Big deal, so Verizon's the best of a bad bunch. Let's see some ratings on an absolute scale.
What do I want from a cell phone? I want it to just work.
Every time I contacted Verizon regarding problems, they implied it was because I had one of those "old" analog phones. So I bought a spiffy new digital tri-mode phone and digital service.
And it still acts weird. People still call me at times when my phone is powered on and showing five signal bars, and get sent to voice mail. And it can take hours for my phone to tell me that I have voice mail.
And sometimes it beeps for no reason at all and I can't figure out why and Verizon's customer service can't tell me.
And if I'm actually walking around with the phone, I hear little bits of garble as if I were briefly underwater--I suppose it's decided to change what tower it's talking to, for no reason.
And when I was on a trip, every time I turned it on, the first call I made would not go through--I'd get a recorded message to the effect that "this mobile unit is not authorized in this area." But the second (and subsequent) phone calls would go through fine. Why? Customer service couldn't tell me.
And all my conversations are strange, because--something nobody bothered to mentioned to me--unlike analog cell phones, which work in real time, the digital phones for some unfathomable reason incorporate a split-second delay of nearly half a second in each direction.
And the thing has a complex, pesky, homebrew user interface that takes me back to the days of character-oriented DOS programs which all had their own UI conventions.
And the "end call" button is also the "power off" button so if you don't have a good sense of timing you can turn the thing off when you just meant to end the call.
And the maps they give you showing where cell service is supposed to exist are just jokes. The coverage areas look like slice of American cheese, but the reality is more like Swiss cheese.
Like so much high-tech gear, it doesn't really work and nobody cares.
Made AFAIK the FIRST desktop electronic calculator--the LOCI, which calculated logarithms in hardware circa 1965 using magnetic cores as part of the calculation hardware. This, in a time when a rotary calculator with a square root button was a very big deal. I played briefly with a LOCI at a trade show and, yes, if you keyed in 2 X 2, it displayed the result as 3.99999999999.
They went on to produce a very successful line of desktop electronic calculators. Famous story is that they were trying to sell them into financial institutions, and a customer tried replicating some calculations from his book of mortgage tables. They didn't agree, and it turned out the Wang calculator was right and the book was wrong and Wang's reputation in the financial industry was made.
Wang abandoned calculators circa 1971, feeling that the had been commoditized. In retrospect, you could have an interesting debate on whether or not he was right. Seeing HP introduce a new one in 2003 has to make me think there was QUITE a bit of juice left in that market.
I bought it, ages ago. I always loved the style and the artwork--would you call it Preraphaelite, or maybe just faux Rider-Waite Tarot card style?
I haven't doublechecked to make sure this is in the downloadable freeware version, but one of the lovely things in the original Slumberland house was a room containing a Mac Plus. By directing the glider properly you can turn it on--and you hear the original Mac "department-store chime." That will bring back memories for those who recall how exciting it was to hear that instead of the typical dull square-wave "beep" that was then the norm.
There's already been at least one case in which it was found that a cab company had deliberately gotten telephone numbers in parts of the city which they did _not_ wish to serve. People living in these neighborhoods would, naturally, call the "closer" number. When that phone ringed, the company wouldn't answer.
With calling number ID, I bet this sort of thing is already rampant.
And, yes, the techniques described will make it worse and worse.
"I can tell you that that the HAVi standards are already written and available." Well, whoop te do.
I don't know what's going on. You can put any brand of gas in your car and it will go, you can put any brand of analog audio cassette in your cassette player and it will play, but when it comes to digital electronics, suddenly standards mean nothing.
You can't even buy plain old CD-R media and have more than about 80% confidence that you can burn it in drive A and then read it in CD player B. For DVD recordables, +, -, you name it, the degree of interoperability is far less. There have been "written and available" standards for years.
There are "written and available" standards for FireWire, but you'd better not buy a random camcorder and expect to plug it into your Mac and use iMovie without checking some reviews and discussion groups and KnowledgeBase articles first.
What do you want to bet: there will be no real validation method; the companies will rush stuff to market based on early versions of the HAVI standard; when it doesn't work, they'll fingerpoint at the other guy and claim noncompliance; if a consumer ever does figure out which device is noncompliant, that information will be of no value in getting the problem solved......and by the time there are enough devices out there for the interoperability problems to surface in the consumer press, everyone will be saying, Oh! well WE comply with HAVi version N+1, you shouldn't expect it to work unless you throw out all your EARLY HAVi junk and buy all-new.
Look, nothing personal about HAVi, but I'm sick of this brave new world in which NOTHING WORKS and NOBODY CARES.
Speaking of gadgets to use in projects like this one...
In the July 24th Boston Globe, Ritz is advertising something called a "Dakota Digital Single-Use Camera."
Now, I've seen a "digital single-use cameras" from Kodak which just used film, and the only thing "digital" about them is that when you send them in for processing, they scan the negatives and send you a CD along with the prints.
But this one SAYS "Delete and Retake Last Shot," which, to me, suggests that it really IS digital. It's $10.99. It says it will take 25 images. No indication of resolution. And no indication of precisely what you do after you have taken the pictures.
I probably need to get one and crack one open. It sounds like a very interesting device for hacking.
It will be very annoying if it turns out that $10.99 means that you pay $60.00 up front and get $49.01 back when you bring it in for "processing," though.
Googling on "Dakota Digital Single-Use Camera" and even "Digital Single-Use Camera" doesn't turn up anything except that phony Kodak film camera...
Psychologists versus ethologists
on
Psychotic Lab Mice
·
· Score: 2, Informative
...which is why there is a cultural divide between two approaches to the study of animal behavior.
The "American psychological tradition," exemplified by Watson, Lashley, B. F. Skinner, etc. emphasizes the study of animals which are almost domesticated for lab use, and bred for genetic uniformity. The studies are done under carefully "controlled" laboratory conditions which are highly unnatural for the animal. The positive aspect of this approach is that it fits well with the scientific method, and the studies are relatively easy to interpret and repeat. A lot of the studies tend to be directed at intelligence and problem-solving.
Unfortunately, the behavior of animals in captivity IS just plain weird. I'd never seen it described as "psychotic" before, but there is a certain Heisenberg-like effect: the effort to put animals in situations where their behavior can be studied with full scientific rigor causes their behavior to change.
The "ethological tradition," exemplified by Konrad Lorenz, Niko Tinbergen, Donald Griffin, etc. emphasizes the behavior of natural populations of animals in natural or naturalistic settings. It is a biologist's approach rather than a psychologist's, and emphasizes evolutionary relationships. Social aspects are perhaps studied more than problem-solving.
Ethology may be a little softer and less rigorous. In the last decade, the phrase "cognitive ethology" has come into vogue and you will find cognitive ethologists using the word "consciousness" out loud and unafraid.
Obviously my personal sympathies are with the ethologists, but both traditions have yielded valuable scientific results.
The New York State EZ-Pass toll transponder system, and probably many others, may not be a "micropayment" system but certainly occupies some kind of middle ground. They initially bill your credit card $15, which establishes $15 in your EZ-Pass account. Toll payments of $0.65, $1.15, etc. gradually reduce the amount; when the amount gets low, they hit your credit card automatically for another $15 "recharge."
So perhaps one of the things that's happening with micropayments is that these "credit card auto-recharge" accounts are serving some of the functions for which micropayments would otherwise be needed.
I'm not quite sure what happens when you terminate your EZ-Pass account; I assume they send you a check for $6.22 or whatever. I suppose that if I had thirty or forty of these accounts, it might get to be annoying having $500 or $1000 tied up in tiny, non-interest bearing, spendable-for-only-a-single-purpose accounts.
I've been wondering about this since it opened... and I haven't had my account long enough to find out for myself. Maybe $0.99 isn't a micropayment, but it certainly is a minipayment.
I've been hearing for years that the cost of handling credit card payments makes it impractical to use it for purchases of less than about $10. So how does Apple do this?
Certainly a big appeal of the Music Store is that you pay only for what you use and are NOT saddled with an automatic $5.95 or $8.95 per month.
Do they batch them? Do they actually lose money on someone who only buys one song a month, and gamble that most users will buy more than that?
I love it! I love it! Sony says here (if that bizarrely long URL doesn't work, just go to SonyStyle, search on UX40, and click the Specifications tab):
"Computer Interface: The computer industry lacks standards, and therefore, there are a multitude of varying software packages and add-on hardware options. This device is not manufactured to any specific software, and Sony does not and cannot make any warranty or representation with respect to the performance of this product with any particular software packages and/or non-Sony add-on hardware option except those mentioned in this document. Sony hereby disclaims any representations or warranty that this product is compatible with any combination of products you may choose to connect. While Sony representatives or Sony authorized dealers may be able to assist you and may make recommendations, they are NOT authorized to vary or waive this disclaimer. Purchasers must determine for themselves the suitability and compatibility of the hardware and software in each and every particular instance."
Now, I ask you, ain't that the truth?
I can't believe the time waste and paper waste...
on
Picking Up the Pieces
·
· Score: 1
Last year, we succumbed to all the advice and bought a paper shredder. And following one suggested algorithm, we shred "anything with numbers on it." (ID numbers, that is).
I can't believe how much time I now spend on this. I don't think I fully realized how much paper crap I had been throwing out (credit card statements, bank statements, brokerage statement...). Now it has to go through the shredder. And the shreds expand in bulk enormously.
It seems as if just fifty pages will fill the little wastebasket. Then I have to dig them out and stuff them into a garbage bag, and in the process a dozen shreds fall on the floor, and then I have to pick THOSE up one by one, and one or two fall flat and are really HARD to pickup.
It's not a LITTLE inconvenience. It's a significant irritation.
Many years ago, my mother wrote to a former President, protesting a policy. She got back an elegant card thanking her for her "support." The next day, that President addressed the nation from the Oval Office and said that 90% of the mail he was receiving was in support of the policy.
"I've never actually *done* this before, so I don't know precisely how you go about it, but it certainly can't hurt to talk to one. If nothing else, they may be able to point you to other sources."
Here's how. 1) Dial 411. 2) Ask for the main number of your favorite big public library. 3) Dial it, ask for the "reference librarian." 4) Ask the reference librarian your question, using ordinary English. (It wouldn't surprise me one bit to find that other languages might work, too). No Booleans required. 5) Get your answer. 6) Marvel that you didn't have to listen to music on hold for forty-five minutes or give a credit card number. 7) Write to your state representative and tell him what a great thing public libraries are and how much they deserve our support.
At least 10% of the traffic on this newsgroup is people trying to identify books they read as a kid, and the ability of the group's readership to identify them is absolutely phenomenal.
TV channels 2 interferes with 3... 3 interferes with 4... 5 interferes with 6... 7 interferes with 8, 8 with 9, 9 with 10, 10 with 11, 11 with 12, and 12 with 13... and the FCC doesn't consider it a big hairy deal. They just allocate them in a sort of checkerboard fashion, pragmatically.
Why can't we have the same kind of pragmatism in the FM band? Let the micropower stations flourish, and IF there is a genuine local interference issue THEN assign them to a different frequency.
Arthur C. Clarke said that a human being could live in vacuum for a minute or so. Such an event was dramatized in "2001: A Space Odyssey," and during its first run in New York they handed out little leaflets with a few paragraphs by Clarke insisting that this depiction was correct.
I can't tell whether or not the poster was completely aware of this and joking about it, but you CAN track your pets with RFID tags (and it's been possible for many years). Most animal hospitals offer this service, which they refer to as "microchipping your pet."
Animal shelters scan incoming pets for microchips and contact the owner. It's an ID tag that is hard to lose. The American Kennel Club recommends the procedure.
I read somewhere that if Manhattan Island had to dissipate all the energy it uses by radiation, i.e. if cooling breezes didn't blow it away, the temperature of the island would rise to about two hundred and fifty degrees Fahrenheit.
Remember Barry Commoner's three laws? "Everything must go somewhere. Everything is connected to everything else. There is no such thing as a free lunch."
In the sixties, many atlases did not show or index the ENTIRE CITY of Fort Knox. I've never been able to find out why, but presumably it was someone's bright idea for protecting the gold repository. Never mind that road maps with the repository marked on them were available from AAA, or that a detailed map graced the flyleaf of Ian Fleming's novel, "Goldfinger"
Is Python PARTICULARLY good for text processing?
on
Text Processing in Python
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
On taking a lightning-quick skimming of the text at gnosis I'm still don't quite get the point.
SNOBOL was a mind-opener for me, because it really had a radically different approach to text processing. And it was genuinely useful. I haven't used it recently enough to know how I would feel about it today.
Many languages now are more convenient for text processing than, say, C++ with STL or MFC. The traditional BASIC's at least recognize strings as good citizens and make it easy to do the fundamental operations. MUMPS improves on BASIC incrementally, as do PERL, Java, Javascript, etc., mostly to the degree that their standard libraries provide a useful suite of string functions. More and more languages have a Regex feature (e.g. REALBasic) and this is a really nice thing to have.
So, I just read the review, and, as I say, took a lightning-quick browse through the online text of the book, and neither of them bothers to tell me how Python fits in.
Both of them seem to assume from the beginning that I have already decided that Python is the language I want to use.
Is there anything about Python that renders it especially appropriate for text processing? With regard to text processing, is it in a different category altogether from Java/Javascript/PERL/MUMPS/REALbasic?
Or is it just a good language with string primitives and a decent string library?
Slashdot Mirror
Big deal, so Verizon's the best of a bad bunch. Let's see some ratings on an absolute scale.
What do I want from a cell phone? I want it to just work.
Every time I contacted Verizon regarding problems, they implied it was because I had one of those "old" analog phones. So I bought a spiffy new digital tri-mode phone and digital service.
And it still acts weird. People still call me at times when my phone is powered on and showing five signal bars, and get sent to voice mail. And it can take hours for my phone to tell me that I have voice mail.
And sometimes it beeps for no reason at all and I can't figure out why and Verizon's customer service can't tell me.
And if I'm actually walking around with the phone, I hear little bits of garble as if I were briefly underwater--I suppose it's decided to change what tower it's talking to, for no reason.
And when I was on a trip, every time I turned it on, the first call I made would not go through--I'd get a recorded message to the effect that "this mobile unit is not authorized in this area." But the second (and subsequent) phone calls would go through fine. Why? Customer service couldn't tell me.
And all my conversations are strange, because--something nobody bothered to mentioned to me--unlike analog cell phones, which work in real time, the digital phones for some unfathomable reason incorporate a split-second delay of nearly half a second in each direction.
And the thing has a complex, pesky, homebrew user interface that takes me back to the days of character-oriented DOS programs which all had their own UI conventions.
And the "end call" button is also the "power off" button so if you don't have a good sense of timing you can turn the thing off when you just meant to end the call.
And the maps they give you showing where cell service is supposed to exist are just jokes. The coverage areas look like slice of American cheese, but the reality is more like Swiss cheese.
Like so much high-tech gear, it doesn't really work and nobody cares.
Made AFAIK the FIRST desktop electronic calculator--the LOCI, which calculated logarithms in hardware circa 1965 using magnetic cores as part of the calculation hardware. This, in a time when a rotary calculator with a square root button was a very big deal. I played briefly with a LOCI at a trade show and, yes, if you keyed in 2 X 2, it displayed the result as 3.99999999999.
They went on to produce a very successful line of desktop electronic calculators. Famous story is that they were trying to sell them into financial institutions, and a customer tried replicating some calculations from his book of mortgage tables. They didn't agree, and it turned out the Wang calculator was right and the book was wrong and Wang's reputation in the financial industry was made.
Wang abandoned calculators circa 1971, feeling that the had been commoditized. In retrospect, you could have an interesting debate on whether or not he was right. Seeing HP introduce a new one in 2003 has to make me think there was QUITE a bit of juice left in that market.
I bought it, ages ago. I always loved the style and the artwork--would you call it Preraphaelite, or maybe just faux Rider-Waite Tarot card style?
I haven't doublechecked to make sure this is in the downloadable freeware version, but one of the lovely things in the original Slumberland house was a room containing a Mac Plus. By directing the glider properly you can turn it on--and you hear the original Mac "department-store chime." That will bring back memories for those who recall how exciting it was to hear that instead of the typical dull square-wave "beep" that was then the norm.
Just a thought...
There's already been at least one case in which it was found that a cab company had deliberately gotten telephone numbers in parts of the city which they did _not_ wish to serve. People living in these neighborhoods would, naturally, call the "closer" number. When that phone ringed, the company wouldn't answer.
With calling number ID, I bet this sort of thing is already rampant.
And, yes, the techniques described will make it worse and worse.
See more details here
Where did it come from?
Does it mean ANYTHING different from"recommendations?"
Does anyone ever give any evidence that the "best practices" are actually best?
"I can tell you that that the HAVi standards are already written and available." Well, whoop te do.
I don't know what's going on. You can put any brand of gas in your car and it will go, you can put any brand of analog audio cassette in your cassette player and it will play, but when it comes to digital electronics, suddenly standards mean nothing.
You can't even buy plain old CD-R media and have more than about 80% confidence that you can burn it in drive A and then read it in CD player B. For DVD recordables, +, -, you name it, the degree of interoperability is far less. There have been "written and available" standards for years.
There are "written and available" standards for FireWire, but you'd better not buy a random camcorder and expect to plug it into your Mac and use iMovie without checking some reviews and discussion groups and KnowledgeBase articles first.
What do you want to bet: there will be no real validation method; the companies will rush stuff to market based on early versions of the HAVI standard; when it doesn't work, they'll fingerpoint at the other guy and claim noncompliance; if a consumer ever does figure out which device is noncompliant, that information will be of no value in getting the problem solved...
Look, nothing personal about HAVi, but I'm sick of this brave new world in which NOTHING WORKS and NOBODY CARES.
OK, I feel better now.
Speaking of gadgets to use in projects like this one...
In the July 24th Boston Globe, Ritz is advertising something called a "Dakota Digital Single-Use Camera."
Now, I've seen a "digital single-use cameras" from Kodak which just used film, and the only thing "digital" about them is that when you send them in for processing, they scan the negatives and send you a CD along with the prints.
But this one SAYS "Delete and Retake Last Shot," which, to me, suggests that it really IS digital. It's $10.99. It says it will take 25 images. No indication of resolution. And no indication of precisely what you do after you have taken the pictures.
I probably need to get one and crack one open. It sounds like a very interesting device for hacking.
It will be very annoying if it turns out that $10.99 means that you pay $60.00 up front and get $49.01 back when you bring it in for "processing," though.
Googling on "Dakota Digital Single-Use Camera" and even "Digital Single-Use Camera" doesn't turn up anything except that phony Kodak film camera...
...which is why there is a cultural divide between two approaches to the study of animal behavior.
The "American psychological tradition," exemplified by Watson, Lashley, B. F. Skinner, etc. emphasizes the study of animals which are almost domesticated for lab use, and bred for genetic uniformity. The studies are done under carefully "controlled" laboratory conditions which are highly unnatural for the animal. The positive aspect of this approach is that it fits well with the scientific method, and the studies are relatively easy to interpret and repeat. A lot of the studies tend to be directed at intelligence and problem-solving.
Unfortunately, the behavior of animals in captivity IS just plain weird. I'd never seen it described as "psychotic" before, but there is a certain Heisenberg-like effect: the effort to put animals in situations where their behavior can be studied with full scientific rigor causes their behavior to change.
The "ethological tradition," exemplified by Konrad Lorenz, Niko Tinbergen, Donald Griffin, etc. emphasizes the behavior of natural populations of animals in natural or naturalistic settings. It is a biologist's approach rather than a psychologist's, and emphasizes evolutionary relationships. Social aspects are perhaps studied more than problem-solving.
Ethology may be a little softer and less rigorous. In the last decade, the phrase "cognitive ethology" has come into vogue and you will find cognitive ethologists using the word "consciousness" out loud and unafraid.
Obviously my personal sympathies are with the ethologists, but both traditions have yielded valuable scientific results.
The New York State EZ-Pass toll transponder system, and probably many others, may not be a "micropayment" system but certainly occupies some kind of middle ground. They initially bill your credit card $15, which establishes $15 in your EZ-Pass account. Toll payments of $0.65, $1.15, etc. gradually reduce the amount; when the amount gets low, they hit your credit card automatically for another $15 "recharge."
So perhaps one of the things that's happening with micropayments is that these "credit card auto-recharge" accounts are serving some of the functions for which micropayments would otherwise be needed.
I'm not quite sure what happens when you terminate your EZ-Pass account; I assume they send you a check for $6.22 or whatever. I suppose that if I had thirty or forty of these accounts, it might get to be annoying having $500 or $1000 tied up in tiny, non-interest bearing, spendable-for-only-a-single-purpose accounts.
I've been wondering about this since it opened... and I haven't had my account long enough to find out for myself. Maybe $0.99 isn't a micropayment, but it certainly is a minipayment.
I've been hearing for years that the cost of handling credit card payments makes it impractical to use it for purchases of less than about $10. So how does Apple do this?
Certainly a big appeal of the Music Store is that you pay only for what you use and are NOT saddled with an automatic $5.95 or $8.95 per month.
Do they batch them? Do they actually lose money on someone who only buys one song a month, and gamble that most users will buy more than that?
I love it! I love it! Sony says here (if that bizarrely long URL doesn't work, just go to SonyStyle, search on UX40, and click the Specifications tab):
"Computer Interface: The computer industry lacks standards, and therefore, there are a multitude of varying software packages and add-on hardware options. This device is not manufactured to any specific software, and Sony does not and cannot make any warranty or representation with respect to the performance of this product with any particular software packages and/or non-Sony add-on hardware option except those mentioned in this document. Sony hereby disclaims any representations or warranty that this product is compatible with any combination of products you may choose to connect. While Sony representatives or Sony authorized dealers may be able to assist you and may make recommendations, they are NOT authorized to vary or waive this disclaimer. Purchasers must determine for themselves the suitability and compatibility of the hardware and software in each and every particular instance."
Now, I ask you, ain't that the truth?
Last year, we succumbed to all the advice and bought a paper shredder. And following one suggested algorithm, we shred "anything with numbers on it." (ID numbers, that is).
I can't believe how much time I now spend on this. I don't think I fully realized how much paper crap I had been throwing out (credit card statements, bank statements, brokerage statement...). Now it has to go through the shredder. And the shreds expand in bulk enormously.
It seems as if just fifty pages will fill the little wastebasket. Then I have to dig them out and stuff them into a garbage bag, and in the process a dozen shreds fall on the floor, and then I have to pick THOSE up one by one, and one or two fall flat and are really HARD to pickup.
It's not a LITTLE inconvenience. It's a significant irritation.
Many years ago, my mother wrote to a former President, protesting a policy. She got back an elegant card thanking her for her "support." The next day, that President addressed the nation from the Oval Office and said that 90% of the mail he was receiving was in support of the policy.
Maybe that button isn't such a bad idea.
"I've never actually *done* this before, so I don't know precisely how you go about it, but it certainly can't hurt to talk to one. If nothing else, they may be able to point you to other sources."
Here's how. 1) Dial 411. 2) Ask for the main number of your favorite big public library. 3) Dial it, ask for the "reference librarian." 4) Ask the reference librarian your question, using ordinary English. (It wouldn't surprise me one bit to find that other languages might work, too). No Booleans required. 5) Get your answer. 6) Marvel that you didn't have to listen to music on hold for forty-five minutes or give a credit card number. 7) Write to your state representative and tell him what a great thing public libraries are and how much they deserve our support.
"For the moment, the laughter-recognition software is rather crude and cannot accurately distinguish between different people."
(So, aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?)
Use a subject line like "ID: Randy Morrow."
At least 10% of the traffic on this newsgroup is people trying to identify books they read as a kid, and the ability of the group's readership to identify them is absolutely phenomenal.
TV channels 2 interferes with 3... 3 interferes with 4... 5 interferes with 6... 7 interferes with 8, 8 with 9, 9 with 10, 10 with 11, 11 with 12, and 12 with 13... and the FCC doesn't consider it a big hairy deal. They just allocate them in a sort of checkerboard fashion, pragmatically.
Why can't we have the same kind of pragmatism in the FM band? Let the micropower stations flourish, and IF there is a genuine local interference issue THEN assign them to a different frequency.
TIA (Thanks in advance).
Arthur C. Clarke said that a human being could live in vacuum for a minute or so. Such an event was dramatized in "2001: A Space Odyssey," and during its first run in New York they handed out little leaflets with a few paragraphs by Clarke insisting that this depiction was correct.
Was Arthur C. Clarke wrong?
I can't tell whether or not the poster was completely aware of this and joking about it, but you CAN track your pets with RFID tags (and it's been possible for many years). Most animal hospitals offer this service, which they refer to as "microchipping your pet."
Animal shelters scan incoming pets for microchips and contact the owner. It's an ID tag that is hard to lose. The American Kennel Club recommends the procedure.
See this article for more information.
I read somewhere that if Manhattan Island had to dissipate all the energy it uses by radiation, i.e. if cooling breezes didn't blow it away, the temperature of the island would rise to about two hundred and fifty degrees Fahrenheit.
Remember Barry Commoner's three laws? "Everything must go somewhere. Everything is connected to everything else. There is no such thing as a free lunch."
In the sixties, many atlases did not show or index the ENTIRE CITY of Fort Knox. I've never been able to find out why, but presumably it was someone's bright idea for protecting the gold repository. Never mind that road maps with the repository marked on them were available from AAA, or that a detailed map graced the flyleaf of Ian Fleming's novel, "Goldfinger"
On taking a lightning-quick skimming of the text at gnosis I'm still don't quite get the point.
SNOBOL was a mind-opener for me, because it really had a radically different approach to text processing. And it was genuinely useful. I haven't used it recently enough to know how I would feel about it today.
Many languages now are more convenient for text processing than, say, C++ with STL or MFC. The traditional BASIC's at least recognize strings as good citizens and make it easy to do the fundamental operations. MUMPS improves on BASIC incrementally, as do PERL, Java, Javascript, etc., mostly to the degree that their standard libraries provide a useful suite of string functions. More and more languages have a Regex feature (e.g. REALBasic) and this is a really nice thing to have.
So, I just read the review, and, as I say, took a lightning-quick browse through the online text of the book, and neither of them bothers to tell me how Python fits in.
Both of them seem to assume from the beginning that I have already decided that Python is the language I want to use.
Is there anything about Python that renders it especially appropriate for text processing? With regard to text processing, is it in a different category altogether from Java/Javascript/PERL/MUMPS/REALbasic?
Or is it just a good language with string primitives and a decent string library?