Norwegian television to air program with HP calculator collection



#2

This week I had a visit from a television team from NRK (the national television broadcast agency). They filmed my collection and interviewed me about my insanity.

The story goes like this: My office is full of the little beauties. Someone at work had sent a tip to NRK about me collecting HP calculators. The creators of a program called "Collectors" found it interesting and set up the filming at my office. They asked questions about the history of my interest, the calculators I have, the reasons for my collection and what I use the calcs for.

They filmed close-ups of some of the calculators on a rotation plate they had: An HP-01, HP-19C, HP-97, HP12CP and of course "Julius, the HP-41CX". I also got to show off my HP-37 with the world's earliest serial # and my first calc (a TI-57... sorry guys :) Otherwise, they panned the glass cupboard and the shelves.

They was intrigued by the collection of actual useful things, in contrast to collecting bottle caps or newspaper titles or such.

The show will air in September 2008.


#3

Wow!

Have to remember to look out for this!

Since it is NRK and one of their own productions it is most likely it will be available from their web site eventual if it airs. Plenty of time to to learn Nowegian ;-)


#4

Quote:
Plenty of time to to learn Nowegian

Som alla som har försökt någon gång vet att det är rent omöjligt ;-)
( as everyone who once tried know is impossimble)

Hälsningar från grannen och god jul

( please send us the link to the TV-show once it becomes available )


#5

Rest assured; I'll be sending the link :)

#6

Quote:
Plenty of time to to learn Nowegian ;-)

Well, as Frank said, Norwegian is hard, but maybe that "Nowegian" isn't so bad?!


#7

Actually, Nowegian is a tad easier to learn than Norwegian, given that there are 11% less letters to worry about in the former.


#8

Quote:
Actually, Nowegian is a tad easier to learn than Norwegian, given that there are 11% less letters to worry about in the former.

;-) The thing is, I allready speak No Wegian, as well as No Russian, No Turkish and No Greek ;-)

I allmost forgot: I don't speak Any Merican English!


#9

So I guess you speak No Rwegian as well, then?


#10

and NO RSK :-)


#11

Quote:
So I guess you speak No Rwegian as well, then?

I only read No Rwegian - but can't pronounce the Rw-part

Quote:
and NO RSK :-)

Yeah, No Rsk and No Fun!

#12

You speelled "almost" rong. I hope Mad Dog duzn't get mad at mee for pointing it out. :-) :-)

Stefan


#13

Quote:
You speelled "almost" rong. I hope Mad Dog duzn't get mad at mee for pointing it out. :-) :-)

Stefan


If I only spelled it almost wrong, it's not really a problem, isn't it?!? ;-)

(Didn't you see I spelled "allready" wrong as well? You're so kind not to point that out, too!)

BTW, I hope someone will remind the forum of the airing date of that Norwegian show. Or does someone have connections to the Norwegian TV station and can get a copy beforehand? Summer of 2008 is soooo far away...

Edited: 22 Dec 2007, 1:42 p.m.


#14

I'll be notified before they send the show with my beloved calcs in it.


#15

I have not being visiting for a day and now I am all in tears on how much fun you all have had of me missing one single letter!

If this is how it is going to be, well, I am out of here. I will never more post here! And I will smash all my hp calculators to atoms (I know that hurts, your freaks!).

Naeeeee, just kidding, good ones, almost make me wanted to have forgot the r on purpose...

Merry xmas to you all!


#16

And, I'm relieved to hear that Arne doesn't seem too upset with my initial, intended-to-be-friendly, joke at his expense.

#17

There is a, I believe, credit card or some such, commercial on here in the the U.S. about an American and his father, who traced their ancestry back to Norway. So they fly off to Norway, eat the food, drink, dance, and do Norwegian things... only to find in a Norwegian town hall's records that they are really Swedish.

Well, I liked it!

Merry Christmas!


#18

Quote:
There is a, I believe, credit card or some such, commercial on here in the the U.S. about an American and his father, who traced their ancestry back to Norway. So they fly off to Norway, eat the food, drink, dance, and do Norwegian things... only to find in a Norwegian town hall's records that they are really Swedish.

Well, I liked it!

Merry Christmas!


Enjoy it >>>here!<<<

Nice one! "I feel like yodeling - did they yodel?"

(BTW Norway was in a personal union with Sweden from 1814 to 1915, wikipedia tells me - so father and son maybe were Norwegian after all and ate that fish head for a reason...)
EDIT: 1814-1905, I stand corrected.

Edited: 23 Dec 2007, 3:36 a.m. after one or more responses were posted


#19

While we're at it watching videos, try Mathemagician Dr. Arthur Benjamin - even makes a remark about "ancient RPN calculators" of an audience member ;-)

>>>HERE<<<


#20

Greaaat show! Worth every minute! Thanks for pointing to it, math lawyer :-)

#21

No Doubt, the man is amazing. I wondered how difficult it would be to keep up with him had I been called up onstage.

He made two errors (that I could find), but his panel didn't catch them?

I wonder if it was peer pressure, or stage fright.

The errors are at 3:44, and 4:08. Watch the reaction of the guy with the HP,

Very respectfully and Happy Holidays,

David

#22

"Meenzer" --

Thanks again for the link to the video from 2005. Very enjoyable!

Viewers will notice how the "Mathemagician" (Dr. Arthur Benjamin of Harvey Mudd College) cautioned that the 8-digit calculators would not be able to display squares of 5-digit numbers with full accuracy. This reminds me of a fairly-recent thread in which Palmer Hanson described how a TI-55II of the early 1980's used a different technique for statistical summation: It maintained the running totals of the following: Number of data, the mean average, -- and presumably a sum of squares divided by the number of data, calculated in a manner that minimized the likelihood of overflow.

(HP models maintain the number of data, sum, and sum of squares.)

http://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/hpmuseum/archv017.cgi?read=124700#124700

Palmer stated:

Quote:
There was a problem in the (TI-55II) statistics routine such that if the user entered 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 the mean would be displayed as 6 but the value in the machine was actually 6 - 1E-10 ! This was caused by use of a different algorithm for statistics accumulation where, for example, the sum of the input values was not stored, but rather the current mean and the number of entries was stored. V8N1P26-27 of TI PPC Notes).

The TI-55II was an 8-digit model. It might be that TI's reason for using this summation method was that the sum of squares would overflow with a single 5-digit input datum, or quite likely with even a few 4-digit input data.

Maintaining the running means of {4, 5, 6, 7, 8} may cause roundoff error in the summation, depending upon the order of data entry.

I concur also with "dbatiz" that Dr. Benjamin made two errors in squaring, in which several digits were incorrect. Still, his mental calculating prowess was very impressive. (Also note how his bow tie and cummerbund are decorated with numerals!)

-- KS


Edited: 24 Dec 2007, 4:15 a.m.

#23

Quote:
(BTW Norway was in a personal union with Sweden from 1814 to 1915, wikipedia tells me - ...

It ended in 1905. And luckily so. They will NEVER get their hands on our oil!!! Muahahaha!


#24

Quote:
It ended in 1905.

Thanks for checking, I corrected it above...

Quote:
And luckily so. They will NEVER get their hands on our oil!!! Muahahaha!

Have YOU cecked your ancestry like father and son did in the commercial? Maybe you're Swedish, too. And it's all THEIR oil and not YOURS ;-)

#25

Quote:
BTW Norway was in a personal union with Sweden...

I just re-read the book The Northern Lights by Lucy Jago.

As the subtitle says it is "The story of the man who unlocked the secrets of the aurora borealis".

Norwegian Kristian Birkeland did his scientific research of the aurora borealis and the zodiacal lights from 1899 to about 1915, near the end of the Swedish /Norwegian relationship.

The books makes the history and science quite interesting.


-- Richard


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