Just got done moving the site to a new web host. You shouldn't notice ANYTHING, but I was a wee bit concerned about it. The site is growing daily and I didn't want any serious downtime. We were outgrowing the storage and the bandwidth of the old site. And they wanted an arm and a leg to get up to snuff. It was a relatively painless move so we'll get back to posting regularly. Thanks for your patience.

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Math really can be fun! 

I first learned about the special properties of the number "9" when I was a small boy. I remember thinking how incredibly COOL it was that I could check whether ANY number was divisible by 9 simply by adding up the digits until I ended up with a one or two digit number...and seeing if that result was divisible by 9.

For example, is the number 8,847 divisible by 9? Well let's see. First add up the digits in the number to get what is called the "unitate." The digits are 8, 8, 4 and 7. So 8 + 8 + 4 + 7 = 27. Go ahead and add up the digits of the answer and you get 2 + 7 =9. Since 9 is certainly divisible by 9, so is the original number, 8,847. To see if this trick really works, let's get a calculator.

OK, I got my calculator. Punching in the numbers and dividing by 9 I get the answer 983, with no remainder. So I guess it worked!

How about other tricks like ways to easily multiply any number by 11? or ANY two numbers up to 20 x 20?

There are dozens of these kinds of math tricks out there, and although few people will want to take the time to learn (and practice) them all, I'll just bet you will find a few that you will want to take to heart. And if you have kids, you might want to introduce a few of these tricks to them as well...it just might change the way they feel about math. Math really can be fun!

Here are a few links to some good sites I found...if you search on "mental math" or "cool math tricks" you will find tons more:

http://www.angelfire.com/me/marmalade/mathtips.html

http://wildaboutmath.com/2007/11/11/impress-your-friends-with-mental-math-tricks/

http://ezinearticles.com/?Math-Shortcuts-To-Amaze-Your-Friends&id=423451

A really great book that is chock-full of secrets that will help you and your kids be able to get the right answer faster is Secrets of Mental Math, by Arthur Benjamin. Written by teachers, this book shows you great ways to impress people with your mental mathemagical acuity, but more importantly, it makes math fun. It's a great book to give to your kids to try and get them more interested in math.

How Cool is This? 

Now here is something you don't see every day. But I bet you will start to see it more and more! Whoever came up with this idea was thinking. A battery with built-in usb charging connector. They call the "USBCells." And they are currently available only in AA size, but isn't that the one you use the most anyway?

These batteries are a bit pricey, though. Two of them cost a whopping $19.95. I'm sure that price will come down as popularity goes up and the word gets out.

Touted as a "green revolution," these batteries will actually help save the Earth a little, as they don't have to go straight to the landfill when depleted (recharge them over and over again) and they don't contain cadmium, so they are safer when they finally are disposed of.

The USBCells are NiMH type batteries, so you don't have to drain them all the way and give them a full charge each time in order to keep them working properly. If you need just one more photo from that digital camera, it's ok to give these just a little booster charge and snap away!

Available from the InnovaToys website. Cool batteries!

So would you pay twenty bucks for a pair of these to be the first on your block? Leave a comment and let us know what you think!

Here is a cool site that shows what might happen to our planet/solar system/galaxy over the next few billion years. Not sure how accurate the science is, and there are lots of variables, but it's cool to see. I haven't figured out the underlying website yet (You're The Man Now Dog).

I love optical illusions. I had a friend once who insisted on calling them optical "delusions." In any case, I wanted to post a site called Mighty Optical Illusions  that has the best optical illusions I have ever seen. A new one is posted just about every day, and the site has a great Random Illusion feature if you just want to sit and scroll through dozens of them and try to figure them out.

Below left is an example of an "impossible structure." On the right is "The Haunted Forest." How many different creatures can you find in the forest?

The site offers widgets that you can download to get the Optical Illusion of the Day delivered right to your desktop. I am running the Vista widget on my computer at home.