

As Cognition Slips, Financial Skills Are Often the First to Go - pif
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/your-money/as-cognitivity-slips-financial-skills-are-often-the-first-to-go.html?src=me&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Most%20Emailed&pgtype=article

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copperx
To be honest, counting down from 100 by subtracting 7 every time is not easy
for me. Am I the only one here?

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miketuritzin
Yeah, and it's also something that most people have probably never tried to do
before in their entire lives. It strikes me as an odd choice to test for
dementia.

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bsder
No, the fact that people haven't done it before is exactly _why_ it's a good
test. Many people have memorized things like count up by 3, 5, etc. so they're
not good tests of cognition.

The point isn't to do it fast. It's to do it at all.

Another test for dementia is to draw an old-school analog clock with a
specific time on it. Being unable to draw the time, or even _the clock_ (it
will look like Salvador Dali) is a sign something is wrong.

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cynwoody
No, you are not.

    
    
        seq 100 -7 0
        ruby -e '100.step(0,-7) {|n| puts n}'
        python -c 'print [x for x in xrange(100,0,-7)]'
    

Humans should think; machines should work.

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tomjen3
Indeed. Never send a human to do a machines job. It may just be a cheap quote
from a scify movie, but it is also one of the design principles I use at work.

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Argorak
Never underestimate a humans ability to do a complex job on the spot after 2
minutes of explanation. Even if it were easy to automatize.

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abc_lisper
Also don't underestimate the number of the jobs that need automation ;)

