Warning About Dealers And Their Pricing

[rScotty]

My wife's undergrad was Finance + MBA. She hired a lot of accountants over the years. The irony is that after the CPA exam, they get little value from doing work in their heads as they use spreadsheets. Before that, they used calculators with tape output.

Torvy, that's fascinating. Here's a bit of trivial to go along with it.

I believe I was the last student at CU to do traditional drafting....I mean the VERY last one. I had missed some fall classes, so the dept. left one old style drafting table set up over Christmas vacation (1987) for me to finish up the required freshman drafting work. While I drew furiously with a #2 pencil, all around me desks were being ripped out and computers running AutoCad installed.

The next semester we got to use calculators on exams for the first time. Before that it was slide rules. Calculators had to be set to do only numerical arithmetic, and no stacks or putting partial answers into memory was allowed. In fact, everyone's calculators had to be inspected before each exam to make sure that they were numerical only - that we hadn't written any programs into them.

But even so it meant that for the first time we had the ability to look up the trig function of some weird angle instead of having to divide it out longhand. That saved precious minutes for me - although most of my classmates still used their heads, having memorized all the common trig and log functions years before.
rScotty

 

[Cahaba Valley Farm]

Torvy, that's fascinating. Here's a bit of trivial to go along with it.

I believe I was the last student at CU to do traditional drafting....I mean the VERY last one. I had missed some fall classes, so the dept. left one old style drafting table set up over Christmas vacation (1987) for me to finish up the required freshman drafting work. While I drew furiously with a #2 pencil, all around me desks were being ripped out and computers running AutoCad installed.

The next semester we got to use calculators on exams for the first time. Before that it was slide rules. Calculators had to be set to do only numerical arithmetic, and no stacks or putting partial answers into memory was allowed. In fact, everyone's calculators had to be inspected before each exam to make sure that they were numerical only - that we hadn't written any programs into them.

But even so it meant that for the first time we had the ability to look up the trig function of some weird angle instead of having to divide it out longhand. That saved precious minutes for some - although most of my classmates still used their heads, having memorized all the common trig and log functions years before.
rScotty

How old were you then Scotty?

 

[rScotty]

How old were you then Scotty?

Older than most of my professors.... all but one I think.

 

[Cahaba Valley Farm]

Older than most of my professors.... all but one I think.

I bet you were their star student Scotty

 

[Jstpssng]

The irony is that after the CPA exam, they get little value from doing work in their heads as they use spreadsheets.

Not to get off subject, because I am learning as you post. Yet it's good mental exercise to do numbers in your head, even if you check with the calculator afterwards.

 

[2manyrocks]

There is value in learning how to do the calculations manually because it forces you to think through the math and what's happening in the calculation. Then you aren't limited by whatever someone has chosen to build into a spreadsheet or a preprogrammed function on a calculator.

 

[JethroB]

I had a college math professor that would inspect each person’s calculator before a test. If it was more than a 4-banger (+ - X /) he would cut little pieces of index cards and tape them over the advanced function keys. I also just learned that there isn’t a ‘divide’ key on an iPad.

 

[RSR]

My Father and I are both Mechanical Engineers. He grew up using a slide rule, I didn't. I am always amazed at his ability to do quick calculations of trig functions/logarithms/etc. in his head.

It's an incredibly useful skill to have, particularly when trying to make quick, back-of-the-envelope calculations.

 

[JethroB]

My wife's undergrad was Finance + MBA. She hired a lot of accountants over the years. The irony is that after the CPA exam, they get little value from doing work in their heads as they use spreadsheets. Before that, they used calculators with tape output.

Many accountants and clerks struggle (like me) with a calculator as their number keys are reversed from a true adding machine. We would give a ‘by touch’ adding machine test to job applicants much like a typing speed test. Later years we designed a little test for Excel spreadsheets. It only took a couple of minutes of causally observing someone out of the corner of my eye to gauge their proficiency.

 

[ultrarunner]

I've heard this many times regarding key placement...

I thought the old hand operated Victor Adding Machine was the eighth wonder if the world when I would sit in my Grandfather's lap and add numbers.