I hate to be a naysayer here (because I actually like the idea of this calculator) but I use R for virtually every mathematical and statistical problem I encounter. It's always open on my computer while I'm working and I'm comfortable enough with the program that most of the syntax requires little thought on my part.

If I'm in the field and need to perform some calculations, I either use my phone (for simple calculations) or my $17 Casio statistics calculator.

As a risk assessor and environmental scientist, I have NEVER needed anything more than these.

I have a TI-89 emulator in my android phone. I use it all the time from simple calculations to graphing. I think I might have used the calculus functions a couple of times. Anyway, it's really convenient and now I wouldn't even think about carrying around another device that only does what a calculator does.

This calculator is designed for high school students, and it is certified for tests.

I think the days where engineers, scientists and students shared the same calculators are gone.

On a number of occasions I have had prospective employers ask what my final grade was for specific classes. I have never been asked about my GPA specifically, but my grades at the University certainly affected me beyond academia.

May I ask which classes, and what type of employer? I don't even know if any of my employers bothered verifying that I graduated college.

Before I graduated, when I was interviewing for jobs, lots of companies wouldn't interview anyone with lower than a certain GPA. Google was the most notable one, although they've since gotten rid of that requirement since they found it has almost no correlation with your performance as an employee.

Other larger companies that cared were Lutron, Epic, and a few more I don't really remember. I think Epic even asked me what my ACT score was.

Beyond that first job though, my GPA hasn't mattered at all, which is good because mine was pretty mediocre.

Outside of the college recruitment pipeline, I've neither seen nor heard of anyone asking for gpa. Some places want or even require degrees, but nobody cares about gpa at all once you have a year of experience.

I've had one company so far ask me for transcripts, and this was after I had been working for several years. That should have been a huge red flag.

What did they want your transcripts for?

I have absolutely no idea. If it helps, that company also wouldn't hire one of my best interns without him taking some programming language courses. He had a 4-year degree, too. They also didn't want to hire one of my other good interns into an embedded role despite that being what she went to school for, and despite her having the aptitude for it. They wanted to hire her into SDET instead. I don't believe she took the job.

That's pretty asinine. I wouldn't have the foggiest idea what I finished any of my classes in college at, even when I was only a year or two out.

>People do the calculus to decide if risk is greater than reward all the time.

Technically you're right but what you seem to be missing is that people (in general) suck at risk assessment. Although they are doing "the calculus", most of their calculations are based on heuristics that just don't reflect a rational analysis.

That is why so many people fear plane travel more than car travel, immigrants more than cigarettes, and pharmaceuticals more than "raw water".

As a statistician, that has not been my experience.

I agree with your point but I suspect the problem with statements like the one you identified is that they claim too much.

In other words, if I say "The American people want X", there are surely some Americans who don't want X and I just alienated them. If, however, I say "many Americans want X", I'm making a weaker claim that is easier to defend.

In general, I prefer that people err on the side of making a weaker claim. It's less frustrating to communicate with people willing to do so (for me, at least).

The one downside of criticizing "weasel words" is that more people start making overly broad claims that you and I do not care for.

My favorite hedge is "The American people have spoken" whenever 350 or so adults with landlines answer a loaded question by saying they "somewhat agree."

I urge you to read Spinoza for yourself if you are under the impression that his philosophy is like Ayn Rand's. I assure you, they are worlds apart.

I never turn location services on and I run on mobile data (rather than WiFi) almost every moment of the day.

My location was correctly determined within the specified range. sigh Ridiculous.

This doesn't involve location services. The more interesting question is if it works on dual SIM phones for both SIMs.

Turning off cell reception might mitigate it. They seem to use cell triangulation to determine where you are. But maybe also other techniques. That way to locate someone has been possible basically since the beginning of mobile phones - even before internet usage became a thing.

>I have a pet theory that more visual thinking is something that has come in from our Neanderthal ancestors.

That is an interesting proposal. One thing I like about it is its easy testibility. Given how easy it is to find people without Neanderthal DNA, the effort needed to conduct a study on this question would be minimal.

Yes it is very testable, but probably too controversial to be studied in practice.

That's understandable, given how racial differences have so frequently been exaggerated and misused. Especially mental differences. Partly because they're so hard to measure objectively, being so tied with life experience.

And still, being part Neanderthal, I am curious.

Yes it is a shame we can’t study this topic as it is such a interesting area. It would be nice if people understood different doesn’t mean inferior.

The thing many people forget about those of us that are Neanderthal hybrids is that all us hybrids carry different parts of the Neanderthal genome. Pinning down what genes are linked to what phenotypes would be very, very interesting.

More accidents happen at home for the same reason more car accidents happen close to home...that's where the people are often spending time.

Would you say that you haven't seen any proof that there are "inevitable" effects of (attempts at) communism?