Welcome

Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.

I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.  

I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time.  As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree. 

Sunday, July 23, 2023

Study Aid Review: Pre-Calculus Demystified

 


What is in this book is very clear and straightforward. There is not a ton of jargon like you get in the textbooks and what theory it does cover is basic and understandable. It covers the theory you need to know and does not go wild with proving or deriving the equations. And, the examples that are shown are clear. One thing I really like is the book goes into detail on comics. Conics are always covered at some point in pre-calculus, but very few supplements go into any depth. 

What knocks this down a bit for me is that it only has 1 chapter on trigonometry. The curriculum from school to school can be different. Some schools have trig as a completely separate class, and others run precalc classes as essentially a quarter to half advanced algebra, half trig, and then a few other topics depending on how much time is left at the end of the semester. If your school does the latter, while this book will give you the basics of trigonometry, what you will need to know for a class will be much more in-depth than what you will get here.

It does do a good job of explaining the basic trig functions, graphing trig functions, and some of the trig identities. Basically, the trig that the book presents is the stuff that, if you do not know it, will make the rest of trig impossible. Just keep in mind, however, that depending on your class curriculum, you may need a supplement that goes deeper into the trig material than this does.

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