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C'mon, the "landing fuel" is miniscule since the great mass of the rocket at launch is the "lift fuel" which is gone after the rocket does its primary function. The thing that lands is a hollow, comparatively lightweight tube requiring a slight amount of fuel to accomplish the landing.

Really. Have you done the calculations?

Here is a fairly simple calculation to reach the international space station which is 408 km above the earth. Plugin the number 408 into the Orbit of a satellite Calculator and you will get an Orbital radius of 6,786.14 km, a Flight velocity of 7.66 km/s and an Orbital period 01:32 (Yes I have rounded the numbers).

Now consider you have to get your rocket from an orbital velocity of approximately 7.66 km/s through the Earth's atmosphere which will heat any exposed surface to incandescence and at the same time hoping you have enough fuel to slow the rocket down to a point where it can land tail first. This is not to say it can't be done since it can but the chance of failure is significantly higher than if it landed as the space shuttle did or by parachute.

Yes, I am aware of Elon Musk's proposal for a rocket flight from the US to other countries. It does sound great if you don't think it though hence hype but that type of hype is going to cost ridiculous amounts of money and somehow I think a 10 to 15 hours comfortable flight in a reliable aircraft is not a bad price to pay.

Also while we are considering rocket space flight how about a simple calculation of the "g-forces" on the human body since the so-called rocket plane will have to achieve near orbital velocity while at the same time being careful of fuel consumption. For acceptable human comfort, you would have to allow for 3g (Space shuttle) or less although you could go higher I very much doubt that you would get the average passenger to accept that.

Yes, it does get more complicated but when human lives are at stake I do have a tendency to err on the side of caution and until we develop anti-gravity where a Nobel prize, fame and money is waiting for the first person to develop this, although "cold-fusion" proponents need not apply.

Using 400 km and 406 km for altitudes yields a delta-velocity of ~3.4 m/s using this online calculator (no affiliation) - http://keisan.casio.com/exec/system/1224665242

http://edifice.casio.com/

I was all set to pull the trigger on one of these but then went with the Apple Watch on an impulse. Either one is probably more than your budget but I did like the looks of the thing. I own/used its little brother, the STB-1000 and found it functional enough to justify buying a smart watch. Yes, it needs a phone for reminders and such, but it will do much of what a true smart watch will do and still be a pretty good stand alone device. And you're probably going to have your phone with you anyway.

Of course you could go nuts and get an Oceanus...

Who still wears LED digital watch? I still wear my Casio Databank 150 watch.

Do you? I know plenty of people who use Apple products, but none of them want an Apple watch. I still prefer the old school stand alone (offline) Casio Data Bank 150/300 watch! :P

The Casio FX-115ESPLUS. It can do complex numbers, differentiation and integration. Costs $18. That's what I'm going to get my kids when they are in HS.

the thing on your wrist should be mechanical and made in Switzerland or you'll never get either a girlfriend or a job.

Now that's just bullshit.

Yes, an elegant watch is a smart move to behave like an adult, trying to check the time on your phone when you're sitting down at a dinner or conference table is just made of fail

No, your life won't completely suck if it's digital or made in Japan. It's no longer the 1980's, even bloody Casio makes dress watches. While some of them are still butt-ugly, this one does the trick and it's only $50.

Personally I went for this pretty little number. Elegant enough to wear in public without embarrassing your wife, girlfriend or CEO but cheap enough so that when it breaks or gets lost I won't even flinch. (It actually did get lost, inside a couch for eight months, still had the right time when I found it if that had been a Swiss watch I'd have been in deep fecal matter.)

the thing on your wrist should be mechanical and made in Switzerland or you'll never get either a girlfriend or a job.

Now that's just bullshit.

Yes, an elegant watch is a smart move to behave like an adult, trying to check the time on your phone when you're sitting down at a dinner or conference table is just made of fail

No, your life won't completely suck if it's digital or made in Japan. It's no longer the 1980's, even bloody Casio makes dress watches. While some of them are still butt-ugly, this one does the trick and it's only $50.

Personally I went for this pretty little number. Elegant enough to wear in public without embarrassing your wife, girlfriend or CEO but cheap enough so that when it breaks or gets lost I won't even flinch. (It actually did get lost, inside a couch for eight months, still had the right time when I found it if that had been a Swiss watch I'd have been in deep fecal matter.)

I've got a W-96H for the odd time I need a watch. I got it because it has an alarm and a 10-year battery life. There are other functions, but I've never used them. It tells me the time, it alarms when I set it, I don't have to worry about the battery for 10 years, and it was pretty cheap. I wish my cellphone could be rendered to such a simple, functional piece.

http://www.casio.com/products

Watches? Label Printers? Cash Registers?

I used to be an analog snob until I saw an engineer at our company use the calculator on his wristwatch (before everyone one had smart phones) during a meeting to come up with a few figures... at the time I was doing a lot of grilling and timing is crucial... a digital watch worked much better, so I got one. After that, it's been great - I coached a few teams (academic and sports) and had the stop watch; the alarm clock has been great, and lot more convenient than my smart phone when I'm running down the field with my team...

You know, they do make watches with slide rules on them. Yeah, I've heard plenty of jokes about these from people who've never used one, but they're actually pretty cool, and easy to use—here are some instructions for Casio models.

Gah, computer's fighting me for control today.

This is the link I meant to post.

Casio calculators provide some programmability. There's an official SDK for the FX-9750, and unofficial support for writing your own programs on the newest FX-CG is in progress.

TI's own response to that development was the Nspire CX, which basically adds a color screen to the device without addressing any other complaints.

Somehow I doubt that Casio officially unveiled it with a forum post.

And if we did have to link to a forum post (for some unknown reason) instead of something more official, this would have been better anyway...

Official website: http://www.casioeducation.com/prizm
edu.casio.com: http://edu.casio.com/products/cg_series/fxcg10_20
Manual download: http://edu.casio.com/products/cg_series/data/fxcg10_20_E.pdf

Models: fx-CG 10*/20
* North America only

Some of the new features:
- High-resolution color display (384*216 pixels with 2^16 colors)
- USB 2.0 support
- 16 MB flash memory
- Picture Plot functionality

Somehow I doubt that Casio officially unveiled it with a forum post.

And if we did have to link to a forum post (for some unknown reason) instead of something more official, this would have been better anyway...

Official website: http://www.casioeducation.com/prizm
edu.casio.com: http://edu.casio.com/products/cg_series/fxcg10_20
Manual download: http://edu.casio.com/products/cg_series/data/fxcg10_20_E.pdf

Models: fx-CG 10*/20
* North America only

Some of the new features:
- High-resolution color display (384*216 pixels with 2^16 colors)
- USB 2.0 support
- 16 MB flash memory
- Picture Plot functionality

Or you could look instead at the newer kinds of projectors like this casio one, or a straight LED Projector that don't have bulbs.
They're also a lot lighter and smaller than any TV for the same screen size. They're also much cooler to run.

Sounds like this development would greatly improve a 2008 Casio camera a friend told me about a couple weeks ago. 6MP, with full res shots going into the buffer @ 60fps before you fully press the shutter button. Up to 1200 fps (tiny) video.
Hate to sound like a shill, but "high-resolution still image alongside very high-speed video" describes this pretty well, depending on your definition of "high" at least.

http://www.exilim.com/intl/ex_f1/features1.html
http://www.casio.com/products/Cameras/EXILIM_High-Speed/EX-F1/
http://gizmodo.com/383843/casio-exilim-ex+f1-slow+mo-super-cam-full-review-verdict-totally-unique-shockingly-powerful

As soon as we heard that cameras were digital, we pretty much immediately thought, "Oh I can't wait until we can have tiny screens to see what we're taking/took.

I was a hobby film photographer at the time closely following the development of digital cameras in the early 1990s. I can tell you no, the first thing to cross everyone's mid was not the ability to review the picture you just took. Everyone was used to the film workflow process (take picture, develop, print negatives or review slides). Back in those days, just decompressing a 640x480 jpeg took 5-15 seconds on a PC (the processing power required for JPEGs was a big disadvantage vs. GIF at the time). So the digital workflow was similar - look through viewfinder, take photo, camera writes to hard drive/memory card, download to PC, review photos. It was not at all obvious at the time that we'd be able to quickly review photos in the camera immediately after we took them.

The first digital SLRreleased in 1991 followed this workflow model. So did the first consumer-grade digital cameras released in 1994. The first digital camera I can recall which had an LCD to review picutres (not sure if you could preview them with a live feed) was the Casio QV-11 released in 1995. I recall lots of comments from photographers and reviewers about how innovative that concept was (but the camera's crappy resolution and toy lens killed it in the market). You have to remember that back in those days, most LCDs on laptops were greyscale. The few which were color were split-screen passive matrix with poor color reproduction and fidelity. CRTs were vastly superior and still dominated the desktop, so it never occurred to most people that they would want eventually want to review the picture they just took on a LCD built into the camera.

Casio has digital compasses in a number of their "Pathfinder" watches. For example the PAG40B-2V. However those watches tend to be a bit pricey ($250-$500) and bulky (in part due to the solar panel, barometer, altimeter and temperature sensors that are also in the watches).

Oh and we were not allowed to use calculators (this is the top university in the state).

You mean this isn't common? I know nothing else. I seldom had exams where (non-graphing, non-programmable) calculators were allowed, but they were of no use then, anyway. I carry around a calculator like this, but only for crunching numbers.

The Casio XJ-S31 does JPEG slide shows from a USB stick. With this order of magnitude price, that'll be the best you can hope for, since I'm assuming you'll also want something portable.

Oops, my bad. I just copied the link from my bookmarks. :)

Here's the Amazon link to the watch. And it's got almost the same set as features as the 70T-7V (difference being that this one is in Titanium).

The all look great BTW.

Taking a notebook entirely depends on where you are travelling to. If you are travelling in the Europe, US or Australia, then you can happily chug your notebook with you. On the other hand, if you are travelling to Asia, it would depend entirely on your destination. The same goes for parts of Africa and South America.

Now, you mentioned backpacking - so I am assuming that you do not particularly plan on staying at a hotel. A lot of backpackers stay in hostels, the Y and so on. If the latter is the case, you cannot leave your stuff in the hotel-room and go look around. So, carrying a notebook becomes a liability that needs to be taken care of constantly.

As someone who's travelled a lot, I usually do not carry my laptop around if I am backpacking across the world. Most parts of the world have Internet-cafes or similar places where you can check your mail, offload your pictures etc. And lugging that extra weight (light as it may be) is still a pain. What happens if you get caught in the rain, or if you decide to get drunk in a totally random place? You can't always be worried about your backpack and doing so is likely to give a big hint to folks that there is something worth stealing in your backpack.

Secondly, you will also need to get power adapters for various locations (Europe uses a different plug design and have different voltage/frequency setting than the US, and parts of Asia are a mixed bunch - in some countries, the plug is different but the voltage is the same as US or Europe and vice versa).

If you really feel the urge to be in touch, get a PDA with wireless features and carry that around. If you can check your email from a wireless access point, then your PDA would work as well as your shiny MacBook. And you can also ensure that it's always on you all the time.

The other accessory that I would take would be a nice, cheap, light tripod - look at some of the cheap, ultralight Amvona ones on eBay. They are very light and are totally worth it. And oh, carry a flashlight and a Swiss army knife. Both always come in useful. Also, get a good travel watch - I do a lot of outdoor stuff and I have a good Casio Pathfinder. It is absolutely worth it - it has a digital compass, a thermometer, a barometer, an altimeter and a slew of other features. Granted, you may not always use every feature, but at some point of time or the other, you will use at least one of the features. I have the PAG70-1V, and absolutely love it.

And finally, a good, light backpack (preferably one with a camelbag that's always got at least some water in it), good cargo-pants, good shoes and a light jacket go a long way towards making your life less miserable. Goodluck! :)

i'll second this. i have a http://www.casio.com/products/Calculators_%26_Dict ionaries/Graphing/FX-9860G/content/Technical_Specs /

which is awesome.

The FX-991MS was my favorite calculator as well. I have made good use of the two I own, you can even do calculus on them... well... sometimes, if you're lucky the calculator can do it faster than you can. The equation solver helped me out a lot too when double-checking. And now that I have finished my formal education (for now) I use it mainly for it's "BASE" mode.

Consider one of the under-$50 TI-competitors that will get you through Freshman Calculus, then when you get to college see what's available.

Whatever it is, it will be better or cheaper than what's here today.

HP's 9g probably isn't enough but at $30 it's worth checking out.

Casio has the FX-7400GPlus for under $40.

Used TIs can be had for under $60.

The only reasons to spend more are if the time-savings are critical or if your school requires features these less expensive calculators don't handle.

As long as you are a student, don't do anything with a calculator you couldn't do in principle with pencil and paper.

Remember, the generation before yours survived high school and college without the benefit of graphing calculators, and the generation before that used pencil, paper, and tables. Most of them turned out okay.

"Also, digital is crap. Analog hands forever. A wristwatch should show you what time it is, not tell you. If you have to read it, you've defeated the point of having a wristwatch."

What bollocks. If reading 3 or 4 numbers off a display takes you more time or effort than reading the hands on a watch, it's your reading comprehension that's crap. Granted plenty of digital watches have sucky displays filled with useless spinny crap and squeeze the time into an area the size of a toothpick.

Personally I use a Casio F-E10; it's cheap, thin, and about as optimal as it gets display wise.

Ditto. I am a thin guy (110 lbs.) with small hands and wrists, and these watches would be too big and heavy for me. I still prefer the CASIO Databank calculator watches. I am currently wearing and using 150 model. I have been wearing these types since junior high/middle school days. :) They work well for me. Plus, light and fits my wrist well.

Ditto. I am a thin guy (110 lbs.) with small hands and wrists, and these watches would be too big and heavy for me. I still prefer the CASIO Databank calculator watches. I am currently wearing and using 150 model. I have been wearing these types since junior high/middle school days. :) They work well for me. Plus, light and fits my wrist well.

I still like CASIO Databank calculator watches (currently wearing and using 150 model). I have been wearing these types since junior high/middle school days. :)

I still like CASIO Databank calculator watches (currently wearing and using 150 model). I have been wearing these types since junior high/middle school days. :)

I've got the Casio WV57H (black version). I'm thinking of getting one of these oneswhen I get the cash (amazon has them for $100, and with a few decent ratings), and if I can maybe see one in person sometime.

I've got the Casio WV57H (black version). I'm thinking of getting one of these oneswhen I get the cash (amazon has them for $100, and with a few decent ratings), and if I can maybe see one in person sometime.

True. Which lead me to the desire to have a least one really accurate wristwatch. Came across the Casio Waveceptor line and got what I was after. Loads of different styles (both analog and digital) and it receives a time calibration radio signal from an atomic clock in Colorado which keeps the watch accurate. Price was right, too. About the same as those Timex or Boliva models mentioned above.

My camera does. It's a Casio Exilim EX-S100, which is now a discontinued product I believe. I would assume current poducts in the line have the same feature.

It's intended to take pictures of whiteboards and business cards and an angle, and does an admirable job of finding the edges and correcting for perspective. The camera itself isn't high-enough resolution to do a great job with a sheet of paper, but for smaller items or things with large print (as I said, business cards and whiteboards) it does a pretty good job.

Then again, other people have responded telling you the same thing. It's here, and it works fairly well for what it is. Take a look sometime.

It just works. It's been scratched, dropped, banged against walls and metal objects, and through one major car accident. It survived three summers of vibration and sweating when I mowed lawns as a teenager for spending money, which killed the Timex that preceded it in a single season. It's been through the shower, rain, pools, etc. God alone knows how many times. Other than the battery, O-ring, and the band which is a cheap metal expandable I bought to replace the crappy plastic band the watch came with, it's still completely intact compared to when I bought it.

Some of the LED segments have gotten dim in fluorescent light, but they're still readable. It still keeps time with the manual-specified accuracy of 30 seconds per month, as far as I can tell. Certainly I only set it a couple of times a year and I don't remember it ever being more than a minute or so off. If it should ever break or, I dunno, they quit making batteries to fit it or something, I guess I'd buy another watch. Probably just the current version of this one, though.

It's simple, it's unobtrusive, it's accurate, and it's reliable. To me, for a watch, that is the definition of style.

Somebody has to recognize the power of full-color 3D graphics in mathematics. Doesn't anyone want the market TI has abandoned?

Camera Watch

I mean lets face it. With the convergence of technologies today eventually you would end up banning everything.

The end is nigh.

No it's not. Calculators are bought by two kinds of people.

1) Students. Students can't use calculators with softkeys.

2) Professionals. Most professionals want calculators that actually work, not some Gameboy hack designed by Joe Shmoe that comes up with 2.99998 when asked to calculate the square root of nine. (They also want calculators with tactile feedback, long battery life, and the ability to work after being dropped a couple of times.)

[G]eneralization is cheaper than specific hardware

That's why my PC is cheaper than my XBOX. I mean, that's why my Palm is cheaper than my remote control. I mean, that's why my Hitachi 4GB Microdrive is cheaper than my iPod Mini. Hmm.

Anyway, calculators just in terms of hardware are cheap. But, er, good luck with that.

The only people worrying about K's everywhere are in Redmond. Everyone else just wants their camera to work.

I'm sure in a few years, some wristwatches will come with built-in cameras too.

I have had one of these 13 years and counting (yeah, I'm old), nothing more than a few new batteries... Runs like a champ.

Of course if I had one of these I could mess with my friends by changing the channel on the TV...

Just because I'm a "nerd" doesn't mean I have to look like a dork, does it?

Show me where they can be purchased online Casio?, Office Depot?, OfficeMax?

All of these have square root, memory, etc. Even the $3 ones.

There is a big market for calculators with large buttons

Yes, and big buttons are a "feature". My point was that you are going to pay the same amount for these cell phones that have a bunch of features than the plain jane ones. Hence, they will no longer make the plain jane phones, except when it has a needed feature (like big buttons). Casio's line of Plain Jane Calculators, notice the feature set.

I use this and as far as PDA is concerned, I use Treo 600

Maybe that was the wish list...

The Atomic Solar G-Shock automatically synchronizes itself with an atomic clock signal (thus the "atomic" part of the name), uses solar power to recharge the built-in lithium ion battery (thus "solar"), and could probably withstand being stepped on, swallowed, digested, and defecated by a brontosaurus (thus "G-Shock"). It's also water resistant to 200 meters.

At just under $100, I'd say that's not bad, especially since I may never have to buy another watch for the rest of my life.

But the reason I chose this watch is because it receives the national atomic clock radio time signal thingy and sets itself every night. So I always know exactly what time it is.

Phhhh! That Timex GPS watch not only comes with a huge external GPS box that you have to attach elsewhere on your body, but it won't even give you the GPS coordinates of where you are! It simply uses the GPS numbers internally to calculate how far you have run/walked/biked/whatever.

No, the only real GPS watch is from the fine folks at Casio.

1. The legendary CFX-200 Scientific Calculator watch
2. MP3 Player watch
3. GPS unit watch
4. IR Remote watch
5. Camera watch