Believe it or not, it's possible (in fact with FORTRAN it's necessary unless you have FORTRAN V) to write structured code while using GOTO. You just need some self-discipline. I have to hand D.D.McCracken's "Computing for Engineers and Scientists with FORTRAN 77", which I would recommend to anyone still using FORTRAN. It shows you how to produce well-structured, non-ugly FORTRAN.
In Australia, we tend to call citizens of the US "seppos". It's shortened from the rhyming slang "septic tank" for "yank". A septic tank, if you didn't know, is a kind of primitive anaerobic fermenter for dealing with shit and household grey water. There used to be a lot of them in Australia before our cities were properly sewered.
This doesn't mean we don't like Americans btw;)
Just look at the recent behaviour of our Prime Minister, John "Lickspittle" Howard, towards President Shrub.
My copy of Plato's Republic is one I copped off the remainder table in about 1970 for $AU1 - even then, that was pretty cheap for a hard-cover book of that quality (OUP, I think). I'll have to get it back off my son.
My point is, you can often get second hand or remaindered copies of Plato, Locke, etc, really cheaply. If your parents were intellectuals, you may even have them lying around at home.
I have (and occasionally still refer to) an introduction to calculus written by Caunt about 100 years ago (well... maybe 80). It was my grandfather's book, and both my mother and I used it at university. So it's not just humanities people who get value out of old books.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I find electronic books almost unreadable. If I'm trying to read an interesting paper, or even vendors' promotional material, I invariably print it out.
Additionally, if you're reading a book, and you need to look at an earlier section (or anther book), you can stick your fingere into the book at the page you're on, refer to the other material (or read them side-by-side), and resume where you left off. (And yes, I _do_ know about "bookmarks" in electronic documents, I just find it's too easy to completely lose your place in the stack.)
In case you hadn't already guessed, I think this is just about the stupidest bloody idea I've ever heard.
Actually, I'm pretty sure the water and steam has nothing to do with preventing collapse of empty oil reservoirs (the stuff sits in porous rock like sandstone after all), and everything to do with pushing the last possible drop of oil out into the light.
I read this many years ago, and I'd thoroughly recommend it for one reason only: know your enemy. Ayn Rand strikes me as being a whole hell of a lot like Baroness Thatcher (who I also despise). I agree it's a dystopia, but I doubt that's intentional - iirc it describes a world much like our own, where corporations wield far too much power, and Rand doesn't seem to have a problem with this. Before I get flamed over this, it's probably 35 years since I read it, and I mostly remember hating both the book and Ayn Rand by the time I'd finished it.
Yeah... a piece-of-shit software that I maintain has as its only (just about) redeeming feature a whole bunch of
if (debug())
{
printf("Something useful describing state\n");
fflush(stdout);
}
One of the command line parameters sets the debug mode, of course. I had to add the calls to fflush(), though. It'd actually be handy if I'd also bothered to implement several levels of debug (as suggested in Peter van der Linden's excellent book on C programming), but it would have been far too much effort (I thought at the time) to retro-fit this.
I'd be very surprised if GM crops will sustainably produce higher yields. Some others of you may be old enough to remember the 'Green Revolution' of the 60's, and how the increased yields from that only lasted a few years, and then only when accompanied by dependance on massive amounts of (expensive) artificial fertilisers.
Old-style crops, fertilised with shit, do much better for much longer.
Interestingly enough, I can _always_ tell from the smell when I'm cooking grain-fed meat. It smeels disgusting. I don't know why 'grain fed' is such a selling point, in fact. The tastiest dead cow is grass-fed, even though it's more likely to be tough (that's why god invented teeth) and it's also likey to be lower in cholesterol (a problem at my age).
IMO, game meats, like kangaroo, taste much better than beef anyway.
> Paranoid lunatics should not be allowed to run countries.... hmm... be that as it may, there's a lot of it about.
Re:Sounds like fun - shame about the name
on
Economy of Errors
·
· Score: 0
I guess like most generalisations, this really misses a lot. Billy Connelly (British) is extremely funny (even without the subtitles), while Benny Hill (also British)isn't (at least to my Australian sense of humour). Equally, American humour varies in quality from, say, Seinfeld (not funny) to 'The Simpsons' (very funny).
I recently read (I think in one of Joel Spolky's pieces) that if users find an interface frustrating it reduces their quality of life substantially. So if they hate using a mouse and would rather use a keyboard shortcut (even if it _actually_ takes longer), they'll feel like they've had a really shitty day, and it's all the fault of the interface designer. Given that you'll never satisfy every user, it's still worth asking people how they prefer to work, and accomodating as many of the alternatives as possible.
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Of course ... remember that _real_ men code their text editors in FORTRAN ...
I'm pretty sure that the reason that g77 isn't any faster than gcc is because g77 is a preprocessor for gcc.
Bullshit. FORTRAN is used in high-performance scientific computing because nothing else cuts it.
Believe it or not, it's possible (in fact with FORTRAN it's necessary unless you have FORTRAN V) to write structured code while using GOTO. You just need some self-discipline. I have to hand D.D.McCracken's "Computing for Engineers and Scientists with FORTRAN 77", which I would recommend to anyone still using FORTRAN. It shows you how to produce well-structured, non-ugly FORTRAN.
You'd instantly know that 2^n, n>1, is not prime anyway.
In Australia, we tend to call citizens of the US "seppos". It's shortened from the rhyming slang "septic tank" for "yank". A septic tank, if you didn't know, is a kind of primitive anaerobic fermenter for dealing with shit and household grey water. There used to be a lot of them in Australia before our cities were properly sewered.
;)
This doesn't mean we don't like Americans btw
Just look at the recent behaviour of our Prime Minister, John "Lickspittle" Howard, towards President Shrub.
My copy of Plato's Republic is one I copped off the remainder table in about 1970 for $AU1 - even then, that was pretty cheap for a hard-cover book of that quality (OUP, I think). I'll have to get it back off my son.
My point is, you can often get second hand or remaindered copies of Plato, Locke, etc, really cheaply. If your parents were intellectuals, you may even have them lying around at home.
I have (and occasionally still refer to) an introduction to calculus written by Caunt about 100 years ago (well ... maybe 80). It was my grandfather's book, and both my mother and I used it at university. So it's not just humanities people who get value out of old books.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I find electronic books almost unreadable. If I'm trying to read an interesting paper, or even vendors' promotional material, I invariably print it out.
Additionally, if you're reading a book, and you need to look at an earlier section (or anther book), you can stick your fingere into the book at the page you're on, refer to the other material (or read them side-by-side), and resume where you left off. (And yes, I _do_ know about "bookmarks" in electronic documents, I just find it's too easy to completely lose your place in the stack.)
In case you hadn't already guessed, I think this is just about the stupidest bloody idea I've ever heard.
My last electricity bill was about $AU650. And my hot water service is gas. I have a child.
Actually, I'm pretty sure the water and steam has nothing to do with preventing collapse of empty oil reservoirs (the stuff sits in porous rock like sandstone after all), and everything to do with pushing the last possible drop of oil out into the light.
I read this many years ago, and I'd thoroughly recommend it for one reason only: know your enemy. Ayn Rand strikes me as being a whole hell of a lot like Baroness Thatcher (who I also despise). I agree it's a dystopia, but I doubt that's intentional - iirc it describes a world much like our own, where corporations wield far too much power, and Rand doesn't seem to have a problem with this. Before I get flamed over this, it's probably 35 years since I read it, and I mostly remember hating both the book and Ayn Rand by the time I'd finished it.
'Ice Nine', too.
Also some of John Brunner's books would qualify, particularly 'The Sheep Look Up'.
If the wealthy and corporations paid their share of the cost of running a civil society, there wouldn't be a problem.
I agree. Free drinks plus a Geoffrey Archer (or equivalent sleep-producing rubbish) book should make the hours just fly.
Yeah ... a piece-of-shit software that I maintain has as its only (just about) redeeming feature a whole bunch of
if (debug())
{
printf("Something useful describing state\n");
fflush(stdout);
}
One of the command line parameters sets the debug mode, of course. I had to add the calls to fflush(), though. It'd actually be handy if I'd also bothered to implement several levels of debug (as suggested in Peter van der Linden's excellent book on C programming), but it would have been far too much effort (I thought at the time) to retro-fit this.
I'd be very surprised if GM crops will sustainably produce higher yields. Some others of you may be old enough to remember the 'Green Revolution' of the 60's, and how the increased yields from that only lasted a few years, and then only when accompanied by dependance on massive amounts of (expensive) artificial fertilisers.
Old-style crops, fertilised with shit, do much better for much longer.
Interestingly enough, I can _always_ tell from the smell when I'm cooking grain-fed meat. It smeels disgusting. I don't know why 'grain fed' is such a selling point, in fact. The tastiest dead cow is grass-fed, even though it's more likely to be tough (that's why god invented teeth) and it's also likey to be lower in cholesterol (a problem at my age).
IMO, game meats, like kangaroo, taste much better than beef anyway.
> Paranoid lunatics should not be allowed to run countries. ... hmm ... be that as it may, there's a lot of it about.
I guess like most generalisations, this really misses a lot. Billy Connelly (British) is extremely funny (even without the subtitles), while Benny Hill (also British)isn't (at least to my Australian sense of humour). Equally, American humour varies in quality from, say, Seinfeld (not funny) to 'The Simpsons' (very funny).
I recently read (I think in one of Joel Spolky's pieces) that if users find an interface frustrating it reduces their quality of life substantially. So if they hate using a mouse and would rather use a keyboard shortcut (even if it _actually_ takes longer), they'll feel like they've had a really shitty day, and it's all the fault of the interface designer. Given that you'll never satisfy every user, it's still worth asking people how they prefer to work, and accomodating as many of the alternatives as possible.
Umm ... my son does this all the time on my linux box, and has for years. I don't recall any filesystem corruption.
Also, /etc is likely to be backed up somewhere, unlike anything on a user's machine.
They have ... that's the problem.