Schools are removing analogue clocks from exam halls as teenagers 'cannot tell the time'

I certainly can't do long division any more, and I'm not sure that I could multiply three-digit numbers. I don't even own a book of logarithms.

I still use one instrument that has a D'Arsonval meter movement, and that takes some thinking to read.

We don't have a hand-crank eggbeater either. Or a washboard.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

OTOH, my digital watch has an "analog" face, as does the clock on my cell phone.

On Saturday, May 5, 2018 at 9:01:41 PM UTC-4, snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrot e:

hildren are increasingly finding it hard to hold pens and pencils because o f an excessive use of technology. " ....double pathetic.

I bet they don't know how to hold a buggy whip either. I used to think it ridiculous they aren't banging basic math into their heads. But the simple truth is unless you are in a field where you need to do math in your head like engineering, there is nothing wrong with letting machines do what mach ines are good at.

As to the clock thing, who cares if they obsolete analog clocks? If every clock became digital overnight, other than those who own antiques, who woul d care a bit? Just be glad they are requiring the use of the Mengenlehreuh r. Personally I would vote for ship's bells.

Rick C.

Most 20 and 30-somethings I know who aren't in a technical field (or into guitars) don't know what a vacuum tube is but if for some reason they're curious "what's that glowing thing a photo of?" usually the one-minute explanation is enough to make them feel confident of the general principles involved, a triode isn't a particularly complex device.

I don't start talking about more than one grid though that sort of behavior is frowned upon in social company in New England, you're not supposed to talk about work at parties.

Doing "math" (I would call it "calculating") in your head for anything other than trivial sums or multiplications is error-prone, it's not a good habit to get into for engineering either.

I have an anecdotal story too similar to how every Republican has seen a welfare queen at the store buying 500 pounds of lobster on their no-limit Obamacard.

This one time I was in a department store and a young woman was checking out with a bunch of household goods like a blender, crock pot, toaster, sheets and blankets, pile of clothes hangers, etc.

Every time the cashier went to ring up an item she'd lean in to her like they were having a heart-to-heart conversation and whisper "umm..how much is that one?" And the clerk would answer "That's 39.95 miss" and she'd say "oh. okay. I don't want that one." And put it aside. "How much is this one?" "29.95." "ah. I see. Okay, add that one." And so on.

I thought maybe she was blind at first but she read the grand total off the register screen just fine "Ah, $178.47, excellent." I got the impression that she had actually just never used a store or paid for things with money before, didn't know how they worked. She wasn't even that young she was probably in her late 20s. Maybe her parents finally decided to make her get her own place.

Excellent.

That means they will have to do mental arithmetic in the form of subtraction of numbers up to 60, plus a vestigial amount of base 60 arithmetic. Just like the ancient Babylonians.

I occasionally hand crank a drill, in the form of a brace and bit. Sometimes it it faster and/or more controllable than a mains drill.

I still have my slide rule from school, and my

1974 Sinclair Scientific calculator that was just about as accurate as a slide rule. That /was/ a marvel: everything including a keyboard/display as well as the arithmetic and transcendental functions fitted into 320 instructions.

Strangely yesterday I spotted that a shop assistant had rung

It is a good engineering habit to be able to mentally estimate the rough value you are expecting.

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of course, and there are always situations where relying on a machine isn't going to happen. You, or at least I, need to be able to do the numbers.

The more kids are disabled from basic life skills the more they can be fina ncially taken for a ride. I don't see that as a good thing, but obviously m any do.

NT

Please estimate how many gas stations there are in the United States you have ten seconds was the type of question one college physics professor liked to toss us sometimes

the rough value you are expecting. "

The hell you say. You mean like when you use the wrong operator and 10 + 12 = 120 ? What's wrong with a car with one tire a different size than the rest ? And why not use a 2N3055 as a microwave preamp ? What in the hell do es that matter to our new revolutionary DVD rewinder due to hit the market, well either in 6 days or 245 years, one or the other.

And for those who think it is fine not to be able to tell time, what about a power outage ? A wristwatch that doesn't use batteries ?

Oh, those calculator batteries. I have two walls, one 4 feet and the other

it doesn't matter because I just did my checkbook and my balance is $ 648 trillion dollars.

Let's just forget how to do everything and let machines do it. Then we can be just like one of those advanced species' so ever present in scifi which need to enslave some other species because they forgot how to repair the ma chines left by their ancestors.

Oh no, you mean I can't have a $ 250,000 house for $ 565 a month ? (I actually saw such an ad on TV when I was working at the TV shop in between the ads for new drugs, class action lawsuits of the day and the people who buy structured settlements)

Good point.

"The exam ends at 12:45, the time is now 12:27, how many more minutes do I have ?".

Apparently they have to install digital countdown clocks to avoid stress.

Better than that -

The exam ends at 3:00, it is now 2:24, how much time is left ?

Maybe we have to give them points on the test for that.

Another lost skill is being able to count change back to a customer.

Bonus points if your total is $8.20 and you hand the cashier a twenty and two dimes.

God, the kids these days. What are they up to? What's the hip happening with the youths and the things that the kids are with, nowatimes?

Well, I'll tell ya. It's surely nothing good. The kids these days are bad and they're just getting worse all the time. In the words of Socrates: "The kids these days, they're bad and getting badder every day."

If I had to summarize the essence of Conservatism in two sentences it would be "Back in my day when stuff was good kids were good too. But now that things are bad the kids are also bad."

This newfangled writing thing is bad, since it will encourage people to avoid using their memory and use the written word instead.

Or, from Socrates' "The Phaedrus"...

This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.