On Wed, April 28, 2010 4:49 pm, roger.levass...@comcast.net wrote: > Speaking of sliderules....
And more speaking of same -- for those who want to (re-)live the past: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/tools/be12/ That being said, they're to be found a-plenty on Ebay. I just wish I could remember the damn *math* I used to use 'em for. All gone. Must've been swapped out to /dev/null so I could fit things like, say, how to load OS/2 off of floppies, and Token Ring/Netware 2.x troubleshooting tips. *sigh* -Ken > http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/712349-196/then-seniors-at-alvirne-re > counthow-record-slide-rule.html > > -roger (an Alvirne sophomore at the time) > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Joshua Judson Rosen" <roz...@geekspace.com> > To: "Seth Cohn" <sethc...@gnuhampshire.org>, > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2010 4:22:01 PM > GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern > Subject: [OT] machines that think for you (was: OpenStreetMap compatible > GPS?) > > > Seth Cohn <sethc...@gnuhampshire.org> writes: > >> On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 1:19 PM, Ken D'Ambrosio <k...@jots.org> wrote: >> >>> On Wed, April 28, 2010 12:07 pm, Jon 'maddog' Hall wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> It is the same thing as learning how to add, subtract, multiply and >>>> divide before you start using a calculator. >>> >>> In '76, my grandfather -- a mathematician -- bought me my first >>> calculator.  (A 7-digit red LED Commodore, no less.  And, yes, >>> that's the same Commodore.)  My next-door-neighbor predicted the >>> demise of all abilities to compute when our brains went soft because >>> of calculators. Fast-forward to high-school physics, and our teacher >>> decided to force logs on us... by way of a sliderule.  I was the >>> fastest in my class -- but it still made me wonder if similarly-dire >>> Luddite-esque predictions hadn't >>> been made when they'd come along. >> >> The day they allowed SAT test takers to use calculators, I knew that >> they'd hit rock bottom, and the tests no longer were meaningful (compared >> to when I took them and avg scores were dropping faster and faster). If >> you can't do the math yourself, how do you know the answer the calc gave >> is wrong? Sliderules are merely shortcuts, you still had to do some >> thinking about the answers. > > Did you know that, while graphing calculators are now allowed for use > on the SATs, sliderules are not? > > -- > "Don't be afraid to ask (λf.((λx.xx) (λr.f(rr))))." > > > _______________________________________________ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ > > > _______________________________________________ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ > > > -- > This message has been scanned for viruses and > dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. > > -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/