Schools, etc. (was Re: "Dummies" books (was ...))

[Bill Vermillion]

Doug Luurs, the prominent pundit, on Tue, Oct 26 15:05  while half 
mumbling half-witicized: 

> *LAUGHS* .. Oh please .. That brings back memories of the OLE days.
> (I had one of those calc'r too..hehe)

> Another Funny thing is .. I still have my slide rule! 

I still have mine too. Cost about $40 in the 1950s. A Post made
of split bamboo. You could always tell all of us who were EE
majors as we all had bamboo slide-rules.

The reason:

If you accidentally set a metal one down on a power transformer
the induction could heat it and warp it, and/or you would burn
your hands badly when you picked it up.

Those electrons are sneaky little things.


> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: filepro-list-bounces at lists.celestial.com
> [mailto:filepro-list-bounces at lists.celestial.com] On Behalf Of Kenneth
> Brody
> Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2004 1:20 PM
> To: Fairlight
> Cc: filePro List
> Subject: Schools, etc. (was Re: "Dummies" books (was ...))
> 
> 
> Fairlight wrote:
> [...]
> > If someone can't handle that elementary logical progression of 
> > thought, I don't trust them near anything more complex than the pocket
> 
> > calculators that banks give out as freebies--certainly not a 
> > programmable graphing calculator like a TI-60 or HP-48.
> > 
> > And as for math, that's the sole reason I never got a CS degree.  I 
> > failed pre-calculus in high school and gave up higher math as a bad 
> > lot.  As CS was considered an engineering degree at my university, 
> > there was no way in hell I thought I could make it through five 
> > semesters of calculus.
> [...]
> 
> I was actually talking about this sort of thing the other day with Laura
> and her sister.
> 
> When I was in 7th grade, hand-held calculators were just starting to
> come into the hands of "ordinary people", and I actually bought one for
> my 13th birthday.
> <http://www.datamath.org/BASIC/DATAMATH/ti-2500-3.htm>  (Hey, us math
> geeks gotta start early, you know.)  This was also the last year that
> they tought how to use the slide rule in math.  Soon thereafter, the
> school implemented a "no calculators during tests" rule, since it was
> considered "cheating".
> 
> By the time I got to college, the entire attitude had changed.
> Calculators were no longer a problem, as the professors were more
> interested in "do you know the proper formula to use, and how to use it"
> rather than if you knew how to do long division.
> 
> -- 
> +-------------------------+--------------------+------------------------
> -----+
> | Kenneth J. Brody        | www.hvcomputer.com |
> |
> | kenbrody/at\spamcop.net | www.fptech.com     | #include
> <std_disclaimer.h> |
> +-------------------------+--------------------+------------------------
> -----+
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> 
> 
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-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com