Meh - he's just another creationist-equivalent with his head shoved so far up his arse he'll _never_ see the light of day. You can't have a reasonable discussion with these people. Stop wasting your time.
He (or she) probably thought it wasn't worth the effort. Trying to have a sensible discussion with climate-change sceptics (especially if they post AC) is kind of like trying to reason with creationists - it's a waste of your time and it annoys the creationist.
It's a lot more fun (and more satisfying) to just slag them off.
There's heaps of us. Most universities had Computing Science (or some such) departments by about 1970 (usually attached to the Maths faculty). Admittedly I didn't actually _finish_ my degree till 1996, but I could, in priciple, have done it much earlier.
Towards the end of last year, I had a contract terminated abruptly (before its end)... Christmas is a bad time of year to be looking for work in Australia. I was looking for work for about 5 months. The interesting thing is, I didn't even get any interviews until I removed my date of birth (1950) from my resume.
I probably need to lose the 12 years in the Army (1977 -89) next time I'm looking for work, as it's not relevant to any IT jobs I'm likely to be looking for.
I'm not really interested (directly) in the period of the pendulum (and anyway, where would I get a small black hole and how would I prevent it from absorbing the clock?). The way to adjust any pendulum clock is, unfortunately, by trial-and-error.
They don't necessarily have a 2" period. Some of them had 1/25' periods, or other divisions of a minute (it's to do with the ease of setting out the required number of teeth on the various cogs in the drive train).
It's _really_ a pain to have to stop the pendulum, adjust the screw on the bottom of the bob, restart and (maybe) reset it, then wait for about 2 days to see if it's any more accurate. (This may seem like meaningless pedantry when you consider there's about a minute either way slop in the minute hand...)
I have a Texas Instruments claculator I inherited from my late father with the same kind of display. I also have a vague recollection that the HP25s (god, the prince of claculators - a boon to mankind - reverse polish is the. best. notation. ever.) had this too. I may be wrong here.
Yeeeeah... I have a longcase clock which is only marginally smaller (about 2m tall - nice oak case) and probably nearly as accurate (if I could just adjust the fucking pendulum a bit more precisely - it's a bastard of an adjustment and you need to wait a couple of days to see if you got it right this time) which is about 250 years old. It's my grandfather's grandfather's grandfather clock. AND it rings the hour. My children hate it. I'll leave it to whichever one reproduces himself first.
Sure, you can't wear it on your wrist, but I never much cared for wristwatches anyway.
> If management are calling shots, and telling you what architecture to use...... then you're working at the same kind of place as every other programmer in the world.
Look elsewhere for a job? That's quite unrealistic, because you're unlikely to find one where the suits don't think they know more than you do (about anything, really, but particularly IT) unless you start your own company.
I suspect that being a fundamentalist Catholic requires total belief in the dogma of the church rather than the literal truth of the bible, but I take your point. (It's just that "fundie" is so much shorter than "evangelical, possibly pentacostal, christian who interprets the bible literally", as well as being faintly contemptuous.)
However, I claim that members of the IRA would not generally be fundies even in that sense, as the whole point of their acts of terrorism was wresting control of Ireland from the English and the (mostly) Scottish immigrants, all of whom happened to be largely Protestant. Although religious differences play a part in the Irish conflict, they aren't the heart of the matter.
Yeah, it's a fantastic book. I read it about 15 years ago, when I was working with a (later version MV series) DG mini. Great machines, but the CLI syntax was as ugly as a hatful of arseholes.
You'd probably also enjoy Robert Glass's "Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering", if you haven't already read it. It's a nice companion to Brooks, expressing many of the same ideas, but from the point of view of a developer rather than a manager.
Another book I like, which I've had for some years now (and originally discovered in the DSTO library when I had a contract there), is Peter van der Linden's "Expert C Programming". The chapter on memory management, while fairly C-centric, is sufficiently general to be useful to any programmer.
It may all seem like common sense _now_, but it certainly wasn't when the book was written. Probably the reason it seems so obvious is because, since it was written, several generations of programmers have internalised its contents.
Every time I hear anything from a Creationist (including proponents of ID - as an Australian biologist said recently, "ID is just Creationism in a cheap tuxedo") I get so annoyed by their deliberate distortions of theories of evolution I can't be bothered to listen further, or argue the point with them.
If the fuckers didn't tell so many lies, I'd probably give them a fair hearing (say, 5 minutes or so), but life's too short to waste time on these people.
It's not so much zeal as extreme irritation. I'm sick of being tactful and diplomatic with the wilfully ignorant, because it doesn't get you anywhere.
Unlike the fundies, I have no interest in proselytising my own beliefs. I just want them to shut the fuck up and stop pushing their delusions down my throat.
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Meh - he's just another creationist-equivalent with his head shoved so far up his arse he'll _never_ see the light of day. You can't have a reasonable discussion with these people. Stop wasting your time.
He (or she) probably thought it wasn't worth the effort. Trying to have a sensible discussion with climate-change sceptics (especially if they post AC) is kind of like trying to reason with creationists - it's a waste of your time and it annoys the creationist.
It's a lot more fun (and more satisfying) to just slag them off.
There's heaps of us. Most universities had Computing Science (or some such) departments by about 1970 (usually attached to the Maths faculty). Admittedly I didn't actually _finish_ my degree till 1996, but I could, in priciple, have done it much earlier.
Towards the end of last year, I had a contract terminated abruptly (before its end) ... Christmas is a bad time of year to be looking for work in Australia. I was looking for work for about 5 months. The interesting thing is, I didn't even get any interviews until I removed my date of birth (1950) from my resume.
I probably need to lose the 12 years in the Army (1977 -89) next time I'm looking for work, as it's not relevant to any IT jobs I'm likely to be looking for.
I'm not really interested (directly) in the period of the pendulum (and anyway, where would I get a small black hole and how would I prevent it from absorbing the clock?). The way to adjust any pendulum clock is, unfortunately, by trial-and-error.
Do you really think they'd waste such a fine marketing tool on anything as frivolous as information?
They don't necessarily have a 2" period. Some of them had 1/25' periods, or other divisions of a minute (it's to do with the ease of setting out the required number of teeth on the various cogs in the drive train).
...)
It's _really_ a pain to have to stop the pendulum, adjust the screw on the bottom of the bob, restart and (maybe) reset it, then wait for about 2 days to see if it's any more accurate. (This may seem like meaningless pedantry when you consider there's about a minute either way slop in the minute hand
That is so cool. What a pity it's not currently available.
I have a Texas Instruments claculator I inherited from my late father with the same kind of display. I also have a vague recollection that the HP25s (god, the prince of claculators - a boon to mankind - reverse polish is the. best. notation. ever.) had this too. I may be wrong here.
What, because she couldn't hear how loud the shirt was?
No, he probaly wants a nice analogue watch, with real hands and gears and a spring.
Oh, and roman numerals on the face.
Possibly a pocket watch. With a really cool chain.
Is it a ones complement or a twos complement?
Bugger. s/smaller/larger/g
Yeeeeah ... I have a longcase clock which is only marginally smaller (about 2m tall - nice oak case) and probably nearly as accurate (if I could just adjust the fucking pendulum a bit more precisely - it's a bastard of an adjustment and you need to wait a couple of days to see if you got it right this time) which is about 250 years old. It's my grandfather's grandfather's grandfather clock. AND it rings the hour. My children hate it. I'll leave it to whichever one reproduces himself first.
Sure, you can't wear it on your wrist, but I never much cared for wristwatches anyway.
> If management are calling shots, and telling you what architecture to use ... ... then you're working at the same kind of place as every other programmer in the world.
Look elsewhere for a job? That's quite unrealistic, because you're unlikely to find one where the suits don't think they know more than you do (about anything, really, but particularly IT) unless you start your own company.
I suspect that being a fundamentalist Catholic requires total belief in the dogma of the church rather than the literal truth of the bible, but I take your point. (It's just that "fundie" is so much shorter than "evangelical, possibly pentacostal, christian who interprets the bible literally", as well as being faintly contemptuous.)
However, I claim that members of the IRA would not generally be fundies even in that sense, as the whole point of their acts of terrorism was wresting control of Ireland from the English and the (mostly) Scottish immigrants, all of whom happened to be largely Protestant. Although religious differences play a part in the Irish conflict, they aren't the heart of the matter.
Stevens' books not exciting? Are you mad?
Yeah, it's a fantastic book. I read it about 15 years ago, when I was working with a (later version MV series) DG mini. Great machines, but the CLI syntax was as ugly as a hatful of arseholes.
I think I have, about 6 years ago. Another gem discovered in DSTO's library.
Thanks for reminding me of it.
I always preferred Fritz.
You'd probably also enjoy Robert Glass's "Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering", if you haven't already read it. It's a nice companion to Brooks, expressing many of the same ideas, but from the point of view of a developer rather than a manager.
Another book I like, which I've had for some years now (and originally discovered in the DSTO library when I had a contract there), is Peter van der Linden's "Expert C Programming". The chapter on memory management, while fairly C-centric, is sufficiently general to be useful to any programmer.
It may all seem like common sense _now_, but it certainly wasn't when the book was written. Probably the reason it seems so obvious is because, since it was written, several generations of programmers have internalised its contents.
Of course he did, because he didn't accept Jeebus as his personal lord'n'saviour.
Shit! Haven't you been paying attention?
Every time I hear anything from a Creationist (including proponents of ID - as an Australian biologist said recently, "ID is just Creationism in a cheap tuxedo") I get so annoyed by their deliberate distortions of theories of evolution I can't be bothered to listen further, or argue the point with them.
If the fuckers didn't tell so many lies, I'd probably give them a fair hearing (say, 5 minutes or so), but life's too short to waste time on these people.
It's not so much zeal as extreme irritation. I'm sick of being tactful and diplomatic with the wilfully ignorant, because it doesn't get you anywhere.
Unlike the fundies, I have no interest in proselytising my own beliefs. I just want them to shut the fuck up and stop pushing their delusions down my throat.