this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
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If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
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Teaching kids to do math without calculators is like teaching people to do carpentry without a measuring tape. It’s slower and less accurate for no real benefit. Before we had calculators, everyone used an abacus or a slide rule. Calculation aids have always been an integral part of math, and knowing how to properly apply them makes you better at math (faster, more accurate, deeper understanding). We literally developed computers in the first place so we could do less mental math because it is so unreliable.
Why does the logic of technology/industry fall apart for calculators? I’ve never understood it. There’s no other field where we perceive “lack of tool use” to be an advantage.
EDIT: It would be like practicing fingerpainting in art class because "you won't always have a brush in your pocket" Hell, why even learn to read when you won't always have a book in your pocket? Better not play basketball in gym class, you won't always have a ball in your pocket! It's just always been a totally goofy attitude. I didn't accept this illogical take as a child and I sure don't accept it now 😂
I grew up thinking I was horrible at math... till it became abtract enough that calculations were rare...
Turns out my handwriting is shit, and I cant manually calculate for my life. But if those two things are not a factor, I am really got at math.
Also. I had a "computational methods" class in uni, where we had to do algorithms with a calculator.... almost failed. Then went out off of that field and became a programmer. Im fairly sure if that class was actually computer base I'd gotten a perfect score.
I mean finger painting is taught to just know how to do it that way. There is merit to knowing how to do things with limited tools available. The basketball analogy falls flat though. that one is like doing math without numbers.