calculator-o-rama

Aug 02, 2019 00:44

In another posting, I'll give my "standard rant" how stores no longer believe in summer ( Read more... )

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ysabetwordsmith August 2 2019, 05:09:01 UTC
>> In another posting, I'll give my "standard rant" how stores no longer believe in summer, which I find depressing because my birthday is mid-August, which used to be deep into school vacation. Now all the stores are "back to school" in JULY :-( Kids aren't allowed to enjoy summer anymore?<<

That sucks.

It's part of a whole trend, though. Society has pretty much lost its grip on sequencing of holidays. If you've seen the picture of WalMart with the Christmas tree blocking the Halloween sign, that was our local store. >_< This isn't just aggravating to people in general. It is harmful to small children who are trying to learn the sequence of dates, and elderly people who are struggling to keep them in order. When the decorations go up in the wrong order, it's disorienting and stressful.

>>What's left? Cellphone app?<<

Many people do just that now. Not very useful for school since many ban student phones, which is a whole different kettle of very pickled fish. But there are still engineering calculators.

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mejeep August 3 2019, 23:52:31 UTC
Thank you for such a thoughtful reply with other facets of the problem,
and for finding https://bestcalculators.net/best-engineering-calculator-reviews/
That is a wonderful site that's mfgr/brand agnostic.

WalMart has become a touchstone of what's wrong with us,
from people being trampled getting the "must have" toy
to the recent El Paso shooting/massacre:

as of 8/3:
A gunman opened fire Saturday in a Walmart and around a nearby shopping mall in El Paso, Texas,
leaving 20 people dead and 26 injured:
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/el-paso-tx-shooting-live-updates/index.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/active-shooter-near-el-paso-mall-police-responding-n1039001

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ysabetwordsmith August 4 2019, 02:29:01 UTC
>>Thank you for such a thoughtful reply with other facets of the problem,<<

*bow, flourish* Happy to be of service.

>>WalMart has become a touchstone of what's wrong with us,
from people being trampled getting the "must have" toy
to the recent El Paso shooting/massacre: <<

I agree.

I'll add another: Back when Ford was the biggest employer in America, the starting pay was quite generous. Now WalMart is the biggest employer in America, pays minimum wage, no benefits, no guaranteed hours, and almost all the employees are on public assistance because the company can't be arsed to pay them enough to live on. >_< So that undermines the whole economy.

I can't blame people for flipping out under those circumstances. It's not necessarily mental illness per se in every case. Sometimes it's just a safety valve blowing. If a civilization doesn't work, citizens start going off, until eventually it collapses and is replaced by something less likely to redline the human psyche.

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mejeep August 4 2019, 01:00:02 UTC
The commercialization of Christmas has been the subject of wonderful parodies.
Some classics really say it best:

Tom Lehrer's "A Christmas Carol"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtZR3lJobjw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5IXlfJSEi4
STAN FREBERG - Green Christmas (1958) - A Classic!

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tjcoyote August 3 2019, 14:37:49 UTC
I can't speak for schools, as I've been out of that area for a long time ( ... )

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mejeep August 4 2019, 00:53:24 UTC
I agree with with WHAT we do but not necessarily HOW I do it.
Yes, most of my day to day calculations are + and -
but I really enjoy newer calculators with multi-line displays that show all the numbers
and allow EDITING (not just clear-entry).

At home, my HP28C is my fave calculator.
RPN is a PLEASURE with a 4 line scrolling display
(vs. the original 1 line numeric only 7-segment LED).
And the keyboard is the best EVER!

On the workbench and for travel, my gaudy pink Casio fx-300ES+ does the job.
Dual-power: coin cell and solar.
It does fractions and repeating digits!
The manual is online so I'll eventually learn how to use registers/memory.

As for hexadecimal and logic functions, I see that coming back
as folks discover microcontrollers such as Arduino.

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