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TI vs. Calculator Hobbyists, Again
Deep Thought writes "Texas Instruments, already infamous thanks to the signing key controversy last year, is trying a new trick to lock down its graphing calculators, this time directed toward its newest TI-Nspire line. The TI-Nspires were already the most controlled of TI's various calculator models, and no third-party development of any kind (except for its very limited form of TI-BASIC) was allowed until the release of the independent tool Ndless. Since its release, TI has been determined to prevent the large calculator programming community from using it. Its latest released operating system for the Nspire family (version 2.1) now prevents the calculators from downgrading to OS 1.1, needed to run Ndless. This is TI's second major attack on Ndless, as the company has already demanded that websites posting the required OS 1.1 remove it from public download [PDF, in French], obviously to prevent use of the tool. Once again, TI is preventing calculator hobbyists from running their own software on calculators they bought and paid for."
Why use TI
HP make better calculators (with RPN), and they encourage the community.
Get your hand off it, you'll go blind if you keep doing that.
"This slide rule has obviously been tampered with! So said the teacher!"
"A slide rule? Luxury! When I was a school boy we only had an abacus!"
"Ha, that's nothing! When I was in school we weren't allowed to count using our fingers!"
(With apologies to Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch)
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
(With apologies to Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch)
When I were a lad it were the Three Yorkshiremen sketch.
On't radio.
That's right, kids, in the real world you won't have access to reference materials and may very well need to solve equations in your head to save your life, MacGyver style.
In elementary school I wasn't allowed to count on my fingers because the teacher thought it was more important to know addition tables by rote instead of relying on other learning methods. So I learned to visualize counting on my toes. I wound up with a B.Sc. in theoretical mathematics. They sure showed me.
Of course. After all, you could lose your fingers in an accident, and if rely on your fingers to count, you'll be lost. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
s/us/we/ I guess you don't use grammar either.
we mathematicians DO NOT wee calculators. We don't do arithmetic. Don't tag this math.
Sewage Treatment Facilities - "Our duty is clear."
Don't tag me, bro!
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
For zero and negative numbers, I always had to ask the poor fellow who lost parts of his hand in a bandsaw accident. I couldn't bring him to school either :(.
Well now in social situations when somebody asks you how many chicken nuggets you want, or how long you have been with the company, you don't look like a retard when you put your hands up and start counting fingers.
The sadistic side of me thinks it would probably enjoy seeing someone do that, but with Chisanbop.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
the teacher could wipe those bitches clean in five seconds ... Oh, and she could program.
Do you have her phone number?
mod +1: pedant
Unless we're doing integration, in which case we call it "quadrature" to save face.
May the Maths Be with you!
That reminds me of a pretty funny thing I saw today. There's a group on Facebook advocating that police have to yell "Pikachu!" before tazing anyone. What a country.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
img-clap
That's a fantastic argument: "Big words me not understand. Smash!"
Well now in social situations when somebody asks you how many chicken nuggets you want, or how long you have been with the company, you don't look like a retard when you put your hands up and start counting fingers.
Chicken McNuggets come in 6, 10, and sometimes 20 or 50 quantities. So if you're in a McDonalds and counting is involved in your chicken nugget order, you're doing it wrong. And if you're ordering the 50 piece "party bucket" you're probably also doing "avoiding heart disease" wrong too.
Seriously? You can't see the value in forcing kids to learn how to count in their heads?
I see more value in allowing children to come up with their own solutions and find what works best for them. They'll do it anyway, as I did and GP did. Show me a study that demonstrates finger-counting actually impedes math skills and I'll shut up, but I suspect this is just a poorly-researched "It's how I learned it so it's the right way and it's how you'll learn it" relic. One that probably turns more kids off of math at an early stage, before the really fun math.
Who said anything about converting. My wife sends me to the store to pick up 1100 eggs. My shoes are size 1001, I'm 101' 1011" tall, and I weigh 11000011 lbs. My kids are 111 and 101 years old. Although, it does confuse teachers when the kids tell them they just celebrated their hundred and eleventieth birthday.
The obligitory...
My son just turned b.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.