I don't know what call costs are in the US, but in Australia, you're generally paying 20c a call to dial-up.
One of the peculiarities of US phone service left over from the old AT&T monopoly is that all but the cheapest of residential plans allow free unlimited local calling. You can get straight metered service to save a few bucks if you never make any outgoing calls, but usually only the forgotten elderly do that. Back in the old Ma Bell days, local service was pretty well subsidized by expensive long distance rates. Perhaps it was to encourage residential phones so businesses would have someone to telemarket to...
The immediacy of the web renders actually a "scoop" of very little value. The whole notion of the scoop is best represented by newspapers and (to a lesser extent) TV. A newspaper scoop is a big deal. If you can get the story ready before press time and your competitor can't, you have an entire day as sole-source for news before they catch up. With TV, you might have as much as an hour. But the web? You got maybe five minutes. It takes most of your potential "customers" more than five minutes to find out that there even is news. Citing the importance of "getting the scoop" is a load of crap. They just don't care about accuracy.
Write a quick and dirty keyword translater in FLEX and then run the results though gindent (or your favorite beautifier).
That's a good idea. I'm still trying to get the fellow I'm helping (the original implementor's son) to let me have a copy of the source to take home. He's a friend of mine, but he's crazy paranoid about his dad finding out he's having trouble with it. I told him I'd give him a hand with it for cheap. No good deed goes unpunished, eh?
What's the diff? 'begin' is a keyword in Pascal. '{' is a "keyword" in C or C++. It's all lexical scanning. By the time the parser gets it, there's no longer a string, but a single token indicating "BLOCKBEGIN".
True, '{' is a keyword. I should have said keyWORD. I'm just throwing a tantrum, anyway. We've been trying to reimplement this crawling horror for months and, really, the readability issue is the fault of the original programmer not sticking to one style of indenting, even across a single unit. I'm just not used to "seeing" blocks not bracketed by nearly empty lines, so it makes it even harder. I'd throw an even bigger fit if I had to read code with original K&R style blocks.
I'm helping a friend convert a huge app written in Pascal (shudder) to C++. I want to know whose great idea it was to use KEYWORDS as block delimiters. Was it Wirth? Whoever it was they deserve a kick in the shin from those of use stuck trying to decipher ancient, unreadable crap written in [Pascal|Ada|etc].
Copyright for Mickey Mouse is an ever advancing target
Like a reverse Zeno's paradox, we will perpetually be only halfway through the time limit of the Mickey Mouse copyright...[/ExagerrationToMakeHumorousPoint]
I know for a fact that in the state of Virginia (where I live), you are required to present your driver's license for examination upon the request of any bona-fide law officer.
Only if you're driving. Carrying ID is not required for simply walking in public.
They are NOT banned -- they just need to provide the required amount of Canadian programming if they want to broadcast in Canada.
In other words, they are BANNED based on their content.
Re:Wait... so you're telling me...
on
A New Ice Age?
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· Score: 1
A century ago people might have died of cancer (if they lived long enough to get cancer), but it's unlikely that it would be reported as a death from cancer. The rise in cancer rates may be related to industrial waste, but that claim cannot be reliably made because there is no way to find valid cancer statistics from 100 years ago.
So true. I'd put medicine's ability to diagnose cancer a bit farther back, like maybe 150 years, but back then you'd need to be in a large city to be properly diagnosed. More likely thatn not, your death would be classified under the catch-all of "consumption", which variously applied to tuberculosis, cancer, or any other "wasting" disease.
Re:Wondering about licensing and grammar
on
Dual User Windows PC
·
· Score: 2, Funny
> An object cannot be "somewhat unique" or "almost totally unique." The word means one of a kind, and without equal. Something either has equals or it doesn't.
That's the most perfect description of a superlative I've ever seen.
And my addendum is the worstest joke on the subject, ever.
Oh yes, I must agree that the integrity of the album should be preserved. Random shuffling totally detroys the artistic stricture of the song sequence. Try it yourself: cue up track 15 - "Stone Dead Forever" on the No Remorse album and it will totally make no sense, man. You know why? 'Cause you didn't listen to track 6 - "Killed By Death" and Track 10 - "Dancing On Your Grave" first! Listen to those two and you'll totally get it, man. Like, shuffling is totally detrimental to all albums, man.
and then you have Greatest Hits albums which are a collection of popular tunes by one artist randomly placed on one album with no respect for tracks that appeared before and after the popular track.
And, as always, you must include "Ace of Spades" if it's a Motorhead best-of. Not that there's much difference between one Motorhead song and another anyway...
The problem is that everyone is thinking with a closed mind, that the magnet somehow needs to be "turned off" if it ever pushes something in a circle so that when the thing comes around the other side of the magnet it doesn't get repelled in an equal fashion. But what if you just moved the thing out of the way, using a cam or maybe a servo.
If you replace the permanent magnets with electromagnets and, instead of moving them physically, just turn them on and off in sequence, you'd have an even more efficient system.
You'd also have an electric motor exactly like the ones we've been using for 100+ years. Nothing to see here. Move along.
How many years have you been working in the encription coding department now that you finally realized that you actually learned something?
I'm a firm believer in the old saying "never let school interfere with your education". My interest in this simple symbol-cipher actually was instrumental in my choice to become a signal intelligence analyst in the army eight years later.
And all that you really had to do was actually learn the Cyrillic.
Funny you should mention Cyrillic. My original system was based partly on the ancient Greek alphabet. Straight out of high school I went into the army and was trained as a Russian linguist. After six months of language school I got very sick and missed almost a week of classes. The last thing I wanted was to be "held back" because that would mean an additional 3 months there, plus I'd have to move to Company C, which was in the crappy 1950's barracks and I was in Company F, in the brand-new barracks with private bathrooms. I swore I could catch up, so they let me stay if my marks didn't drop below 75%; but there was a large test coming up and I just couldn't get all the vocabulary memorized in time. So I created a Cyrillic version of my plain-sight alphabet. It didn't actually require much work-- I mostly just had to come up with new symbols for the ones that were different (zhe, myaki znak, etc.). Subsequently, I passed the exam, got to stay in the good barracks, and had time to learn the vocabulary propewrly.
One interesting thing I found was that I could write my code-cyrillic faster than I could write proper Cyrillic handwriting. Not only that, it was far more readable because it didn't look like a bunch of strung together W's and U's, which Cyrillic has a nasty tendency to do when handwritten by novices. I ended up using it as a shorthand for taking notes sometimes, much to the dismay of classmates who'd ask to borrow them after class.
No, This article, which says: "a nearly forgotten provision in Florida's tax code is being dusted off by the state Revenue Department". The one to which you refer says: "A new rule now being formulated in Tallahassee could lead to a state tax of 9 percent -- or higher -- on computer networks commonly used in businesses."
FOr those that think this is a dupe, note the difference between the two. You see, they really want his tax. Last year they tried to pass a state law to get it, which didn't work out. So instead of passing a new law, they're now going to claim that the networks they've wanted to tax have been covered by this old law all along. Silly them! It's actually a continuation of the old story, not a dupe.
Severed Head of Mr. Jones: Murder! Murrrrrrderrrr!
Severed Head of Mr. Smith: Guilty! He's guillllllty!!
Severed Head of Mr. Cooper: Dang, it's cold in here. And how are we talking without any lungs?
Let this be a lesson to us. Cut their tongues out too, 'cause then all they'll be able to say in court is "oaaaapaaawaaaahhhmmmm" and that doesn't sound at ALL like "murderer", or "guilty".
Magnets have a very high energy density, much better than a tank of gas
Actually, they don't. Gasoline has about 45 kiloJoules per gram. Iron-based magnets have about 22 Joules per gram. Rare earth magnets barely exceed 4 or 5 times the "energy density" of iron magnets, which still puts one more than two orders of magnitude short of gasoline-- and that's assuming 100% efficiency of extraction when, in real life, you'd be lucky to get 50%.
Also, for more in-depth math on permanent magnets and why they are not an adequate source of energy, see this post.
They use an alternative form of fuel which is readily available. In this case, they use the force from the magnets to generate additional power,
Magnets aren't really an effective source of power. People think they're something special because they exert their forces invisibly, but in reality an object repelled by a magnets is the equivalent of an object launched by a spring or rolling down a hill: energy must be expended to get the object to the top of the hill, to stretch the spring, or pull the object OUT of the magnetic field once it has been captured by it. None of these three things can be done in such a way as to produce more power than one puts in.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the peculiarities of US phone service left over from the old AT&T monopoly is that all but the cheapest of residential plans allow free unlimited local calling. You can get straight metered service to save a few bucks if you never make any outgoing calls, but usually only the forgotten elderly do that. Back in the old Ma Bell days, local service was pretty well subsidized by expensive long distance rates. Perhaps it was to encourage residential phones so businesses would have someone to telemarket to...
I would gladly accept complete madness followed by being devoured alive if only allowed the chance to watch He Who Slumbers Below do that.
The immediacy of the web renders actually a "scoop" of very little value. The whole notion of the scoop is best represented by newspapers and (to a lesser extent) TV. A newspaper scoop is a big deal. If you can get the story ready before press time and your competitor can't, you have an entire day as sole-source for news before they catch up. With TV, you might have as much as an hour. But the web? You got maybe five minutes. It takes most of your potential "customers" more than five minutes to find out that there even is news. Citing the importance of "getting the scoop" is a load of crap. They just don't care about accuracy.
That's a good idea. I'm still trying to get the fellow I'm helping (the original implementor's son) to let me have a copy of the source to take home. He's a friend of mine, but he's crazy paranoid about his dad finding out he's having trouble with it. I told him I'd give him a hand with it for cheap. No good deed goes unpunished, eh?
True, '{' is a keyword. I should have said keyWORD. I'm just throwing a tantrum, anyway. We've been trying to reimplement this crawling horror for months and, really, the readability issue is the fault of the original programmer not sticking to one style of indenting, even across a single unit. I'm just not used to "seeing" blocks not bracketed by nearly empty lines, so it makes it even harder. I'd throw an even bigger fit if I had to read code with original K&R style blocks.
I'm helping a friend convert a huge app written in Pascal (shudder) to C++. I want to know whose great idea it was to use KEYWORDS as block delimiters. Was it Wirth? Whoever it was they deserve a kick in the shin from those of use stuck trying to decipher ancient, unreadable crap written in [Pascal|Ada|etc].
Like a reverse Zeno's paradox, we will perpetually be only halfway through the time limit of the Mickey Mouse copyright...[/ExagerrationToMakeHumorousPoint]
Only if you're driving. Carrying ID is not required for simply walking in public.
In other words, they are BANNED based on their content.
So true. I'd put medicine's ability to diagnose cancer a bit farther back, like maybe 150 years, but back then you'd need to be in a large city to be properly diagnosed. More likely thatn not, your death would be classified under the catch-all of "consumption", which variously applied to tuberculosis, cancer, or any other "wasting" disease.
That's the most perfect description of a superlative I've ever seen.
And my addendum is the worstest joke on the subject, ever.
Oh yeah, like, No Remorse is a Motorhead album. I totally forgot to say that.
Oh yes, I must agree that the integrity of the album should be preserved. Random shuffling totally detroys the artistic stricture of the song sequence. Try it yourself: cue up track 15 - "Stone Dead Forever" on the No Remorse album and it will totally make no sense, man. You know why? 'Cause you didn't listen to track 6 - "Killed By Death" and Track 10 - "Dancing On Your Grave" first! Listen to those two and you'll totally get it, man. Like, shuffling is totally detrimental to all albums, man.
And, as always, you must include "Ace of Spades" if it's a Motorhead best-of. Not that there's much difference between one Motorhead song and another anyway...
The "uncompressed" file would be a string of symmetrical bit pairs, like this:
00 11 11 00 11 00 00 11 00 00 00 11 11
Using our patented compression method, it reduces by 50%!:
0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1
The only caveat is that it requires symmetrical pairs; bit strings containing 01 and 10 have to be compressed using something else.
There is a small mailbox here.
No mention of Zork is complete without a reference to the Zork 404 error as implemented by my friend Krux at thcnet.net.
If you replace the permanent magnets with electromagnets and, instead of moving them physically, just turn them on and off in sequence, you'd have an even more efficient system.
You'd also have an electric motor exactly like the ones we've been using for 100+ years. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Heh. Choose your own FPS.
You got the rocket launcher!
. If you run at him and fire, go to 71
. If you choose to bunny-hop to the side while firing, go to 13
pg71 - ***BLAM!*** he totally rocket blasts you and GIBS fly everywhere! U sux0rz!
. Respawn at page 1
pg13 - ***SPLACK!*** you totally gibbed him!
. If you pick up his ammo, go to 19
. if you keep firing, go to 62
I'm a firm believer in the old saying "never let school interfere with your education". My interest in this simple symbol-cipher actually was instrumental in my choice to become a signal intelligence analyst in the army eight years later.
Funny you should mention Cyrillic. My original system was based partly on the ancient Greek alphabet. Straight out of high school I went into the army and was trained as a Russian linguist. After six months of language school I got very sick and missed almost a week of classes. The last thing I wanted was to be "held back" because that would mean an additional 3 months there, plus I'd have to move to Company C, which was in the crappy 1950's barracks and I was in Company F, in the brand-new barracks with private bathrooms. I swore I could catch up, so they let me stay if my marks didn't drop below 75%; but there was a large test coming up and I just couldn't get all the vocabulary memorized in time. So I created a Cyrillic version of my plain-sight alphabet. It didn't actually require much work-- I mostly just had to come up with new symbols for the ones that were different (zhe, myaki znak, etc.). Subsequently, I passed the exam, got to stay in the good barracks, and had time to learn the vocabulary propewrly.
One interesting thing I found was that I could write my code-cyrillic faster than I could write proper Cyrillic handwriting. Not only that, it was far more readable because it didn't look like a bunch of strung together W's and U's, which Cyrillic has a nasty tendency to do when handwritten by novices. I ended up using it as a shorthand for taking notes sometimes, much to the dismay of classmates who'd ask to borrow them after class.
FOr those that think this is a dupe, note the difference between the two. You see, they really want his tax. Last year they tried to pass a state law to get it, which didn't work out. So instead of passing a new law, they're now going to claim that the networks they've wanted to tax have been covered by this old law all along. Silly them! It's actually a continuation of the old story, not a dupe.
Severed Head of Mr. Smith: Guilty! He's guillllllty!!
Severed Head of Mr. Cooper: Dang, it's cold in here. And how are we talking without any lungs?
Let this be a lesson to us. Cut their tongues out too, 'cause then all they'll be able to say in court is "oaaaapaaawaaaahhhmmmm" and that doesn't sound at ALL like "murderer", or "guilty".
Actually, they don't. Gasoline has about 45 kiloJoules per gram. Iron-based magnets have about 22 Joules per gram. Rare earth magnets barely exceed 4 or 5 times the "energy density" of iron magnets, which still puts one more than two orders of magnitude short of gasoline-- and that's assuming 100% efficiency of extraction when, in real life, you'd be lucky to get 50%.
Also, for more in-depth math on permanent magnets and why they are not an adequate source of energy, see this post.
Magnets aren't really an effective source of power. People think they're something special because they exert their forces invisibly, but in reality an object repelled by a magnets is the equivalent of an object launched by a spring or rolling down a hill: energy must be expended to get the object to the top of the hill, to stretch the spring, or pull the object OUT of the magnetic field once it has been captured by it. None of these three things can be done in such a way as to produce more power than one puts in.