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The Brazilian Bar Association said the boy's achievement should be a warning about the low standards of some of the country's law schools.

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Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
 
My little brother wanted to be a taxi driver when he was that age. Kids just get odd ideas about what the jobs entail, I think.
 

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Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
 
Well, I always wanted to be a teacher, and still do. It just changed with age. First it was 3rd, grade, 4th grade, and then 5th grade, then a middle school teacher, before finally settling on a history teacher last year. Either that or a voice actor, or a bounty hunter...
 

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Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
 
Well that settles it, I'm going to Brazil...
 

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Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
 
I wonder how easiy their chemistry tests are...
 

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Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
 
The Brazilian foreign exchange student when I was in highschool told us they still used slide rules and looked up trig functions in tables because they couldn't afford graphing calculators. It's funny, both we and he thought the other method was inferior...
 

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Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :
 
As we are talking about tests and stuff, I want to point out the following:

Sean: "I wonder how easiy their chemistry tests are..."


 

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Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
 
No one ever said you had to know how to spell to do chemistry. I am trying to master touch typing for my keyboarding class ( a pain in the ass, but a requirement of graduation.) I find it useless, and have found that I can type much faster and more accurately by looking at the keyboard and using one or two fingers.
 

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Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :
 
I never took keyboarding class, but now can do touch typing without problems. And I type at around 40 words-per-minute.

All that email, chatting, typing stuff on Flare, it helps, you know?
 

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Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
 
In a related story, the government also said that the use of an Erector Set will no longer qualify as 'work experience' towards Engineering Degrees.
Erector Set----Non gutterminded type
 

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Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
 
I have an erector set. It was fun to play with when I was little. The one I have is dated '59, so it is kind of an antique, and liked my legos better anyway. Funnily enough, my dad used to have a set just like it. He also told me that "Erector set" was a commonly used term around high school in the late seventies...

Anyone have Lincoln Logs when they were young?
 

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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
 

"I find [touch typing] useless, and have found that I can type much faster and more accurately by looking at the keyboard and using one or two fingers."

I suspect it's a matter of practice. If you had been touch typing for your entire life, you'd probably be faster at that, instead.
 

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Posted by HopefulNebula (Member # 1933) on :
 
I thought I couldn't touch type for the longest time. Turns out, I just needed to teach myself. Shame I spent three years being forced by the school to use Mavis Beacon... *shudders* Ultimately, I don't think exact form matters (for example, my handwriting, if I hold a pencil "correctly," is completely illegible) so long as the final product works.
 

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Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :
 
Really, in this internet day and age, the more you post on sites like this, the more one can do touch typing after a while. It's all a matter of practice. That and knowing the positions of all the keys on the keyboard.
 

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Posted by HopefulNebula (Member # 1933) on :
 
Exactly. It's how I'm learning Dvorak. (well, learning on and off. Which probably isn't helping things.)

I only even learned I could self-teach touch typing when I started getting assigned "lengthy" (3 pages is a lot to hunt and peck!) papers
 

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Posted by shikaru808 (Member # 2080) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Sean:
Anyone have Lincoln Logs when they were young?

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Dear god, did I ever. Loved those things, but I definitely preferred Legos.
 

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Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
 
Lincoln Logs were a blast, when used with other toys.

I also had some little peg like things that could be fit together like legos, they were about an inch long. I built my first stardestroyer out of them.
 

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Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
 
Yeah, I never really grasped lincoln logs. YOu can build a house. That's it. And it has to be a square house too. When I was younger, my parents really pissed me off by getting me MEGA BLCKS instead of LEGOs. THe only Legos I got were the ones that came as a set to make a specific thing like an AT-ST, or a harry potter castle.
 

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Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
 
You didn't have a good set of Lincoln Logs, I had a set that had a variety of lengths, so I could build L shaped places.
 

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Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
 
Well yeah an L shape Wooooo. Magic. Even worse, the things I built werent inscale to anything I owned, so my GI joes couldn't battle it out in authentic valley forge style
 

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Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
 
lol, sure beat a boring square.

I had a ton of those little green plastic army men, they were pretty much to scale, if you ignored the 2 or 3 foot diameter logs. Which at that age didn't bother me at all.
 

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Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
 
I type 180 wpm on average, faster if I need to. I was doing 120wpm in keyboarding class when I was 14. I don't know if it's just a talent, or what, but I hardly had to do anything to learn touch typing...I just sort of did it. I can't write by hand worth a crap, though; I get horrible shooting pains up my arm and nobody can read it. I probly have dysgraphia or something.

I had TinkerToys, Lincoln Logs, an Erector Set, and about 10lbs of Lego blocks, all scavenged from specific sets - I'd build the UFO or whatever and then tear it apart to invent my own ship/dinosaur/whatever. Every single time mom took me somewhere, I'd cry until she bought me a Lego set... B)
 

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Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
 
I had Lincoln Logs, Tinkertoys, and Legos. I still have (or rather my son now has) the Legos. Oddly enough, I'm a structural design engineer, and I've never had an Erector set.

And my son, who's in second grade, is now learning to touch-type. I didn't get that until high school, and it was an elective course. I suppose the massive number of personal computers now kinda makes it essential.
 

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Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
 
Next thing you know they will be teaching warp theory in third grade.
 

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Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
 
I took touch typing in third grade. I learned it, decided I hated it and forgot about it. I might regret that next year. We had to use these rubber "key condoms" to stop us from looking at the keys. If I have to hand a paper in, I type it up, but things for me, or things that are just checked for credit I hand write. Not that anyone can read it. People complain because my G's look like 8's...
 

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Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
 
Between my house and my grandmother's (guess that counts as communal property for all the grandkids) I had:

Legos, Lincoln Logs (real wood ones), Tinker Toys (real wood ones), Brix Blocks, Bristle Blocks, Erector Set and these little plastic blue pieces that looked like steel I beams. You hook them together to build skyscrapers then placed the plastic panel "skin" on the outside.

Lincoln Logs were great with other toys. Star Wars figures, army men, Hot Wheels. Besides an L shape you could build any style of structure that had 90 degree angle walls.

And the little 1x1 log pieces made quick and efficient cannons.
 

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Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
 
I have a set of those little blue plastic I beams. Got it from a garage sale. DId yours come with a "riv-o-matic gun" that shot the rivets into the beams?
 

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Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Sean:
If I have to hand a paper in, I type it up, but things for me, or things that are just checked for credit I hand write. Not that anyone can read it. People complain because my G's look like 8's...

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Luddite.

I type fairly fast & still look at the keys. I make a lot of mistake, though, because of hitting the wrong key in a rush.
 

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Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
 
Yeah, sometimes I do too. I still find backspacing to fix a word faster than touch typing though.
 

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Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
 
I can backspace pretty quickly whilst touch-typing
 

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Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
 
Despite playing the violin for 7 years, my fourth finger isn't flexible enough to reach backspace from proper touch position.
 

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Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
 
Another year and you will be able to pass the entrance exam.
 

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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
 

"...Lincoln Logs (real wood ones)..."

Wait, are you saying Lincoln Logs aren't made of wood anymore? That's... that's just wrong.
 

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Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
 
Plastic these days, my friend...just like everything else. *mumbles "Stupid lousy economic easy-to-clean material"*
 

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Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
 
Huh? My son has some Lincoln Logs, and they're wood. And he didn't inherit these from me, he got them new.
 

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Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Ritten:
Another year and you will be able to pass the entrance exam.

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