Why do people cling to seriously outdated technology, that by today's standards is just a sorry joke of crappiness? Sure, back then it may have been awesome. But please, compare it to Qualculate! or even a full-blown suite like Mathematica on a small portable computer!
The problem is that like traditional handheld calculators, people do not always have their laptop/notebook with them. So applications like Perpenso Calc for iPhone are very useful because people will tend to always have their phone with them. With this single app you can make sure you always have the functionality of scientific, statistics, business and hex calculators with you.
I may be biased but I think it makes more sense to put the functionality of various traditional handheld calculators into a single app. Perpenso Calc for iPhone optionally supports RPN and offers scientific, statistics, business, hex and bill functionality. More importantly you have the option to use a modern worksheet format for the time value of money, cash flow, amortization, break even, and profit margin calculations; or use the traditional button based approach if you prefer.
First we already have a gasoline tax. Paying a tax per gallon is a fair good proxy for miles driven. Until we have a non-trivial number of electric vehicles this proposal seems quite unnecessary. At most we might need to tax alternative fuels like ethanol, biodiesel, etc.
Secondly why do we need another agency or more government employees to measure individual mileage? Paying a tax per gallon doesn't need any such new government employees. Even if it is technology based, the vehicle reports mileage, there will be new people to monitor and enforce compliance, identify and deal with those tampering with the new devices or reporting system, etc.
As a bonus a tax per gallon also rewards those with higher mileage vehicles.
As a non-bonus, do we really need a government device monitoring/reporting our vehicles' behavior? Some time after introduction and in order to "save the children" they will probably start reporting bad behaviors like speeding. Perhaps we can pay our speeding tickets at the pump along with this new mileage tax.
We've known for ages that helium-3 is a good potential fusion fuel, and that mining the moon could be a good source of it. But we don't have fusion power plants yet, nor are we particularly close to getting them. So why talking about mining fuel that we're at least twenty years away from being able to use?
Because we're probably also 20 years away from being able to mine the moon for He3. So maybe now would be a good time to start looking into it.
Which does not negate the fact that it was also an obvious technology.
Its only obvious technology to someone today who has been trained in the technology. You are blinded in a way by hindsight. To someone with the education and technology of the 1960s things are quite different.
It is also apparent that RCA, "a technology visionary", patented the thing with the intent of trolling, since at the time they had no use for their "invention".
No, its "obvious" what they were thinking. As a major TV manufacturer they were thinking of a feature where they could overlay text on the normal image, news headlines, stock market quotes, etc. No need for the broadcast network to do such things. Have this text broadcast on a newly assigned frequency and let the customer select what info, if any, to be displayed on whatever channel they are watching. Now that I have planted this meme in your head isn't it "obvious" they may have had some possible applications. That's how hindsight colors the perception of the past.
... I don't think game developers are worse off than before...
I agree that the low end integrated chipsets are better than ever and will continue to improve. However what developers hate is that the growing popularity of the low end chipsets restrain developers with respect to the visual effects and complexity that they can use.
... Google use data derived from the contents of pages they index...
Interesting. I guess that adapts for common usage deviating from proper spelling and grammar.
... pick up on what type of document it is (letter, technical manual, novel, newspaper article) and make informed mental corrections...
Machines will do this to a degree, for example favoring lowercase L when the surrounding characters are alphabetic and favoring one when the surrounding characters are numeric. But yeah, context rules, the preceding works well enough in prose but often fails in source code.
But are more and more monitors the likely path gaming will follow? I just think a decent projector and screen might offer a more emersive experience. Particularly with prices and the size of projectors falling.
I suspect not. The trend is for consumers to move from desktops to laptops for personal machines. Laptops are already the majority. Even some desktops are actually using laptop components, in particular all-in-ones and extremely small footprint, and budget machines using embedded video originally designed for laptops.
In addition to the obvious lack of expansion and upgrades, laptops are designed for power consumption not performance. Their video chips are generally at the lower end of the performance spectrum.
Apple has an interesting approach that others might also use. Some laptops come with two video chips. One optimized for power consumption intended for "normal" use and a second optimized for performance and intended for 3D gaming. With the thunderbolt port multi-monitor may be plausible. That said I think such machines are going to be exotic, less common.
In general I think game programmers and artists are going to be ever more frustrated as lower end embedded video chips become even more common among the target audience.
I'm not convinced that the large compound would be a giveaway by any stretch of the imagination. Lots of nutjobs rent large compounds.... Besides, the critical piece of information, which you abbreviated as UBL, was not obfuscated as it should have been. It should have been replaced with [TerrorSuspect#1231], e.g.
A man named [Informant#1786] and employed by [TerrorSuspect#1231] as a courier has rented a large compound in [Location censored].
The key question remains. What good is served by publicizing this information? What abusive behavior is being exposed? This is classic and justifiable intelligence data and should not be released by wikileak types at all.
Although this would give away a lot of information if it leaks instantly (right after the guy rented the large compound), after a few weeks delay, that's not nearly as much of an issue. The important thing is to avoid keywords or precise dates that would make it possible for the bad guys to connect the leak with their activities and thus discover that they had been outed.
As someone who has read a couple books about WW2's Bletchley Park I would disagree. A terror suspect's courier renting a compound is incredibly specific information and should set off warning bells of anyone in the compound even without a date or location.
I apologize for being redundant but I am truly baffled by the idea that the public has a right to know that a terror suspect's courier is renting a compound.
The same concept could be applied to specific locations that are not outside the publicly disclosed areas of fighting. The point is that the actions are the important part, not the names or places, and that those details can be obscured in the short term without loss of crucial transparency.
The concept you offer is flawed. Names and places are not enough. For example:
A man named [XXX] and employed by UBL as a courier has rented a large compound in [XXX].
Courier and compound are obviously troublesome so we wind up with:
A man named [XXX] and employed by UBL as a [XXX] has rented a [XXX] in [XXX].
I'n not sure rented should even be in there, so:
A man named [XXX] and employed by UBL as a [XXX] has [XXX] a [XXX] in [XXX].
Either line seems more opaque than transparent, so why even bother? Such a document should simply not be released in any form.
And this is why every name of private individuals (as opposed to public officials) should be replaced consistently by a pseudonym prior to publication. It does nothing to harm the transparency, yet does so without nearly as much harm to national security.
I think this example demonstrates otherwise. Merely mentioning a place of interest in Abbottabad could have caused the targets to flee.
How can you get 3/5 without phone or internet? Sure you can not put these distractions in the guest's room but the facility should offer these somewhere.
Didn't wikileaks give the government a preview of things they were going to release?
Perhaps you missed it but ***very few*** in government knew the courier's real name and the significance of Abbottabad. However UBL's folks in Abbottabad would and thereby know to flee if they had bothered to do a "find" on the wikileak docs.
... the accumulated cultural wisdom of all citizens which allows them to know when to publish a leaked document to expose corruption and when to sit on it. Oh wait, that's what we've got.
No. **If** wikileaks actually did release info related to Abbottabad then we *do not* have the component where people have the wisdom to know when to not release the info, the wisdom to sit on it as you say.
Wikileaks may be as unskilled as the government with respect to classifying info. They merely may be erring on the opposite end of the spectrum and letting too much out. Wikileaks is a bit like a vigilante organization and our "accumulated cultural wisdom" say that courts and the rule of law (logic) are better than vigilantes (emotion).
So, now you destroy your previous argument by saying talent doesn't matter as much as budgeting and scheduling, which Ubisoft will undoubtedly be better at than if they hired out the job. I don't get it. Did you have a point?
No, you missed the point by a wide mark, and of course as the writer that is my fault. My point is that game and movie development require different skill sets and approaches, and that high performing individuals in one field may not perform very highly in the other. A corollary to this is that even when you do have high performing individuals (possible outside experts) they can be undermined by time and money. So if a game inspired movie is done poorly it may be that the wrong people worked on it, or maybe the right people worked on it but they had insufficient time and resources, or perhaps...
Having the game makers and designers working on it can only improve what has been, for quite some time, a really awful form of movie.
Game development and movie development are different skills, one is long duration interactive entertainment and the other is short duration passive entertainment. You seem to be making a very common mistake, assuming great talent in one area translates to great talent in another area. Whatever comes second, the movie adapted from the game or the game adapted from the movie, is usually inferior because of the budgeting and scheduling. Ie the constraints imposed on the development team and not necessarily the ability of the development team.
MSNBC just reported that the mansion was several times larger than any other building in the town, surrounded by a 15 foot wall topped with barbed wire, with a double gate, and no telephone wires connecting it to the outside. If that doesn't scream "hide out", nothing does. I'm thinking there were a lot of locals who knew and didn't care.
The NY Times is reporting that the town is also home to a large military base and a military academy for officers. So yeah, what were the local sympathies.
Their loss I guess, they missed out on that million dollar reward.
Is the Guantanamo detainee who gave up the courier eligible?:-)
Interesting, so the US has ground troops in Pakistan, too? Shall we assume that they have both permission of the Pakistani government and the constitutional blessing of the US Congress for being at war in a FOURTH country...
The New York Times is reporting that the town Osama was found in is an affluent town near a large army base plus the country's military academy. Somehow I think we may not have given the Pakistani government much, if any, prior notice. There have been too many reports that some in the intelligence service and military are supporters or protectors of Osama. Our President could not risk another Tora Bora where locals decided to protect Osama rather than capture him.
The reality was that the president wanted personal revenge because he blamed Saddam for Daddy losing out on a second term...
Uh, no, Ross Perot was to blame for that.:-) The Gulf War was popular and considered well executed. It was the economy that did Bush Sr in, not anything to do with the war. The revenge against Saddam angle would hypothetically be for the attempt to assassinate Bush Sr when he visited the middle east after his presidency.
The true reality of the situation was that Saddam tried to hide the fact that he no longer possessed WMD. He wanted others, in particular Iran, to think he may still have them. Saddam feared appearing weak. He admitted this under US interrogation. And no there was no water boarding, it was the effective type of interrogation - long term contact, establish a relationship, use psychology, etc. National Geographic had a pretty interesting documentary about Saddam's interrogation.
What someone could add in future is "augmented reality". e.g. use phone, take a picture/live video of a bunch of numbers, and it adds the numbers up.
Or write on a napkin: 4 x 2 + 5 = ?
and the phone figures out what ? is.
For bonus points it solves equations;).
No problem. Once upon a time I worked on an OCR system.;-)
I did say if you're an exempt employee. Obviously if you're wrongly classified as an exempt employee, then you are not one.
The larger point is that the state now thinks nearly everyone is wrongly classified as an exempt employee. What have been considered exempt fields/positions for decades are now being ruled otherwise by the state. Things have changed.
But those exceptions have to be rare events, not common occurrences, IIRC.
I wonder if that's what I meant when I said "there are a few exceptions..."
The clarification being made is that those few exceptions can only be used on rare occasions, they can not be regular events.
Please tell me what state has laws like this. The state of insanity perhaps?
California. Come on, did you really have to ask, wasn't it virtually a given?;-)
This has been common practice at EVERY job I have worked at in the last 20 years. 8 hours is 8 hours. Laws dictate that employers cannot make you work 8 hours without giving you the OPTION of taking a lunch break, but I don't believe there are laws REQUIRING employees to take them, or face being fired. Methinks you are pulling crazy stuff out of your ass there.
Methinks I once worked at a company whose salaried exempt employees worked as you described, then it got sued and it got visited by the state. Methinks I had a business law class taught by an attorney specializing in labor law.
Also if you have ANY citations where this has actually happened, I would love to see you post them. Otherwise I am just going to assume YANAL and have no idea what you are actually talking about.
Don't take my word for it. Try Google, there is no shortage of actual lawyers who have posted that meal breaks are not optional.
As for calculators, that's rather primitive... One of my ex-colleagues (a guy if that's important to you) created a fancy spreadsheet that helped with all the calculations (tax, surcharge etc)... If Slashdotters want to split bills fairly they should do it a proper nerdy style:).
I have an app for that, well that and a bit more.:-), Perpenso Calc for iPhone RPN, 5 modes: Scientific Stats Business Hex Bill.
Want to quickly determine a tip? Simply enter your sub total as an item and a tip will be calculated using your default tip rate. If you would like to change the tip you may enter a tip percentage or if you prefer you may specify the tip amount.
Want to calculate the actual portion of a bill that you are responsible for? You can specify the percentage of an individual item that you are responsible, much better than simply splitting the total. For example if you shared an appetizer with three friends, had an entree and two drinks simply enter the full price of the appetizer and your percentage of 25, the price of your entree and then the price of your drink and a quantity of 2.
Screen shots at the above link illustrate the above.
Also you can do the above in a traditional calculator mode or in a more modern GUI based worksheet format.
Slashdot Mirror
Why do people cling to seriously outdated technology, that by today's standards is just a sorry joke of crappiness? Sure, back then it may have been awesome. But please, compare it to Qualculate! or even a full-blown suite like Mathematica on a small portable computer!
The problem is that like traditional handheld calculators, people do not always have their laptop/notebook with them. So applications like Perpenso Calc for iPhone are very useful because people will tend to always have their phone with them. With this single app you can make sure you always have the functionality of scientific, statistics, business and hex calculators with you.
Now bring back one of the models the scientists/engineers will care about, like the 15C or 42S.
Actually, it makes more sense to do what they did - bring them back as smartphone apps.
I may be biased but I think it makes more sense to put the functionality of various traditional handheld calculators into a single app. Perpenso Calc for iPhone optionally supports RPN and offers scientific, statistics, business, hex and bill functionality. More importantly you have the option to use a modern worksheet format for the time value of money, cash flow, amortization, break even, and profit margin calculations; or use the traditional button based approach if you prefer.
This sounds very, very bad.
In more than one way.
First we already have a gasoline tax. Paying a tax per gallon is a fair good proxy for miles driven. Until we have a non-trivial number of electric vehicles this proposal seems quite unnecessary. At most we might need to tax alternative fuels like ethanol, biodiesel, etc.
Secondly why do we need another agency or more government employees to measure individual mileage? Paying a tax per gallon doesn't need any such new government employees. Even if it is technology based, the vehicle reports mileage, there will be new people to monitor and enforce compliance, identify and deal with those tampering with the new devices or reporting system, etc.
As a bonus a tax per gallon also rewards those with higher mileage vehicles.
As a non-bonus, do we really need a government device monitoring/reporting our vehicles' behavior? Some time after introduction and in order to "save the children" they will probably start reporting bad behaviors like speeding. Perhaps we can pay our speeding tickets at the pump along with this new mileage tax.
We've known for ages that helium-3 is a good potential fusion fuel, and that mining the moon could be a good source of it. But we don't have fusion power plants yet, nor are we particularly close to getting them. So why talking about mining fuel that we're at least twenty years away from being able to use?
Because we're probably also 20 years away from being able to mine the moon for He3. So maybe now would be a good time to start looking into it.
Which does not negate the fact that it was also an obvious technology.
Its only obvious technology to someone today who has been trained in the technology. You are blinded in a way by hindsight. To someone with the education and technology of the 1960s things are quite different.
It is also apparent that RCA, "a technology visionary", patented the thing with the intent of trolling, since at the time they had no use for their "invention".
No, its "obvious" what they were thinking. As a major TV manufacturer they were thinking of a feature where they could overlay text on the normal image, news headlines, stock market quotes, etc. No need for the broadcast network to do such things. Have this text broadcast on a newly assigned frequency and let the customer select what info, if any, to be displayed on whatever channel they are watching. Now that I have planted this meme in your head isn't it "obvious" they may have had some possible applications. That's how hindsight colors the perception of the past.
... I don't think game developers are worse off than before ...
I agree that the low end integrated chipsets are better than ever and will continue to improve. However what developers hate is that the growing popularity of the low end chipsets restrain developers with respect to the visual effects and complexity that they can use.
... Google use data derived from the contents of pages they index ...
Interesting. I guess that adapts for common usage deviating from proper spelling and grammar.
... pick up on what type of document it is (letter, technical manual, novel, newspaper article) and make informed mental corrections ...
Machines will do this to a degree, for example favoring lowercase L when the surrounding characters are alphabetic and favoring one when the surrounding characters are numeric. But yeah, context rules, the preceding works well enough in prose but often fails in source code.
But are more and more monitors the likely path gaming will follow? I just think a decent projector and screen might offer a more emersive experience. Particularly with prices and the size of projectors falling.
I suspect not. The trend is for consumers to move from desktops to laptops for personal machines. Laptops are already the majority. Even some desktops are actually using laptop components, in particular all-in-ones and extremely small footprint, and budget machines using embedded video originally designed for laptops.
In addition to the obvious lack of expansion and upgrades, laptops are designed for power consumption not performance. Their video chips are generally at the lower end of the performance spectrum.
Apple has an interesting approach that others might also use. Some laptops come with two video chips. One optimized for power consumption intended for "normal" use and a second optimized for performance and intended for 3D gaming. With the thunderbolt port multi-monitor may be plausible. That said I think such machines are going to be exotic, less common.
In general I think game programmers and artists are going to be ever more frustrated as lower end embedded video chips become even more common among the target audience.
I'm not convinced that the large compound would be a giveaway by any stretch of the imagination. Lots of nutjobs rent large compounds.... Besides, the critical piece of information, which you abbreviated as UBL, was not obfuscated as it should have been. It should have been replaced with [TerrorSuspect#1231], e.g.
A man named [Informant#1786] and employed by [TerrorSuspect#1231] as a courier has rented a large compound in [Location censored].
The key question remains. What good is served by publicizing this information? What abusive behavior is being exposed? This is classic and justifiable intelligence data and should not be released by wikileak types at all.
Although this would give away a lot of information if it leaks instantly (right after the guy rented the large compound), after a few weeks delay, that's not nearly as much of an issue. The important thing is to avoid keywords or precise dates that would make it possible for the bad guys to connect the leak with their activities and thus discover that they had been outed.
As someone who has read a couple books about WW2's Bletchley Park I would disagree. A terror suspect's courier renting a compound is incredibly specific information and should set off warning bells of anyone in the compound even without a date or location.
I apologize for being redundant but I am truly baffled by the idea that the public has a right to know that a terror suspect's courier is renting a compound.
The same concept could be applied to specific locations that are not outside the publicly disclosed areas of fighting. The point is that the actions are the important part, not the names or places, and that those details can be obscured in the short term without loss of crucial transparency.
The concept you offer is flawed. Names and places are not enough. For example:
A man named [XXX] and employed by UBL as a courier has rented a large compound in [XXX].
Courier and compound are obviously troublesome so we wind up with:
A man named [XXX] and employed by UBL as a [XXX] has rented a [XXX] in [XXX].
I'n not sure rented should even be in there, so:
A man named [XXX] and employed by UBL as a [XXX] has [XXX] a [XXX] in [XXX].
Either line seems more opaque than transparent, so why even bother? Such a document should simply not be released in any form.
And this is why every name of private individuals (as opposed to public officials) should be replaced consistently by a pseudonym prior to publication. It does nothing to harm the transparency, yet does so without nearly as much harm to national security.
I think this example demonstrates otherwise. Merely mentioning a place of interest in Abbottabad could have caused the targets to flee.
How can you get 3/5 without phone or internet? Sure you can not put these distractions in the guest's room but the facility should offer these somewhere.
Who exactly, thinks this dump is a mansion?
The millions who live nearby.
Didn't wikileaks give the government a preview of things they were going to release?
Perhaps you missed it but ***very few*** in government knew the courier's real name and the significance of Abbottabad. However UBL's folks in Abbottabad would and thereby know to flee if they had bothered to do a "find" on the wikileak docs.
Sounds to me like Wikileaks kept us from sitting on our ass and doing nothing despite our intelligence, like what happened in Tora Bora.
No. What happened at Tora Bora is that we trusted our allies.
... the accumulated cultural wisdom of all citizens which allows them to know when to publish a leaked document to expose corruption and when to sit on it. Oh wait, that's what we've got.
No. **If** wikileaks actually did release info related to Abbottabad then we *do not* have the component where people have the wisdom to know when to not release the info, the wisdom to sit on it as you say.
Wikileaks may be as unskilled as the government with respect to classifying info. They merely may be erring on the opposite end of the spectrum and letting too much out. Wikileaks is a bit like a vigilante organization and our "accumulated cultural wisdom" say that courts and the rule of law (logic) are better than vigilantes (emotion).
So, now you destroy your previous argument by saying talent doesn't matter as much as budgeting and scheduling, which Ubisoft will undoubtedly be better at than if they hired out the job. I don't get it. Did you have a point?
No, you missed the point by a wide mark, and of course as the writer that is my fault. My point is that game and movie development require different skill sets and approaches, and that high performing individuals in one field may not perform very highly in the other. A corollary to this is that even when you do have high performing individuals (possible outside experts) they can be undermined by time and money. So if a game inspired movie is done poorly it may be that the wrong people worked on it, or maybe the right people worked on it but they had insufficient time and resources, or perhaps ...
Having the game makers and designers working on it can only improve what has been, for quite some time, a really awful form of movie.
Game development and movie development are different skills, one is long duration interactive entertainment and the other is short duration passive entertainment. You seem to be making a very common mistake, assuming great talent in one area translates to great talent in another area. Whatever comes second, the movie adapted from the game or the game adapted from the movie, is usually inferior because of the budgeting and scheduling. Ie the constraints imposed on the development team and not necessarily the ability of the development team.
MSNBC just reported that the mansion was several times larger than any other building in the town, surrounded by a 15 foot wall topped with barbed wire, with a double gate, and no telephone wires connecting it to the outside. If that doesn't scream "hide out", nothing does. I'm thinking there were a lot of locals who knew and didn't care.
The NY Times is reporting that the town is also home to a large military base and a military academy for officers. So yeah, what were the local sympathies.
Their loss I guess, they missed out on that million dollar reward.
Is the Guantanamo detainee who gave up the courier eligible? :-)
Interesting, so the US has ground troops in Pakistan, too? Shall we assume that they have both permission of the Pakistani government and the constitutional blessing of the US Congress for being at war in a FOURTH country...
The New York Times is reporting that the town Osama was found in is an affluent town near a large army base plus the country's military academy. Somehow I think we may not have given the Pakistani government much, if any, prior notice. There have been too many reports that some in the intelligence service and military are supporters or protectors of Osama. Our President could not risk another Tora Bora where locals decided to protect Osama rather than capture him.
"Abbottabad is home to a large Pakistani military base, a military academy of the Pakistani army, and a major hospital and other facilities that would could have served as support for Osama Bin Laden." http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/asia/osama-bin-laden-is-killed.html
The reality was that the president wanted personal revenge because he blamed Saddam for Daddy losing out on a second term ...
Uh, no, Ross Perot was to blame for that. :-) The Gulf War was popular and considered well executed. It was the economy that did Bush Sr in, not anything to do with the war. The revenge against Saddam angle would hypothetically be for the attempt to assassinate Bush Sr when he visited the middle east after his presidency.
The true reality of the situation was that Saddam tried to hide the fact that he no longer possessed WMD. He wanted others, in particular Iran, to think he may still have them. Saddam feared appearing weak. He admitted this under US interrogation. And no there was no water boarding, it was the effective type of interrogation - long term contact, establish a relationship, use psychology, etc. National Geographic had a pretty interesting documentary about Saddam's interrogation.
What someone could add in future is "augmented reality". e.g. use phone, take a picture/live video of a bunch of numbers, and it adds the numbers up. Or write on a napkin: 4 x 2 + 5 = ? and the phone figures out what ? is. For bonus points it solves equations ;).
No problem. Once upon a time I worked on an OCR system. ;-)
I did say if you're an exempt employee. Obviously if you're wrongly classified as an exempt employee, then you are not one.
The larger point is that the state now thinks nearly everyone is wrongly classified as an exempt employee. What have been considered exempt fields/positions for decades are now being ruled otherwise by the state. Things have changed.
But those exceptions have to be rare events, not common occurrences, IIRC.
I wonder if that's what I meant when I said "there are a few exceptions..."
The clarification being made is that those few exceptions can only be used on rare occasions, they can not be regular events.
Please tell me what state has laws like this. The state of insanity perhaps?
California. Come on, did you really have to ask, wasn't it virtually a given? ;-)
This has been common practice at EVERY job I have worked at in the last 20 years. 8 hours is 8 hours. Laws dictate that employers cannot make you work 8 hours without giving you the OPTION of taking a lunch break, but I don't believe there are laws REQUIRING employees to take them, or face being fired. Methinks you are pulling crazy stuff out of your ass there.
Methinks I once worked at a company whose salaried exempt employees worked as you described, then it got sued and it got visited by the state. Methinks I had a business law class taught by an attorney specializing in labor law.
Also if you have ANY citations where this has actually happened, I would love to see you post them. Otherwise I am just going to assume YANAL and have no idea what you are actually talking about.
Don't take my word for it. Try Google, there is no shortage of actual lawyers who have posted that meal breaks are not optional.
As for calculators, that's rather primitive... One of my ex-colleagues (a guy if that's important to you) created a fancy spreadsheet that helped with all the calculations (tax, surcharge etc) ... If Slashdotters want to split bills fairly they should do it a proper nerdy style :).
I have an app for that, well that and a bit more. :-), Perpenso Calc for iPhone RPN, 5 modes: Scientific Stats Business Hex Bill.
Want to quickly determine a tip? Simply enter your sub total as an item and a tip will be calculated using your default tip rate. If you would like to change the tip you may enter a tip percentage or if you prefer you may specify the tip amount.
Want to calculate the actual portion of a bill that you are responsible for? You can specify the percentage of an individual item that you are responsible, much better than simply splitting the total. For example if you shared an appetizer with three friends, had an entree and two drinks simply enter the full price of the appetizer and your percentage of 25, the price of your entree and then the price of your drink and a quantity of 2.
Screen shots at the above link illustrate the above.
Also you can do the above in a traditional calculator mode or in a more modern GUI based worksheet format.