Who Wants to be a Millionaire last night had a headmaster from Devon who didn't know where the Mendips are... :-(

Where are they? :-)

On a previous Rollapaluza tour we came across a maths student in York Uni that had to use her fingers to work out when she graduated. she had two years of her course left.

lol!

I did Maths A-level (and Higher Maths for a bit until I got pissed off with people telling me 1+1=1) and I count everything on my fingers, can't do long division either.

All those beardy stinky homeless dudes you see are just people whose minds got blown by studying maths, you know. :s

I have that suspicion as well, except with architecture. i'm certain education can make you completely nihilistic also.

I did maths A-level and then a Bsc. in pure maths. One of my favourite comments (from my tutor) written in large red pen across one of my pieces of work was "good maths, bad arithmetic".
There is a difference.

that's terrible. not surprised tho. few brits bother exploring their own surrounds. i know a few londoners who have never ventured outside the M25. and when i was based in brum, i met loads of people who's never been to the capital which i found bit weird

love those parts. on my first winter here, i was in the rolling hills of somerset and it was snowing!

I can count myself amongst those who don't know where the Mendips are. In fact I don't know much about any of that kind of thing, ask me where Somerset or Lancashire is and the best you will get is a vague 'sorta North of Yorkshire ?'

But, ask me how a torus is topologically similar to a sphere, how to set up a co-op or to name the basics of Phenomenology and I could give you a reasonably good answer.

I don't think a lack of knowledge in one subject (UK geography) necessarily means the bloke was 'dumb' - intelligence/knowledge can be very compartmentalised. There are many people who have a solid understanding of U.S. geopolitics whilst having no clue as to how to change a car tyre.


P.S what is a Mendip anyhow ? ;P

i don't know where the cheviots are?

I don't even know what a Mendip is - is it some kind of solution you dunk blokes in to prevent gayness? Like a sheep dip?

As for maths, I was doing all kinds of signal calculations, Fourier series bollocks, physics calcs, energy system calcs, etc at uni during an engineering degree and I still count on my fingers. The only way I can work out when I graduated uni is to remember my VCE t-shirt with 1996 printed on it and then count 5 years on top of that... with my fingers of course. I'd be fscked if I lost any.. ;)

It's an AONB near Bristol you philistines

http://www.mendiphillsaonb.org.uk/

Isn't Bristol that car shop in Kensington?
It's not that beautiful around there.

Some fucking hills.. shit I thought it was important.

I don't know where Bristol is either so no biggie :P

So how is a torus topologically similar to a sphere? Don't keep us all on tenterhooks....

dunno what a medip is. a dipstick? place where men were once dipped ala john the baptist? dunno. anyhoo, mendips are hills in the west country, close to devon! for a headmaster in devon, i expect knowing where the mendips are to be general knowledge. this is, IMO, equivalent of yanks not knowing where australia, france, china, korea are on a world map ;)

oh, fourier tophats and laplace are maths created by loonies. they do not compute!

torus
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

noun
a ring-shaped surface generated by rotating a circle around an axis that does not intersect the circle
commonly the lowest molding at the base of a column

So what's its similarity (topologically speaking) to a sphere? COME ON! We must be told!

Oh do fuck off! ;-)

Aha, you don't know do you? You were just stringing us along all the time.

Are you a headmaster by any chance?

They both only have one surface and both enclose a volume... what else?

Spot on Provenrad! You beat me to it!

Its a car and boobs!

Phew!

Thanks guys. ;-)

Years of study sometimes leave you deficient in other fields, including a bit of common sense.

I knew a fully trained architect (years at uni apparently) who on buying their 1st car and getting low on petrol was found petol pump in hand, bonnet up trying to refill it via the oil cap... Was only stopped from a zoolander style petrol explosion buy a bloke wandering by and rushing in to stop them.

Like provenrad said, both have a single surface.

Yeah, lots of burnt out architects. Started with 130 people ended up with 25 5 years later in uni..

Try this for dumb then

linky

She's fit though

The Mendips are in somerset around Glastonbury area so close by, a big feature. If you live in Devon and don't know where the Mendips are it is a pretty poor show. I would not expect people to have a excellent geography of even an entire region but not knowing roughly where of a large area like the Mendips is as an adult living in that region is pretty bad. Not on the same scale but similar to the Essex girl who does not know where east anglia is.

Not all architects are dumb - although some are. Staggeringly so!

that expalins the proliferation of shit public buildings.. if they're being designed by lumps like that.

no-one thinks architects are clever do they?

Ok, I'll bite. There's lots of shit architects and also lots of really good ones like anything.

Which shite public buildings. Unfortunately the days of architects controlling the whole process are long gone. They died out with thatcherism. In place is a whole plethora of managers and processes which often make some buildings less successful.

There's plenty of good architecture out there though. Often the budget isn't there also - although this shouldn't be an excuse for a poorly functioning building.

"no-one thinks architects are clever do they?"

they manage to do their shirt buttons all the way up to the top but aren't able to put a tie on.

busted.