I helped my kids learn the “greater than” and “lesser than” signs by telling them that the arrow always points to the little number. It helped them a lot.
Drive through car washes. I always have trouble lining up my car while in the track and the workers always get very frustrated with me. I finally gave up and go to car washes where they drive your car through for you. :rolleyes:
I finally learned how to consistently spell it correctly as a kid when I realized their has the word “the” in it. So as long as you remember to add the i and r after the, you can’t get it wrong.
I have trouble tying my shoes. Well, not tying them so much as having them stay that way.
It helps me when there are two values, but in lab reports, like my example, it doesn’t.
If the PCBs are > 0.14 ppm, that means less than? Right?
No. In that case the PCBs are greater, hence the alligator wanting to eat them.
If it’s always in the format of x is __ than y, just look at the relationship between the symbol and the first item. If the > is facing the first item, it’s greater than the other, if the symbol looks like < then the first item is less than the second. The open end faces the greater value.
Speaking of stupidly simple, this game is probably the stupidly simplest in all the land. I bet 5-year-old little girls all over the world have mastered this game and are laughing at me. I can’t get past level 4. Why is this so hard?!
Slicing bread (or related activities like sawing wood). No sir, I can’t do it. That knife WILL NOT remain vertical. Either it comes out halfway down the slice, giving me a sliver of bread, or it goes in and I get a thick wedge of the stuff.
I am also thankful that cheap personal computing came along when it did. I used to wonder how I would be able to write sick notes for any children I may have without the teacher looking at the childlike hand and declaring it a forgery.
Actually the easiest way is “Frick, it won’t tur-righty frickin-stupid cra-lefty what the hell-GAH!” Until it goes the way it’s supposed to go.
I will add to those with severe lack of grace. I trip going up stairs. I have bruised my tailbone falling out of a chair (completely sober too!). I have broken a toe by dropping a mayo jar on it. Severely tore my ACL getting into a boat. 3/4 times running downstairs I forget WHACK that the stairwell is too low at the bottom and I am supposed to duck.
In the cities I am okay with directions. Put me out in the country and tell me to take County Road 37 north? I’m schtupped.
The differences are freaking tiny! I got past level 10, but there were a few times I tried it when level level 1 was a stumper. The levels do NOT indicate difficulty from what I saw. You may have just gotten a series of the smaller changes in a row.
affect and effect in my head before I write either I have to say “A verb E noun A verb E noun A verb E noun”
I learned that one, plus another one which is the one I use: < looks like L, for Less than.
If it makes us all feel better, a book on medical abbreviations I have recommends avoiding the < and > symbols as they are “easily confused.”
Nooooo effin’ way. That game is hard stuff! I got to 10 a few times, and half of those I sacrificed points to try lucky guesses.
I finally did get to the end of the game, about 10 minutes after my post. But holy crap I couldn’t believe how hard it is.
I swear I passed the second grade, but I still have problems with my 7s multiplication tables. I can remember 71=7, 75=35, and 7*7=49, but anything else, I have to start adding or subtracting from one of those.
My simple thing I have trouble with is when the words “know” and “now” are in a sentence next to each other. If I’m reading out loud I always have to stop and think which word is pronounced how.
I know now…
You now know…
Bizarre since I’m not dyslexic or anything and was an advanced reader at an early age.
I also can’t remember anymore the name of a person I have been introduced to less than 5 minutes ago, but that is explained by encroaching fuddy-duddyism.
See, I know all the “rules” if I really think about it - I know the point faces the smaller number, I know the alligator is hungry, etc.
But this is what confuses me–if in this example:
If the PCBs are > 0.14 ppm
it means the PCBs are greater than 0.14, which is indicated by the alligator wanting to eat them, then why is the alligator’s mouth facing the wrong way? If the PCB Alligator is going to eat the 0.14 ppm’s, then his mouth should be open - the joint of his jaw is the pointy part of the sign itself, and his wide-open mouth is about to eat the ppm. So the sign should be facing the other way.
See why this confuses me to no end?
EXACTLY!!! I confused. 
I realize you’re joking but you are making it more complicated by thinking about “the PCB alligator”.
Mathematically the PCBs and the alligator are separate, the alligator is the > only (all you can see is his mouth). He’s hungry, so he wants to eat the PCBs, because there are more of them than the 0.14 ppm.
I see “effect” every time someone means “affect” with almost no exceptions. You’re one of the few people that actually knows the word “affect” exists.
From about the age of 22-35, I never knew how old I was. I knew the date I was born, but could never figure out how old that made me. I have recently been having a better time keeping track, but there’s always a twinge of doubt when I give my age.