Where Were These Kids 15 Years Ago?

I read an interesting article in today's Wall Street Journal. Before I go any farther, let me say that I received my first issue of the WSJ this morning. I subscribed to it and 8 other magazines a couple of weeks ago using frequent flyer points that were about to expire. I'll read anything that's free. So imagine my surprise this morning when I got up and saw the WSJ laying on the table along side our Curious Journal newspaper! I had no idea I would start getting the magazines this soon. But I digress. The article was about a trend among twenty-somethings who are so smart that they're able to reprogram and add applications to their graphing calculators. These seemingly harmless hacks have gotten some of them in big trouble from the legal department at Texas Instruments. TI has sent out cease and desist letters to these kids, telling them to basically use their graphing caculators for what they were intended for. All I ask is where were these kids when I needed them? I got my first graphing calculator about 15 years ago when I started going back to finish my Bachelor's Degree. Believe me when I tell you that the instruction manual for the calculator was bigger than the textbook for the math class.

I'll never have to worry about getting a letter from TI's lawyers. So far, the only thing I can do on my graphing calculator other than graphing is spell "BOOBIES". I don't think they're going to take me to court over that.