The one thing I've noticed about "computer-stupid" people of any age group is that they're unwilling to click on anything unknown or just test something. It's like they've lost the capacity for experimental play and refuse to learn on their own.
The other thing I've noticed is that they'll play with a computer once, let it sit for a month or 2 and come back having forgotten what they learnt. It's as if they don't comprehend (or don't want to comprehend) that like any other skill it takes practice and regular re-enforcement to become proficient. They'd never take up golf, play or practice 6 times a year and then berate themselves for their golf not improving but they will do just that if you replace golf with computer skills. It pisses me off. Older generation is always going on about how this is the "me" generation and lazy then they pull shit like that.
[quote]It is well worth carrying a small laptop instead of a pocket calculator for all the added power you get, unless you're doing simple arithmetic.[/quote] No, it isn't. Unless your level of geekdom is over 9000, that is.
For basic math use your goddamn mobile phone, not a HP or TI calc!
[quote]It is well worth carrying a small laptop instead of a pocket calculator for all the added power you get, unless you're doing simple arithmetic.[/quote] No, it isn't. Unless your level of geekdom is over 9000, that is.
Absolutely. If I go down to the supermarket I might have to compare unit prices, total cash etc - so a small calculator in my pocket is a good idea. I am unlikely to come across anything needing a laptop's power or find it worth carrying one. At geek levels of 8500 or more you may well not be able to resist trying to optimise the queuing at checkouts or simulate the airflow for optimum placement of air-conditioning outlets, freezers and doorways.
For that simple arithmetic use the calc on your mobile phone - you're not going to want to carry a TI or HP calc around just to add grocery bills.
Er, I wasnt aware you could do 3d graphing on LibreOffice calc, factor algebraic equations, solve for x, or any of the other basic things a good decent TI-82 equivalent can do (and those things are like 20 years old). Octave appears to be a programming language, that is, that I cant simply plug in Y=3x+z^2 and get a graph. Hooray for reducing simplicity! Hooray for complexity for its own sake!
Seriously, it sounds like youre either trolling, or have never used a TI-82+ equivalent. They are easy enough for a budding 7th grader to use, powerful enough for real world use, and have a quite nice BASIC programming function (which I credit for getting me into the world of computers). And honestly, I dont know what math class would allow you to bring a laptop in, or why its fair to compare a $100 (new) TI or HP calc to a $450 laptop.
There's not a lot that one of the pieces of software I listed can't do.
But I LOVE the way you gibber on that I can't possibly have used a TI calculator having just dismissed Octave without doing a simple Google search. Way to be logically consistent.
There is a SHITLOAD of math software out there. Many of these pieces of software will overcome almost any limitation of your TI calc.
Here's a good one for simple graphing that I've used extensively some time ago (almost 2 decades! i started on the DOS version). Doesn't seem to be supported anymore but still works. http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~meredith/X(PLORE)/xplorepg.html
As for cost, a laptop will do a lot more than your calc - unless you're telling me your calc will edit photos and let you write email? So that extra couple of hundred dollars is well spent.
As for exams and laptops not permitted it isn't my fault or problem that Uni examinations are idiotic and set by lazy academics who don't know or care what counts in the real world - they're the same idiots who can't kick their 70s thinking that I was talking about in the first palce. By all means buy a calc to pass the test...but then don't complain the fucking thing isn't hackable.
If you think you can toughen a laptop, with a 10+" screen, large keyboard, large LION battery, heatsinks, fans, and all, up to the same standard you can with a 2" by 4" calculator, you are sadly mistaken. Larger more complex devices are by nature harder to ruggedize, especially when the screen gets large enough to be able to flex and break.
Not to mention ruggedizing it (adding a solid steel frame to the screen, for example) would add quite a bit to the weight and cost, so all of a sudden we're talking about a $1500 laptop weighing 3kg, vs a $100 calculator weighing 250 grams. And for what gain? To use an OS not designed for mathmatics, on a device with 1/50th of the battery life?
Last time I checked there were specialised laptops for the battlefield, carried by troops.
No calculator is going to allow you to check or fix mistakes with the ease that even the simplest spreadsheet software will. Punching in long tedious calculations by hand is not something anyone should do in this day and age.
>You'd know that if you ever held a machete you arrogant ass. But I somehow don't see an image of you walking through the jungle with a machete in one hand and your HP or TI calculator in the other even semi realistic.
It's called land surveying. Get out of your basement.
-- BMO
How many fucking people do land surveying? How many more do Science, Finance and IT in an office? Your ego trip about doing something outdoors is pathetic. Get a fucking clue.
Yeah, try dragging a PC or even a laptop with you as you swing a machete with 40-50 pounds of gear on your back.
Or try stuffing a PC into your toolbox.
Not everyone works behind a desk.
You're an ivory tower weenie. Shut up.
-- BMO
How old are you? 3? How am I suppose to respond to "You're an ivory tower weenie. Shut up.". Schoolyard taunt? Grow the fuck up.
Last time I checked a hiking backpack and a small laptop were an option for most. You can even get toughened notebooks. You'd know that if you ever held a machete you arrogant ass. But I somehow don't see an image of you walking through the jungle with a machete in one hand and your HP or TI calculator in the other even semi realistic.
And then you go on to list a bunch of software that turns a desktop computer into a desktop calculator. Have you any recommendations for a counterpart to Maxima designed to run on a handheld device?
Calling what I listed "a bunch of software that turns a desktop computer into a desktop calculator" is about as asinine as you can get. The software goes so far beyond what a handheld calculator can do that it isn't funny. You might as well compare a donkey drawn cart to the Space Shuttle.
It is well worth carrying a small laptop instead of a pocket calculator for all the added power you get, unless you're doing simple arithmetic.
Fuck desktop calculators. Fuck nostalgia from 70s engineers and programmers who think RPN is the shite because it works like a computer stack. Repeating anything if you get even the slightest thing wrong, or heck, even checking it is a time consuming nightmare on any desktop calculator. Spreadsheets and programmable math environments have FAR superceded dinky desktop calculators.
Microsoft acknowledged the issue and promised that affected users would receive a new 360S console and a free year of Xbox Live to compensate.
Acknowledge the problem, fix it (or replace it in this case with a superior model), and give compensation.
No nonsense customer service, and it gives gives them good PR.
Compare that to Sony...
You mean fry any old hackable consoles, say "whoops, sorry", replace with unhackable ones, and come out smelling like roses. Brilliant, sneeky, underhanded, but transparent.
That's not a scientific study. It's an excuse for one. WHY the fuck are you defending it? Most doctors won't even bother looking further than that before telling you it can't be related to the general population.
I too have anecdotal evidence. Mine suggests that your intake can increase or decrease and because you are distracted and aren't paying as much attention you're not going to make the best choices. I've over-eaten while gaming when I was a teenager. I've also forgotten to eat all day until dinner time. One infamous session of Bard's Tale back in the early 90s lasted over 20 hours as my friend and I pushed on to finish the game. At dinner time we realised we hadn't eaten and made a pizza (which almost burnt because we were distracted). But on the whole more often than not I've overeaten sitting at a computer.
Companies like Citect (http://www.citect.com) and users thereof might. There's plenty of legacy stuff out there still being actively maintained that has VB6 in it. Maybe VB6 can now go 64 bit?
I don't know. Moving from 2-bit to 64-bit in one go is an awfully big leap!
My god man, who cares if he gets rid of the stuff if he's only got around 2 days to live!!!???
Serious-sounding-but-facetious answer to a facetious question: His executor. I'm picturing a 3,000-page inventory of the guy's estate, itemizing every floppy disk, memory module, hard drive, bizarre cable, manual, and blank warranty card he owned, followed by a "Total value: $3.17" that some lawyer charged the executor $150 per page to prepare and file with the probate court.
Item #23 - Boxes of geek shit and other refuse. Then lawyer will just charge flat rate to file
It's a real trick to recognize when you're saving stuff because you have sentimental value attached to the memories, not the stuff itself.
The trouble is I have more than once found the day or week after I throw something out I have a need for it, and that often requires me to go out and spend money rebuying what I just threw out (assuming it's even available).
I say it depends on how much storage you have and how out of the way that stuff can be. If you can keep it out of the way and it doesn't interfeer, don't throw it out. If you're tripping over it, embarrassed about bringing people over and about to be on an episode of "hoarders" throw out anything you can live without. If you're in between use your judgement so you don't end up in the later camp.
All that stuff about emulators is just a smokescreen. You're not playing your legacy DOS stuff now, you won't tomorrow, and the day after that you'll be dead.
My god man, who cares if he gets rid of the stuff if he's only got around 2 days to live!!!???
It was the strangest feeling. I mean, I got up at 2 AM to see the Huygens photographs online. I used to draw pictures of Saturn rising over Titan when I was a kid. I KNEW the answer, and yet with the entire audience and half a family against me I suddenly began to doubt myself. Had I been wrong all these years, suffered some kind of strange delusion? Was Titan a Jovian moon? How could that many people all be wrong?
Of course, a few seconds later the lady correctly answered "Saturn", throwing off the audience opinion and vindicating my chosen response, but it was a very odd sensation for that minute or so before the TV proved me right...
I'd have had no such second guessing. When it comes to matters of scientific fact you can bank on group opinion being wrong.
Every contribution you make gets deleted, or overwritten with less authoritative gibberish. Wikipedia was great about 3-4 years ago and really lived up to the ideal. Now it is a stomping ground for overzealous militant admins who are more interested in exercising their power than improving the site. This has been recognized by far more important people than I. Use to be that one of the top 3 Google results on a large number of topics was Wikipedia. Now you're lucky if it's 10th or 12th. So congrats for taking a great idea, working hard to implement it then defecating all over it.
Yep, that's right the police chief equated receiving a "stolen" (copied) photo without permission to receiving a stolen TV. This is one time that "Copyright infringement is not theft" is very appropriate. Apparently our police just don't get it.
That tells you how rational and well informed our Police are. If it involves IT or computers they're just maroons.
Lego bricks have precision that is *FAR* higher than what is apparently obtainable with this device. You may very well be able to make your own Lego parts, but they probably wouldn't fit regular Lego very well.
coreutils rocks and I don't recognise Jim Meyering's name so I'm not casting aspersions, but doesn't it also depend on the value of the commit. I have on occassion committed more on a bad day (to fix my mistakes) than on a good day. So does that mean my mistake laden days are more productive? Should my boss look at that metric and give me a raise instead of the developers that get it right the first time?
No! This seems to be a very very silly metric indeed to me. Worse than kloc by an order of magnitude. Good for nothing but a pissing contest.
Slashdot Mirror
The one thing I've noticed about "computer-stupid" people of any age group is that they're unwilling to click on anything unknown or just test something. It's like they've lost the capacity for experimental play and refuse to learn on their own.
The other thing I've noticed is that they'll play with a computer once, let it sit for a month or 2 and come back having forgotten what they learnt. It's as if they don't comprehend (or don't want to comprehend) that like any other skill it takes practice and regular re-enforcement to become proficient. They'd never take up golf, play or practice 6 times a year and then berate themselves for their golf not improving but they will do just that if you replace golf with computer skills. It pisses me off. Older generation is always going on about how this is the "me" generation and lazy then they pull shit like that.
[quote]It is well worth carrying a small laptop instead of a pocket calculator for all the added power you get, unless you're doing simple arithmetic.[/quote]
No, it isn't. Unless your level of geekdom is over 9000, that is.
For basic math use your goddamn mobile phone, not a HP or TI calc!
[quote]It is well worth carrying a small laptop instead of a pocket calculator for all the added power you get, unless you're doing simple arithmetic.[/quote]
No, it isn't. Unless your level of geekdom is over 9000, that is.
Absolutely. If I go down to the supermarket I might have to compare unit prices, total cash etc - so a small calculator in my pocket is a good idea. I am unlikely to come across anything needing a laptop's power or find it worth carrying one. At geek levels of 8500 or more you may well not be able to resist trying to optimise the queuing at checkouts or simulate the airflow for optimum placement of air-conditioning outlets, freezers and doorways.
For that simple arithmetic use the calc on your mobile phone - you're not going to want to carry a TI or HP calc around just to add grocery bills.
Er, I wasnt aware you could do 3d graphing on LibreOffice calc, factor algebraic equations, solve for x, or any of the other basic things a good decent TI-82 equivalent can do (and those things are like 20 years old).
Octave appears to be a programming language, that is, that I cant simply plug in Y=3x+z^2 and get a graph. Hooray for reducing simplicity! Hooray for complexity for its own sake!
Seriously, it sounds like youre either trolling, or have never used a TI-82+ equivalent. They are easy enough for a budding 7th grader to use, powerful enough for real world use, and have a quite nice BASIC programming function (which I credit for getting me into the world of computers). And honestly, I dont know what math class would allow you to bring a laptop in, or why its fair to compare a $100 (new) TI or HP calc to a $450 laptop.
There's not a lot that one of the pieces of software I listed can't do.
Octave requires 4 lines for a 3D plot
http://math.jacobs-university.de/oliver/teaching/iub/resources/octave/octave-intro/octave-intro.html#SECTION00052000000000000000
But I LOVE the way you gibber on that I can't possibly have used a TI calculator having just dismissed Octave without doing a simple Google search. Way to be logically consistent.
There is a SHITLOAD of math software out there. Many of these pieces of software will overcome almost any limitation of your TI calc.
Here's a good one for simple graphing that I've used extensively some time ago (almost 2 decades! i started on the DOS version). Doesn't seem to be supported anymore but still works.
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~meredith/X(PLORE)/xplorepg.html
As for cost, a laptop will do a lot more than your calc - unless you're telling me your calc will edit photos and let you write email? So that extra couple of hundred dollars is well spent.
As for exams and laptops not permitted it isn't my fault or problem that Uni examinations are idiotic and set by lazy academics who don't know or care what counts in the real world - they're the same idiots who can't kick their 70s thinking that I was talking about in the first palce. By all means buy a calc to pass the test...but then don't complain the fucking thing isn't hackable.
If you think you can toughen a laptop, with a 10+" screen, large keyboard, large LION battery, heatsinks, fans, and all, up to the same standard you can with a 2" by 4" calculator, you are sadly mistaken. Larger more complex devices are by nature harder to ruggedize, especially when the screen gets large enough to be able to flex and break.
Not to mention ruggedizing it (adding a solid steel frame to the screen, for example) would add quite a bit to the weight and cost, so all of a sudden we're talking about a $1500 laptop weighing 3kg, vs a $100 calculator weighing 250 grams. And for what gain? To use an OS not designed for mathmatics, on a device with 1/50th of the battery life?
Last time I checked there were specialised laptops for the battlefield, carried by troops.
No calculator is going to allow you to check or fix mistakes with the ease that even the simplest spreadsheet software will. Punching in long tedious calculations by hand is not something anyone should do in this day and age.
>You'd know that if you ever held a machete you arrogant ass. But I somehow don't see an image of you walking through the jungle with a machete in one hand and your HP or TI calculator in the other even semi realistic.
It's called land surveying. Get out of your basement.
--
BMO
How many fucking people do land surveying? How many more do Science, Finance and IT in an office? Your ego trip about doing something outdoors is pathetic. Get a fucking clue.
Starring Sylvester Stallone as Judge Kane.
Judge Kane: "Hrrrwarrrwerrrrhwooowerrwerrr! Die!"
Coming soon to theaters near you.
Shouldn't that be....
Stalone: "Eye...am...ra rawww!!!!"
>all desktop applications
Yeah, try dragging a PC or even a laptop with you as you swing a machete with 40-50 pounds of gear on your back.
Or try stuffing a PC into your toolbox.
Not everyone works behind a desk.
You're an ivory tower weenie. Shut up.
--
BMO
How old are you? 3? How am I suppose to respond to "You're an ivory tower weenie. Shut up.". Schoolyard taunt? Grow the fuck up.
Last time I checked a hiking backpack and a small laptop were an option for most. You can even get toughened notebooks. You'd know that if you ever held a machete you arrogant ass. But I somehow don't see an image of you walking through the jungle with a machete in one hand and your HP or TI calculator in the other even semi realistic.
Go troll somewhere else, and make it believable.
Fuck desktop calculators.
And then you go on to list a bunch of software that turns a desktop computer into a desktop calculator. Have you any recommendations for a counterpart to Maxima designed to run on a handheld device?
Calling what I listed "a bunch of software that turns a desktop computer into a desktop calculator" is about as asinine as you can get. The software goes so far beyond what a handheld calculator can do that it isn't funny. You might as well compare a donkey drawn cart to the Space Shuttle.
It is well worth carrying a small laptop instead of a pocket calculator for all the added power you get, unless you're doing simple arithmetic.
http://www.libreoffice.org/features/calc/
http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/
http://maxima.sourceforge.net/
http://www.scilab.org/
http://www.scicoslab.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_programming_language
Fuck desktop calculators. Fuck nostalgia from 70s engineers and programmers who think RPN is the shite because it works like a computer stack. Repeating anything if you get even the slightest thing wrong, or heck, even checking it is a time consuming nightmare on any desktop calculator. Spreadsheets and programmable math environments have FAR superceded dinky desktop calculators.
...but this is how you do customer service.
Microsoft acknowledged the issue and promised that affected users would receive a new 360S console and a free year of Xbox Live to compensate.
Acknowledge the problem, fix it (or replace it in this case with a superior model), and give compensation.
No nonsense customer service, and it gives gives them good PR.
Compare that to Sony...
You mean fry any old hackable consoles, say "whoops, sorry", replace with unhackable ones, and come out smelling like roses. Brilliant, sneeky, underhanded, but transparent.
That's not a scientific study. It's an excuse for one. WHY the fuck are you defending it? Most doctors won't even bother looking further than that before telling you it can't be related to the general population.
I too have anecdotal evidence. Mine suggests that your intake can increase or decrease and because you are distracted and aren't paying as much attention you're not going to make the best choices. I've over-eaten while gaming when I was a teenager. I've also forgotten to eat all day until dinner time. One infamous session of Bard's Tale back in the early 90s lasted over 20 hours as my friend and I pushed on to finish the game. At dinner time we realised we hadn't eaten and made a pizza (which almost burnt because we were distracted). But on the whole more often than not I've overeaten sitting at a computer.
Companies like Citect (http://www.citect.com) and users thereof might. There's plenty of legacy stuff out there still being actively maintained that has VB6 in it. Maybe VB6 can now go 64 bit?
I don't know. Moving from 2-bit to 64-bit in one go is an awfully big leap!
My god man, who cares if he gets rid of the stuff if he's only got around 2 days to live!!!???
Serious-sounding-but-facetious answer to a facetious question: His executor. I'm picturing a 3,000-page inventory of the guy's estate, itemizing every floppy disk, memory module, hard drive, bizarre cable, manual, and blank warranty card he owned, followed by a "Total value: $3.17" that some lawyer charged the executor $150 per page to prepare and file with the probate court.
Item #23 - Boxes of geek shit and other refuse.
Then lawyer will just charge flat rate to file
Yes, the "no regulation" that leads to sweatshops and companies like Foxconn having their employees commit suicide due to shitty working conditions.
They've promised in writing not to do that anymore, and we've put up nets. Now get back to work before I beat you.
It's a real trick to recognize when you're saving stuff because you have sentimental value attached to the memories, not the stuff itself.
The trouble is I have more than once found the day or week after I throw something out I have a need for it, and that often requires me to go out and spend money rebuying what I just threw out (assuming it's even available).
I say it depends on how much storage you have and how out of the way that stuff can be. If you can keep it out of the way and it doesn't interfeer, don't throw it out. If you're tripping over it, embarrassed about bringing people over and about to be on an episode of "hoarders" throw out anything you can live without. If you're in between use your judgement so you don't end up in the later camp.
All that stuff about emulators is just a smokescreen. You're not playing your legacy DOS stuff now, you won't tomorrow, and the day after that you'll be dead.
My god man, who cares if he gets rid of the stuff if he's only got around 2 days to live!!!???
It has changed again. For a while it had really dropped. I wonder if they consider Wikipedia when fiddling with pagerank.
It was the strangest feeling. I mean, I got up at 2 AM to see the Huygens photographs online. I used to draw pictures of Saturn rising over Titan when I was a kid. I KNEW the answer, and yet with the entire audience and half a family against me I suddenly began to doubt myself. Had I been wrong all these years, suffered some kind of strange delusion? Was Titan a Jovian moon? How could that many people all be wrong?
Of course, a few seconds later the lady correctly answered "Saturn", throwing off the audience opinion and vindicating my chosen response, but it was a very odd sensation for that minute or so before the TV proved me right...
I'd have had no such second guessing. When it comes to matters of scientific fact you can bank on group opinion being wrong.
Every contribution you make gets deleted, or overwritten with less authoritative gibberish. Wikipedia was great about 3-4 years ago and really lived up to the ideal. Now it is a stomping ground for overzealous militant admins who are more interested in exercising their power than improving the site. This has been recognized by far more important people than I. Use to be that one of the top 3 Google results on a large number of topics was Wikipedia. Now you're lucky if it's 10th or 12th. So congrats for taking a great idea, working hard to implement it then defecating all over it.
and he wasn't arrested, and has his iPad back. Seems to be a storm in a tea-cup / media beat-up.
I'm thinking I'd prefer to be over there (Australia) than here in the "free" US of A.
He was arrested, then released without charge. But they still have his ipad. Stop spreading made up BS.
Yep, that's right the police chief equated receiving a "stolen" (copied) photo without permission to receiving a stolen TV. This is one time that "Copyright infringement is not theft" is very appropriate. Apparently our police just don't get it.
That tells you how rational and well informed our Police are. If it involves IT or computers they're just maroons.
Lego bricks have precision that is *FAR* higher than what is apparently obtainable with this device. You may very well be able to make your own Lego parts, but they probably wouldn't fit regular Lego very well.
Okay so you get to make Mega Bloks instead!
coreutils rocks and I don't recognise Jim Meyering's name so I'm not casting aspersions, but doesn't it also depend on the value of the commit. I have on occassion committed more on a bad day (to fix my mistakes) than on a good day. So does that mean my mistake laden days are more productive? Should my boss look at that metric and give me a raise instead of the developers that get it right the first time?
No! This seems to be a very very silly metric indeed to me. Worse than kloc by an order of magnitude. Good for nothing but a pissing contest.
The trouble is if you ban bans, then you can't then ban anything else.
Congratulations, you have rediscovered Russell's paradox.
For extra credit, explain the solution.
Wouldn't the traditional form be the banner that bans all (and only those) who don't ban themselves.
There's always the all except x clause.
The banner that bans all except themselves. Or in other words if you exclude yourself from the ban you can continue to ban everyone and everything.
So ban everything*!!!!
*except you banning things.