The Tungsten PDA

I found a story on Slashdot that has left me stone. I did not pronounce on its plausibility, but it is really surprising. Os the translating here:

We all know that advances in technology can cost people their jobs. However, in some cases, the fact of introducing new technology can often be delayed too long. Back in 1997, my new house was in the slow process of transforming the paper into bricks of cement. One of the first tasks was to represent the shape of the house exactly on the ground. My builder was using a subcontractor to do it, and I had occasion to see it work. One day came mounted on his old pick-up with four "employees" sitting in the back. To represent the "initial rectangle" of the building, follow this algorithm:

• Measure a baseline for the long edge of the rectangle. Mark it with cocked two stakes into the ground, and ate a piece of nylon rope between them.
• Tie a second piece of rope to one of the stakes and give the length of the width of the rectangle. Visually calculate the angle between the line and the previous one, so that they are about 90 degrees. You get a form of "L". An individual holds the rope there.
• Do the same on the other side of the rectangle. You now have a U-shaped and two individuals are holding the open ends of the ropes.
• Take a third piece of rope, like in longitude to length of the rectangle. Give one end to each of the two individuals who are already holding the strings. Have them throw up all three strings are strained. You now have a parallelogram made of rope, holding it with two individuals in two vertices.
• Now take two tapes with a long and individuals located in every corner of our parallelogram, placed tapes along the two diagonals of the parallelogram. With two individuals holding the tapes in the stakes of the perimeter, and the other two that hold the ropes, tell them to communicate the lengths of the diagonals, stringing two free points until all the strings are strained, and the two tapes of the diagonals are reading the same lengths. This requires a lot of screams, curses, and each says the other how to move.
• You now have a rectangle, so key on the floor of the two stakes missing, and then level the whole thing, yes, with a "gossip with laser really impressive."

Well, I looked at this with some fun (and why not preguntádome calculated the length of the diagonal directly). The individual who was the chief said that this could not be done: "it is impossible!". He talked about the Pythagorean theorem. With the help of a calculator (he did not know what it was worth the key fun of the "square root"), could demonstrate how easy it is to calculate the length of the diagonal and remove all "voce." "Wow!" He shouted. He thought for a moment ... "Now I need only three individuals holding the string !"... HACT followed and fired one of them right there! I thought you kidding, but the next day, when measuring the location for the garage, had argued that unless an individual rope.

Thus, an old technology advancement 2,500 years cost one person his poor work ...

The conclusion I draw from this text, is that technologies are helping us, but we do not become more ready. The value and expertise of each remains the most important factor.

By: Mark Gonzalez Troyes in General
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