction: Step Right Up, Going Out of Wisdom Sale!
Hello, have recently had my account confirmed, so here I am on Steemit!
I always find it hard to write such intros, as what I “do” is not necessarily the same as my job. The latter is easy; I currently teach physics and mathematics (plus anything interesting I can think up for our gifted kids) at a school in Bangkok.
Have been blogging on-and-off for many years with some blogs being more successful than others. I have also written for other sites such as HubPages, Xomba and Science 2.0. Again, some of the writing has been financially worthwhile, but there has always been one niggling problem: there was little correlation between the social impact of an article and its financial success. Articles that generated great interest and stimulated discussions appeared worthless in a mercantile world driven by advertising that strove to sell stuff to people.
Mathematics is a great example: it is everywhere, but it is “under the hood”, unseen by most, and the only apparent product is educational. One of the best advertising campaigns of all times, that overcomes this problem, is surely “Intel Inside”.
“Wisdom for Sale!” There is an amusing vignette at the start of one of the chronicles of Charlemagne (742-814) that describes two Scottish philosophers who had just set foot in the kingdom and opened up their stall in the marketplace selling… wisdom. The locals thought them crazy, and when asked what on Earth they were doing, replied that if they dispensed their insights for free then people would think them worthless. In the end, Charlemagne gives them a job to reform education and set up what eventually became some of Europe’s first universities. The story may be apocryphal but the reforms were very real.
Time to wrap this up, so all the subjects that interest me, from physics and philosophy to bio-electromagnetism and out-of-body experiences, all relate to one fundamental dichotomy: just as complexity is a region between order and chaos, so wisdom may be the middle way between freedom and control.
Look forward to seeing how Steemit develops!
Step Right Up... Step Right Up... by Tom Waits.
Welcome to the platform, I wish everything work out for you. It’s not easy here but not difficult neither but just ask an extra effort, engagement is the key good luck I’m @goodaytraders
Thanks @goodaytraders, any new platform has a learning curve - just hoping not too steep! Like, took me hours making sure the formatting didn't mess up flipping from editor-to-html. Will keep the layouts simple.
Welcome to Steem @rycharde I have sent you a tip
Wow, thanks a lot! And with a name like @bottymcbotface , who could forget. Thanks for the encouragement.
Welcome to Steemit @rycharde
Some interesting subjects, I'm particularly interested in out of body experiences. I look forward to seeing more from you
Thanks @gmuxx. I like writing about altered states and, without being flakey, there's some interesting research being done.
I had an out of body experience once, on the verge of death. Was very serene
I have in recent years discovered the benefits of meditation - it helps me sleep better. I wrote about it HERE if you are interested in reading
Thanks, I'll read it now. Just wanted to say that every time Pew Forum research this topic, they find a significant number of people have had a variety of altered states and experiences, but somehow our culture stops them from discussing such things outside the anonymity of a poll.
Thanks. There seems to be such a taboo about the subject in mainstream western culture. It seems bizarre to me as we are so obviously much more than our physical selves
I suspect the media and education are doing this with a purpose - to focus on the physical and material and medicalise any condition that dares to look outside such parameters. I live in SE Asia and many urban people here have also lost touch with the temples and head for the shopping malls - then complain about why they feel so sick.
I think you are right
Welcome to Steemit! :)
Thanks a lot!
Subscribed. Looking forward to seeing more posts from you!
Thanks. I write on many things. At the moment enjoying helping out constructing this new forum.
Welcome to the community! Follow me at https://steemit.com/@bitgeek
Many thanks! Looks like I followed you before I noticed your comment!
Welcome to Steemit! I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do! :-)
Thanks, I hope so too! Been a couple of years since I did anything significant online - too much offline work.
Also very important! :-)
oh cool, you are math teacher from Bangkok. I was going to ask if you are german, lel. Do you know any good program to write math blogs? I would have loved to use real vector brackets in my post.
Depends what you want to do. Do you mean inline with the text or in the graph diagram?
You mean something like this [tex]\begin{pmatrix} a & b\ c & d \end{pmatrix}[/tex]
or
OK, one of them worked! This board needs a plugin and LaTeX can run in Markdown - apparently!
If you want vectors in a graph then I'd suggest using geogebra.org, which itself also uses LaTex inside its own editor but you can then place it in the graph.
Have just read this, after the article...
(well it's happened again. I started to write a comment, decided I couldn't resist a link that promised some Tom Waits and then didn't come back here but got side tracked)
(now I have to go scroll up and remember what I am commenting)
oh, ok it's your intro post.
I am not going to leave much of a comment here, as you probably won't see it
I am following so we will talk
It sounds like we have overlapping interests, that's for sure.
please to have run into you
big hugs