Keeping track of the decimal point is pretty much a lost art
in my experience. I've a 5-inch rule in my pocket, a frequent
occasion for eye-rolling among my younger colleagues :)
Still works, though...

---- wouter van ooijen <wouter@voti.nl> wrote: 
> 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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