Fasters's definitions

Piroscope

The art of predicting someone’s personality based on the number of digits of the number π they remember or have painfully committed to memory, or on a certain fraction or expression they use to approximate the irrational number.

In pseudo-evangelical circles or conspiratorial quarters, it’s not too difficult to match the piroscope sign MAGA patriots belong to.

by Fasters May 26, 2023

Pi Reverie

A semiconscious state when you allow your creative mind to define a new (or redefine an existing) word or phrase related to the number π—for example, “pi in the sky” carries different meanings depending on the context.

By drifting into a pi reverie, be it by seeing what’s outside the window while pretending to listen to a sermon, or by staring into space or at the cloud in a posture of prayer, Ian has been blessed with a hundred-odd pi definitions on Urban Dictionary.

by Fasters June 17, 2023

Sheep-and-Wolves Math

Provocative or subversive math questions set by allegedly mean or wicked educators in Hong Kong, whose aim is to brainwash students, by sowing the "seed of instability" in the once-democratically free colonial city and across totalitarian China.

A middle school teacher in Xinjiang was sent to a reeducation camp for two years after he’s found guilty of setting some sheep-and-wolves math questions, one of which is the following: “In a village, a pack of eight wolves have encircled a pen that encloses a hundred and ten sheep. Guesstimate how many sheep could lose their lives before the shepherd and his two assistants arrived on the scene to rescue his flock.”

by Fasters September 10, 2022

Algebra

A school subject taught by oft-dull teachers who use boring textbooks, and dreaded by millions of kids and their loved ones, which would otherwise have provided students a good training ground in learning how to face the unknowns, especially if they refused to trade their time for money later in life.

Algebra is too important to be left in the hands of school teachers and publishers—students need to take charge of their algebraic life unless they don’t mind becoming lifelong employees slaving for others.

by Fasters July 28, 2023

Palmematics

When the lines and curves on someone’s palm are expressed as an equation or formula—they often resemble popular curves that are linear, quadratic, exponential, and logarithmic.

The 8-year-old boy’s knowledge of palmematics impressed his mathematician father, who wondered whether he might have blessed with a precocious son.

by Fasters June 27, 2022

GTX

The next Ponzi crypto platform—set up by the co-founders of the bankrupt crypto hedge fund “Three Arrows Capital,” in partnership with the co-founders of CoinFLEX, which recently filed for debt restructuring to recover their losses—that would allow customers from ex-unicorns like FTX, Celsius, and Luna to trade their crypto bankruptcy claims in exchange for a new cryptocurrency called “USDG.”

Trump had this bigly idea over the weekend, as he discussed with his golf buddies whether he’d launch HTX, named after FTX and GTX, to raise a few billions from MAGA patriots, who got burnt by dishonest and disgraced crypto co-founders—his proposed motto is to “Make Crypto Great Again.”

by Fasters January 24, 2023

Tiger Math

Brain-unfriendly math questions that have been commissioned by superstitious owners of tuition centers in Singapore—who were unprovenly advised by feng shui masters or charlatans—to freelance writers, as the bosses believe that posing these word problems to their students or tutees would bring them good luck and prosperity in the Lunar Year of the Tiger.

It’s as if traditional Singapore math questions aren’t tough enough for students and their kiasu parents, but now with tuition or enrichment centers terrorizing their students with tiger math toughies in the name of superstition, the Year of the Tiger looks like another mathematical nightmare to those who are already suffering from math anxiety.

by Fasters January 22, 2022