I used to be the lead backup guy at a pretty huge corporation, where I had several StorageTek libraries in operation. Amazing machines really, archived huge amounts of data and the barcodes/software made what should have been complicated an absolute breeze.
VIPs always wanted to give tours of the data centre (it was a pretty impressive place), and 95% of the time it was the same... in a room with untold computing power, millions upon millions of dollars worth of hardware... what really impressed people was the robotics inside the StorageTeks extracting tapes. Sure, it looks cool... but it's not our product people! If you're going to invest in a company, don't be impressed by someone else's slick work!
This reminds me of taking open book tests in university. The professor would allow any text or reference material, it really didn't matter. It came down to either you know your stuff or you don't.
When those calculator watches first came out I was in elementary school... and thought those must be the easy route to straight A's in math all the way through. I remember a babysitter working on math homework and I was convinced she was cheating since she "openly" used a calculator.
If you understand fractions, calculating them conventionally with a calculator is trivial. If you don't, exactly how much benefit could this be? How many questions on this exam could possibly be solved simply by converting fractions to decimal? Yes, I realize these kids are only 12... but still, surely there must be a little more to the questions than that.
Slashdot Mirror
I used to be the lead backup guy at a pretty huge corporation, where I had several StorageTek libraries in operation. Amazing machines really, archived huge amounts of data and the barcodes/software made what should have been complicated an absolute breeze.
VIPs always wanted to give tours of the data centre (it was a pretty impressive place), and 95% of the time it was the same... in a room with untold computing power, millions upon millions of dollars worth of hardware... what really impressed people was the robotics inside the StorageTeks extracting tapes. Sure, it looks cool... but it's not our product people! If you're going to invest in a company, don't be impressed by someone else's slick work!
Whatever gets the money, I guess...
This reminds me of taking open book tests in university. The professor would allow any text or reference material, it really didn't matter. It came down to either you know your stuff or you don't.
When those calculator watches first came out I was in elementary school... and thought those must be the easy route to straight A's in math all the way through. I remember a babysitter working on math homework and I was convinced she was cheating since she "openly" used a calculator.
If you understand fractions, calculating them conventionally with a calculator is trivial. If you don't, exactly how much benefit could this be? How many questions on this exam could possibly be solved simply by converting fractions to decimal? Yes, I realize these kids are only 12... but still, surely there must be a little more to the questions than that.