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- cross-posted to:
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If a kid is smart enough to figure this out and make it work for them, they’re gonna be fine…
Yes, but the kids buying the modded devices may not be
good. they will learn not to buy their way out of a problem at least.
Back when we were doing quadratic equations; I wrote a program on my TI-84 that would ask which parts of the equation you already had, and would fill in the rest for you.
My teacher liked it so much he bought a transfer cable for those calculators so he could get a copy for himself. Then used to to grade tests.
I did the same thing. It was allowed in general, with the correct thought, “if you can code it yourself, you know the content”
I had another “program” that would fail to run but that’s because I wrote notes into it. Doubt that was allowed.
Here in NZ they do a factory reset on your calculator at the start of every exam.
Oh I would have been so pissed. I was programming on my calculator 24/7 instead of my classes.
I wrote a sudoku “editor”
I put that in quotes because I had a grid that could be navigated, arrows moved, storing the numbers, had number entry down. And when it was time to implement the solver, I learned the hard way what p vs np is.
They did that here too, but students would use a cheat program that made it look like teachers were resetting it, but really the memory was safe
I don’t remember if they fully closed the loopholes, but there are inputs that programs cannot catch unless you actually replace the OS.
My memory is pretty hazy but the cheat application emulated the process that teachers used to do a system reset.
Iirc, it let you press menu, select reset, confirm, and showed the (fake) confirmation screen.
Also IIRC, you had to install it from Mirage OS, which I don’t think was an OS (?) but rather an app that everyone had to play games from.
I did that but made it return success before it got to the notes. You had to scroll to get to the notes, but it looked innocuous before that.
Oh god I remember doing that too. Those “programs” were the best. I even mad sure to make the code long, so that even if someone thought to take a look at the code they would have to scroll for a while to find the notes.
I could never remember the formula to calculate compound interest.
But I had no trouble writing a for loop.
K•(1+r)^n
I would just rebuild something in my head like this every time.
While i < n; k=k+(k*r); i++;
You’d think I could remember k(1+r)^n but when you posted, it looked as alien as it felt decades ago.
The use of for makes sense.
k=0; for (i=0; i<n; i++) k=k+f(i);is the same ask=\sum_{i=0}^{n-1} f(i)and
k=1; for (i=0; i<n; i++) k=k*f(i);is the same ask=\prod_{i=0}^{n-1} f(i)In our case,
f(i)=1+randk=1; for (i=0; i<n; i++) k*(1+r);is the same ask=\prod_{i=0}^{n-1} (1+r) = (1+r)^nAll of that just to say that exponentiation is an iteration of multiplication, the same way that multiplication is an iteration of addition
What always annoyed me was having to draw charts by hand. Just let me put the data in a computer for god’s sake, the rest of the working is there… I did actually write a python function for one of my assignments which was fine, but they told me not to do it for the exam.
I made one to decompose polynomials it was very good because it showed all the steps it was literally just copy what’s on the calc to the page
So you didn’t get the transfer cable with your calculator? Smells fishy
Issued by the school; I never owned it.
you can code directly on the device, it’s just a PAIN to do compared to moving the files over
Can confirm, as someone who spent multiple study halls trying to program a top down shooter on his calculator
As someone who was a kid who would do things like this to avoid putting in the work, no this kid will probably not be fine.
Oof getting ChatGPT to help on a test is likely to lead to some wrong answers.
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You know what they say: C’s get degrees.
“C’s get degrees, and here’s the tease: no one’s asking for transcripts, just expertise.”
I’ve had to provide my transcript for several job applications. Government ones seem to usually ask.
10 years in?
My senior dev was asked for his transcript and he’s been in the field for 25+years. He told them to get in touch with his college that doesn’t exist anymore. Suspect it’s a standard set of forms they need to fill.
It would have to be a unicorn position to even begin to consider that.
Idk, if there is one thing it does consistently well its standardized tests.
Not that it can be used in any non mathematical class and if teachers do actually pay attention.
Cept you can’t use any wifi models on any standardized test for this reason.
It’s not a WiFi model, a custom module was hidden inside the calculator to provide the WiFi connection.
Ah yup should’ve read the article lol. That’s a whole lot of work and effort into cheating, which probably won’t work? Needs a whole thing to it sounds like plug into the link port? Which would stick out… so like… idk MAYBE they are stupid and don’t notice but like… I wouldn’t bet my life on that.
Because the phrase “Cheaters never prosper” isn’t actually true. There are many executives, politicians and rich people that very very likely “cheated” at some point along the way to get where they are, multiple times probably.
Hell, I wouldn’t even be surprised if such phrases were spread by the rich/ruling class/whatever as just another thing to keep people divided lol
There’s a video in the article showing the whole process. The new module was completely hidden inside the calculators case and soldered to the internal connections.
Until you actually open it up, it doesn’t look abnormal at all.
Ah, interesting. That’s quite a bit of work more than expected then lol. Link things at the top assumed it’d plug into that. Seems like a whole lot of work where if you’re into fixing shit and soldering and all that you probably don’t hate math much and thus… learning algebra 2 for a damn SAT wouldn’t be that hard?
I suppose maybe the GRE or whatever? Idk what all that entails and if they allow these.
Ok but calculators are only allowed in math class and if there’s one thing language models suck at, it’s doing basic math. Forget anything at least as complicated as algebra
Time to build a wolfarm applet
Dude, I was wondering why someone hadn’t done this the moment they discovered Ai was terrible at math. I would have imagine the crowds who deal with both would have some overlap at least.
Wolfarm, the militant brother of WolframAlpha SCNR
For me they weren’t allowed in Calc I, II, III, Alg I, II and Differential equations. Every other class pretty much required it.
if there’s one thing language models suck at, it’s doing basic math.
If you’re using a GPT 3.5 turbo level models, sure. Synthetic data is perfect for teaching LLMs, o1 will be good enough up to Calc III IMO, maybe even better.
The only thing I don’t like about this is that it uses a TI, yikes.
LLMs do suck at math, if you look into it, the o1 models actually escape the LLM output and write a python function to calculate the output, I’ve been able to break their math functions by asking for functions that use math not in the standard Python library.
I know someone also wrote a wolfram integration to help solve LLMs math problems.
Wow that’s really clever actually. Basically using the library as digital scratch paper
Terrence Tao (one of the most famous and active mathematician) recently wrote his thoughts in Mastodon on o1 mathematical capabilities. Interesting read: https://mathstodon.xyz/@tao/113132502735585408
Thanks for sharing, knew him from some numberphile vids cool to see they have a mastadon account. Good to know that LLMs are crawling from “incompentent graduate” to “mediocre graduate”. Which basically means its already smarter than most people for many kinds of reasoning task.
I’m not a big fan of the way the guy speaks though, as is common for super intelligent academic types they have to use overly complicated wording to formally describe even the most basic opinions while mixing in hints of inflated ego and intellectual superiority. He should start experimenting with having o-1 as his editor and summarize his toots.
The language wasn’t that complex
They let us use them for all my college math classes.
They really don’t help much at all if you don’t understand the math, and if you do understand, you don’t need the calculator most of the time.
Don’t know about university math, but this applied to a lot of the stuff in my last years of school. Since we always had a part where you were required to solve everything without a calculator you had to be able to do everything without it. For algebra and Calculus it just meant that you were able to do the math more efficiently. For statistics the calculator was basically useless, since it didnt help you if you didnt knew what you had to do, what was basically the only hard part of it.
That’s also what my upper level math courses were like in college. In high school and the first couple of years of college I got good use out of my graphing calculator, but after that I reached the point where all of its advanced features were no longer useful. I just ended up leaving it at home and brought my old TI-30 Solar for class for the occasional time I had to crunch some actual numbers.
the math class we switched from numbers to variables was so hard but so fun. I kind of miss that a little.
TI, yikes.
Yeah, well, TI has spent bucketloads of money bribing textbook publishers to only include instruction for their specific models so they are now the de facto standard in American schools. This is apparently legal.
Anyway, team Casio represent.
Sorry, I’m an HP guy. I love their calculators, hate everything else they do, except their plotters maybe.
This kid never took science
You have an option not to take science?
Damn. Where I live the three main sciences were mandatory and they were all separate subjects
You knew what I meant but chose to leave a Reddit-ass comment anyway
They’re great at multiple choice when they’ve seen the test versions
I used to store formulas in basic programs in my ti84 but they were never useful because I didn’t need help memorizig formulas
I did the same, but it was helpful because I’m terrible at memorization.
I just wrote programs that would solve the complicated multi step problems and show me the work.
I wrote one that printed a fake “memory cleared” screen so I could keep my stored stuff saved even if the protectors wanted to see us wipe the storage.
But can you still play Drug Wars?
Has anyone ever beaten that game? Is it even possible?
It’s possible to get to the last day and have a lot of money, which is your “score.” The world leaderboards have some ridiculous highscores on the remake called Dope Wars.
https://stevekola.tripod.com/dopewarsguide/id2.html
That is a strategy guide.
I have never managed to do it.
I played whatever version was easily accessible on Ubuntu’s repository in 2009, and once managed to get a ton of bitches and effectively infinite money. I have no idea how I did it.
No one has beaten The Game, but it is possible. We just need to wait for the Pope to declare that it has come to an end
Oh you fucker, its been over ten years. i just lost The Game.
Game has been over for about that long. https://xkcd.com/391/
The earliest exponention clicker game I ever discovered. Lost dozens of hours to ti83 drug wars
Wat? Does it have wifi?
They added wifi with a extra circuit board hidden inside the calculator case. It’s connected to the calculators communication port, and pretends to be another calculator. So they can use the calculator’s built in “send” function to send variables/text/etc to the hidden card, which then uses it’s internet connection to look up answers and send the results back.
Yep
“ChatGPT what is the formula for Work Done in an enclosed system expressed as a triple integral?”
“42”
“Ok cool ty.”
Stop giving me Thermo nightmares; I lived through that shit already I don’t need to sleep through it too.
Yeah but at least work on an enclosed system is always zero. Idk why but I always chuckle about that.
Sure, you can prove it in like 4 to 8 lines of multivariate calculus, but its always gonna be 0.
Not anymore since it’s spreading news instead of remaining on YouTube
I wonder what can counter this except banning it, or provide calculators to students instead of using their own.
Sounds fake but okay.
Not sure if it’s the same thing but a few days ago I saw a youtube video where person modded it with a wifi card so it could communicate with your pc which is at home. It required internet access from your phone which needs to be near though.
Saw the video. Quite cool mod.
https://youtu.be/Bicjxl4EcJgIt sounds fake because it sounds like they only used software hacks. But they also added a microcontroller board in it with wireless networking
Its been quite a while since I’ve taken a proctored exam, but then all the proctors would clear all the memory on your calc before they’d let you use it for test. Is that not the case anymore?
Depends on the exam. Some don’t even allow programmable calcs because they don’t want to deal with possible shit like this. I have already seen a certification exam where they provide the calculators as well.
The article said it can be download “on demand” so that might make the clearing pointless.
Make people switch devices, problem solved. Does not work without tampering with the hardware
Or use a dongle to lock the calc in test mode, where unlock needs a passcode sent from it.
The launcher program can be downloaded on-demand, avoiding detection if a teacher inspects or clears the calculator’s memory
If I understood it correctly, the Wi-Fi module appears as a standard calculator-to-calculator interface, so built-in commands can install the cheat apps at any time.
Bring your calculator to the Spanish exam. Trust me, this plan is flawless.
Yeah, nobody in class is going to suspect the kid with the arduino-type science project mess of wires duct taped to their calculator.
For those too lazy to read, that’s how this works. An external micro controller talks to the calc through the IO port, and does the Wifi stuff, acting as a middleman.
Edit: I did not see the video.
I saw the video. It closes up nicely and is invisible. It can even re-download the programs if wiped before by the teacher.
Well, that teaches me to read AND click all links in an article.
You could just have read. It’s also mentioned in the main article how it was nearly hidden.
Click all the ads too please
For those too lazy to watch the video, the whole thing is eventually concealed within the calculator.
What would happen if now plug in another calculator? AFAIK that only a P2P connection and never meant for >2 parties.
This is cool stuff
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