>I mean, which law I might have breaking for taking three months off work?
In the United States, the concept of taking three months off of work is inconceivable. The idea of taking a full two weeks off is borderline lunacy. The idea of taking a whole week off is borderline fantasy.
>No, the proper way to deal with abusive police is for the citizens to put legal >political pressure on the local and state politicians who control the police.
>What it's about is people who are in the wrong damned lane. If, under >normal circumstances, you are not going noticeably faster than the lane to your right, >you are in the wrong lane. Period. I don't mind people driving slow, but I *do* mind >them doing it in the wrong lane.
Sorry, you are just wrong.
The speed limit is the speed limit. By law, no one is allowed to drive faster than the posted speed limit, regardless of whether or not they are passing someone.
If I am passing someone driving 69 MPH in a 70 MPH zone, you are just going to have to wait however long it takes for me to pass them at 70 MPH.
BY LAW, I am not allowed to go faster than 70 MPH to pass someone, no matter how long you have to wait for for me to finish passing.
I will be happy to accelerate up to whatever speed you like, provided you set up an escrow fund to pay any fines and insurance fees should I get caught doing it.
This was actually the concept followed by one of the X-prize companies. They were going to basically float a rocket up into the sky and then launch it from altitude.
The problem is that at some point it becomes impossible to learn everything. For example, I spoke with a friend of mine who became a doctor. I said, "I'm amazed with all the advances in medical technology you can learn everything even in 7 years of medical school!" He said, "You can't."
At some point, you are going to have to come to terms with the fact that the computer is, in fact, able to do the computations accurately and it doesn't matter if you know how it works or not so long as you can MOVE FORWARD making new progress on past assumptions. If the assumptions are found to be incorrect they can be fixed and software patched.
Yes, the disadvantage is you don't fully understand the basics. The advantage is you can concentrate on applying the tools to solving new problems instead of wasting time trying to understand what is already assumed to be correct.
>Why would I choose a netbook over my HP 50g for math?
So you can see what you are doing on a nice high-resolution color display. An on-screen touch-screen keyboard could give you whatever mathematical interface you desired.
>Graphing calculators aren't a useful tool. They're a contrivance that students have to put up with because of other factors.
You are exactly correct.
A year or so I bought the new HP50G. It is basically the same as the 48GX I had used for years before. Oh the screen is a little bigger, and has a little higher resolution, but technologically it is little different than the 48GX that preceded it.
So I asked myself, "Why didn't they make this thing more like a handheld computer?"
And the answer is: "Because they are already too powerful for college students to be allowed to use them so no one will buy them."
My HP50G is roughly 3 times the size of my cell phone. Imagine all the computational power that could be put into such a device? It could just as easily be a computer running Windows or Linux rather than a dedicated calculator.
But such a device would never be allowed to be used by students taking tests, because it would make every test open-book.
So calculator manufacturers are stuck on a fence. You have to make a calculator powerful enough that students want to use it, but weak enough that it doesn't get banned.
>What the hell type of math course was that? So what the calculator could do integration but was >there some sort of "show your work" where you would have to pencil out the non trivial >integration problems as more than "calculator gave me the answer". I mean when you get >beyond basic mathematics, computation matters less and concepts start to matter more. >I really don't buy those asinine rules.
My college career spanned some 17 years and I have taken all of the calculus classes (1, 2, and 3) many times due to failing or as a refresher, so it's hard to say exactly which classes allowed it and which did not.
Early on in my college career, they didn't care if you used calculators because they did not realize they could integrate and differentiate.
The HP calculators can work in "step by step" mode that you can use to "show your work".
In the last calculus class I took last year, Calculus 3, they did not allow calculators at all.
That's because HP calculators are too powerful.
on
TI vs. Calculator Hackers
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I've been using HP scientific calculators since the 32S (the one that opened up like a book). At the time, in 1989, they were state-of-the-art, and math teachers had no idea that they could do definite and indefinite integration and differentiation.
Now, of course, math teachers have figured out that modern calculators are essentially full-blown computers. The last calculus course I took a year ago did not allow any calculators, but the last time I was in a math class that allowed them only TI calculators were allowed. I could not use my HP50G as it was too powerful and would enable me to cheat.
I think we've seen the end of high-end calculator development because the main market of those devices - college students - can't use them anymore in their classes.
In order to boost the image of science, and work in the field of science, you have to show that working in the field of science is desirable and successful.
In other words, you have to convince people that doing the extremely hard work of science is worthwhile.
Today, my general impression of scientist is person who is used by corporations to weave a web of self-serving patents for itself while giving little compensation or recognition to the scientist.
The problem is that Clear Private Data does not work.
I remember when I first upgraded to FF3, and was shocked to find that when I "cleared private data" and then clicked on the URL drop-down there were still all the web sites I had visited.
The "Awesome bar" does not get cleared out!
I had to install some plug-in to restore that functionality.
>In short, it is impossible for universities to provide vocational training for professions. There are too many jobs, >too many ways of doing them, and too many changes in practices in every single profession for any one institution to >have a ghost of chance of keeping up with all of them.
I disagree with this assertion.
When I was going through my major coursework for my BS in Computer Science through Georgia Southern University, they were still using Pascal to teach programming, even though C was one of the major programming languages at the time (this was around 1998).
We had a professor who desperately/wanted/ to teach Visual C, but was unable to do so because of bureaucratic reasons - something about the professor had to be accredited in the language or some such, I can't remember. So to get around it, he taught a class called "multimedia systems", where we learned how to program applications using video and the like, that just happened to be taught using, as I recall, Visual C++.
Yes, Universities need to be focusing on teaching/concepts/. In Computer Science, the focus is necessarily on/algorithms/ and/algorithm development/, irrespective of technology. But, especially with technology oriented subjects, they also need to stay current with the times! It's great that Computer Science graduates know what a bubble sort is. What employers want to know is CAN YOU IMPLEMENT IT FOR ME IN A MODERN WAY?
In short, employers want people who can do, not just theorize about how to do it.
Universities need more vocational training in their curriculum. If they'd ditch all the useless liberal arts crap it wouldn't even take longer.
Unless I'm mistaken, I'm pretty sure that the Virgin experience is completely suborbital. Basically it's $200K for a parabolic rocket ride. I don't understand the appeal. OK, so you left Earth's atmosphere for a couple of minutes.
You can bet that if the founders had known that multi-national corporations would reign supreme in power the first amendment would have provided protection against them, too, instead of just protection from the government.
Could this new-found force somehow be related to what is causing the universe to continue to expand? Or otherwise account for forces now attributed to "dark matter"?
Slashdot Mirror
>I mean, which law I might have breaking for taking three months off work?
In the United States, the concept of taking three months off of work is inconceivable. The idea of taking a full two weeks off is borderline lunacy. The idea of taking a whole week off is borderline fantasy.
>No, the proper way to deal with abusive police is for the citizens to put legal
>political pressure on the local and state politicians who control the police.
Good luck with that.
I think these devices would be great to use against riot police by protesters.
I wonder how long before they will be illegal?
>What it's about is people who are in the wrong damned lane. If, under
>normal circumstances, you are not going noticeably faster than the lane to your right,
>you are in the wrong lane. Period. I don't mind people driving slow, but I *do* mind
>them doing it in the wrong lane.
Sorry, you are just wrong.
The speed limit is the speed limit. By law, no one is allowed to drive faster than the posted speed limit, regardless of whether or not they are passing someone.
If I am passing someone driving 69 MPH in a 70 MPH zone, you are just going to have to wait however long it takes for me to pass them at 70 MPH.
BY LAW, I am not allowed to go faster than 70 MPH to pass someone, no matter how long you have to wait for for me to finish passing.
I will be happy to accelerate up to whatever speed you like, provided you set up an escrow fund to pay any fines and insurance fees should I get caught doing it.
If the infrastructure was built with government money, why doesn't the infrastructure belong to the government?
Do the big telco companies lease the infrastructure from the government? If so, can't little telco's also lease it?
How do the telcos own the infrastructure?
It is quite possible to have tactile feedback with touch screen devices.
I agree the touchscreen does not need to be as big as a netbook. The screen on the HP50G would be fine - if it were high resolution and color.
This was actually the concept followed by one of the X-prize companies. They were going to basically float a rocket up into the sky and then launch it from altitude.
http://space.xprize.org/files/downloads/ansari/da_vinci_project.pdf
What a debbie downer you are.
The problem is that at some point it becomes impossible to learn everything. For example, I spoke with a friend of mine who became a doctor. I said, "I'm amazed with all the advances in medical technology you can learn everything even in 7 years of medical school!" He said, "You can't." At some point, you are going to have to come to terms with the fact that the computer is, in fact, able to do the computations accurately and it doesn't matter if you know how it works or not so long as you can MOVE FORWARD making new progress on past assumptions. If the assumptions are found to be incorrect they can be fixed and software patched. Yes, the disadvantage is you don't fully understand the basics. The advantage is you can concentrate on applying the tools to solving new problems instead of wasting time trying to understand what is already assumed to be correct.
>Why would I choose a netbook over my HP 50g for math?
So you can see what you are doing on a nice high-resolution color display. An on-screen touch-screen keyboard could give you whatever mathematical interface you desired.
It was an HP-28S I had:
http://www.hpmuseum.org/hp28c.htm
>Graphing calculators aren't a useful tool. They're a contrivance that students have to put up with because of other factors.
You are exactly correct.
A year or so I bought the new HP50G. It is basically the same as the 48GX I had used for years before. Oh the screen is a little bigger, and has a little higher resolution, but technologically it is little different than the 48GX that preceded it.
So I asked myself, "Why didn't they make this thing more like a handheld computer?"
And the answer is: "Because they are already too powerful for college students to be allowed to use them so no one will buy them."
My HP50G is roughly 3 times the size of my cell phone. Imagine all the computational power that could be put into such a device? It could just as easily be a computer running Windows or Linux rather than a dedicated calculator.
But such a device would never be allowed to be used by students taking tests, because it would make every test open-book.
So calculator manufacturers are stuck on a fence. You have to make a calculator powerful enough that students want to use it, but weak enough that it doesn't get banned.
>What the hell type of math course was that? So what the calculator could do integration but was
>there some sort of "show your work" where you would have to pencil out the non trivial
>integration problems as more than "calculator gave me the answer". I mean when you get
>beyond basic mathematics, computation matters less and concepts start to matter more.
>I really don't buy those asinine rules.
My college career spanned some 17 years and I have taken all of the calculus classes (1, 2, and 3) many times due to failing or as a refresher, so it's hard to say exactly which classes allowed it and which did not.
Early on in my college career, they didn't care if you used calculators because they did not realize they could integrate and differentiate.
The HP calculators can work in "step by step" mode that you can use to "show your work".
In the last calculus class I took last year, Calculus 3, they did not allow calculators at all.
I've been using HP scientific calculators since the 32S (the one that opened up like a book). At the time, in 1989, they were state-of-the-art, and math teachers had no idea that they could do definite and indefinite integration and differentiation.
Now, of course, math teachers have figured out that modern calculators are essentially full-blown computers. The last calculus course I took a year ago did not allow any calculators, but the last time I was in a math class that allowed them only TI calculators were allowed. I could not use my HP50G as it was too powerful and would enable me to cheat.
I think we've seen the end of high-end calculator development because the main market of those devices - college students - can't use them anymore in their classes.
That was exactly what I took away from the article, too.
In order to boost the image of science, and work in the field of science, you have to show that working in the field of science is desirable and successful.
In other words, you have to convince people that doing the extremely hard work of science is worthwhile.
Today, my general impression of scientist is person who is used by corporations to weave a web of self-serving patents for itself while giving little compensation or recognition to the scientist.
The problem is that Clear Private Data does not work.
I remember when I first upgraded to FF3, and was shocked to find that when I "cleared private data" and then clicked on the URL drop-down there were still all the web sites I had visited.
The "Awesome bar" does not get cleared out!
I had to install some plug-in to restore that functionality.
You can pay $14,500 for treatment, or pay for 24 years of internet access.
In other news, kids who hate marshmallows do well in life!
How hard could it be to make a giant barge that skims off the crud and harvests it?
>In short, it is impossible for universities to provide vocational training for professions. There are too many jobs,
>too many ways of doing them, and too many changes in practices in every single profession for any one institution to
>have a ghost of chance of keeping up with all of them.
I disagree with this assertion.
When I was going through my major coursework for my BS in Computer Science through Georgia Southern University, they were still using Pascal to teach programming, even though C was one of the major programming languages at the time (this was around 1998).
We had a professor who desperately /wanted/ to teach Visual C, but was unable to do so because of bureaucratic reasons - something about the professor had to be accredited in the language or some such, I can't remember. So to get around it, he taught a class called "multimedia systems", where we learned how to program applications using video and the like, that just happened to be taught using, as I recall, Visual C++.
Yes, Universities need to be focusing on teaching /concepts/. In Computer Science, the focus is necessarily on /algorithms/ and /algorithm development/, irrespective of technology. But, especially with technology oriented subjects, they also need to stay current with the times! It's great that Computer Science graduates know what a bubble sort is. What employers want to know is CAN YOU IMPLEMENT IT FOR ME IN A MODERN WAY?
In short, employers want people who can do, not just theorize about how to do it.
Universities need more vocational training in their curriculum. If they'd ditch all the useless liberal arts crap it wouldn't even take longer.
Unless I'm mistaken, I'm pretty sure that the Virgin experience is completely suborbital. Basically it's $200K for a parabolic rocket ride. I don't understand the appeal. OK, so you left Earth's atmosphere for a couple of minutes.
Where's my 2001 space station?
You can bet that if the founders had known that multi-national corporations would reign supreme in power the first amendment would have provided protection against them, too, instead of just protection from the government.
>Is it relevant because they shrunk the overall thing and now its a "netbook" ?
No, it's relevant because it's $500 instead of, say, a $2000 Fujitsu Lifebook.
Could this new-found force somehow be related to what is causing the universe to continue to expand? Or otherwise account for forces now attributed to "dark matter"?