TI vs. Calculator Hobbyists, Again

Deep Thought writes "Texas Instruments, already infamous thanks to the signing key controversy last year, is trying a new trick to lock down its graphing calculators, this time directed toward its newest TI-Nspire line. The TI-Nspires were already the most controlled of TI's various calculator models, and no third-party development of any kind (except for its very limited form of TI-BASIC) was allowed until the release of the independent tool Ndless. Since its release, TI has been determined to prevent the large calculator programming community from using it. Its latest released operating system for the Nspire family (version 2.1) now prevents the calculators from downgrading to OS 1.1, needed to run Ndless. This is TI's second major attack on Ndless, as the company has already demanded that websites posting the required OS 1.1 remove it from public download [PDF, in French], obviously to prevent use of the tool. Once again, TI is preventing calculator hobbyists from running their own software on calculators they bought and paid for."

HP

[Anonymous Coward]

Why use TI

HP make better calculators (with RPN), and they encourage the community.

Re:NO NOT MATH

[Anonymous Coward]

Get your hand off it, you'll go blind if you keep doing that.

Re:How long since you were in school?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

"This slide rule has obviously been tampered with! So said the teacher!"

"A slide rule? Luxury! When I was a school boy we only had an abacus!"

"Ha, that's nothing! When I was in school we weren't allowed to count using our fingers!"

(With apologies to Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch)

Re:How long since you were in school?

[pmc]

(With apologies to Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch)

When I were a lad it were the Three Yorkshiremen sketch.

On't radio.

Re:How long since you were in school?

[Legion303]

That's right, kids, in the real world you won't have access to reference materials and may very well need to solve equations in your head to save your life, MacGyver style.

In elementary school I wasn't allowed to count on my fingers because the teacher thought it was more important to know addition tables by rote instead of relying on other learning methods. So I learned to visualize counting on my toes. I wound up with a B.Sc. in theoretical mathematics. They sure showed me.

Re:How long since you were in school?

[maxwell demon]

In elementary school I wasn't allowed to count on my fingers because the teacher thought it was more important to know addition tables by rote instead of relying on other learning methods.

Of course. After all, you could lose your fingers in an accident, and if rely on your fingers to count, you'll be lost. :-)

Re:NO NOT MATH

[Anonymous Coward]

s/us/we/ I guess you don't use grammar either.

Re:NO NOT MATH

[rockNme2349]

we mathematicians DO NOT wee calculators. We don't do arithmetic. Don't tag this math.

Re:NO NOT MATH

[Compaqt]

Don't tag me, bro!

Re:How long since you were in school?

[Yoozer]

For zero and negative numbers, I always had to ask the poor fellow who lost parts of his hand in a bandsaw accident. I couldn't bring him to school either :(.

Re:How long since you were in school?

[NormalVisual]

Well now in social situations when somebody asks you how many chicken nuggets you want, or how long you have been with the company, you don't look like a retard when you put your hands up and start counting fingers.

The sadistic side of me thinks it would probably enjoy seeing someone do that, but with Chisanbop [wikipedia.org].

Re:How long since you were in school?

[Anonymous Coward]

the teacher could wipe those bitches clean in five seconds ... Oh, and she could program.

Do you have her phone number?

Re:NO NOT MATH

[ailnlv]

mod +1: pedant

Re:NO NOT MATH

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

us mathematicians DO NOT use calculators. We don't do arithmetic.

Unless we're doing integration, in which case we call it "quadrature" to save face.

Re:NO NOT MATH

[inKubus]

That reminds me of a pretty funny thing I saw today. There's a group on Facebook advocating that police have to yell "Pikachu!" before tazing anyone. What a country.

Re:funeral drone

[Anonymous Coward]

img-clap

That's a fantastic argument: "Big words me not understand. Smash!"

Re:How long since you were in school?

[interkin3tic]

Well now in social situations when somebody asks you how many chicken nuggets you want, or how long you have been with the company, you don't look like a retard when you put your hands up and start counting fingers.

Chicken McNuggets come in 6, 10, and sometimes 20 or 50 quantities. So if you're in a McDonalds and counting is involved in your chicken nugget order, you're doing it wrong. And if you're ordering the 50 piece "party bucket" you're probably also doing "avoiding heart disease" wrong too.

Seriously? You can't see the value in forcing kids to learn how to count in their heads?

I see more value in allowing children to come up with their own solutions and find what works best for them. They'll do it anyway, as I did and GP did. Show me a study that demonstrates finger-counting actually impedes math skills and I'll shut up, but I suspect this is just a poorly-researched "It's how I learned it so it's the right way and it's how you'll learn it" relic. One that probably turns more kids off of math at an early stage, before the really fun math.

Re:How long since you were in school?

[adonoman]

Who said anything about converting. My wife sends me to the store to pick up 1100 eggs. My shoes are size 1001, I'm 101' 1011" tall, and I weigh 11000011 lbs. My kids are 111 and 101 years old. Although, it does confuse teachers when the kids tell them they just celebrated their hundred and eleventieth birthday.

XKCD

[masher_oz]

The obligitory... [xkcd.com]

I live in a hex household myself

[elrous0]

My son just turned b.