http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2019/why-do-telephone-keypads-count-from-the-top-down-while-calculators-count-from-the-bottom-up

The story begins back in pre-calculator days, when there were cash registers. We're not talking cash registers that scan, but mechanical things where you actually had to push the keys hard to punch numbers. The cash registers were designed with 0 at the bottom, and the numbers going up. Why did cash registers choose this organization? I was unable to find any clear answer. These were the days before customer surveys and mass marketing opinion polls. The people who designed cash registers evidently just thought it was the obvious approach--lowest numbers at the bottom, highest numbers at the top.

In fact, the earliest cash registers had multiple keys. You didn't enter 7 and 9 and 5 for $7.95; there was a separate column of keys for each decimal place. Think of a matrix, with the bottom row of 0's, next a row of 1's, then a row of 2's, going up. The right hand column would represent single units (cents), the next column for tens, then hundreds, etc. So, to enter $7.95, you'd actually enter 700, then 90, then 5.

When calculators made their appearance, they copied the cash register format. In fact, some of the earliest mechanical calculators (ah, how my wife loved her Friden!) had multiple columns, like the cash register. The earliest calculators had keypads that were ten rows high and generally 8 or 9 columns across.

When hand-held and electronic calculators made their appearance, they copied the keypad arrangement of the existing calculators--0 at the bottom, 1-2-3 in the next row, 4-5-6 in the next row, and 7-8-9 in the top row, from left to right. So, basically, they evolved from the cash register.

The Touch-Tone phone emerged in the early 1960s. Before that, there were rotary dials, with the numbers starting at 1 at the top right and then running counterclockwise around the dial to 8-9-0 across the bottom. Why would "0" be on the bottom? Probably because the dialing mechanism was pulse, not tone. Since they couldn't do zero pulses for 0, they did ten pulses, and hence put the 0 at the end. (Thanks to Radu Serban for this suggestion.)

There seem to be three reasons that the Touch-Tone phone keypad was designed as it was:

(1) Tradition. People were used to dialing with 1-2-3 on top, and it seemed reasonable to keep it that way.

(2) AT&T (the only phone company at the time) did some research that concluded there were fewer dialing errors with the 1-2-3 on top (possibly related to the traditional rotary dial layout).

(3) Phone numbers years ago used alphabetic prefixes for the exchange (BUtterfield 8, etc.). In the days of rotary dials, no doubt it seemed logical to put the letters in alphabetical order, and to associate them with numbers in numerical order. The number 1 was set aside for "flag" functions, so ABC went with 2, DEF with 3, and so on. When Touch-Tone phones came in, keeping the alphabet in alphabetical order meant putting 1-2-3 at the top.

So there we have it. Basically, calculator keypad design evolved from cash registers, while telephone keypad design evolved from the rotary dial. Tradition has kept them that way ever since.

It wouldn't kill you to actually read the article, you know.

The word ambush seems to be about right.
 
Usually for this kind of interviews, both parties agree on a set of topics they are about to discuss. In this case it appears to be the CEO demoing the newest tablet.
 
He probably was not expecting that question at all, so he got offended, and left.
 
Imagine your future mother-in-law asked you over for a BBQ, and when you start roasting, she suddenly asks you about your past sex lives. Yes she has every reasons to ask (for the sake of her daughter's well being), but that doesn't make it any less rude.

Exactly. A good analogy would be geeks who buy the Blu-ray edition of Star Trek TV series- the shows are exactly the same as they were 50 years ago. The fans aren't buying the 'new edition' so that they can watch it for the 10th time. They are buying it for collection sake.
 
Anime are aired on TV weekly, and if you missed that, there are always online illegal streaming sites that you can catch. Downloading the episode is just another way to watch.

Good idea. I have an improvement to suggest though.
 
The receiving side's phone should also have a reverse text-voice system. That way the driver can convert the voice to text, send the msg across the network to the receiving device, convert it back to voice, and play it to the receiver. Bonus point if the voice sounds like HAL. We can call it the telelocational phonetic system!

You fool! We are the baggage! The luggage will be in the passenger compartment. Now down you go!

I think the confusion stems from the fact that we are talking about money (even though it's not real).

A better example would be instead you getting counterfeit money, you are trading for a fake Rolex watch.

So you trade your car for a watch you thought worth $1000. After the trade you found out its real value is $10. Would you call that theft?
Wait a second I think there is a term for this kind of situation...I think it's something that rhyme with 'floor'....It's fraud!
 
  Is fraud the same as theft? That's the argument you are having. The effect is the same in which you are deprive of $990, but is it theft?
 
Personally, like you, I don't think so, even though the end result is the same; but that's just a technicality.
 

As an econ. major I am surprised no one has given any reference to cost and benefit analysis.
From a pure minimize cost point of few, there is absolutely no reason NOT to enforce wearing helmets. Here is one of the studies that I analyzed in the past:
 
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1614783/

Legislation requiring bicyclists to wear helmets in Israel will, over a helmet's 5-year duration (assuming 85% compliancy, 83.2% helmet efficiency for morbidity, and 70% helmet efficiency for mortality), save approximately 57 lives and result in approximately 2544 fewer hospitalizations; 13,355 and 26,634 fewer emergency room and ambulatory visits, respectively; and 832 and 115 fewer short-term and long-term rehabilitation cases, respectively. Total benefits ($60.7 million) from reductions in health service use ($44.2 million), work absences ($7.5 million), and mortality ($8.9 million) would exceed program costs ($20.1 million), resulting in a benefit-cost ratio of 3.01:1.

 
Barring signicificant difference between Israel and US people (no, getting hit by RPGs don't count), the benefit grossly offset the cost.

So what we have here is Itanium- look good on paper but impossible to be fully utilized.

That constitutes a failure if you ask me.
 
Actually I hold the exact opposite view. The hardware isn't ready, and by not ready I mean the performance isn't as high as expected due to design issues.
If I am correct Intel doesn't want a repeat of the 1st gen Itanium where on release the brand name is blemished by the less than expected performance. This perception that IA64 is slow continues to haunt Intel up to this day. So by delaying Larrabee, Intel will have time to improve the cpu to the point where on release it will be a killer product (ie. hyped).
 
It's not as if Intel needs Larrabee in the near future anyway- AMD doesn't have anything significant in the near future as well; even if they do, with Intel's brute engineering capability, they will just pull a Core2 again.
 
Another possibility is that no game company is able to support Larrabee's architecture. Rather than releasing a product that 1. nothing old can run efficiently on 2. nothing new is designed for, Intel is delaying the release until more developers hop on the gravy train. When that happen, Intel can release the chip and immediately, consumers will be awe by the chip's performance in the newest games.