Years ago there was a book titled “Future Shock” – I think that was the title – and one of the themes was that it predicted we’d get taken in by technology to such a degree that we’d start having difficulty doing common tasks without the aid of the technology. And if the technology ever failed, then we’d really be up a creek b/c we couldn’t do much of anything without it. Based on the story above, 3 employees none of which being able to calculate a 10% discount, even with the aid of a calculator, maybe this is all coming true.
Cashiers, at some auto parts stores even. Don’t dare give extra change after they have put in the cash you gave them, math is a forgotten subject. I like to use up my change but honestly I get questioning looks when say a bill is $15.58, and I will give them $21.08 so I get 2 quarters back along with a $5bill. I am so old maybe they just think I am eccentric!
Some years ago my oldest son was with me and wanted to stop at a Sonic drive in on the way out of town. He got a burger/soda and I settled on a soda only.
The total was 7.42 and I handed the young male carhop a 10 dollar bill.
He handed me back 2.33 in change. Normally, I’ll turn around and tell them to keep all or part of it as a tip.
I politely pointed out that he shorted me a quarter and he was instantly downright rude in saying the change was correct…
This led to a minute or so of heated discussion over the math with me saying; You mean to tell me you can’t subtract 7.42 from a ten spot? The little punk just got more sarcastic at which point I opened the car door and said that we would just go inside and have the manager provide a math lesson.
He handed me the quarter as I exited the car and stalked off.
It was an aggravating waste of time for 25 cents but it became a matter of principle very quickly.
I stopped trying to get even change years ago. I just pay with a ten or 20 and take the change home to a jar. A couple of times a year I deposit it to my savings account and feel I save a few dollars I might not have otherwise.
One night last summer I was headed home on a Saturday night about midnight and stopped at McDs (desperation for me…) for a regular burger and coke on the dollar menu as there was nothing else open.
A sign on the drive-through stated to pull up as the speaker was not working. The total was 2.18 including tax. Four or five minutes go by and no change.
Eventually the young woman excused herself after messing around with a notepad and pencil.
Four or five more minutes go by and she returns with a store manager to help her out.
I discovered that the computers and ordering system was down and she simply could not figure out on paper or in the brain that 1 dollar + 1 dollar + 9 cents sales tax on each dollar added up to 2.18.
We’re all doomed…
Before I retired, I taught a computer hardware course for upper division and graduate students. I would not let them use calculators on the test. We had to convert back and forth from decimal to binary to hexadecimal. I showed them that if they would think about the powers of 2 (2,4, 8,16,32… . ) the conversions were really easy. I had one particularly argumentative class that would ask before every exam if calculators could be used. One time I tried an experiment. I told the students that, if they liked, they could use calculators. As I administered the test, I noted which students used calculators and which students did not. To a student, those who did not use the calculator got the problems involving base conversion correct and each one of the students that used the calculators got the base conversion problems wrong.
The mathematics education faculty were housed in the same building as the computer science department. These mathematics educators advocated the use of calculators in the elementary school. They claimed that the arithmetic got in the way of learning mathematics. I believe that one learns mathematics by doing arithmetic. I would tell my students that if I taught in the elementary school, I would tell the kids that two things were to go in the wastebasket: 1) their calculators; 2) their chewing gum. I would go on to say that they had a brain to think with and they didn’t need the calculators and if they had to chew something, I had a tin of Mail Pouch tobacco on my desk and they could chew something worthwhile. The math ed faculty had a fit when word got out that I made this pronouncement to my classes.
Hi, could you please bring this one back around to cars? Thanks.
It is scary…and it’s not just math.
Our daughter, in high school at the time (2000???), sat down and watched “Sargent York” with me one afternoon. At the end she stated " I thought Germany fought with us (America) in both the first and second world wars. I could not believe that they were taught so little of our nations history.
Same daughter came home and said that she had an assignment for history, to write a report of “someone influential in american history”.
I’m thinking Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln, FDR, George Washington Carver, etc. etc…
Nope, she decided on someone who who advocated for bi- lingual education in the public schools. I wonder how that name got into her head???
I remember a story from about 15 years ago. They asked students…"what country borders the southern most United states. Some from Florida said Cuba…I’d pass them…some said, Texas…Flunk…I know you Texans are independent, but ???
Yosemite
I don’t know how to get this back to cars but remember when a high elected official needed to be reminded that there were 50 states?
Out of uninformed curiosity, what is the deciding difference between obtaining car parts from the dealership parts department versus an auto supply store?
Good for you @Marnet. Back to automobiles.
The same AC spark plugs and ignition parts are sold at parts stores as dealerships and Moog suspension parts are equal to if not identical to OE and sold at a tremendous discount at the parts store. Electronic parts like modules and especially computers are sometimes from questionable sources at parts stores and it is worth the price to get the OE part. And it’s always been good to have a good relationship with dealership parts departments. I have bought crate factory engines at below McParts store prices and been given the secret updates and tsbs before they were published by dealership parts counter men.
There are a great many things to consider when sourcing parts. If I replace the computer on a late model car and it fails within a year and the customer is upset it would be difficult to defend installing a “We Be Good 'nuff” brand while an OE part lays the responsibility back to the car’s manufaturer.
to this day there are those who don’t know NEW MEXICO is one of those fifty states…yet they drive ( car subject ) down I-40 or I-10 thinking only in terms of their destinations and are apparently in a state of white line fever for five hundred miles.
It amazes me @ken green, that so many people just don’t grasp the big picture regarding geography/maps. I bought a good friend a GPS to help her through unfamiliar areas. She is intelligent and resourcefull but just doesn’t seem to grasp the situation. If the GPS routed her from Atlanta to Los Angeles by way of Omaha she wouldn’t question it.
If the GPS routed her from Atlanta to Los Angeles by way of Omaha she wouldn't question it.You a CDB fan, @Rod Knox?
“I think I’m gonna reroute my trip/
Wonder if anybody’d think I flipped/
If I went to LA…via Omaha”
Frankly, I find it baffling how so many people cannot find their way around the street corner without GPS and heedlessly follow it even against very abundant problems with the routing. It is like any other tool, it has benefits and limitations that ought to be viewed with common sense.
Don’t underestimate the value of a good old roadmap or atlas for the bigger view as well as immediate area roads.
In the St. Louis area a fantastic map resource are the Wunnenberg’s Street Guides map books. I have them for the five immediate counties – three MO and two IL – and still use them after living here 35 years.
If you really want to know the best route through unfamiliar territory stop in a police / state trooper / highway patrol station. They know all the roads, common travel conditions, any current road construction, etc.
“I find it baffling how so many people cannot find their way around the street corner without GPS and heedlessly follow it even against very abundant problems with the routing”
That is very true, Marnet, and every few months there is the inevitable news story about somebody who turned (pick one):
…onto RR tracks
…into a lake
…onto a one-way street, going the wrong way
…because their GPS supposedly told them to turn there.
However, it is also true that there are people who seem to have no sense of direction whatsoever, and there are also people who don’t seem to be able to comprehend maps. For those varieties of people, a GPS is most likely better than their native senses.
When I was a teenager, I had a friend who had no sense of direction whatsoever.
Our typical nighttime activity was “cruising the strip”, which meant that when you got to the end of civilization, you would make a right, another right, another right, and then a left turn in order to go back in the other direction on the strip.
This guy invariably couldn’t figure out the final left turn, and was always amazed that we wound up going in the same direction that we had been going in a couple of minutes earlier. If I hadn’t corrected him every time, he probably would have kept driving in big circles for an eternity. For somebody like him, GPS is really the only answer, even if it is imperfect.
Yes, some people are blessed with better natural sense of direction than others while some folks have zero directional sense. The latter seem to be those who also have the most difficulty reading maps. For them GPS undoubtedly is quite a boon.
For those familiar with the situation the CCC Bridge in New Orleans may not be much to consider but for the directionally challenged it is a peculiar situation. To drive east south-east across the river and arrive on the West Bank is a tough sell. Of course there is that entire highway 90 loop that will compound the confusion if the directionally challenged looks at a map when they doubt the drivers abilities.
And yes, @meanjoe, I’m a CDB fan and I have likely had a beer at the Dew Drop Inn north of Jackson Mississippi and met that entire crew of rednecks. There are likely several Dew Drop Inns in every state though. And I’ve enjoyed a beer at a few of them.
Trust the computer, ie gps, but if you find yourself driving on railroad tracks, please use your brain, not gps.
"LOCKPORT - A man told police he was following his GPS system when he turned onto railroad tracks Sunday night.
Related Links
Driver says GPS led him to drive onto railroad tracks in Lockport
Person killed when hit by Metra train
Train derails in Joliet; no injuries
No one was injured when a passenger train struck the car about 10 minutes later near the Ninth Street crossing…"
I’ve always had a pretty good sense of direction, but do rely on my GPS once in a blue moon.
As teens we played a game while we were cruising the roads of our town and the outlaying area.
One would lay down on the back seat…eyes closed and you would try to get them lost in 30 minutes. I always did pretty good…knowing that we just went over that bridge and then that sharp left, then the “S” curve and the stop sign…we must be at X spot.
My wife couldn’t find her way home from the mail box without her GPS. She just cannot imagine herself making three lefts and coming back out onto the same road.
She got lost coming from Little Rock and was lost near Memphis once. She wasn’t even supposed to be in the state of Tennessee. This was the conversation on the phone.
Her; I’m lost
Me; where are you
Her; I don’t know but I saw a Memphis sign awhile back
Me; are there any street signs around.
Her; Yes…I’m at State St and Washington court
Me; What City
Her; I don’t know I’m lost
This was before mapquest and Google maps and the internet…so I’m trying to find where she’d be in a Rand Mcnally atlas.
Thankfully some trucker overheard her conversation and said that he was heading north and if she followed him she’d be back on the right highway in a few miles. She finally found 55 north and found her way back to Wisconsin.
I remember years ago, a buddy and I were going to Lexingtom Ky and I had never been on a “belt line”…never even heard of them. We get to Lexington and start around the beltline. Our directions were not accurate and I finally said " Damn, they have a lot of Holiday Inns around here. Turns out we had made the trip three trimes around before we finally figured we were going in circles.
Yosemite