[OT] machines that think for you (was: OpenStreetMap compatible GPS?)

[Joshua Judson Rosen]

Seth Cohn <sethcohn at gnuhampshire.org> writes:
> On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 1:19 PM, Ken D'Ambrosio <ken at jots.org> wrote:
> > On Wed, April 28, 2010 12:07 pm, Jon 'maddog' Hall wrote:
> > >
> > > It is the same thing as learning how to add, subtract, multiply and
> > > divide before you start using a calculator.
> >
> > In '76, my grandfather -- a mathematician -- bought me my first
> > calculator.  (A 7-digit red LED Commodore, no less.  And, yes, that's the
> > same Commodore.)  My next-door-neighbor predicted the demise of all
> > abilities to compute when our brains went soft because of calculators.
> > Fast-forward to high-school physics, and our teacher decided to force logs
> > on us... by way of a sliderule.  I was the fastest in my class -- but it
> > still made me wonder if similarly-dire Luddite-esque predictions hadn't
> > been made when they'd come along.
> 
> The day they allowed SAT test takers to use calculators, I knew that
> they'd hit rock bottom, and the tests no longer were meaningful
> (compared to when I took them and avg scores were dropping faster and
> faster).  If you can't do the math yourself, how do you know the
> answer the calc gave is wrong?  Sliderules are merely shortcuts, you
> still had to do some thinking about the answers.

Did you know that, while graphing calculators are now allowed for use
on the SATs, sliderules are not?

-- 
"Don't be afraid to ask (λf.((λx.xx) (λr.f(rr))))."