Regarding the below statement about
knowing fundamental arithmetic...

I was just mentioning to someone this evening how
effective a torture technique it is (and how valuable it
would be to High School students) to force feed the
manual methods to convert Binary to Octal to Hexadecimal
and back again, in their basic computer course.

>I was just sharing this thread with a coworker, and she had a valid point.

>
>"If you don't exercise you pinkies on your shift keys, how can you keep them

>strong to be well mannered while drinking tea!"
>
>Oh yea, those same people who aren't using their shift keys have probably
>never drank tea.
>
>Paul "Miss Manners, what are we to do?" Scott
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Jeff Woods [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2000 1:23 PM
>To: Paul Scott
>Cc: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: OT: communication skills (was: new look & feel for jazz)
>
>
>At  09:50 AM 9/12/00, Paul Scott wrote:
>>There is no excuse for this when spell and grammar checkers are built into

>>just about every application today.
>
>Actually, the profileration of spell-check and grammar checkers *is* the
>excuse.  That's because they are part of the cause of the problem in the
>same way that the proliferation of calculators (and to my horror when my
>children were in elementary school a required school supply!) has lead to
>no one under 30 seeming to be able to do basic arithmetic anymore.  Instead

>of learning how words and numbers really work at a fundamental level,
>people today only seem to learn how to press the buttons on their
>too-complicated electronic systems.  Word processors are more dumbed-down
>desktop publishing systems than word processors.  It's a sad state of
>affairs and I don't have any solid answers... only concerns.  But it's
>going to get a lot worse before it gets better, if it ever gets better.
>
>--
>Jeff Woods
>

Tracy Johnson
Justin Thyme Productions
Sponsors Empire on the HP3000 at:
http://198.190.228.6/