Hi there,
Sorry guys, manage to do chapter 1 and 2 part 1 as the rest are FACTs which need to be understand more.
Warmest regards,
ZaX
statics tutorial
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Switch Adaptable Online Spinner, Calculator and More!
Tripico a site that designs e-Learning content has an eight section spinner or a four section spinner that can be run by a switch set to mouse click when the pointer is over the spin button. You can put any text you wish in the eight sections, if you have less than eight things to spin for you can put in "spin again", "lose a turn", or you can duplicate som! e items. Should be super fun with an LCD Projector on a "Big Screen" or on a SMART Board.Also completely there is an amazing calculator that works using switches set to tab and enter to enter what you need to solve your math program. Imagine a FREE, ONLINE accessible, scanning calculator! Of course it also works with a mouse, touch screen or on a SMART Board.
< br />Also at Tripico you can find:Switch Adapted, Touch Screen, SMART Board or Mouse:
- Probability Spinner
- 4 Space Spinner
- Quiz Spinner (put in any four questions you wish)
- 1-8 Spinner
- 1-16 Spinner
- Role Selector (pick classroom jobs!)
- Simon Style Memory Game (set switches to tab and enter)
- Online Timer (counts up or down)
- Word Magnets
- Word Mix
- Plot It! Interactive Graph
- Swing O Meter
- One Minute Timer
- Image Match
- Score Board
- Match It
special products calculator
Making the fractions in a proportion
"How do you know how to make the fractions in a proportion?
When making them, how do you know where each number goes making the fraction, like which ones go on top of the fraction?"
Well, actually you can choose which quantity will go on top; the proportion WILL work either way!
But, sometimes people are used to always putting certain quantity on top and certain on the bottom. For example, if the question is about speed and the unit is "miles per hour", that tells you that miles go on top, and hours on bottom, because "per" means division (the fraction line).
However, you could still solve the proportion by putting hours in the numerator of the fractions and miles in the denominator, and the calculation will turn out alright.
Or, if the question is about "dollars per pound", then dollars go to the numerator and pounds in the denominator.
Let's look at this problem for example:
A car drives on constant speed. It can go 80 miles in 90 minutes. How long will it take for it to travel 100 miles?
You can make both fractions to be
miles
-----------
minutes
OR
minutes
------------
miles
Let's try the first way:
80 mi 100 mi
-------- = ---------
90 min x
To solve, cross multiply and you get 80x = 100 * 90, and then x = 900/8 = 112.5 minutes.
The other way it will be
90 min x
-------- = --------
80 mi 100 mi
To solve, cross multiply and you get 80x = 90 * 100
You see, the final equation ends up being the same, no matter which
quantities were on top of the fractions! .
HOWEVER, one way is wrong: that is if you but "mi! les" on top in one
fraction, and "minutes" on top in the other... then you'll get it wrong:
90 min 100 mi
-------- = -------
80 mi x min
=> 90x = 100* 80 (WRONG)
solve proportions
"Multiple" Pi Challenges for MS and HS
Consider the following table displaying the first four positive integer multiples of π rounded to 4 places:
So what's the challenge here? You will be a π-multiple investigator!
(1) Determine the EIGHT positive integer multiples of π, up to 1000π, which, when rounded to THREE places, produce an integer result. For example, the decimal 17.9996 when rounded to 3 places results in the integer 18.000, which we will regard as an 'integer'. Unfortunately, this decimal is not an integer multiple of π so have fun searching! Do you notice any pattern in your results? Describe it! Can you explain this pattern? [This requires more than a Yes/No response!]
(2) In fact, the "pattern" you may have found in (1) continues beyond 1000π. Show that you can go up to SIXTEEN multiples of π before the pattern breaks down. Why do you think the pattern eventually ends?
(3) Which of your results in (1) would produce an integer when rounded to FOUR places?
(4) Can you think of any practical application for finding multiples of π which are very close to an integer? Be creative! Responses may depend on how advanced your math background is.
Comments:
- Do your students know how to program their graphing calculator to do the search? OR in Java or C++ or Python or Perl?? This would certainly facilitate the search! I may display the code for the TI-83 or -84. However, students may also find a creative way to use the TABLE feature on their graphing calculators to save time without programming. Have fun!
- Please post feedback if you use this in your classes. I will not post answers ye! t in case students find this post in their 'searching'!
IS π ALMOST RATIONAL?
rationalize the denominator calculator
SymPy 0.6.6 released
SymPy 0.6.6 has been released on December 20, 2009. It is available at
http://sympy.org
The source distribution can be downloaded from:
http://sympy.googlecode.com/files/sympy-0.6.6.tar.gz
You can get the Windows installer here:
http://sympy.googlecode.com/files/sympy-0.6.6.win32.exe
And the html documentation here:
http://sympy.googlecode.com/files/sympy-0.6.6-docs-html.zip
About SymPy
SymPy is a Python library for symbolic mathematics. It aims to become a full-featured computer algebra system (CAS) while keeping the code as simple as possible in order to be comprehensible and easily extensible. SymPy! is written entirely in Python.
Changes since last stable release
polynomial simplifier
http://sympy.org
The source distribution can be downloaded from:
http://sympy.googlecode.com/files/sympy-0.6.6.tar.gz
You can get the Windows installer here:
http://sympy.googlecode.com/files/sympy-0.6.6.win32.exe
And the html documentation here:
http://sympy.googlecode.com/files/sympy-0.6.6-docs-html.zip
About SymPy
SymPy is a Python library for symbolic mathematics. It aims to become a full-featured computer algebra system (CAS) while keeping the code as simple as possible in order to be comprehensible and easily extensible. SymPy! is written entirely in Python.
Changes since last stable release
- many documentation improvements, including docstrings and doctests
- new assumptions system (GSoC) (See assumptions documentation for more information or have a look at Fabian's blog.)
- Note: This is going to replace the old assumption system. It is encouraged to use it for new code, however it is not completely finished and parts of sympy have yet to be rewritten to use it; this scheduled for the 0.7 release.
- improvements to test runner
- printing improvements (especially LaTeX, but also mathml and pretty printing)
- discriminant of polys
- block diagonal methods for matrices!
- vast improvements to solving of ODEs (GSoC) (See ODE documentation for full details or Aaron's blog).
- logcombine function
- improvements to sets
- better trigonometric simplification
- improvements to piecewise functions
- improvements to solve() and nsolve()
- improvements to as_numer_denom()
- much better quartic and cubic polynomial rootfinding
- code refactoring and cleanup
- physics: coupled clusters and wick expansion
- matrices: symbolic QR solving
- mpmath updated
- pyglet updated
- many, many bug fixes and small improvements
The following 22 people have contributed patches to this release (sorted alphabetically):
- Aaron Meurer
- Alan Bromborsky
- Andy R. Terrel
- Bill Flynn
- Chris Smith
- Eh Tan
- Fabian Pedregosa
- Fredr! ik Johansson
- Jorn Baayen
- Julio Idichekop Filho
- Kevin Goodsell
- Åukasz Pankowski
- Luke Peterson
- Øyvind Jensen
- Ondrej Certik
- Oscar Benjamin
- Priit Laes
- Renato Coutinho
- Ronan Lamy
- Ryan Krauss
- Ted Horst
- Toon Verstraelen
- Vinzent Steinberg
The following 10 people helped reviewing patches:
- Aaron Meurer
- Andy R. Terrel
- Chris Smith
- Fabian Pedregosa
- Fredrik Johansson
- Luke Peterson
- Mateusz Paprocki
- Ondrej Certik
- Ronan Lamy
- Vinzent Steinberg
polynomial simplifier
Two MIT math graduates bump into each other. They hadn’t seen each
Two MIT math graduates bump into each other. They hadn’t seen each other in over 20 years.
The first grad says to the second: “how have you been?”
Second: “Great! I got married and I have three daughters now”
First: “Really? how old are they?”
Second: “Well, the product of their ages is 72, and the sum of their ages is the same as the number on that building over there..”
First: “Right, ok.. oh wait.. I still don’t know”
second: “Oh sorry, the oldest one just started to play the piano”
First: “Wonderful! my oldest is the same age!” Problem: How old are the daughters?
maths mate 9 answers
The first grad says to the second: “how have you been?”
Second: “Great! I got married and I have three daughters now”
First: “Really? how old are they?”
Second: “Well, the product of their ages is 72, and the sum of their ages is the same as the number on that building over there..”
First: “Right, ok.. oh wait.. I still don’t know”
second: “Oh sorry, the oldest one just started to play the piano”
First: “Wonderful! my oldest is the same age!” Problem: How old are the daughters?
maths mate 9 answers
Lake Washington
We just learned from one of our lap swimmers that the current temperature of the lake is 46 degrees.
It needs to get colder, don't you think?
lake washington water temperature
It needs to get colder, don't you think?
lake washington water temperature
The Real Deal: Season Two
by Shaker Seraph, a shameless geek who's getting through the bad times in New York City by doing temp work, playing Dungeons & Dragons, watching lots of movies, and splitting rent with an amiable soon-to-be-ex.
[Part One; Part Two; Part Three.]
And so we set off on the second stage of our journey, the Our Heroes' Adventures in The Earth Kingdom. This is the season where Avatar really starts to live up to its feminist good intentions. With that in mind, I'm going to stop cataloguing in so much detail when the show treats the female characters as full human beings or serious badasses in their own right. It's just too commonplace. Heck, it's easier to number the eps that fail ! the Bechdel test than those that pass it. Also, I'm going to stop noting it every time the cartoon defies ageism. Just assume that anyone with gray hair can end you. Only the most salient examples from this point on – that and intros to the characters that make this season what it is.
The Avatar State – As promised, this is where we meet the most terrifying 14-year-old you will ever encounter in any medium. Her name is Azula and she's Zuko's little sister, but from the first moment we see her, we know we're not dealing with an essentially decent anti-villain like him. Her first speech is pretty standard villain stuff – even think of questioning my orders and I'll kill you myself, that sort of thing – but it's in a conversation with the captain afterward that we learn just how cold a customer we're dealing with.
Note that the guy showed no sign of being lazy or disrespectful (though he does late! r turn out to be stupid). It's entirely possible she's risking everyone's lives because she's impatient. She is on a mission to bring in her brother and her uncle (whom her father blames for the Fire Nation's defeat at the North Pole – not without justification, though Ozai is ignoring the minor detail that Zhao's strategy would have devastated the planet), and she's not having any delays.
And it only gets worse from there. She's a firebending prodigy who can throw lightning and toss Zuko (who beat Zhao – an acknowledged master firebender – in one duel and was well on the way to winning the second when the Ocean Spirit intervened) around like a hacky-sack, both physically and mentally. She's so incredibly precise and determined to be perfect that a single hair out of place during lightningbending practice infuriates her. From this point on, we the audience know that playtime is over for Our Heroes. But even we don't know just! how much trouble they're in yet.
Meanwhile, whil! e all th is is going on, Pakku has acknowledged Katara as a fellow waterbending master, and some fool tries to induce the Avatar state in Aang by attacking her, which means she isn't available to calm Aang down when it works. A-whoops. Also, we learn the primary drawback to the Avatar State: because the State is caused by tapping into all the power of the previous Avatars at once, if an Avatar dies while in the State, the chain of reincarnation is broken and the Avatar entity itself ceases to exist. This is why more experienced Avatars use the State sparingly. Keep this in mind, it's important.
Return to Omashu – In this episode, Azula decides that she needs a small, agile force to track Zuko and Iroh, rather than hauling the royal procession along with her.
The first member of this "force" that we meet is Ty Lee, an old school friend. Ty Lee has apparently run away from home to pursue a career as a circus acrobat since they last saw e! ach other, but Azula has no trouble finding her. At first, Ty Lee makes the mistake of thinking that Azula is asking her to help hunt Zuko and Iroh. She (very, very politely) declines, saying that her aura has never been pinker than it is here, at the circus (if Ty Lee lived in our world, she'd have racks of crystals for waving and shelves of books about spirit guides from Atlantis. The aura stuff would be about the same). Rather than make it an order, Azula attends that night's show and orders all of the animals released and Ty Lee's safety net set on fire (all of it in the name of making the show more exciting, of course). Unsurprisingly, Ty Lee promptly decides that the universe is trying to tell her something, and enlists with Azula. She spends the rest of this season and much of the next not only obeying Azula's orders and agreeing with every word that Azula utters, but gushing over every single tiny little thing that Azula does. Some attribute this to vapidity ! or affection – and it's true that Ty Lee can be a bit of! an airh ead and she just adores everyone in the world that she isn't actually locked in combat with at the moment (and in Sokka's case, even that caveat goes out the window) – but I think it's more likely that she's just plain terrified (with good reason), and trying to keep on Azula's good side.
So why would the crown princess of the Fire Nation go to such trouble to recruit a circus acrobat? Because Ty Lee is also a master martial artist, perhaps the most dangerous non-bender we meet in the entire series (which, mind you, makes her more dangerous than most of the benders as well). She's an expert in the art of Chi-blocking, which can short-circuit bending and leave a victim paralyzed without causing any lasting damage. Useful when you're hunting members of the royal family, who also happen to be powerful firebenders.
The other member of the group that will become known to the fans as "Ozai's Angels" is in the newly-conquered Earth Kingdom ci! ty of Omashu, where her father has been appointed governor. Her name is Mai, and she's bored. There is really no fathoming the depths of her hatred for this place. She's a Fire Nation goth, and when her family is attacked by the Resistance she counterattacks with a hailstorm of thrown weapons and gives chase. Mom doesn't shout "Stop" or "Come back" when she does so, either. Mom is well aware that her fifteen-year old daughter is the most effective bodyguard she has. Heck, the girl damn near puts a shuriken through the Avatar's forehead (for the record, Aang was actually trying to help – it's his great misfortune to be in Omashu at this particular time that puts the Gaang in Azula's way and makes the rest of the season happen).
Mai goes along with Azula willingly enough – she's bored out of her mind in Omashu, and she's apparently eager to see Zuko again – but Azula still tests her loyalty. By purest accident, Mai's baby brother Tom-Tom to! ddles into the hands of the Resistance, who offer to trade him! for Bum i, the imprisoned king of Omashu and Aang's best friend from the old days. However, when the Gaang shows up to make the trade, Azula points out that a toddler for a king isn't really a fair trade. Quicker on the uptake than Ty Lee, Mai realizes that Azula is not just sayin', and – without flinching – declares the deal to be off. It's only because Aang risks sneaking back in later that little Tom-Tom ever gets back home.
The Blind Bandit – And here's the one everybody's been waiting for. This ep starts with a nice bit of stereotype-breaking – Sokka out shopping for a new bag, experiencing buyer's remorse after he gets it, and later still being glad he got it after all, because it goes so well with another new accessory he's acquired – and just goes from there.
During Sokka's shopping trip, a street barker gives Aang a coupon for a free lesson at an earthbending school (he'd been counting on B! umi teaching him earthbending, and is now rather desperate). The only good that comes of this is that the Gaang hears about "Earth Rumble 6", an underground (literally) earthbending tournament. Katara more or less beats the location out of the boys who were discussing it (actually, she freezes them to the walls of an alley – they really shouldn't have been mean to Aang in front of her), and they all head off to the show.
One popular fighter known as The Boulder is dominating the competition, and for a few rounds the Gaang wonders if he might not be the one destined to be Aang's teacher (he doesn't really seem like the type). Then comes the final round, and we meet the reigning Earth Rumble Champion, the Blind Bandit.
She's twelve years old, she's tiny, she's blind, and she kicks The Boulder's ass in about five seconds. Literally.
Oddly enough, she has a lot more trouble with Aang when he takes advantage of the audience par! ticipation round to ask her to be his teacher, and she storms ! off afte r he wins, leaving the Gaang with the knowledge that Aang's destined earthbending teacher exists, but no way to find her.
So Katara simply bullies the information they need out of those same two earthbending students the next day (even she's acting like a pro wrestler by this point, and Sokka couldn't be more proud).
And that's how we come to meet Toph Bei Fong.
She's rude. She's crude. She's gross. She's hilarious.
She picks her nose, she picks her toes, she swears (as well as she knows how), she spits, and she likes to maintain "a healthy coating of earth" at all times. Her favorite methods of expressing affection are punching arms and making up insulting nicknames ("Don't answer to twinkletoes! It's not manly!"). Someone in an earlier thread mentioned that she's like a larval/miniature Starbuck, and I can get on board with that – once she discovers the joys of sex and hard liquor, she's going to r! un some people into the ground. Perhaps literally. Because in addition to being twelve years old, tiny and blind, she's arguably the greatest earthbender alive.
It's this last that is both the reason and the result of the fact that her blindness isn't as debilitating as it otherwise might be. Unique among all the earthbenders of this world, earthbending isn't a mere tool or martial art to her, but an extension of her senses. She can actually "see" with earthbending.
Like Teiresias, Daredevil and other characters who've used their superpowers to compensate for their physical challenges, Toph's "vision" has its plusses and minuses in comparison to the normal version. She can "see" in 360 degrees and around corners, but if something isn't touching the ground (as Aang wasn't at Earth Rumble 6), it's invisible to her. Worse, if the surface she's standing on isn't earth or stone, her feet are as blind as her eyes, and even in the best of conditio! ns she's illiterate (no Braille in this world). All in all, I! 'd call it a net negative, but she's so capable (and her unusual senses prove so useful so often) that the other characters often forget that her eyes don't work.
Just one problem: her parents had no idea about any of this. As far as they're concerned, she's the "tiny, blind and helpless" girl that they've hidden from the world (for her own protection, of course) for the last twelve years. When they find out what she's been up to, they're ready to restrict her movements even more. When she runs away, they hire a couple of skilled and greedy earthbenders to go after her. Remember that, it's important later.
Zuko Alone – When he found himself an exile, Zuko chose the path that many disinherited noblemen in similar situations have chosen: banditry. A natural choice when your primary skill is fighting and you believe the world owes you. When Iroh expressed his disapproval (he prefers begging – if all he needs to do to get wha! t he needs without hurting anybody is trade away his dignity, he's fine with that), Zuko chose to go his own way. As he wanders, we get flashbacks introducing us to Mom and Grandpa, and showing us the truly fucked-up family dynamics of the Fire Nation royal family.
Mom is named Ursa, and there was never a woman more aptly named. She's a devoted mother, doing her best to encourage her sometimes-hapless son, deeply worried about her budding young sociopath of a daughter. Not that Azula wants her concern. She's daddy's favorite, largely because she's a firebending prodigy like he is, and like grandpa was before him. The family dynamic is summed up perfectly in one scene: Azula has just put on a stunning (especially considering she's maybe 8) exhibition of firebending for grandpa. Zuko steps up to give his own and falls flat on his ass. Azula smirks, Ozai frowns, and grandpa gets annoyed. Only Ursa offers any comfort. Because it's not enough to be h! ard-working, intelligent, determined, and desperately eager to! please. If you're not a prodigy, you're not good enough.
Like I said, there's a definite danger that kids might see something real if they watch this show.
Anyway, grandpa is Firelord Azulon (yes, Azula was named for him), an ancient (95, canonically) and obviously fragile man when we meet him. The circumstances of that meeting are less than auspicious: Iroh's son Lu Ten has just been killed in battle, and Ozai is arguing, on the grounds of his two living children, that he should be made crown prince. Azulon is Not Amused. He decrees that Ozai must learn how Iroh feels: he must kill Zuko.
Azula overhears this and responds by dancing around her brother's bed, chanting "Father's going to kill you". And why shouldn't she be happy? With Zuko dead, she becomes the heir to the Fire Nation throne. Oh, sure, it's possible that Iroh or Ozai might produce another boy before that time comes, but no one takes that for granted, and no one seems! to care (and I don't know enough about Fire Nation politics to know if a penis trumps the fact that Azula would be eldest anyway). The next Firelord (after Iroh) would be a woman, and what of it? I've seen fanfic where her taking the throne is contingent upon her marrying and producing an heir, Princess Diaries 2 – style, but that's flatly contradicted by the show.
In any case, when Ursa overhears Azula's taunts, she drags her off, determined to get to the bottom of all this. The next day, Azulon is dead, Ursa has vanished into the night after one last goodbye to Zuko, and Ozai has been declared Firelord, supposedly by Azulon's last wish.
Make of that what you will.
The Chase – Ozai's Angels nearly run the Gaang into the ground, coming closer to beating them in a straight-up fight than Zuko ever did. As everybody gets tired, they start behaving in some seriously assholish ways, as will happen:! Toph, unaccustomed to a communal life, doesn't quite grasp ye! t that " pulling her own weight" means more than taking care of her own needs. Katara reaches surprising depths of nastiness when Toph slams a door in her face. Aang absolutely Will. Not. Hear. Any criticism of Appa.
But forget all that. I'm more interested in the scene (transcript taken from Avatarspirit.net) that opens the episode, where we learn that on this show, women aren't assumed to be killjoys too prissy to perpetrate or enjoy gross-out humor.
Does it count as passing the Bechdel test when two women are talking about training techniques…for their single, male student?
Also, Iroh teaches Zuko how to redirect (as opposed to generate) lightning. Remember that. It's important.
The Library – Nothing political, but Our Heroes make an interesting discovery: firebenders lose their power during solar eclipses. And hey, what do you know? There's one scheduled for a few months from now, before the arrival of Sozin's Comet. Keep that in mind. It'll be important later.
The Desert – Appa is stolen by a group of desert-nomad "Sandbenders", and Katara's "Team Mom" persona becomes full-blown team leadership as she tries to get them all out of the desert alive. Aang spends the entire episode hovering on the edge of berserk fury (he comes the closest we ever see him come to killing somebody of his own free will – that is, witho! ut being controlled by the other Avatars or a pissed-off Ocean Spirit. Not that the sandbenders don't deserve it – stealing someone's transportation in the middle of the desert is essentially slow, cruel murder. He does kill a hornet-buzzard when it tries to steal Momo). Toph can see very little through the sand. And Sokka spends the entire episode high on peyote. That's right. I told you this show got a lot of crap past the radar, didn't I? Cactus juice – it's the quenchiest! Just watch those side effects.
At one point, the Gaang spots a cloud (at first, Aang thinks it's Appa). After a moment, Katara realizes: Huzzah! Water! – and sends Aang up to waterbend the cloud into her waterskin. Not much water results, and when she expresses her dismay, Aang snaps back that he did his best, and demands to know what she's doing. Her answer:
The Serpent's Pass – Not that much in this episode. Katara is glad to revert to being fourteen years old (using waterbending to do the greatest cannonball ever at a swimming hole).
Our Heroes are on the way to the Earth Kingdom capital of Ba Sing Se, and they run into three refugees: a man named Than, his wife Ying, and a younger woman who I'm going to guess is somebody's sister. Ying is heavily pregnant, and they want to get to Ba Sing Se before she has her baby (a little bonus for those of you bothered by this – Than doesn't say "our" and he certainly doesn't say "my". He says "her"). They convince the Gaang to join them on a ferry that carries refugees to Ba Sing Se, instead of taking the (extremely dangerous) Serpent's Pass. While waiting in line: we run into a familiar face.
Of course, Our Heroes don't get! their peaceful ferry ride, and of course poor Ying doesn't ma! ke it to Ba Sing Se in time. Fortunately, Katara is an experienced midwife, and the birth goes off without a hitch. One thing I appreciate here: although Sokka faints, Than does just fine (mostly just holding Ying's hand and helping her sit up, but still). I've always hated the joke that men – no matter how brave or competent they might be at other times – always cease to function the second the woman in their life goes into labor. Birth is a very big deal, no question, but there's no reason it has to be A Mystery No Man Can Face instead of just another medical emergency. Patriarchy hurts men, too, and all that.
Also, Zuko and Iroh make their way to Ba Sing Se as refugees.
The Drill – You know how, in far too many movies and shows, women remain all pretty and perfect regardless of whatever yuck they might be crawling through? Maybe a few aesthetically-placed smudges?
No. Not here.
City of ! Walls and Secrets – The Gaang enter Ba Sing Se, where they are honored guests (or prisoners – not that there's much of a difference in Ba Sing Se). Zuko and Iroh get an apartment in the city's outer circle and a job at a tea shop. We meet Long Feng, head of the Earth Kingdom's secret police (the Dai Li), puppet master who really rules the Earth Kingdom, and this season's secondary villain. Remember him.
Tales of Ba Sing Se – A day in the life in Ba Sing Se. Everybody gets a segment, but the only ones we're really interested are Zuko's, and the one Katara shares with Toph.
The Tale of Toph and Katara: Katara takes Top to The Fancy Lady Day Spa. Yes. Apparently there were some coupons in that guest house. Toph is reluctant to try anything "girly", but except for the part where some fool tries to give her a pedicure (violence ensues), she comes to enjoy the pampering. Afterward, they end up having to d! eal with some rich girls who apparently have a problem with Ou! tsiders wearing makeup in the same style as their betters. This turns out about as well for the rich girls as you'd imagine. A simple, Bechdelicious good time, and…
The Tale of Zuko: Zuko goes on a date. Why do we care? Because she (a really wonderful – cute, affectionate, cheerful, friendly, curious, eager to show a newly-arrived refugee boy all the wonders of her city – girl named Jin) asks him out. No comment is made about this. There is no Ba Sing Sadie Hawkins' dance going on, she's not presented as unusually bold, and she certainly doesn't wait for him. She takes him places, she initiates kisses (i.e. the closest thing to sexual activity we're going to see on Nickelodeon) and there's no hint that even someone as old as Iroh thinks this is unusual. It's almost like the people in this universe (outside the Water Tribes, of course) take it for granted that women have their own desires and the right to act on them, instead of wait! ing around for the honor of becoming male property.
Appa's Lost Days – The story of the time between Appa's bison-napping and his arrival in Ba Sing Se. Be warned: you will blub. At one point, he's found and nursed back to health by the Kyoshi Warriors. When Ozai's Angels happen upon the lot of them, the Warriors fight them off while Appa escapes. The last thing we see is Suki and Azula running at each other…
The Earth King – The Gaang achieves what seems to be victory as they finally manage to get through to the Earth King and convince him of what Long Feng is doing. Of course, that can't be allowed to last. By the end of the episode, Toph has been captured by her father's bounty hunters and Ozai's Angels have shown up, dressed in Kyoshi Warrior uniforms. Uh-oh.
By the way: both Toph and Long Feng are imprisoned in metal cells. That's because even the most powerful and skilled! earthbenders can do nothing with metal. Remember that.
!
The Guru – Remember how I – and, I assure you, the show – kept mentioning that earthbenders can't do anything about metal? Very specific, very definite, no exceptions, not even masters like Bumi, Long Feng or (in the next episode) the Earth Kingdom high command – Earthbenders cannot, not ever, never-ever-ever bend metal. Want to capture an earthbender? Use metal restraints and prisons.
Unless you've got Toph.
Because in this episode, Toph bends metal.
That's right. The tiny, twelve-year-old blind girl is officially superhuman even by the standards of a world where a significant minority of the population can control the elements.
Crossroads of Destiny – In this episode, Azula, princess of the Fire Nation, with only her two ladies-in-waiting-slash-ninja, subverts an enemy nation's secret police (intimidating Long Feng into submission after thoroughly playing hi! m), bringing down from within the one city that her own nation's armies could never defeat, effectively ending the war.
The only people who even come close to stopping her are Katara (who was actually winning until Zuko interfered) and Aang…who she lightning-blasts in the back just as he's starting to manifest the Avatar State, temporarily killing him and cutting off his access to the Avatar State (and even at that, the world counts itself lucky that the Avatar itself didn't cease to exist).
At the age of 14.
That is all.
how to waterbend
[Part One; Part Two; Part Three.]
And so we set off on the second stage of our journey, the Our Heroes' Adventures in The Earth Kingdom. This is the season where Avatar really starts to live up to its feminist good intentions. With that in mind, I'm going to stop cataloguing in so much detail when the show treats the female characters as full human beings or serious badasses in their own right. It's just too commonplace. Heck, it's easier to number the eps that fail ! the Bechdel test than those that pass it. Also, I'm going to stop noting it every time the cartoon defies ageism. Just assume that anyone with gray hair can end you. Only the most salient examples from this point on – that and intros to the characters that make this season what it is.
The Avatar State – As promised, this is where we meet the most terrifying 14-year-old you will ever encounter in any medium. Her name is Azula and she's Zuko's little sister, but from the first moment we see her, we know we're not dealing with an essentially decent anti-villain like him. Her first speech is pretty standard villain stuff – even think of questioning my orders and I'll kill you myself, that sort of thing – but it's in a conversation with the captain afterward that we learn just how cold a customer we're dealing with.
Captain: Princess, I'm afraid the tides will not allow us to bring ! the ship in to port before nightfall.(Quote taken from Avatarspirit.net.)
Azula: I'm so rry, Captain, but I do not know much about the tides. Can you explain something to me?
Captain: Of course, Your Highness.
Azula: Do the tides command this ship?
Captain: Uh…I'm afraid I do not understand.
Azula: You said the tides would not allow us to bring the ship in. Do the tides command this ship?
Captain: No, Princess.
Azula: And if I were to have you thrown overboard, would the tides think twice about smashing you against the rocky shore?
Captain: No, Princess.
Azula: Well, then, maybe you should worry less about the tides who've already made up their mind about killing you and worry more about me, who's still mulling it over.
Captain: I'll pull us in.
Note that the guy showed no sign of being lazy or disrespectful (though he does late! r turn out to be stupid). It's entirely possible she's risking everyone's lives because she's impatient. She is on a mission to bring in her brother and her uncle (whom her father blames for the Fire Nation's defeat at the North Pole – not without justification, though Ozai is ignoring the minor detail that Zhao's strategy would have devastated the planet), and she's not having any delays.
And it only gets worse from there. She's a firebending prodigy who can throw lightning and toss Zuko (who beat Zhao – an acknowledged master firebender – in one duel and was well on the way to winning the second when the Ocean Spirit intervened) around like a hacky-sack, both physically and mentally. She's so incredibly precise and determined to be perfect that a single hair out of place during lightningbending practice infuriates her. From this point on, we the audience know that playtime is over for Our Heroes. But even we don't know just! how much trouble they're in yet.
Meanwhile, whil! e all th is is going on, Pakku has acknowledged Katara as a fellow waterbending master, and some fool tries to induce the Avatar state in Aang by attacking her, which means she isn't available to calm Aang down when it works. A-whoops. Also, we learn the primary drawback to the Avatar State: because the State is caused by tapping into all the power of the previous Avatars at once, if an Avatar dies while in the State, the chain of reincarnation is broken and the Avatar entity itself ceases to exist. This is why more experienced Avatars use the State sparingly. Keep this in mind, it's important.
Return to Omashu – In this episode, Azula decides that she needs a small, agile force to track Zuko and Iroh, rather than hauling the royal procession along with her.
The first member of this "force" that we meet is Ty Lee, an old school friend. Ty Lee has apparently run away from home to pursue a career as a circus acrobat since they last saw e! ach other, but Azula has no trouble finding her. At first, Ty Lee makes the mistake of thinking that Azula is asking her to help hunt Zuko and Iroh. She (very, very politely) declines, saying that her aura has never been pinker than it is here, at the circus (if Ty Lee lived in our world, she'd have racks of crystals for waving and shelves of books about spirit guides from Atlantis. The aura stuff would be about the same). Rather than make it an order, Azula attends that night's show and orders all of the animals released and Ty Lee's safety net set on fire (all of it in the name of making the show more exciting, of course). Unsurprisingly, Ty Lee promptly decides that the universe is trying to tell her something, and enlists with Azula. She spends the rest of this season and much of the next not only obeying Azula's orders and agreeing with every word that Azula utters, but gushing over every single tiny little thing that Azula does. Some attribute this to vapidity ! or affection – and it's true that Ty Lee can be a bit of! an airh ead and she just adores everyone in the world that she isn't actually locked in combat with at the moment (and in Sokka's case, even that caveat goes out the window) – but I think it's more likely that she's just plain terrified (with good reason), and trying to keep on Azula's good side.
So why would the crown princess of the Fire Nation go to such trouble to recruit a circus acrobat? Because Ty Lee is also a master martial artist, perhaps the most dangerous non-bender we meet in the entire series (which, mind you, makes her more dangerous than most of the benders as well). She's an expert in the art of Chi-blocking, which can short-circuit bending and leave a victim paralyzed without causing any lasting damage. Useful when you're hunting members of the royal family, who also happen to be powerful firebenders.
The other member of the group that will become known to the fans as "Ozai's Angels" is in the newly-conquered Earth Kingdom ci! ty of Omashu, where her father has been appointed governor. Her name is Mai, and she's bored. There is really no fathoming the depths of her hatred for this place. She's a Fire Nation goth, and when her family is attacked by the Resistance she counterattacks with a hailstorm of thrown weapons and gives chase. Mom doesn't shout "Stop" or "Come back" when she does so, either. Mom is well aware that her fifteen-year old daughter is the most effective bodyguard she has. Heck, the girl damn near puts a shuriken through the Avatar's forehead (for the record, Aang was actually trying to help – it's his great misfortune to be in Omashu at this particular time that puts the Gaang in Azula's way and makes the rest of the season happen).
Mai goes along with Azula willingly enough – she's bored out of her mind in Omashu, and she's apparently eager to see Zuko again – but Azula still tests her loyalty. By purest accident, Mai's baby brother Tom-Tom to! ddles into the hands of the Resistance, who offer to trade him! for Bum i, the imprisoned king of Omashu and Aang's best friend from the old days. However, when the Gaang shows up to make the trade, Azula points out that a toddler for a king isn't really a fair trade. Quicker on the uptake than Ty Lee, Mai realizes that Azula is not just sayin', and – without flinching – declares the deal to be off. It's only because Aang risks sneaking back in later that little Tom-Tom ever gets back home.
The Blind Bandit – And here's the one everybody's been waiting for. This ep starts with a nice bit of stereotype-breaking – Sokka out shopping for a new bag, experiencing buyer's remorse after he gets it, and later still being glad he got it after all, because it goes so well with another new accessory he's acquired – and just goes from there.
During Sokka's shopping trip, a street barker gives Aang a coupon for a free lesson at an earthbending school (he'd been counting on B! umi teaching him earthbending, and is now rather desperate). The only good that comes of this is that the Gaang hears about "Earth Rumble 6", an underground (literally) earthbending tournament. Katara more or less beats the location out of the boys who were discussing it (actually, she freezes them to the walls of an alley – they really shouldn't have been mean to Aang in front of her), and they all head off to the show.
One popular fighter known as The Boulder is dominating the competition, and for a few rounds the Gaang wonders if he might not be the one destined to be Aang's teacher (he doesn't really seem like the type). Then comes the final round, and we meet the reigning Earth Rumble Champion, the Blind Bandit.
She's twelve years old, she's tiny, she's blind, and she kicks The Boulder's ass in about five seconds. Literally.
Oddly enough, she has a lot more trouble with Aang when he takes advantage of the audience par! ticipation round to ask her to be his teacher, and she storms ! off afte r he wins, leaving the Gaang with the knowledge that Aang's destined earthbending teacher exists, but no way to find her.
So Katara simply bullies the information they need out of those same two earthbending students the next day (even she's acting like a pro wrestler by this point, and Sokka couldn't be more proud).
And that's how we come to meet Toph Bei Fong.
She's rude. She's crude. She's gross. She's hilarious.
She picks her nose, she picks her toes, she swears (as well as she knows how), she spits, and she likes to maintain "a healthy coating of earth" at all times. Her favorite methods of expressing affection are punching arms and making up insulting nicknames ("Don't answer to twinkletoes! It's not manly!"). Someone in an earlier thread mentioned that she's like a larval/miniature Starbuck, and I can get on board with that – once she discovers the joys of sex and hard liquor, she's going to r! un some people into the ground. Perhaps literally. Because in addition to being twelve years old, tiny and blind, she's arguably the greatest earthbender alive.
It's this last that is both the reason and the result of the fact that her blindness isn't as debilitating as it otherwise might be. Unique among all the earthbenders of this world, earthbending isn't a mere tool or martial art to her, but an extension of her senses. She can actually "see" with earthbending.
Like Teiresias, Daredevil and other characters who've used their superpowers to compensate for their physical challenges, Toph's "vision" has its plusses and minuses in comparison to the normal version. She can "see" in 360 degrees and around corners, but if something isn't touching the ground (as Aang wasn't at Earth Rumble 6), it's invisible to her. Worse, if the surface she's standing on isn't earth or stone, her feet are as blind as her eyes, and even in the best of conditio! ns she's illiterate (no Braille in this world). All in all, I! 'd call it a net negative, but she's so capable (and her unusual senses prove so useful so often) that the other characters often forget that her eyes don't work.
Just one problem: her parents had no idea about any of this. As far as they're concerned, she's the "tiny, blind and helpless" girl that they've hidden from the world (for her own protection, of course) for the last twelve years. When they find out what she's been up to, they're ready to restrict her movements even more. When she runs away, they hire a couple of skilled and greedy earthbenders to go after her. Remember that, it's important later.
Zuko Alone – When he found himself an exile, Zuko chose the path that many disinherited noblemen in similar situations have chosen: banditry. A natural choice when your primary skill is fighting and you believe the world owes you. When Iroh expressed his disapproval (he prefers begging – if all he needs to do to get wha! t he needs without hurting anybody is trade away his dignity, he's fine with that), Zuko chose to go his own way. As he wanders, we get flashbacks introducing us to Mom and Grandpa, and showing us the truly fucked-up family dynamics of the Fire Nation royal family.
Mom is named Ursa, and there was never a woman more aptly named. She's a devoted mother, doing her best to encourage her sometimes-hapless son, deeply worried about her budding young sociopath of a daughter. Not that Azula wants her concern. She's daddy's favorite, largely because she's a firebending prodigy like he is, and like grandpa was before him. The family dynamic is summed up perfectly in one scene: Azula has just put on a stunning (especially considering she's maybe 8) exhibition of firebending for grandpa. Zuko steps up to give his own and falls flat on his ass. Azula smirks, Ozai frowns, and grandpa gets annoyed. Only Ursa offers any comfort. Because it's not enough to be h! ard-working, intelligent, determined, and desperately eager to! please. If you're not a prodigy, you're not good enough.
Like I said, there's a definite danger that kids might see something real if they watch this show.
Anyway, grandpa is Firelord Azulon (yes, Azula was named for him), an ancient (95, canonically) and obviously fragile man when we meet him. The circumstances of that meeting are less than auspicious: Iroh's son Lu Ten has just been killed in battle, and Ozai is arguing, on the grounds of his two living children, that he should be made crown prince. Azulon is Not Amused. He decrees that Ozai must learn how Iroh feels: he must kill Zuko.
Azula overhears this and responds by dancing around her brother's bed, chanting "Father's going to kill you". And why shouldn't she be happy? With Zuko dead, she becomes the heir to the Fire Nation throne. Oh, sure, it's possible that Iroh or Ozai might produce another boy before that time comes, but no one takes that for granted, and no one seems! to care (and I don't know enough about Fire Nation politics to know if a penis trumps the fact that Azula would be eldest anyway). The next Firelord (after Iroh) would be a woman, and what of it? I've seen fanfic where her taking the throne is contingent upon her marrying and producing an heir, Princess Diaries 2 – style, but that's flatly contradicted by the show.
In any case, when Ursa overhears Azula's taunts, she drags her off, determined to get to the bottom of all this. The next day, Azulon is dead, Ursa has vanished into the night after one last goodbye to Zuko, and Ozai has been declared Firelord, supposedly by Azulon's last wish.
Make of that what you will.
The Chase – Ozai's Angels nearly run the Gaang into the ground, coming closer to beating them in a straight-up fight than Zuko ever did. As everybody gets tired, they start behaving in some seriously assholish ways, as will happen:! Toph, unaccustomed to a communal life, doesn't quite grasp ye! t that " pulling her own weight" means more than taking care of her own needs. Katara reaches surprising depths of nastiness when Toph slams a door in her face. Aang absolutely Will. Not. Hear. Any criticism of Appa.
But forget all that. I'm more interested in the scene (transcript taken from Avatarspirit.net) that opens the episode, where we learn that on this show, women aren't assumed to be killjoys too prissy to perpetrate or enjoy gross-out humor.
Episode opens with a shot of the sun setting over a range of hills that have trees and a creek spread out before it. The camera tilts down to show Appa and the gang, now including Toph, sitting in what looks like a dried up section the creek. There is a bunch of white fur around Appa's feet. Cut to a shot of Appa from his right side at an angle so his back is closest and his head is furthest. Aang sits in the basket and is passing a sleeping bag down to Sokka. Katara walks around Appa's hea! d to the same side. Toph appears from the left and is closest to the camera.Bitter Work – Toph's earthbending bootcamp for Aang. Aang addresses Toph as "sifu". When Katara asks him why he never called her that, he says he doesn't know (my guess: it never occurred to him because they started out as students together), ! but that he'd be glad to if she wants him to. Then he does. !
Toph: Hey, you guys picked a great campsite. (Cut to a shot of Toph's feet in the pile of white fur.) The grass is so soft.
(Cut to a shot that shows the full of Appa from his right side showing all four of them.)
Sokka: That's not grass. Appa's shedding.
Katara: (Lifting her right foot out of the fur and balancing on her left.) Oh, gross!
Aang: That's not gross; it's just a part of spring. (Shot cuts to Aang atop Appa as a light melodious tone plays softly. A blue bird lands gracefully on his head and a yellow butterfly flutters by his right ear which Momo jumps up in an attempt to snatch.) You know, rebirth, flowers blooming, and Appa gets a new coat!
(Cut to a shot of Appa's head, Katara stands to its left.)
Katara: Ah, the beauty of spring! . (Appa, who sticks his tongue out to reveal it's covered i! n fur, s neezes, blowing fur everywhere.) Stop, Appa, stop!
(She coughs, and waves her arms to stop Appa from covering her in hair even more. Shot pans over to Sokka who is kneeling and rubbing fur on his head.)
Sokka: It's not that bad, Katara. (He stands to reveal he has piled the fur on his head to form a tall pillar of hair in a very Marge Simpson like fashion.) It makes a great wig!
Aang: (Dropping into the shot from atop Appa, he has arranged the fur on his face to form a large mustache and beard.) And a great beard!
(Sokka and Aang point and laugh at each other. Shot changes to Katara who is not smiling and begins to whip the fur off her sleeve.)
Katara: (unamused) I'm just glad we finally have another girl in the group because you two are disgusting.
(Cut back to Aang and Sokka who are both slightly hunched with one arm over the other's shoulde! r.)
Toph: Excuse me. (She walks in between the two breaking them apart.) Does anyone have a razor… (she lifts both arms to reveal a mass of white fur emerging out of both of her sleeves, under her arms) …because I've got some hairy pits!
(All three of them laugh until Aang gives one of his powerful airbending sneezes, thrusting him backwards into Appa's leg and then falling face down on the ground. He lifts his head to reveal his beard and mustache are gone but he now has a large mass of fur sticking jaggedly up on his back. All three begin laughing again. Cut to Katara who at first looks disgusted, but quickly joins in the laughter.)
Does it count as passing the Bechdel test when two women are talking about training techniques…for their single, male student?
Also, Iroh teaches Zuko how to redirect (as opposed to generate) lightning. Remember that. It's important.
The Library – Nothing political, but Our Heroes make an interesting discovery: firebenders lose their power during solar eclipses. And hey, what do you know? There's one scheduled for a few months from now, before the arrival of Sozin's Comet. Keep that in mind. It'll be important later.
The Desert – Appa is stolen by a group of desert-nomad "Sandbenders", and Katara's "Team Mom" persona becomes full-blown team leadership as she tries to get them all out of the desert alive. Aang spends the entire episode hovering on the edge of berserk fury (he comes the closest we ever see him come to killing somebody of his own free will – that is, witho! ut being controlled by the other Avatars or a pissed-off Ocean Spirit. Not that the sandbenders don't deserve it – stealing someone's transportation in the middle of the desert is essentially slow, cruel murder. He does kill a hornet-buzzard when it tries to steal Momo). Toph can see very little through the sand. And Sokka spends the entire episode high on peyote. That's right. I told you this show got a lot of crap past the radar, didn't I? Cactus juice – it's the quenchiest! Just watch those side effects.
At one point, the Gaang spots a cloud (at first, Aang thinks it's Appa). After a moment, Katara realizes: Huzzah! Water! – and sends Aang up to waterbend the cloud into her waterskin. Not much water results, and when she expresses her dismay, Aang snaps back that he did his best, and demands to know what she's doing. Her answer:
"Trying to keep us together."Just like she did back at the South P! ole. Just like she's always done. It's who she is, and who s! he's bee n for years. Once again, don't think about it too much – it'll break your heart.
The Serpent's Pass – Not that much in this episode. Katara is glad to revert to being fourteen years old (using waterbending to do the greatest cannonball ever at a swimming hole).
Our Heroes are on the way to the Earth Kingdom capital of Ba Sing Se, and they run into three refugees: a man named Than, his wife Ying, and a younger woman who I'm going to guess is somebody's sister. Ying is heavily pregnant, and they want to get to Ba Sing Se before she has her baby (a little bonus for those of you bothered by this – Than doesn't say "our" and he certainly doesn't say "my". He says "her"). They convince the Gaang to join them on a ferry that carries refugees to Ba Sing Se, instead of taking the (extremely dangerous) Serpent's Pass. While waiting in line: we run into a familiar face.
(Sokka is grabbed from beh! ind and spun around by an attractive young woman in Earth kingdom uniform.)This scene is amusing enough in its own right, but it's important later. Keep it in mind.
Young Woman: (firmly) Tickets and passports please. (Holds out hand.)
Sokka: (intimidated) Is there a problem?
Young Woman: (menacingly) Yeah, I've got a problem with you. (Pokes finger at his chest.) I've seen your type before, probably sarcastic, think you're hilarious, and let me guess, you're traveling with the Avatar.
Sokka: Do I know you?
Young Woman: You mean you don't remember? (Yanks him close by his collar.) Maybe you remember this. (She places a kiss on his cheek.)
Sokka: Suki!!
(They hug.)
Suki: (delighted) Sokka, it's good to see you!
Of course, Our Heroes don't get! their peaceful ferry ride, and of course poor Ying doesn't ma! ke it to Ba Sing Se in time. Fortunately, Katara is an experienced midwife, and the birth goes off without a hitch. One thing I appreciate here: although Sokka faints, Than does just fine (mostly just holding Ying's hand and helping her sit up, but still). I've always hated the joke that men – no matter how brave or competent they might be at other times – always cease to function the second the woman in their life goes into labor. Birth is a very big deal, no question, but there's no reason it has to be A Mystery No Man Can Face instead of just another medical emergency. Patriarchy hurts men, too, and all that.
Also, Zuko and Iroh make their way to Ba Sing Se as refugees.
The Drill – You know how, in far too many movies and shows, women remain all pretty and perfect regardless of whatever yuck they might be crawling through? Maybe a few aesthetically-placed smudges?
No. Not here.
City of ! Walls and Secrets – The Gaang enter Ba Sing Se, where they are honored guests (or prisoners – not that there's much of a difference in Ba Sing Se). Zuko and Iroh get an apartment in the city's outer circle and a job at a tea shop. We meet Long Feng, head of the Earth Kingdom's secret police (the Dai Li), puppet master who really rules the Earth Kingdom, and this season's secondary villain. Remember him.
Tales of Ba Sing Se – A day in the life in Ba Sing Se. Everybody gets a segment, but the only ones we're really interested are Zuko's, and the one Katara shares with Toph.
The Tale of Toph and Katara: Katara takes Top to The Fancy Lady Day Spa. Yes. Apparently there were some coupons in that guest house. Toph is reluctant to try anything "girly", but except for the part where some fool tries to give her a pedicure (violence ensues), she comes to enjoy the pampering. Afterward, they end up having to d! eal with some rich girls who apparently have a problem with Ou! tsiders wearing makeup in the same style as their betters. This turns out about as well for the rich girls as you'd imagine. A simple, Bechdelicious good time, and…
The Tale of Zuko: Zuko goes on a date. Why do we care? Because she (a really wonderful – cute, affectionate, cheerful, friendly, curious, eager to show a newly-arrived refugee boy all the wonders of her city – girl named Jin) asks him out. No comment is made about this. There is no Ba Sing Sadie Hawkins' dance going on, she's not presented as unusually bold, and she certainly doesn't wait for him. She takes him places, she initiates kisses (i.e. the closest thing to sexual activity we're going to see on Nickelodeon) and there's no hint that even someone as old as Iroh thinks this is unusual. It's almost like the people in this universe (outside the Water Tribes, of course) take it for granted that women have their own desires and the right to act on them, instead of wait! ing around for the honor of becoming male property.
Appa's Lost Days – The story of the time between Appa's bison-napping and his arrival in Ba Sing Se. Be warned: you will blub. At one point, he's found and nursed back to health by the Kyoshi Warriors. When Ozai's Angels happen upon the lot of them, the Warriors fight them off while Appa escapes. The last thing we see is Suki and Azula running at each other…
The Earth King – The Gaang achieves what seems to be victory as they finally manage to get through to the Earth King and convince him of what Long Feng is doing. Of course, that can't be allowed to last. By the end of the episode, Toph has been captured by her father's bounty hunters and Ozai's Angels have shown up, dressed in Kyoshi Warrior uniforms. Uh-oh.
By the way: both Toph and Long Feng are imprisoned in metal cells. That's because even the most powerful and skilled! earthbenders can do nothing with metal. Remember that.
!
The Guru – Remember how I – and, I assure you, the show – kept mentioning that earthbenders can't do anything about metal? Very specific, very definite, no exceptions, not even masters like Bumi, Long Feng or (in the next episode) the Earth Kingdom high command – Earthbenders cannot, not ever, never-ever-ever bend metal. Want to capture an earthbender? Use metal restraints and prisons.
Unless you've got Toph.
Because in this episode, Toph bends metal.
That's right. The tiny, twelve-year-old blind girl is officially superhuman even by the standards of a world where a significant minority of the population can control the elements.
Crossroads of Destiny – In this episode, Azula, princess of the Fire Nation, with only her two ladies-in-waiting-slash-ninja, subverts an enemy nation's secret police (intimidating Long Feng into submission after thoroughly playing hi! m), bringing down from within the one city that her own nation's armies could never defeat, effectively ending the war.
The only people who even come close to stopping her are Katara (who was actually winning until Zuko interfered) and Aang…who she lightning-blasts in the back just as he's starting to manifest the Avatar State, temporarily killing him and cutting off his access to the Avatar State (and even at that, the world counts itself lucky that the Avatar itself didn't cease to exist).
At the age of 14.
That is all.
how to waterbend
Proportionality and Discrimination in Israel's war against Hamas
There is an aspect to the debate over "proportionality" that seems to reduce it to a mathematical tit-for-tat -- as if the governing consideration was maintaining an equal body count among both parties. A good example is this post from Vox Nova:
direct square proportionality
I’m not sure I really care about anyone’s definition of proportion if it involves over 270 dead in 7 days to “protect” from 7 dead in two years from rocket attacks in a population over 5 million. As I would likewise condemn the daily shootings in Milwaukee, I will also go out on a limb and say bombing Milwaukee would be a gross injustice, be it by the State of Wisconsin or any other entity empowered to promote justice and the general welfare.To which DarwinCatholic responds:
I guess the qu! estion would be: Does incompetance in achieving one’s aim (I think one can hardly imagine that it’s Hamas’s intent not to actually kill many people when firing thousands or rockets into Israel) make one less deserving of retaliation for an attack? It would tend to strike me that the fact that the faction which controls the government of Gaza is constantly launching rockets into Israel would make taking them down justifiable (though one can certainly question Israel’s chosen means) regardless of whether they generally achieved their goal of killing Israelis.David Keyes' strikes a similar note in Commentary's blog "Contentions":
Israel is like a battered woman who speaks glowingly of the days when she is beaten lightly. Any sensible nation would recognize that the number killed from such attacks is utterly irrel! evant. What matters is the number of people the terrorists int! ended to kill and the number of citizens living in fear. Six people were killed in the 1993 World Trade Center attack. But 60,000 would have been killed has the terrorists not been so dim-witted and miscalculated the proper size of the bomb. The question arises: Should the US have responded to six deaths or 60,000 deaths? The answer is patently clear. Stupidity, incompetence and the inability to shoot accurately does not absolve terrorists of responsibility for their intentions. Israel, in other words, should respond to every rocket as if it landed directly on a restaurant or school.Again, since Israel left Gaza in 2005, giving Palestinians an opportunity to administer their own affairs, more than 6300 rockets and mortars have been fired by Gaza into Israel -- more than 3,000 in the past year alone. It is true that the body count inflicted by Hamas is minimal -- due to a combination of Israeli's speedy reaction to warnings of impending attacks; the poor accuracy! and short range of some of its rockets (such as the home-made Qassam, lacking any guidance system); and the sheer good fortune (as when a rocket hit a synagogue in Sderot shortly after services ended).
Obviously, the low Israeli body count at present is certainly not for lack of trying on Hamas' part. On December 31st, Hamas fired 60 long-range Chinese rockets at Israel ("Danger Room" Wired.com 12/31/08):
These weren't short-range, home-made Qassam rockets that make up the bulk of Hamas' arsenal. Nor were they the longer-flying 122 mm Grad rockets, designed by the Soviets and made in Iran. Some of today's rockets flew an alarming 22 miles, hitting an empty school house in Beersheva, the unofficial capital of the Negev Desert region. And they were made in China.The presence of these rockets changes the equation significantly, placing in grave danger all communities within 24 miles of the Gaza strip.The Israel military says that these Chinese rockets not only fly twice as far as the Grads, and four times further than the Qassams. They can "potentially cause much greater damage," too -- with "metal pallets that can spread out across a radius of up to 100 meters from the point of impact," accordi! ng to YnetNews.
In The Proportionality Trap" (Commentary 12/28/2008), J.G. Thayer examines some problems in deciding the "proportionate use of force" against a terrorist organization:
The notion that one should only respond to an attack with roughly the same force used by the aggressor is based on some fatally flawed presumptions.Thus far, those criticizing Israel have yet to offer a reasonable and practical suggestion as to how it can defend itself against Hamas' terror attacks.The first is that the aggressor can be expected to respond in a rational manner. In this case, the presumption is that Hamas is actually interested in a peaceful solution and mutually beneficial situation. That is provably false. One need only look at Hamas’s charter and the group’s words and deeds to see that it is unabashedly dedicated to the absolute destruction of Israel.
The second fallacy is more subtle. The point of a “proportional” response is that it is intended to end the current hostilities and return to the status quo. And in this case, it implies that the status quo prior to the provocations was acceptable.
Hamas speaks of a “truce,” but their definition of a “truce” is one that no one else would recognize as valid. It consisted of a steady, constant bombardment of Israel by rocket and mortar shells. When they declared the truce to be at an end, they escalated the attacks, which in turn prompted Israel’s air strikes. Had Israel restrained itself to a “proportional” attack, then it would have been saying that the prior status quo — the rocket and mortar attacks reduced to one or two a day — was acceptable.
In "Gaza and the Law of Armed Conflict", Michael Totten examines the behavior of Israel and Hamas in light of "The Laws of Armed Conflict" between civilized nations; namely, the idea of proportionality:
Proportionality, in short and according to the law, “prohibits the use of any kind or degree of force that exceeds that needed to accomplish the military objective.”and discrimination in the selection of targets:In other words, if a surgical strike is all that is needed to take out a Grad rocket launcher, carpet bombing the entire city or even the neighborhood isn’t allowed.
Hamas is still firing rockets; therefore, the IDF is not using more force than necessary to disrupt the firing of rockets. Israel, arguably, is using less force than necessary. And the IDF, unlike Hamas, does what it can to minimize injury to civilians. Militants often operate against Israel from civilian areas,” the Associated Press reported last week. “Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons.” Israeli commanders are even warning individual Hamas leaders that their homes are on the target list so they can vacate the premises in advance.
Curiously, the majority of the commentary on the war has focused not so much on Hamas' ongoing terrorist attacks on Israeli towns (with the intent of killing and injuring civilians and promoting terror -- and with the stated intent of obliterating the Jewish state) as the measures Israel is taking in self-defense.Distinction, according to the Law of Armed Conflict, “means discriminating between lawful combatant targets and noncombatant targets such as civilians, civilian property, POWs, and wounded per! sonnel who are out of combat. The central idea of distinction is to only engage valid military targets. An indiscriminate attack is one that strikes military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction. Distinction requires defenders to separate military objects from civilian objects to the maximum extent feasible. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to locate a hospital or POW camp next to an ammunition factory.”
Hamas violates this doctrine in two ways at once. Its fighters launch Qassam, Katyusha, and Grad rockets into Israeli civilian areas, and they fire those rockets from inside Palestinian civilian areas. Both are prohibited by the Law of Armed Conflict.
The law does not, however, prohibit Israel from striking legitimate military targets in civilian areas. “Although civilians may not be made the object of a direct attack, the LOAC recognizes that a military target need not be spared because its destruction may cause collateral damage that results in the unintended death or injury to civilians or damage to their property.”
Probably the most substantial treatment of this issue that I've seen to date is the recent paper, International Law and Fighting in Gaza, by Justus Reid Weiner and Avi Bell (Jerusalem Center for Global Affairs).
Additional News & Commentary
- Moral Clarity in Gaza, by Charles Krauthammer. Washington Post January 2, 2009. "At war today in Gaza, one combatant is committed to causing the most civilian pain and suffering on both sides. The other combatant is committed to saving as many lives as possible -- also on both sides."
- Hard Truths About the Conflict, by Robert J. Leiber. Washington Post January 1, 2008:
... what we are witnessing is not a "cycle" of violence. The IDF airstrikes are a reaction to the unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks against the Jewish state. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 in the hope that the Palestinians would use the opportunity to prepare for an eventual agreement and a two-state solution in which they would live side by side in peace with Israel. Since then, there have been more than 3,500 such attacks aimed at areas of southern Israel, including over 200 launches since Dec. 19, after Hamas chose not to extend a six-month truce. The expanding range of these missiles now covers an area populated by as many as 700,000 Israelis.
direct square proportionality
Using my Nutrient Calculator with Commercial Fertilizers : Part No.2
On the last part of this tutorial series I talked about how you could use my hydroponic nutrient calculator to figure out the ppm values of a commercial fertilizer. Today I am going to talk about how you can achieve a given ppm formulation using a commercial preparation figuring out what additional salts you would need to arrive at an adequate composition. I am also going to show how you can figure out the final concentrations of nutrients when using combined commercial fertilizers and salts and how this approach can be used to arrive at full, accurate and complete formulations for your hydroponic reservoir. In the end you will see how my hydroponic calculator (hydroponic buddy) is a great tool for the preparation of your hydroponic nutrients even if you rely solely on commercial formulations. You will need my hydroponic nutrient calculator to follow this tutorial, you can download it here.
Today we are going to use a few commercial fertilizers from General Hydroponics and Advanced Nutrients as well as a hydroponic formula to grow tomatoes. The formula - applied for tomato growth in Florida for the first cluster growth stage - can be found here. We are going to use the FloraBloom and FloraMicro nutrients from General Hydroponics (labels here and here) . As with yesterday's tutorial the first thing we are going to do is add all the custom fertilizers within the "Nutrients Salts Used" tab by using the "Add New Salt" button by entering the composition percentages found on the label and composition pages of the above mentioned fertilizers. Afte! r doing this we input the desired tomato formulation under the! "Desire d Formulation" tab like it is shown below.
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-Once we have the formulation we select the custom fertilizers, uncheck all other salts and input a volume of 100 liters. After doing this we press the "Calculate Formula !" button which produces hte results shown below. The software also warns us about errors so we need to go to the "Warnings and Errors" tab where we see that certain nutrients are missing from the formulation. In particular we see that we are missing Zn. B and Cu. You will notice that many combinations ! of hydroponic fertilizers miss one or several essential nutrients for plant growth (even micro-grow-bloom combinations often miss B, Zn and Cu).
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-So right now we need to add sources of these elements to have an adequate formulation. Go to the "Nutrient Salts Used" tab and select Zinc Sulfate, Boric Acid and copper sulfate and press the "Calculate Formula !" button again. This now produces the results shown below where all elements are present and the program tells us to prepare an additional 1L concentrated soluti! on of Zinc Sulfate, Copper Sulfate and Boric Acid.
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-However we see now that the formula is not very well balanced since we have a 100% excess of N and a defect in S so to achieve the desired composition it might be necessary to tweak the results slightly in a manual fashion and use some additional salts like Calcium Nitrate. To do this tweaking you should input the weight values obtained on the "Mass" boxes next to each salt's name (the mass of Zn, Cu and B salts is the mass of the concentrated solutions divided by 100 since the 1L concentrated solutions are prepared with a 1:100 dil! ution factor taken into account). The input and the results of the "salts to formulation" calculation are shown below.
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-Now we need to increase S and decrease N. To decrease N we need to reduce the amount of the most important Nitrogen source (FloraMicro) to about half. Since this reduces the amount of Ca significantly we can now add calcium sulfate to the formulation to make up our now acquired Ca and S deficiencies. Select calcium sulfate and give it a value of 15g. After doing this you will notice that Ca and S! concentrations will be much closer to the desired end values ! given by the original formulations. The final result is shown below. Eventhough the amount of nutrients are not absolutely the same as the ones on the formulation we were able to achieve the same "global ratios" for all important nutrient levels and the solution will now contain ALL the necessary nutrients for adequare plant growth and - in this case - especially for the first cluster development of tomato plants.
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-I hope that this tutorial allows you to understand better how my hydroponic nutrient calculator can be used f! or the preparation of a wide array of formulas and the correction of commercial nutrient fertilizers that lack some essential nutrients for plant growth. It also shows you how you can modify the results of the automatic calculator to further correct a formula if you believe that better results and pairings can be achieved. As you see, the calculator gives you tremendous flexibility and makes the preparation of hydroponics nutrients with precise ppm nutrient values a simple exercise.
balanced equation calculator
AS Level Update
I've finished Stats! Yay!
To be honest i've not enjoyed it all that much: too much punching numbers into a calculator for my liking. Why bother with the regression line equation at all when you can just press a button? I have found that this means the textbooks spend less time explaining the equations and their derivations, because they just want you to know it exists. The understanding - that elusive beast which is supposed to underpin school mathematics these days - is left to one side so you can get on with manipulating numbers.
I'm afraid there is no chance of any Stats posts for a while, as I intend to carry on with C1 stuff! But give me a few weeks and I might.
how to add surds
To be honest i've not enjoyed it all that much: too much punching numbers into a calculator for my liking. Why bother with the regression line equation at all when you can just press a button? I have found that this means the textbooks spend less time explaining the equations and their derivations, because they just want you to know it exists. The understanding - that elusive beast which is supposed to underpin school mathematics these days - is left to one side so you can get on with manipulating numbers.
I'm afraid there is no chance of any Stats posts for a while, as I intend to carry on with C1 stuff! But give me a few weeks and I might.
how to add surds
Prostate Cancer Calculators
[Updated August 18, 2010]
Types of Predictive Calculators
. In [Full text] [PMID: 19918337] Lowrance (papers) and Scardino (papers) discuss predictive models for prostate cancer covering methods that use ris! k classifications (e.g. d'Amico risk groups), tables (e.g. Partin tables), risk scores (e.g. CAPRA score), nomograms (e.g. Kattan nomograms)) and systems pathology which refers to using a wider range of variables than the traditional clinical variables (e.g. Aureon Labs' Px method). See [Table 1]. Future methods will likely incorporate genetic inputs to improve prediction accuracy. The authors point out that the need to discretize variables into a number of groups potentially reduces the accuracy of risk classifications, tables and risk scores whereas nomograms do not suffer from this problem (however, whether this potential loss of prediction accuracy is material is not discussed).Comprehensive CalculatorsThere are two particularly comprehensive prostate cancer calc! ulator s ites plus a range of nomograms on a third site. The links to the first two are easy to remember since their links are nearly the same: http://www.nomogram.org (University of Montreal) and http://www.nomograms.org (Sloan Kettering). The Sloan Kettering site ends in "s" whereas the University of Montreal site does not. The Prostate Cancer Research Institute (PCRI) site contains 9 nomograms, i.e. charts that can be used like calculators.
A. Memorial Sloan Kettering Calculators. To access the Sloan Kettering online calculators go to http://www.nomograms.org and then click on Prostate in left hand column. That takes you to a new page and on that click on Open calculator in box in upper right. When new window appears click on "No". The following calculators are provided:
- Pretreatment! calculator: Given PSA, Gleason Subscores, Stage & treatment get prob of disease involvement and disease free progression after 5 years for each of surgery, external radiation and seeds.
- Post treatment calculator: Given PSA, surgical margin and disease involvement get prob of disease free progression in 2, 5 and 7 years.
- Hormone refractory calculator: Given Age, Karnofsy PS, Heomglobin, PSA, LDH, Alkaline Phosphates and Albumin get 1 year, 2 year and median survival probabilities.
- Prostate Volume Calculator: Given dimensions & PSA calculate volume & PSA density.
- Life Expectancy: Given age and race calculate male life expectancy.
- PSA Doubling Time: Given series of dates and PSA values calculate doubling time, slope of log(PSA) vs. time curve and PSA velocity. This calculator does have the restriction that it cannot accept PSA values less than 0.1 which! may be a problem if you are using an ultrasensitive PSA assay! . In th at case enter all your PSA values as 10x or 100x the real PSA value and the doubling time computed will still be correct.
B. 
University of Montreal Cancer Prognostics and Health Outcomes Unit has a suite of calculators at http://www.nomogram.org. This site is frequently updated with prostate cancer calculators (as well as for other urological conditions) for a wide variety of situations:- Before Diagnosis. There are 6 pre-biopsy calculators which can be used prior to biopsy to give the probability of biopsy results. The first is used if PSA is in the 0 - 2.5 ng/ml range, the second is for initial extended biopsy, the third is for extended repeat biopsy, the fourth is for saturation b! iopsy, the fifth is for 120 day mortability after biopsy based on a comorbidity score and the sixth is for initial sextant biopsy.
- Before Treatment I. There are calculators to predict the probability of Gleason sum upgrade, extra capsular extension, seminal vesicle invasion and lymph node invasion. (Regarding Gleason Score upgrading, note this 2008 paper on factors making Gleason Score upgrade more likely here: [PMID: 18207180] which finds that "A total of 134 patients (50%) were upgraded postoperatively to Gleason score 7 or higher. Preoperative prostate specific antigen greater than 5.0 ng/ml (p = 0.036), prostate weight 60 gm or less (p = 0.004) and more cancer volume at biopsy, defined by cancer involving greater than 5% of the biopsy tissue (p = 0.002), greater than 1 biopsy core (p is less than 0.001) or greater than 10% of any core (p = 0.014), were associated with pathological upgrading. Upgraded patients we! re more likely to have extraprostatic extension and positive s! urgical margins at radical prostatectomy (p is less than 0.001 and 0.001, respectively". A second 2008 paper [PMID: 18782303] concluded that "Men with a higher PSA level, perineural invasion and high-volume cancer at biopsy are most likely to be upgraded, while men with a large prostate volume and low-volume cancer at biopsy are more likely to be downgraded. These findings have implications for men with prostate cancer managed without confirmation by RP of their true GS.". Also [PMID: 18778348] concludes that " risk of upgrading is a function of two opposing contributions: (i) a more aggressive phenotype in smaller prostates and thus increased risk of upgrading; and (ii) more thorough sampling in smaller prostates and thus decreased risk of upgrading. When sampled more thoroughly, the phenotype association dominates and smaller prostates are linked with an increased risk of upgrading. In less tho! roughly sampled prostates, these opposing factors nullify, resulting in no association between prostate size and risk of upgrading. These findings help to explain previously published disparate results of the importance of prostate size as a predictor of Gleason upgrading.")
- Before Treatment II. There are calculators for calculating the probability of clinically insignificant prostate cancer, the probability of predominantly transition zone prostate cancer, probability of survival within 30 days of surgery and the probability of 10 year survival.
- After Surgery. There are post op calculators for the probability of PSA recurrence, Local recurrence, Distant recurrence and prostate cancer specific survival.
- After PSA Relapse. There are calculators for the probability of Metastatic progression, mortality for surgical patients undergoing subsequent hormone therapy and mortality after PSA relapse.
- Hormone Refractory! Prostate Cancer. There is a calculator for the probabili! ty of su rvival for patients with androgen independent prostate cancer.
- Other. At the bottom of its calculators page the University of Montreal has doubling time and Life expectancy calculators.
- Blackberry Calculators. There are downloadable calculators for the Blackberry. See the May 29, 2010 news item on the New Features page.
C. Prostate Cancer Research Institute (PCRI). The PCRI has the following nomograms on its site:- Probability of Extracapsular Extension
- Probability of Seminal Vesicle Involvement
- Probability of Lymph Node Involvement with Tumor
- Probability of Latent or Indolent Tumors of Low Biological Aggressiveness
- Probability of Metastases Five Years After 3D Conformal EBRT
- Probability of Being Disease-Free Five Years After Brachytherapy
- Prob! ability of Median Survival in Castrate Refractory Patients
- Probability of an Abnormal Bone Scan
Other Calculators
. d'Amico Risk Categories. Although not a calculator, a useful classification is the d'Amico risk category stratifying disease into Low, Medium and High Risk. More is available in the third paragraph here.
Also check out these calculators:
Wolfram Alpha provides a box in which you enter a query and find out where among the population you stand on various medical tests, e.g. enter one of these:
psa 5 age 60
vitamin d 25 age 60 male
bmi 25 age 60 male
life expectancy age 60 male
blood pressure 125/75 age 60 male
ldl cholesterol 125 age 60 male
hdl cholesterol 50 age 60 male
or if you omit the test value then it gives the population reference range, e.g. enter:
psa age 60
- Risk indicator 1 is ba! sed on questions related to urinary frequency. It is assumed that no testing has yet been done.
- Risk indicator 2 is based on the result of a PSA test.
- The next three indicators seem to have disappeared from the site but in case they return they are based on ultrasound results (0/1), digital rectal exam (0/1), prostate volume (ml) and PSA (ng/ml).
- Risk indicator 3 allows a more precise prediction of a positive biopsy than indicator 2 because it includes the results of the rectal examination, the ultrasonography (hypoechogenic lesions yes or no?), and of the volume of the prostate determined at ultrasonography. Each of these parameters has independent value in predicting biopsy outcome (Roobol et al, Prostate 2006).
- Risk indicator 4 is based on 10890 men who were previously screened, had a serum PSA < 4.0 ng/ml and were not biopsied. Of these men 1921 were biopsied 4 years later for PSA progression to = 3.0 ng/ml, 430 cancers were found (PPV 22.4%).
- Risk i! ndicator 5 is based on 989 men who were previously screened, w! ere biop sied and had no cancer. These men were again biopsied 4 years later with PSA values = 3.0 ng/ml, 120 cancers were found (PPV 12.1%). Both, a negative previous screen and, more importantly, a prior negative biopsy significantly decrease the risk of a later positive biopsy.
- Risk indicator 6, also recently gone missing from the site, calculates the chance of having indolent prostate cancer which may not require immediate treatment. It uses Gleason Score, mm of cancer in biopsy, mm healthy tissue in biopsy, prostate volume (cc) and PSA (ng/ml).
There is a link to a life expectancy table from the US Social Security Administration (SSA) and an explanation of how to use it on page PROS-A (page 13 o! f the PDF document) of the NCCN Prostate Cancer Practice Guide! lines. They recommend adjusting the ages in the actuarial table to reflect current health status. http://www.nccn.org/professionals/physician_gls/PDF/prostate.pdf
A direct link to the aforementioned SSA actuarial table is here. This table gives total expected lifetime for men of a given age. To get remaning lifetime subtract current lifetime from total lifetime. http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4c6.html
Page SAO-A (page 7 of the PDF document) of the NCCN Senior Adult Oncology Practice Guidelines contains a figure with remaining expected years of lifetime for each 5 year age group as well as upper and lower quartiles. This may be a bit easier to use since it directly gives the remaining lifetime and the quartiles can be used for patients in above average or below average health. http://www.nccn.org/professionals/physician_gls/PDF/senior.pdf The figure is based on [PMID: 11386931] .
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Tumor Volume (cc) = 3.476 + 0.302 x PSA
Tumor Volume (%) = 11.331 + 0.704 x PSA
The WHO chart shown here (also found in Box 12.3 on page 375 of the WCRF/AICR diet and cancer report and on Wikipedia - also see info on subdivisions) uses height and weight and gives an assessment of underweight/normal/overweight. Chapter 8 of the aforementioned WCRF/AICR diet and cancer report discusses fatness in general and associated risks for various cancers. An alternative to the charts is this BMI calculator. Online probability calculator
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