Math Is Fun Forum

Hi,

I know this is a bit of an aside but still - it's surprising how dynamic the world of the internet is.

Personally,  I've never heard of these services mentioned above, with the sole exception of AOL, which we use as an inside joke among my friends to describe someone who just can't move on from the old,  lives in a shed with a cowboy hat - that sort of thing.

Today's mega giants - Discord, Reddit,  YouTube, Instagram,  Twitter even outlook or gmail! How long do they have?

I was a five year old when Skype and Yahoo were all the rage. Why did they stop? Why do any of these stop?

Is there a way to determine the decline of a certain app or website?

What are the factors behind this?

I think you could.  My 'Mycroft' has been working on this sort of thing since he graduated.  Try googling the School of Informatics,  University of Edinburgh.

Bob

I'd be worried if anyone remembered a word after that long, because that'd mean they had nothing better to do!

I'm looking forward to your celebratory post!

Is there an 'E' in your word?

Hannibal lecter wrote:

Bob wrote:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I'm old enough to have used mechanical calculators to do arithmetic.

can you please tell me or send me a photo of that mechanical calculators and where to do you have a similar links to buy it from amazon or ebay

And to do division you had to do repeated subtraction.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I couldn't understand how division is a repeated subtraction

++++++++++++
example.  If the calculation was 48 divided by 6 you would set up 48 in the register, then set up 6 as the amount to subtract, and then wind the handle backwards so the display showed 42, then 36 then 30 and so on until zero was showing.  A side register would show how many times you had turned the handle and it would be showing 8 in the case.
++++++++++++

but 48 divided by 6 is 8 directly how could it displayed 42 at first from where did we get this number even in papers couldn't find it

++++++++++++
If the calculation was 1 divided by 8 the procedure was as follows:
Now you are subtracting 0.08 each time. 

1-
0.8
0.2-
0.08
0.012
++++++++++++
the number is 0.08?? is very ambiguous to me, from where we get that number even in papers I tried a lot I couldn't figure it
you said " subtracting 0.08 each time "

and thanks you so much you understand what I want it's really my problem I can't understand division process

hi Mathegocart

Admin and Mods check the forum most days and deal with spammers and their posts. 

At the bottom of every post you should be seeing a 'Report' button that flags up any post of concern.  Admin and Mods get the report message when they log in and can jump to the post and do something about it.  Are you seeing that button?  Some forum features were lost when we moved to the new server and things that I can see are not necessarily visible to all. So please confirm if you have the report option and try it out by reporting this post for me. You should get a message space to give your reason, so please make it clear it's a test for me.

If you stumble on an edited post that isn't showing as a new post you should still be able to report it.

I've had a look through the options available to me on the forum.  I can switch off the information on the post side panel so that a members website doesn't show, but that would have apply to everyone, not just one member.  Similarly signatures can be turned off.  I'm very reluctant to do either of these as good members suffer along with the bad.

Bob

It is unfortunately not just a recent phenomenon: it has been happening daily since I became a mod here and probably before then too (based on the lengthy ban list). In most cases the decision to delete/ban is straightforward since many of the posters you mention have often already been reported multiple times on places like 'Stop Forum Spam' or otherwise have an e-mail address which a simple google search reveals that they've done the same thing on half a dozen other forums. In other cases it can be much more difficult because some new members will deliberately post something harmless and then edit in a link a few days later, or they might pose as an ordinary member only to start eventually posting ads. These (particularly the former) are generally harder to spot and are less easy to deal with: I generally avoid banning posters unless I have good reason to and prefer to have some evidence of wrongdoing if at all possible but these types are admittedly (somewhat) rarer.

New users have to click on an activation link sent to an e-mail address to register which cuts down the number of spam registrations significantly: without this we would easily have a hundred different spammers a day (this is no exaggeration). As I understand there are also restrictions which prevent most new members (with < x posts) from posting links, which is why we have lots of new daily registrations from spam accounts but of those only a small proportion end up posting ads, and there are also word censors which filter out a few too. Consequently the spam that does make it through is, IMO, annoying but not unreasonably so, given (a) the nature and number of spam posts, (b) the overall forum activity susceptible to clicking on said posts and (c) the administrative resource available. At the moment (a), (b) and (c) are reasonably balanced and therefore the level of spam is, in my view, manageable. Regrettably we have in the past had the occasional new member post some particularly awful content on here -- and I can't be certain that some of the people who visit this forum (members or not) didn't fall victim to it where we may not have been able to deal with the issue immediately -- but fundamentally the most determined spammers/advertisers will find a way around any precautionary measure and so we tend to operate on a best endeavours basis given the tools we have.

In the meantime please continue to report any posts you see like this as it helps us deal with them more quickly: we often check the forum a few times a day but there will always be the odd one or two that get through when none of the mods/admins are active.