Quoting bbbbb:

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Quoting Mark Harrison:

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I have a degree in math.  So I pulled out one of my old math tricks from grade school... Addition.

Do you speak about mental calculation? Like reading out the 33 Lost discs (144 episodes), and adding the runtime without any tool?

I've never done one of that size.  But if the need arose, I'd be tempted with another trick from grade school... pencil and paper!

Seriously, I love tools as much as the next person.  And this seems to be a fantastic tool.  But there's somethings I prefer to do the old fashioned way.  I prefer to keep my basic skills all polished up for those times when there is no technology. So yeah, I'd probably do Lost manually as well if I needed to.

Quoting Mark Harrison:

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Seriously, I love tools as much as the next person.  And this seems to be a fantastic tool.  But there's somethings I prefer to do the old fashioned way.  I prefer to keep my basic skills all polished up for those times when there is no technology.

This reminds me of a scene from the Batman Beyond series. It's about 50 years in the future, and technology has improved a great deal, though everything else about the world is basically the same.

Dana is calling out Terry (both high school students) on the fact that he "memories the multiplication tables" seeing it as pointless given the existence of calculators. She thinks he's lying, and when he is able to quickly answer what 15 times 15 is, she asks a friend (who is nearest the calculator) to check his answer.


My class had to memorize the tables up to 20×20 I think in early middle school, and we weren't allowed to use a calculator at all until--and only in--specific classes starting in 9th grade. There's nothing wrong with exercising your brain

Quoting Blair:

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Dana is calling out Terry (both high school students) on the fact that he "memories the multiplication tables" seeing it as pointless given the existence of calculators. She thinks he's lying, and when he is able to quickly answer what 15 times 15 is, she asks a friend (who is nearest the calculator) to check his answer.

Squares are easy when you already know some of them. I couldn't tell you 14² from the top of my head but I do know that 13² is 169. To get 14² you only have to add obne more 13 and one 14 = 196. 17² = 16² + 16 + 17 = 256 + 16 + 17 = 289 and so on and so on.

Quoting DJ Doena:

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Squares are easy when you already know some of them.

True except I didn't think of it that way back then. I was still learning. Now, I know EVERYTHING!  

English was always my favorite class since we didn't have a Creating Writing class. I was quite the writer/poet back in those days.


Oh wait.... ummm..... what was this topic supposed to be about again?