I've been noticing lately various coffee shops disconnecting/covering up electrical wall outlets. At one coffee shop I plugged my laptop in and an elderly person told me that the electrical outlet had been disconnected by the owner because he was "sick of people plugging in their laptop, sitting for hours but only buying a small coffee."

At a McDonald's I go to they have covered up the two available electrical outlets with metal plates (perhaps because various individuals would ride up on their bike, park their bike in front, go in and plug in their device to recharge it, and then sit there without buying anything at all. I had seen that several times).

What do others think of this? Good for business or bad for business? Have you noticed this happening in your area?

I'm a teacher and kids do stuff like this all the time. We have small enough classrooms as it is, now there's cords everywhere. Sometimes I feel like an acrobat Kids even plug them in and place them on the main blackboard sill at the front of the room lol.

I see people do stuff like that and I can see why owners would think it's detrimental:
First and foremost, they are taking up two resources intended for paying customers, outlets and seats.
They are using the store's electricity without paying; the owner still has to pay for it.
They disrupt the flow of business (I see people playing games in shops and making noise without regard for other customers), lights, sound, cables, and their appearance all affect the other customers' desire to patronize that shop.

So yeah... it's kind of rude to the store owner to do that; most of these coffee shops and such are privately owned or franchised, which basically means the owner only has one store to rely on for profit.

However, there is a lack of supply around here for such activities; you can go to the library to access the internet or power outlet, but you won't be playing games and snacking there. Coffee shops like Starbucks want you to buy something if you're going to sit there (don't know how far they go to ensure this though).
I don't know about anywhere else, but there really aren't any internet cafes or anything around here. Then again, I guess people don't want to pay to use other people's electricity and internet.

@juniperpansy
Don't know what kind of regulations you have to deal with where you are, but I've never heard of a school that allowed kids to bring/use electronic devices at school (besides a calculator). Seems like a simple matter of disciplinary action to fix it, depending... Of course, I'm assuming you're referring to a grammar or secondary level school, not a college or university.
But yeah, that just screams "lack of respect", especially that bit about putting things on the blackboard tray.

[Zgarbas]

I was rather annoyed in Osaka when I got an overpriced coffee just to use their electrical outlet, only to find out that the first floor doesn't have any; in Europe my main reason to go to coffee shops was to use their wifi and/or charge my devices: coffee shops here are expensive and often don't feature either, so I simply stopped going. I don't really see that big if a difference between using up the space to read/talk with friends/etc and being on a device, but frankly spending more than an hour doing anything in japanese coffeeshops starts guilttripping me. I see people doing homework or studying for hours without buying much all the time in family restaurants/mr donut and the like though... It's why they have drink bars and refills. I think that the amount of customers who patron the shop and use up a brit of electricity every now and then makes up for the few who use up a considerable amount of electricity for 'just a coffee' (how many hours of laptop charge can cancel out the profit made by a single cup of coffee? *a lot* http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherh...-about-it/)

As a solution to this dilemma, I went to the computer store where I bought my laptop, prepared to buy an expensive upgraded battery that would last for hours before needing to be recharged. Alas, I was told that you cannot upgrade the battery on this particular model, and that I was "stuck with the battery it came with". I never thought of asking if the battery could be upgraded before I bought the laptop. I think I get two hours use on average before needing to recharge.

I've sat next to people with bulky laptops in the more comfortable seats in a cafe more than once. After an hour or so, they go running to the window seats to use the outlets. My new laptop has 8 hours of battery life, so I kind of get a kick out of that now. My phone always lasts the day too, so I'm not an outlet user myself, but it's nice to know the option is there.

Zgarbas Wrote:spending more than an hour doing anything in japanese coffeeshops starts guilttripping me

I feel the same, though I usually aim to go during off-peak times. If I feel like I've outstayed my welcome and it's getting busy, then maybe I'll buy another coffee. I think all types of businesses have their jerk customers, so cafes have to expect some number of seat-hoggers or mains-leechers.

sholum Wrote:@juniperpansy
Don't know what kind of regulations you have to deal with where you are, but I've never heard of a school that allowed kids to bring/use electronic devices at school (besides a calculator).

Really? Sounds like you work in a military school haha. Phones can be a nuisance, but they do have positive educational uses. IMO banning them is not in the students' best interest. I find my students' are fairly responsible about their phone usage. My issue is just tripping over the cords or them invading my workspace!

juniperpansy Wrote:

sholum Wrote:@juniperpansy
Don't know what kind of regulations you have to deal with where you are, but I've never heard of a school that allowed kids to bring/use electronic devices at school (besides a calculator).

Really? Sounds like you work in a military school haha. Phones can be a nuisance, but they do have positive educational uses. IMO banning them is not in the students' best interest. I find my students' are fairly responsible about their phone usage. My issue is just tripping over the cords or them invading my workspace!

That's... actually a bit surprising. I'm not a teacher, but all the schools around here (public and private) that I know of frown on students using electronic devices in the classroom. It's not as big a deal during breaks, but even having a phone or game in the open is considered a disruption of class and can result in disciplinary action if it continues; don't know if they can still confiscate items in the public schools though (it's only been a few years, but a lot of things have changed since I was in a public school).
But yeah, using the teacher's workplace for such things without permission would definitely be frowned upon (to the point where you'd expect the kid to know).

I guess the society I grew up in would be considered a bit strict by some standards though, and my experience with education is far from worldly.

sholum Wrote:all the schools around here (public and private) that I know of frown on students using electronic devices in the classroom.

I'm curious now haha. I teach in public high school in Canada. What area are you talking about?

juniperpansy Wrote:

sholum Wrote:all the schools around here (public and private) that I know of frown on students using electronic devices in the classroom.

I'm curious now haha. I teach in public high school in Canada. What area are you talking about?

South Carolina, US.
'Right to work' state (how can people like Unions the way they are today?), many conservatives (US version). Class behavioral expectation isn't really based off of Christian values or anything (unless it's a religious private school... glad I only had to put up with that for one year), but it definitely still follows the idea that you should be polite to others, especially superiors.

In Australia these days, apparently every primary school student is required to take a laptop (or tablet - I'm not clear on the details, not having lived there recently...) to school.
Wondering when Japan will stop teaching abacus...

Aikynaro Wrote:In Australia these days, apparently every primary school student is required to take a laptop (or tablet - I'm not clear on the details, not having lived there recently...) to school.
Wondering when Japan will stop teaching abacus...

Abacuses aren't outdated by any means. It's a good way to practice general arithmetic and learn to conceptualize certain aspects of it. A person talented at abacus can easily surpass an otherwise more advanced math student in terms of pure calculation speed, even without having an abacus in front of him/her.

I trust that kids still learn arithmetic in Australia, despite calculators existing.

Tzadeck Wrote:

Aikynaro Wrote:In Australia these days, apparently every primary school student is required to take a laptop (or tablet - I'm not clear on the details, not having lived there recently...) to school.
Wondering when Japan will stop teaching abacus...

Abacuses aren't outdated by any means. It's a good way to practice general arithmetic and learn to conceptualize certain aspects of it. A person talented at abacus can easily surpass an otherwise more advanced math student in terms of pure calculation speed, even without having an abacus in front of him/her.

I trust that kids still learn arithmetic in Australia, despite calculators existing.

So if people in Japan still use the abacus, do they also still use the slide-rule?

[Side note: I recall how back in the late '70's when my sister took physics in high school (in North America), her teacher forced each student in the class to buy a slide rule and learn how to use it...even though pocket electronic calculators were readily available and cheap by then! I guess the teacher was a bit behind the times...a scary thing to have in a physics teacher).

Tzadeck Wrote:Abacuses aren't outdated by any means. It's a good way to practice general arithmetic and learn to conceptualize certain aspects of it. A person talented at abacus can easily surpass an otherwise more advanced math student in terms of pure calculation speed, even without having an abacus in front of him/her.

Exhibit A.
Exhibit B.

What's more amazing is that the kind of calculation speed and accuracy demonstrated by the classroom in the first video can be achieved by the average person in a realistic timeframe, i.e. after a year or two of training an hour every day (much like the visual memorization techniques used in the World Memory Championships).

I'm sure abacus mental calculation skills would be a decisive advantage when it comes to timed standardized tests (SAT, GRE, GMAT, etc.). Plus, I'm positive that, if I could go back to my childhood, I'd have way more fun learning arithmetics with an abacus compared to all the abstract rules and tedious calculations I endured. It's fast, intuitive, tactile, and highly visual. Pencil and paper calculation is the exact opposite.

vileru Wrote:[...]It's fast, intuitive, tactile, and highly visual. Pencil and paper calculation is the exact opposite.

I won't claim that the abacus is inferior to pencil and paper (it's clearly not, when you look at the speed of users), but I wouldn't say pencil and paper is unintuitive or particularly slow. If you use a vertically oriented approach i.e.

Code:

5
+ 8
=13

you only have to remember a few calculations (the digits) for any calculation. For division, you just need to examine one number after deciding which number is bigger (of course, if you're using fractions, you don't really need to worry as much).
The best part is that it applies directly to polynomials and complex numbers and you don't need to change anything about the basic functions (addition and multiplication) until you start working with vectors (multiplication requires you multiply the magnitudes and add the angles). But for example:

Code:

2x+1
X 3x+2
=
      +4x  +2
+6x^2 +3x
=
6x^2 +7x  +2

I don't know how much you can do with an abacus (never even seen one in person, let alone used one), but I feel some strange need to defend pencil and paper mathematical analysis. It's actually quite regular and intuitive as far as analysis techniques go.

I must say, though, that I'd never choose to do matrices or any complex equation on paper. It sucks when, after spending an hour on a problem, you realize you made a mistake in your calculations at the very beginning... So I got a calculator with a CAS.