ATM Web Editor's Blog
NB: Most recent entry is at the top.
Thursday 3rd April
New servers for ATM website
At long, long last the ATM website has been migrated to new servers which means a much greater degree of reliability and an even faster download time for users.
It has been a long and painstaking task with every little part of the background operations of the website having to be tested and the rquired bits and pieces installed on the server to make sure it all works.
The bets thing is that we can now concentrate on developing the content of the website.
More news soon...
Web Editor on 03.04.08 @ 09:56 PM GMT [ More ]
Monday 26th November
The pizza volume formula..
...well it could only be pi.zz.a really.
In the meantime I was taxed by an advert in our local newspaper (North Devon Journal). The advert was placed by Devon County Council and professed to have calculated the number of food miles travelled by food consumed in the county. It made me ponder on both the quality of mathematics used in such situations and on the lack of any provenance for the statistics arrived at.
Thus I am considering starting a small section of our website to be called 'Bad Maths' - discussing and pointing out the appearances of plain wrong maths used in the media or situations in which maths has been used with no supporting evidence.
Let me know (webeditor@atm-online.org.uk) if you come across any candidates for a new section.
Web Editor on 26.11.07 @ 11:54 AM GMT [ More ]
Friday 23rd November
The formula for the volume of a pizza...
You will probably know that pizza comes in various thicknesses - the dough and the topping vary according to the recipe and the style.
You do not, however, need to be a pizza afficionado to know that the price of a pizza does not always bear any correlation to the overall volume.
I came across an interesting formula with which to calculate the volume of any pizza, thus making it easier to compare value for money.
It would be too easy were I to give you the whole thing, but if the radius of the pizza is 'z' and the thickness is 'a', can you work it out?
Web Editor on 23.11.07 @ 08:02 PM GMT [ More ]
Sunday 20th May
The Forum - disappearing messages and their re-appearance...
I've taken a bit of flak for the ATM Forum recently which - got its proverbial knickers in a twist recently and took a good deal of disentangling. The system I have installed is a widely used and very well supported Open Source system known as YaBB. It works very well and reliably until two events coincide: a periodical rebuild of its indexes and a power cut at the server. Neither, on their own would be a problem - there is back-up power and there are back-up servers which kick in immediately - but when the indexes were being rebuilt at the same time it only took a millisecond or two to foul things up.
After several attempts to reconstruct the corrupted messages, I had to delete a chunk and have just now managed to reinstate most of them - the uncorrupted ones which I had to delete 'en masse'.
So all should be well now. Please have a look and lets get some real discussions going there.
Web Editor on 20.05.07 @ 06:39 PM GMT [ More ]
Saturday 28th April
A new MT from Australia...
An interesting task this week - while your Web Editor is in Australia sitting in a sub-tropical rainforest just south of Brisbane - a new issue of Mathematics Teaching springs to life. Thanks to the wonders of the web I have still been able to upload the latest version. Read and enjoy.
Web Editor on 28.04.07 @ 02:30 PM GMT [ More ]
Friday 16th February
The ATM Forum and prolonged teething troubles...
Just a quick note to say that the Forum should now be working properly. A glitch ocurred recently which corrupted a couple of files which meant the index got itself confused and couldn't be rebuilt.
A few hours hand-editing the relevant files and all is back. Please let me know as soon as you encounter a problem or confusion.
Web Editor on 16.02.07 @ 01:15 AM GMT [ More ]
Web Ed's Blog
As often as seems useful I will be adding to this weblog to keep you up-to-date with what's developing on the website and with what's going on at ATM.
Your say...
Personal members of ATM: please feel free to add your comments - positive remarks, questions and constructive criticism are all welcome.
