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

[Ken D'Ambrosio]

On Wed, April 28, 2010 4:49 pm, roger.levasseur at comcast.net wrote:
> Speaking of sliderules....

And more speaking of same -- for those who want to (re-)live the past:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/tools/be12/

That being said, they're to be found a-plenty on Ebay.  I just wish I
could remember the damn *math* I used to use 'em for.  All gone.  Must've
been swapped out to /dev/null so I could fit things like, say, how to load
OS/2 off of floppies, and Token Ring/Netware 2.x troubleshooting tips. 
*sigh*

-Ken



> http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/712349-196/then-seniors-at-alvirne-re
> counthow-record-slide-rule.html
>
> -roger (an Alvirne sophomore at the time)
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Joshua Judson Rosen" <rozzin at geekspace.com>
> To: "Seth Cohn" <sethcohn at gnuhampshire.org>,
> gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2010 4:22:01 PM
> GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
> Subject: [OT] machines that think for you (was: OpenStreetMap compatible
> GPS?)
>
>
> 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. Â (A 7-digit red LED Commodore, no less. Â And, yes,
>>> that's the same Commodore.) Â 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. Â 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))))."
>
>
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