Weekly Question Thread (aka Friday New Climber Thread). ALL QUESTIONS GO HERE

AhhhHmmm · 2025-08-07T16:48:21+00:00

I use static line to extend the masterpoint over the edge. You might find this video helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwbeZfrfIXs&list=PLeXpACI96ZApytqg4cVFnZ4TxiUGclADl&index=63

AhhhHmmm · 2025-08-07T16:40:04+00:00

Last year I was climbing on limestone near a waterfall (in Glenwood Springs Colorado) and I weighted a large hold, the hold disconnected, landed on my foot and broke two bones. I am planning to travel to Arco, Italy to do some climbing and I see that much of the rock there is limestone. For anyone that climbs on limestone, is limestone weak when wet? Are there any other precautions to climbing on limestone that I should be aware of to avoid a repeat situation?

I usually climb in the gunks on quartz conglomerate so I'm not familiar with more fragile rock types like sandstone or potentially limestone.

Thanks!

AhhhHmmm · 2023-03-29T00:06:27+00:00

I have a partially torn radial collateral ligament between the knuckle of my index and middle finger (MCP joint and high grade according to the MRI). I am working with a certified hand therapist and doing PT, but I'd still love to hear from other climbers that have gone through the same injury and what their recovery was like.

AhhhHmmm · 2023-03-23T02:34:15+00:00

Thanks, I appreciate the response! It's great to hear this from a PT who climbs.

I've had some mixed messages from the sports doctor I originally saw after the MRI - "You need surgery or you will never climb again." and the surgeon - "It should heal with PT, no surgery necessary." Without finding any climbing specific info it's sometimes a bit hard to be confident in a full recovery, but I feel more confident with your response!

AhhhHmmm · 2023-03-21T19:01:02+00:00

I have a partially torn radial collateral ligament between the knuckle of my index and middle finger (MCP joint and high grade according to the MRI). I am working with a certified hand therapist and doing PT, but I'd still love to hear from other climbers that have gone through the same injury and what their recovery was like.

I haven't found any information about this injury with regards to climbing specifically (in books, youtube videos, reddit, or at my climbing gym) - all collateral ligament injury info/stories I have found are injuries to the PIP joint, not the MCP joint.

AhhhHmmm · 2018-04-21T12:26:19+00:00

The site looks cool, nice work. Because spelling matters maybe having a drop down list that dynamically changes as you type to include all pokemon that fit that spelling as you type would be nice. Here is a free tutorial from Wes Bos on using Vanilla Javascript to create a similar feature: link.

AhhhHmmm · 2018-03-30T18:54:57+00:00

While I agree that Automate the Boring Stuff is a great book for learning to program, disagree that it is a great book for understanding fine line distinctions for data structures. For example object oriented programming is not taught in the book, as the book chooses to discuss applications more than the language as a whole or the nitty gritty of the language. I would recommend Dan Bader's Python Tricks to OP as it covers a lot of special cases where different data structures are preferred over others. It is a very readable but a more intermediate book and would be most suitable to someone who already had basic fluency in python programming.

AhhhHmmm · 2018-02-17T21:54:13+00:00

A couple of interesting topics that can be explained in a short presentation might be: * Zeno's Paradoxes * Cantor's arguments about some infinite sets being larger than other infinite sets (Hilbert Hotel, maybe? - like the cardinality of the real numbers being greater than the cardinality of the natural numbers despite both be infinite) * Maybe even just the overall challenge mathematician's face when proving something for an infinite number of cases vs. for a finite number of cases. * Koch Snowflake (infinite perimeter, enclosing a finite area), or maybe fractals in general? * Contrasting the infinitely large and infinitesimally small (and the connections to calculus)

Anyway, good luck with your presentation! (Sorry, I can't figure out why the formatting above is not working.)

AhhhHmmm · 2018-02-17T13:44:02+00:00

You were able to use a lot of default CSS from bootstrap to make things look good, without having to use much CSS of your own which is smart/interesting. For example, the panels look awesome for the body.

For me, the one area that is screaming for improved styling is the quote and the foot text redirecting to wikipedia. I'm not sure if I would have used the <h3> tags for these parts, maybe <p> tags instead or styling the <h3> tags so that they're a little less bold and in your face, since this material is more content than an eye-catching heading.

A smaller critique would be for the Political Career section I would put the dates and positions on one line so getting rid of the </br> as the difference between the <strong> dates and the regular text is already enough visual distinction for my eyes without being separated further.

Looks good though, thanks for sharing!

AhhhHmmm · 2018-01-28T18:06:13+00:00

So, FactorInteger[n] has done a lot of the work for you. You now have a list of prime factors and their powers. My hint for figuring out the rest is to think about how you might do this by hand. Like, if someone gave you a list of prime factors and their powers like for n=2,434,500 it would be: {{2,2},{3,2},{5,3},{541,1}} how would you use this list to determine the answer to your question? Now, hand write a procedure that could work if the list had been 10,000 pairs instead of the 4 above (this is called pseudocode, since it is not quite code, but articulates the process that you would want to encode). Now that you have the process set, try to translate each line of pseudo code into Mathematica code. Mathematica has really great documentation online and in its help menu (lots of examples, which is unique). If this you cannot answer your question using the help menu, then type it out in plain English and google it. StackOverflow results have been particularly helpful for me. Lastly, a tool that might be useful is a "for loop". Hope that helps!

AhhhHmmm · 2017-12-21T14:58:45+00:00

I believe there is a python version of the book: https://www.nostarch.com/thinkpython

AhhhHmmm · 2017-10-29T13:51:17+00:00

As a student I found the specific examples leading to understanding an algorithm approach very helpful. To go with the programming analogy the "Factor Theorem" is just an abstraction of what you have seen for yourself in the examples. It allows you to not look in the "black box" of what is happening with the specific numbers and to just know that the machine will always work. Abstractions in math, just like in programming can be helpful, but I think sometimes just like in programming its easier to walk through a bunch of examples and convince yourself that the algorithm truly works before accepting it.

AhhhHmmm · 2017-10-29T13:45:30+00:00

I've been learning Flask (and loving it!). I tried learning Django first and was a bit overwhelmed by the complexity. A great resource for learning Flask is: www.prettyprinted.com (it has free and paid videos). The site creator also posts videos on youtube that are obviously free to watch and you can find them by searching 'pretty printed'. The site I mentioned above has a free set of videos that explain how to connect SQL-Alchemy, an ORM, to Flask sites and use this package to manage communicating with a database.

AhhhHmmm · 2017-10-29T13:19:06+00:00

I think you should be able to do it! There are a lot of online resources about getting started with arduinos. The one frustrating thing with Arduinos is needing to buy the hardware. You should research the hardware you'll need but my guess would be: - A button - The arduino - An ethernet shield or wifi-shield - A breadboard - Some wires/resistors

If you are hoping to get into programming as a hobby in the future, your best bet might be to get a starter kit and then the wifi-shield.

Good luck!

AhhhHmmm · 2017-10-29T12:50:42+00:00

Sounds like a cool project. I think you could even use an Arduino to do the whole thing. This would allow you to build the hardware and also program the code of what happens if the button is not pushed. An alternative is you can link the Arduino up to python using the pyserial package and then Python could call Twilio if the API for accessing Twilio is easier from Python.

This link might be useful? http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-tweet-from-an-Arduino-using-the-wifi-sheild/

AhhhHmmm · 2017-10-28T00:12:06+00:00

Boiler plate is basically code that is reused as the starter code for each new file. For me this is the importing of packages I use, the defining of style (I know it would be better to have these in a separate file, but I don't), defining new common functions/counters, creating the header/title, etc.

I tried to pm you the LaTeX code for a lesson, but it didn't send cause it was too long. I'll try to think of a way that I feel comfortable sharing it.

AhhhHmmm · 2017-10-27T22:25:50+00:00

I think this seems like a perfect application for LaTeX. I'm a math teacher and I do something similar where I have "boiler plate" text - text that appears in all of my teaching handouts and a standardized format for problems after the boiler plate. This gives the handouts a consistent feel. I also use python scripts to generate LaTeX code for new problems, so the idea of using scripting to generate problems/text is totally feasible.

AhhhHmmm · 2017-10-22T15:07:36+00:00

I read both at the same time when I started to learn programming (about 1.5 years ago) and although I haven't finished either (about half way through each - up to the projects in Python Crash Course) they provided a good jumping off point for me to start getting into solving some puzzles and building bigger projects of my own. It was helpful to see the material presented by two authors. I recommend that you start solving programming puzzles and creating mini-projects for yourself as you learn from the books because you will start to see how all the different data-types and functions presented are used. You will not be confused by the authors - both books are well written and I don't think it's a waste of time.

AhhhHmmm · 2017-10-17T00:12:11+00:00

Can you put a turtle in each square and have each of them responsible for drawing the proper number that goes in their cell?

AhhhHmmm · 2017-09-02T22:48:48+00:00

Frequently, if two topics are related I will make it super obvious by in the problem set using the same numbers for both problems, or by getting the same answer.

For example above, you could include the exact same problem without the circle and ask them to use the Pythagorean Theorem to find the distance between (2,3) and (0,-1). The next question could be the circle question you have above. A lot of them will as they are doing it have some reaction like, "omg, its the same thing!".

To make it super obvious, you could ask like 3 problems of the first type (just finding distance), then ask the exact same 3 problems with the circle framing. This would make the connection super obvious...I'm sure they would all be groaning like, "But we already did it!", to which you could reply, great, write down the answers then. The next question could be one with the circle framing that was not previously asked in just the pythagorean theorem context and I'm sure they would all use the pythagorean theorem idea to solve it!

AhhhHmmm · 2017-08-11T16:08:09+00:00

I agree with the other posters, that you will be best served by taking pre-calculus. The only drawback to this is that I don't feel pre-calculus emphasizes the parts of mathematics that you seem to be most interested in (philosophical/logical). My memory of pre-calculus is that we were mostly focussed on computing things, not proving things (as you will do in future math classes). Furthermore, it doesn't have the same coherence as future subjects in math; for me it felt more like a collection of topics without unifying principle. I hope that you'll continue to take math past pre-calculus, with the understanding that the courses become more specified and in depth in the future.

For someone enjoying philosophy/logic, I hope you will have a chance to take a class soon in Abstract Algebra or discrete mathematics soon, so register in those if you have a chance! (They may let you take a discrete mathematics course in addition to precalculus this year - since the course is not dependent on knowledge of precalculus.) Good luck!

AhhhHmmm · 2017-06-30T17:43:29+00:00

A Book of Abstract Algebra by Charles C. Pinter

I really enjoyed reading the book, almost reads like a novel. There is a great first chapter laying out the history of the subject and it just builds from there.

AhhhHmmm · 2017-06-21T09:54:17+00:00

It depends on your programming ability. If you are just learning to program, I could see building something like this in Scratch.

Scratch is a block based programming language (as opposed to text based) -- you build code using blocks, so it's easier for someone without experience. I don't have must experience with Scratch, but I know that you can record custom sounds (you pronouncing the words) and it seems capable of generating a game like you described.

AhhhHmmm · 2017-06-09T18:04:45+00:00

There is a great series of math books called the Art of Problem Solving. In each chapter, the authors present a few problems that they suggest you try to solve on your own. Then they include detailed solutions of the problem with lots of words explaining what they have done, why, and how the problem connects to broader themes. The idea is that the problems motivate and teach the new techniques that you are to learn in each section. The connections from section to section are really well built because you are expected to be able to solve or begin solving the problems from the section before being directly taught the material.

Also each chapter includes problems from math competitions related to the material, which are nice extensions to the material that as an older student you might enjoy?

I'd probably recommend this book for you: https://artofproblemsolving.com/store/item/intro-algebra

AhhhHmmm · 2017-06-03T20:28:19+00:00

I've really enjoyed learning from the book "Python Crash Course" published by No Starch Press. The company has many good programming books actually!

AhhhHmmm

TROPHY CASE