> AARRRGHGHGHG!
> "To put that in perspective, a 100-watt bulb left on for 10 hours uses
one kilowatt."

Today I had three students 1st y systeembeheer (== system maintainer?)
do some calculations. One was an estimate of the time needed for a
typical windows system cal. Their answer was 0.2 seconds, and that did
not seem strange to them at all.

I helped them a little, and they had to divide 20 seconds by 20000. Two
refused to give an answer (but I need my calculator for that!), the
third answered: 0.00002 seconds . I am not sure whether I weas more
disappointed by the first two boys, or the amount of zeros, or by the
final 2. 

Next we had (or rather: I gave them) the answer: 0.001 seconds. Now I
asked: how do you prounce that. They had a vague idea that milliseconds
and microseconds are both small, but could not say which was smaller, or
which was 0.001.

According to my fellow teachers these boys are not bad, they are
typical. I hope for the safety of my country that serious engineering
work is very quickly outsourced to countries where 18y boys still have
at least some feeling for numbers and values...

Wouter van Ooijen

-- -------------------------------------------
Van Ooijen Technische Informatica: www.voti.nl
consultancy, development, PICmicro products
docent Hogeschool van Utrecht: www.voti.nl/hvu
 
 

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