Riobard's wournal of adventure and long-windedness

So my babby sister — who is a babby and also my sister — is going to eventually be in a class where she will eventually need a fancy graphing calculator.

Now; she’s not going into anything maths related. So I wholeheartedly expect her to hate algebra. (Math with letters? That’s just crazy!)
Regardless, she goes to the same school I graduated from, so I know she’ll need a TI-83/84 graphing calculator.

The problem? I gave away the TI-83 because we really don’t need it. I have an HP50g which is orders of magnitude more awesome.
However an HP50g will never, ever pass the requirements. It’s /too/ awesome for elementary school. I only got away with using it in high school because the teacher’s all knew I was a huge geek. (Plus, you know, I spent $200 of my parents hard earned cash on that thing.)

Now, I’m a programmer. I’m not necessarily a great programmer, or even a good one, but I’m a programmer. So when the teacher handed out instructions in TI-BASIC to write such touching classics as: “quadratic equation solver deluxe 2.0++” and “right triangle solvinator 4.0beta”, it was easy enough for me to convert from TI-BASIC to the stack based RPL.

Those programs are most likely long gone from the volatile flash RAM, and my little sister will never understand RPL. (Well, who knows, maybe she’s a programmer at heart. THERE IS STILL TIME TO TURN HER! TURN HER TO THE DARK SIDE!)

Now, we all know I can’t spend my days rewriting trivial equations into that HP’s memory chips. (Although, to be fair, it can solve quadratic equations and right triangles without added programs - it’s just a bitch.)

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, we’re going to have to get Jenna a TI graphing calculator. Fuck that.

I refuse to let my little sister be corrupted by instruments which come from Texas. It will never happen. Not on my watch.

She will learn to use a stack, and she will like it. The pushing, the popping. IT WILL BE BURNED TO HER VERY SOUL.

That’s it; I just wanted to type. Type about calculators if you wanna get all technical.

~Riobard