imperfect exponential

That's not completely stupid; writing something down reinforces it in the mind, and slows things down so points don't get skipped over.

Unlikely; that would only happen in an electronics forum.

Hey, Bill: insulting your readers with rotten ideology is also inconsiderate.

Why tell me? My ideology - such as it is - is perfectly respectable.

James Arthur has been peddling right-wing rubbish here for years, and you haven't bothered to complain about him.

Your ideology isn't actually yours - you don't know what you are talking about, and recycling rubbish from the Daily Express doesn't count as endorsing an ideology - it's just emphasising that you are a gullible idiot who can't think for yourself.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

I found it quite interesting, too[*], but some of us got over the fact that it wasn't 47pF.

[*] Distortion caused by coupling caps is a problem. Your photo made the issue quite visible.

Hey, I said it was cool. Like repeating a name ten times in hopes of remembering it.

Some day we'll have 24/7 full-sphere video recording, so we never forget anything. That will be horrible.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

ooh. sorree.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

My brain is full, and down to 5+-2 :(

But writing is evil... Plato, writing about Socrates, talking to Phaedrus, telling him about Thoth and Thamus wrote: ...for this discovery of yours [writing] will create

will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.

I've used that point "against" people that rail against using calculators. They don't know what to say next :)

What would Plato have thought about whiteboards and digital cameras?

I don't think I could do a manual long division any more, much less a square root. Even multiplication is getting fuzzy.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

If you do, the government will be there to remind you.

It must be said that our numbering system is more cumbersome than necessary. Not as as bad as Roman numerals, say, but not as good as it could be.

Jeroen Belleman

Seems like everything that needs to be argued has been done in this thread. No more engineering involved.

*plonk*

I have a mental picture of the "standard" long multiplication algorithm, and I don't think that would be too much of a problem.

I have a mental picture of the long division algorithm, but the actual algorithm has been lost. Thankfully. Good riddance.

Watching how my daughter was taught arithmetic was interesting; I liked it and think it was better than the rigid algorithms I was taught. But those algorithms were for a time when "computer" was still a job title.

Basically nowadays they taught that there is no single right method, but you can use any of several to get to the answer (e.g. to multiply X by 9, multiply by 10 and subtract X). That has the distinct advantage of allowing people to "play" with the "shape" of numbers, and become more familiar with them and their relationships and approximations.

You need to get one of these clever gadgets - I couldn't survive without mine now, having got somewhat dependent on it:

Sounds great if that works for you. When in college I could never take notes. The process of trying to organize a thought to put it on paper was a huge distraction so that I couldn't listen. But I could listen and be able to tell you nearly everything that was said if there weren't distractions. I got through a BS and an MS only having to study hard in two courses, physical chemistry and multi-valued logic (a thinly disguised course in abstract algebra). I have seldom used P Chem and viturally never used the multi-valued logic course.

I guess I did have to study differential equations too, but it wasn't so hard as the others.

But to this day I find it hard to take notes while listening. The speaker has to pause for me to jot down something important.

--

Rick C

That method can be used with a lot more than 9 and 10. It becomes easy (relatively) to multiply by many others such as 24, (multiply by 25 (100 then take a quarter) and subtract one) 4x, (multiply by 50, also easy and subtract 10-x )... the combinations are amazing. People are amazed when I can pretty closely estimate three and many digit multiplications in my head in some 5 seconds. But it's really not hard, you just have to look for the shortcuts.

--

Rick C

020109090005090207010209

--

Rick C

Of course; that's the implication of the "(e.g. ...)" I was surprised, and pleased to see my daughter using such "tricks"; IMHO it is a good /starting/ point for people doing mental sanity checks of various claims.

Oh, so that's *one* thing at least you dont totally suck at then, asshole.