noosphr (u/noosphr) - Readit News

noosphr commented on Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam chronicle.com/article/bri... · Posted by u/diodorus

twic · 8 hours ago

Baby rather than Colossus. Colossus wasn't programmable.

noosphr · 7 hours ago

>Jack Good, a veteran of Colossus practice at Bletchley Park, later claimed that, if appropriately configured, Colossus could almost have carried out a multiplication but that this would not have been possible in practice because of constraints on what could be accomplished in a processing cycle. We have no reason to doubt this, though it would presumably have required special settings of the code wheels and message tape and been, even if possible, a rather inefficient alternative to a desktop calculator. This fact has been offered as proof of the flexibility of Colossus, which in a sense it does attest to: a device designed without any attention to numerical computations could almost have multiplied thanks to the flexibility with which logical conditions could be combined. Yet it also proves the very real differences between Colossus and devices designed for scientific computation. Multiplications were vital to computations, and a device that could not multiply would not, by the standard of the 1940s, be termed a “computer “or “calculator.”

https://www.sigcis.org/files/Haigh%20-%20Colossus%20and%20th...

The limitation seems to have been physical rather than logical.

noosphr commented on Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam chronicle.com/article/bri... · Posted by u/diodorus

altairprime · 11 hours ago

I wouldn’t equate trigonometry, which underpins the classic parabolic example you’re referring to, with critical reasoning in human conversation. One is situationally useful at best; the other is mandatory to prevent exploitation by malicious people. Mental quadratics may be appealing, but the ability to reason is the bare minimum. Besides: if you’re using a calculator or AI in a board meeting, you’re likely unprepared for the board meeting.

noosphr · 10 hours ago

I'm not sure how you did proofs in trigonometry with a calculator.

noosphr commented on Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam chronicle.com/article/bri... · Posted by u/diodorus

bigstrat2003 · 10 hours ago

You say that like those teachers were incorrect. They were correct, and still are correct. You don't always have a computer to hand, and you do in fact need to be able to do basic math.

noosphr · 10 hours ago

If I don't have access to my phone the power grid has been down for at least two days and by that point I've got more pressing issue than showing my work when doing basic math.

noosphr commented on Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam chronicle.com/article/bri... · Posted by u/diodorus

altairprime · 12 hours ago

Can’t use AI on a date, or at a dinner party, or during a board meeting.

Faking intelligence with AI only works in an online-exclusive modality, and there’s a lot of real world circumstances where being able to speak, reason, and interpret on the fly without resorting to a handheld teleprompter is necessary if you want to be viewed positively. I think a lot of people are going to be enraged when they discover that dependency on AI is unattractive once AI is universally accessible. “But I benefited from that advantage! How dare they hold that against me!”

noosphr · 11 hours ago

>Can’t use AI on a date, or at a dinner party, or during a board meeting.

I get the same "you won't always have a calculator with you" vibes from 90s teachers chiding you to show your work when I hear people say stuff like this.

noosphr commented on Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam chronicle.com/article/bri... · Posted by u/diodorus

acbart · 12 hours ago

There are many subskills that you must be proficient in without tools, before you can learn more interesting skills. You need to know how to do multiplication by hand before you rely on a calculator. If you can't do multiplication with a calculator, you're not going to be able to make sense of the concepts in Algebra.

noosphr · 11 hours ago

Algebra has nothing to do with long hand multiplication, people who say otherwise can't do either.

We know, because we taught computers how to do both. The first long multiplication algorithm was written for the Colossus about 10 minutes after they got it working.

The first computer algebra system that could manage variable substitution had to wait for Lisp to be invented 10 years later.

noosphr commented on The End of Handwriting wired.com/story/the-end-o... · Posted by u/beardyw

Exoristos · 5 days ago

This book is quite a find. I'm tempted to give it a go, as it could make my writing portable anywhere. My only misgiving is later getting that writing into electronic form, which nowadays is a non-negotiable. The technology for handwriting recognition, long-form, seems to still be fairly poor.

noosphr · 4 days ago

I'm starting to appreciate not having digitised notes.

When you can sit down and write out 1,000 words in 30 minites making indexes which you update weekly becomes just another form of revision. This works well for both study and business planning. Less so for emails and instant messages, but each medium for its intended purpose.

It is amazing how much of our education system requires being able to write text by the wheelbarrow when no one today can write more than a thimbleful without hand cramps and wrist pain. Imagine how much people would want to use Facebook or reddit if every like and upvote came with an electric shock. Our education system does that to everyone from age 8 and up when it comes to writing anything down.

noosphr commented on The End of Handwriting wired.com/story/the-end-o... · Posted by u/beardyw

elric · 5 days ago

Looking at this book, it seems very similar to how I was taught in the late 80s early 90s. We were forced to use fountain pens, and would get berated if we got ink on our hands.

I'm not sure if I can tell the difference between Tamblyn's business penmanship" and "looped cursive" and any other type of cursive to be honest. The difference in individual handwriting seems to be much larger than the difference in overarching styles?

noosphr · 5 days ago

The shape of the letters is largely irrelevant, the source of motion is the important part. In regular cursive it is the fingers that move the pen. In business penmanship it is the shoulder that moves the hand which is incidentally holding a pen.

Here is a video that gets most of the basics right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TWpFsv9Ib0

Here is one that gets it wrong: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vCPPcweLKWQ

The reason why the letters have the shape they do in business penmanship is for legibility and ease of motion. There are several variants of most letters you can choose from. The standard alphabet as given in that book is a very good compromise. The reason why newer cursive hands that use finger movement have a lot of the same shapes as business penmanship is cargo-culting.

noosphr commented on The End of Handwriting wired.com/story/the-end-o... · Posted by u/beardyw

kqr · 5 days ago

When going through the effort to re-learn how to write, why would one learn this rather than one of the more logical/easy shorthand systems?

(To clarify, I mean in this day and age! I would understand if one needed to send 300 letters a day to a non-shorthand reader.)

noosphr · 5 days ago

No one is stopping you from using muscular movement to speed up your shorthand even more.

If you use finger movement for shorthand you still have a 30 minute writing limit before you start getting hand cramps and carpal tunnel syndrome after a few years.

noosphr commented on The End of Handwriting wired.com/story/the-end-o... · Posted by u/beardyw

cyocum · 5 days ago

I find these articles both baffling and frustrating at the same time.

I find it frustrating because I spent recess after recess locked inside to practice cursive. After many months of this, my handwriting had not improved. The teachers finally relented and stopped punishing me because the punishment never actually improved my handwriting. My handwriting is now print only and is still horrible and has never improved. Additionally, I have only ever used cursive for signing my name to documents.

I find it baffling because I have an advanced degree in medieval Celtic Studies. I study manuscripts in depth and I have seen some of the worst handwriting that you could possibly imagine on the very expensive vellum manuscript page. In some cases worse than mine. Cursive is actually only a couple of hundred years old. Compared to the history of manuscript writing, cursive is very young so I am baffled that people are worried about it.

I find printing to be fine for almost all circumstances where I need to hand write something so I understand if we continue to teach that. Cursive, however, should only be done by those who want to use it. If you want to have an after school cursive club, great, have fun! Otherwise, leave the rest of us alone and let us have recess.

noosphr · 5 days ago

Cursive as taught in schools today is useless at best and dangerous for your health at worst.

The cursive that made the world run between 1850 and 1925 was called business penmanship and it lets you write at 40 words per minute for 14 hours every day for decades on end without pain or injury.

If you're interested here's the best book about it: https://archive.org/details/tamblyns-home-instructor-in-penm...

Note the advice given:

>following lessons will make of you a good penman, if you follow instructions implicitly. The average time to acquire such a handwriting is from four to six months, practicing an hour or so a day. Practice regularly every day, if you want the best results. Two practice periods of thirty minutes each are better than one period of sixty minutes.

After two months I can comfortably write at 20 words per minute for four hours without stopping.