No, as a matter of fact the character count wasn't the issue on this one. But to answer your question in more detail, English is only my second language and in Finnish we use the hyphen - or more frequently just simply write two words together without it - in situations where in my understanding the hyphen is often left out in English and instead a space is used. Plus, the FML staff had moderated my text and added the hyphen in "university level", the FML thus totaling 4 hyphens. A famous example from the Finnish grammar is the "juoppo kuski"/"juoppokuski" difference: When the words are written separately, it means that the driver (=kuski) is drunk (a DUI) or alternatively and less purposefully that (s)he is a drunk who's driving a car, (not specifying if (s)he's drunk when at the wheel), whereas writing the words without the space completely changes the meaning to a person who's driving a bunch of drunk people around (a designated driver).

We might be able to do the same in English by saying "It's the difference between being a drunk driver and a being a Drunk driver." Admittedly, we probably wouldn't say it that way.

For English to be your second language, you write better than 99% of people I know.

#26/OP, isn't English your third language? I mean, since Swedish is officially our second language ;P I found the analogy between juoppokuski and juoppo kuski hilarious. I'm a Finn too and I had never even thought of that :D

I can understand probably 85% of what you said but I filled in the rest pretty easily. Though I am only in highschool so.... anyways I would say that sometimes we get bored during lectures and crap people say all the time. But sometimes we just have to suck it up. I know it's boring and I don't know, I guess not up to your standards. But have you thought that maybe that is how other people learn? Maybe well you're complaining (not to be meant as rude) it actually helps other students learn better. Maybe I'm right maybe I'm wrong. Again I didn't understand the entire FML and your follow up so maybe I'm wrong. Though I believe you say your fellow classmates or something doing the lectures. Well if you get the chance why don't you go up there and hive a lecture of your own, get everyone's gears working. Turn over a new leaf, then maybe everyone will start thinking how you think. Anyways, I hope I understood you properly to respond if not then I'm sorry for wasting your time.... my god my true Canadian is really showing through. I need to stop that.

my dear god, you have whole lectures on approximation? I got bored with it after one lecture (thank god it wasn't even worth the whole lecture). I never really had absurd examples, but I remember being a little confused by an example. I didn't know there was actually gerbil sun examples in real life theory though- I must have missed that when I zoned out. I feel you, man. I hate losing class time. I guess the best you can do is to try to study on your own or find someone who already knows the subject. good luck to you fellow physics student *salutes*

What? I zoned out near the middle. That's some over the top stuff there.

#39, OP is saying this is an fml because instead of being lectured on actual physics material, for his past three classes they have been talking about these examples that don't teach him anything that would help him on his hw or other physics related school work.

@#39 I'm female, but other than that... Yes, that sums it up pretty precisely.

Sorry, I meant the comment #50 to be addressed of course @#42

i... what.... i didn't understand about 70% of that... that's incredible, though. you're obviously really intelligent, sorry about your class, maybe you can talk to the professor or something?

@62: Too stupid, thumbed down.

I feel semi-accomplished that I understood the majority of the OPs follow-up. .-. Good luck to the classmates. I'm sure that you'll be ahead of them if they keep up their trend of their estimations on things that seem trivial. Fun, but trivial.

Wait was this actually hard to understand? Anyways, when I read the original FML, I thought about how I wished my microbiology and biochem classes were more interesting like your class seemed to be, but an entire lecture about approximation? Wow, that is harsh. FYL, OP. Hopefully your other lectures for the day were more interesting.

Thanks alot op, you broke #62s brain.

To be honest I find approximation and other such activities fun. But I can understand you annoyance of doing something pointless and wasting time.

I can't imagine the shear boredom! I had half a lecture on fermi problems, that was enough! Had to calculate the number of piano tuners in Newcastle! Must be a common one! :D

I had a similar disappointment in my college Econ class. We spent TWO lectures on how to add fractions and estimate the area under a curve using rectangles and triangles (and how to calculate the area of rectangles and triangles). If you're going to college and learning something that uses calculus, learn calculus. Riemann squares are good for learning, but ridiculous for application.

That reply post by the OP made me even more confused! I definitely don't have a fermi grasp of the situation.

I totally feel you. I'm an applied mathematics major and half of my differential equations class was random examples that you could solve using DEs, instead of how to solve them.

I don't get how people don't understand this. I'm a high school freshman and I understand it perfectly...

I'm not sure about the whole gerbil sun thing because I never got that far in physics, but the other examples that you mentioned seemed like fairly simple mathematical equations that sure shouldn't take up an entire lecture. I tried to get into engineering after high school since I've always been good at math, but Calc 2 and some other classes just went over my head, so props to you.

Nope, you're not..

I understand it, but then again, I'm an engineer. Basically they are lecturing on how to estimate things. We know the approximate diameter of the sun and from that we can calculate a fairly accurate volume. We also can figure out a fairly accurate volume of a gerbil. Then by dividing the calculated volume of the sun by the volume of gerbils you can determine how many gerbils fit into the sun. A useless problem in itself but it does teach estimation which is extremely useful to engineers and scientists

@30 and here I thought I was the only one that opiates help focus!!