mcswell

27 ms·

451.
by mcswell 2y ago
Google docs actually makes Word look good. Or at least Google docs means Word is no longer in last place.
452.
by mcswell 2y ago
I used to advocate for using Word styles where I worked. I didn't make many converts. I think one issue is that Word's built-in styles are just so weird. Blue font on a white background for section headings? (if I remember corr
453.
by mcswell 2y ago
I had an 'l' for '1' error half a century ago in FORTRAN code, keyed in by me on punch cards. The line printer printout of my code distinguished the two symbols, but the ribbon was old and the distinction was nearly--no
454.
by mcswell 2y ago
I guess they have magnetic personalities.
455.
by mcswell 2y ago
You can read a lot of the stories from Analog, the magazine that Campbell edited for many years, here: https://www.freesfonline.net/Magazines2.html . I was a fan back in the day, but going back now I see a lot not to like.
456.
by mcswell 2y ago
Hidden in footnote 5 is a significant fact about the two-headed planaria (flatworms) that produce two-headed offspring: they reproduce not by laying eggs, but by fission. In other words, this physiological trait is not passed through the g
457.
by mcswell 2y ago
My name is Michael, and I approve of this article. Wait, you want to know if I'm a Saint?
458.
by mcswell 2y ago
Do you want fries with that?
459.
by mcswell 2y ago
I'm not sure LISP (which I learned while working (at Boeing Computer Services (which no longer exists))) is a good candidate (for a programming language (that would work like human languages (at least the ones I know))).
460.
by mcswell 2y ago
Alien sea monsters!
461.
by mcswell 2y ago
There was a SciFi story that sort of anticipated this. A researcher discovers how to move into an alternate dimension (parallel to ours, not like the "rolled up" dimensions that are said to exist in some versions of String Theo
462.
by mcswell 2y ago
Besides the nefarious uses, I can think of a number of good uses. One would be to detect ticks crawling up your body. My body is pretty good at detecting them--the hairs on my legs, for example, cause a tickle when a tick crawls by them.
463.
by mcswell 2y ago
Can you say <Ctrl><Esc>? I didn't think so.
464.
by mcswell 2y ago
You don't understand why Rounded Corners are Better? Oh my! It's because they're New and Refreshed! But don't worry, in Windows 12 there will be Square Corners, and they'll be Brand New and Re-Refreshed!
465.
by mcswell 2y ago
It's not called the Senate Launch System (SL) for nothing!
466.
by mcswell 2y ago
It looks like you're asking what's coming on Monday. Would you like help? o Get help guessing what's coming. o Just wait until Monday. o Don't show me this tip again.
467.
by mcswell 2y ago
And zippers. I am a man, but I have a jacket that zips the opposite way from most men's zippers (the tab is on the right, the receptacle for the tab is on the left). I suppose that means it's a woman's jacket, although I&#x
468.
by mcswell 2y ago
As usual, the science fiction authors have thought about this lots. Here's one example from before most of you were born: https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781481483063/9781481483063___... Of course you don&#x2
469.
by mcswell 2y ago
A better criterion, I think, is if it's consistently correct. I know, if it isn't consistently correct, it won't be useful; but it's easier to measure "correct" than "useful." (And correct with respe
470.
by mcswell 2y ago
I am a linguist, and I agree. But it does complicate the grammar to allow for these other options. (I haven't studied leet speak, but my impression is that it's more a matter of vocabulary than grammar, and vocabulary is relativ
471.
by mcswell 2y ago
The LISP parser my co-worker built had the ability to encode in a grammar rule which "corner" to trigger that rule on. Often it was the head of the phrase, but it could be things like the word "and" (no need to trigger
472.
by mcswell 2y ago
I should have added, Pereira was (and is) a lot smarter than I am. He went on to do great things in computational linguistics, whereas I went on to do...smaller things.
473.
by mcswell 2y ago
"Like turning all the lights green at the same time": This was the theme of a scifi short story (later expanded into a book) back in the 1960s.
474.
by mcswell 2y ago
On Maryland Route 216 starting at the interchange just east of US 29 and going west through Fulton to Westside Blvd, there are four round-abouts within a distance of 0.8 miles. It feels like there are more, maybe because they're so ra
475.
by mcswell 2y ago
Around 1985, while I was working at the Artificial Intelligence Center of (the now defunct) Boeing Computer Services, I evaluated Fernando Pereira's NLP code written in Prolog for his dissertation (he was one of the authors of the refe
476.
by mcswell 2y ago
I get what you're saying, and it kind of strikes me that way too. But: many modern homes (mine included) have fake shutters on each side of the windows. Why? I guess it's just for looks, as very very few houses have functional
477.
by mcswell 2y ago
There is a story about a man who goes to a shop in the Soviet Union, and finds the shelves empty. "Don't you have any meat?" he asks the clerk. The clerk responds, "No, here we don't have any fish. The store that
478.
by mcswell 2y ago
Dan Gusfield wrote a book in 1997 entitled "Algorithms on strings, trees and sequences: Computer Science and Computational Biology". We (what was then the Center for Advanced Study of Language at the University of Maryland) found
479.
by mcswell 2y ago
Underground caves, like underground tunnels, are so much more interesting than the above-ground ones.
480.
by mcswell 2y ago
Sounds similar to s.t. I did. Did you do this on Windows or Linux?

More ›