Why are students still taught to use compasses...

Why are students still taught to use compasses? Even engineers and architects don't use them because computers are way better.

So they don't get lost.

Because you don't have cmputers all the time.

Plus, you're a faggot if you don't appreciate the aesthetic of using a paper to draw shit on instead of a fucking screen.

Computers weren't way better in the 90s when most of us were in school.

Using these in maths, was some of the most fun I had in highschool to be honest. Loved the loci problems, even though they weren't relevant to me at all in later life.

Because its general knowledge.

>"you must learn to use a slide rule just in case an EMP wipes out all pocket calculators"
This is how dumb your argument is.

>using a fucking slide rule

i was never taught to use a compass

Because a computer will always give you the right output, even if your input is wrong. Proper geometric intuition is always a good thing to have.

First sentence is false.

You have intimated that your greentext strawman is dumb, and it isn't. Electronic devices fail all the time. The power goes out periodically, even in first world countries.

At an old job, a boss told the story of how he was in flight school, and the instructor had everyone use slide rules. One day it was time for a written test, and a student refused one.last.time. to ditch his calculator, where the instructor promptly smashed it and got set the fuck off on a "YOU'RE AT 30K FEET AND YOU HAVE TO GET THE VECTOR RIGHT! THE ONBOARD COMPUTER IS FUCKING UP, YOU ESTIMATE YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE! WHOOPS, YOU DROPPED YOUR CALCULATOR! NOW THAT'S FUCKED TOO! AND YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO USE THE FUCKING TOOL THAT ACTUALLY FUCKING WORKS, TO SAVE YOUR FUCKING LIFE" spiel.

Your natural impulse will be to scoff, but there's two true points here: electronic equipment fails regularly, and a general principle: it's better to know how to do something by hand than not. You don't want to be as dumb and as worthless as a cashier who can't make change in her head for the brief ten minutes or so, when the power on her till went out.

>anglos will call a zirkel a compass

There are some applications in engineering like the Mohr's circle.

It is obviously never as accurate and precise as a computer but sometimes getting a rough Idea is enough in Engineering especially if it is relatively fast.

>First sentence is false.
No, it's not, you're just interpreting it too literally. A computer will give you the correct answer no matter what, and that's a problem if you're not typing in the correct question. Mix up a length or an angle and you could end up getting the answer to a completely different question than you meant to ask, and if you don't have good practice then you won't even know you're wrong because the computer's right.

if any fall is strong enough to break modern calculators, it'll also break a slide rule

We use them to draw Mohr's circles in Geology. Because when mapping failure planes on faults and landslides accuracy isn't possible anyway and a best estimate with a compass is as good as you're going to get.

There's computer programs of course but you're not going to improve your estimate.

>"Oh dear my computer crashed!"
>"Do I a) attempt to draw the entire jet engine by hand, before I've even finished drawing the impeller the computers will probably be back online and now I have to draw it all over again with CAD anyway or b) Call the fucking repair guy?"
All arguments for teaching outdated things such as hand drawing or slide rules are based on extremely contrived, highly unlikely scenarios. Yes we could teach it just in case but considering that schools have a budget there is no sense in teaching that which is unlikely to ever be used. You spend 30k on school to spend the first year learning how to draw by hand? Fucking why? You could have become CAD certified in that time leaving later years free to focus on more advanced concepts.

>krauts will use a compass to design a gas chamber

Did someone shit on a circle you drew with a compass? There there *hugs*

First you stand, then you walk

map has north-south lines put a compass atop needle shows north so goes lineswise

Whenever I look at thin-sections down a Petrological microscope, I like to sketch a view down the scope.
Needless to say, the reticule is circular, so the sketch should be drawn within a circle - hence the use of a compass.
I'm certain there are other cases where the situation is similar.

Why are kids still taught to add and subtract Veeky Forums????

Even mathematicians and engineers don't use them because calculators are way better.

>why are students taught to do something that helps develop their visual spatial reasoning skills?
Gee I don't know senpai, it is a mystery to me.

Have people like OP ever considered the didactic value of doing such exercises? It's the same reason we teach engineers to do integrals by hand even though we have MATLAB

Why are women still taught how to speak??

Even schools and nursing homes don't need them because the men are so much better.

a) Yes, it is so false, and b) no, my interpretation is just-right, and not "too-narrow". Although machine errors are rare (especially next to human error), they do occur. Moreover, if a piece of software doesn't do what it purports to do, despite having error-free human input, then that's on the people who made the software, which in all practical (read: real) senses of the phrase amounts to "the computer is doing it wrong."

This is the point in the argument where you're backed into a corner and it is you who is forced to get "too literal", with an observation along the lines of "b-but the computer still isn't doing anything wrong you tard", all of which misses the point and leads us back to my earlier general principle that /it's better to know how to do something for yourself if you have to, than not./

Veeky Forums's complacency about computers disturbs me.

This. Machine errors. My thoughts too.

>not wanting to learn how to do something in multiple ways

Cause it's far more easy to understand what a circle is with it than with a computer, at least the basic old def, which is "a line of points that all are at the same distance of the center" -> the gap between the two "legs" (kids talk...) isn't supposed to move.
And to draw things like that.

because its fun

I frequently use my slide rule. Why? Because it give me pleasure, I suppose. Same with the compass. Same with the abacus.

They're cool and fun

Used a compass all the time in construction work, making up blueprints when doing layout and planning.