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Some Useless Knowledge


Dutchman

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We where sitting outside and my son said crickets are really chirping tonight. I told him you could tell the temp by the cricket chirps. He gave me the crazy old man bit, so I told him to get out his phone stopwatch and count the chirps in 14 seconds then add 40. Then read the temp on the digital thermometer. The crickets where right on just as they have been since my Grandfather taught me.

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1 hour ago, kizanski said:

Yes, we old men know this.  

These kids today...smh

Seriously.  I mean, they just look at their phones and have the temperature - anywhere in the world - in under two seconds.

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believe it or not, there are places where your phone doesn't work. my son laughed at a GPS I tried to give him.. don't need it.. my phone does all that.  half hour flight out of town into the "real" Alaska and... where are we now? "dunno... no reception", ha ha... yeah, now your phone is a only flashlight... until the battery dies

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1 hour ago, cmatthes said:

Seriously.  I mean, they just look at their phones and have the temperature - anywhere in the world - in under two seconds.

Yeah, why counting and calculating? Todays phones do all that. 
These old men… tsss B)

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27 minutes ago, Steve Haynie said:

A social side effect is people that are unable to do math in their heads. 

In fairness, I haven't been unable to "do math" in my head ever since I went to school to get Microsoft certified, back in 1999.
Before that I had near Rainman abilities, and then one day it broke.  I think all of that schooling for someone who hadn't stepped foot in a classroom in some 15 years just pushed the math out.

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I went back to school after 19 years of not having to do math.  The college algebra class was all calculator.  I had to learn to use a scientific calculator in a hurry.  It was the beginning of the 21st Century, and the technology was pushing forward.  It was that second go around of college classes that made me cling to a calculator for even simple stuff ever since. 

I can still do some estimating of distances.  Multiplication tables may not be as immediately recalled as they once were, but I get them.  Percentages can be done in my head or on paper.  I have actually used algebra once or twice in the last 40 years. 

I check it all on a calculator.  Even when doing simple addition or subtraction in my checkbook register I double check myself with a calculator. 

What I do not like is the inability of someone to count change.  It is more common now than in the past.  If my bill is $11.26, and I hand someone a ten, a five, and 26 cents it means I want four ones in change.  Too many of today's "cashiers" will hand back my 26 cents and then give me three ones and 74 cents as my change.  There are times I might add a few pennies to just get back a single quarter instead of few coins.  It does not click with some people. 

Part of the "math in your head" thing is doing it often, just like conversing in another language.  The good construction guys work with angles all the time.  They may not be writing out sine and cosine on paper, but they know how to think it through.  Again, they do it daily. 

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1 hour ago, Steve Haynie said:

To live life without a phone is impossible for some people. 

 

I still use a flip phone! I refuse to be one of these people staring at their phone all day. I spend too much time online as is, and I prefer to do it on a full sized screen and keyboard.

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The most useful class I had in High School back in the '70's and which still serves me well, was a typing course...AKA how to write using a keyboard, pre-computer, learning on heavy clunky IBM Selectric typewriters.  Who knew I'd end up using that skill daily at a minimum?

When I was in the military, first doing medical technician duties and later on as a military Nurse, I used to have to carry some means of being 'reached', per duty requirements...at the beginning, I carried a 'brick' (portable radio) when working on ambulance call, then later I carried a beeper when working as overnight Nursing coverage in a larger hospital.  I hated toting those things around, because if I got called, it sure wasn't for social purposes...I wasn't the only one who felt that way, I'd frequently heard through the grapevine that occasionally some beepers would meet their fate by getting 'accidentally' dropped in the toilet.

If you wanna kill somebody's urge to use a cellphone, make it mandatory that they answer their phone 24-7 when called and carry it around constantly but never be able to use it except for work-related business purposes.  Needless to say nowadays post-military career, unless I recognize the number on my phone if/when I get called, it don't get answered.  And I never use my phone for inane social chit-chat, my time is better served by doing absolutely nothing than to do that. <_<

Edited to add:  If I need 'spell check' for any reason, I use a search engine to find the word and it's spelling in relation to the word's meaning.  If I can't find the correct spelling of a word that way, then it doesn't exist.  And it takes longer to explain that than it does to do it.

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On 9/20/2022 at 5:34 AM, cmatthes said:

Seriously.  I mean, they just look at their phones and have the temperature - anywhere in the world - in under two seconds.

Not me. I always carry a cricket in my pocket.

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