todd8

13 ms·

61.
by todd8 3y ago
In these cases, bus vs cruise vehicles, the bus is often helpless to fix the problem, and a stalemate ensues. As I understand it, bus drivers in SF are not allowed to backup without the presence of a supervisor (it makes sense that you&#x27
62.
by todd8 3y ago
Yes absolutely, I was just pointing out that there were in those days people still committed to bottom up parsing despite the advantages of top down approaches. The bottom up parsing with LR parsers that I was familiar with always used a ta
63.
by todd8 3y ago
Compilers used to be my favorite subject in CS (circa 1975) and back then I never saw a single case where lexing was handled in the parser. A few factors back then may have been responsible for this. First memory was very limited by todays
64.
by todd8 3y ago
The comments here are interesting, lots of possibilities for other ur-languages. My suggestion is macro based languages. Macro based programming predates all programming languages other than ASM[1]. The simple macro systems, like early asse
65.
by todd8 3y ago
There's a lot of speculation about the approach used by this book to teach programming. It's the book that my own daughter used as a freshman in college. It was her first programming class, and she ended up deciding to major in CS
66.
by todd8 3y ago
I was thinking Zangarmarsh from World of Warcraft.
67.
by todd8 3y ago
You’re right! I start thinking about my collection of laptops and amended my comment above.
68.
by todd8 3y ago
I do this all the time. Out of a dozen laptops around here (Apple, Dell, Lenovo) none have broken over the years. I usually just outgrow them, or the batteries lose their ability to hold a charge. Thinking about this, I realize that all of
69.
by todd8 3y ago
This has happened to me twice at brick at mortar stores. Now, I open packages before I check out where practical (like over the counter at a camera store) or as soon as I exit the store otherwise. In one case, at Best Buy, I purchased a cam
70.
by todd8 3y ago
Personally, I wouldn't count on it, see: [1] Metal Attraction: An Ironclad Solution to Arsenic Contamination? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1257624/
71.
by todd8 3y ago
Unfortunately, a lifetime in the U.S. has left me with poor intuition for Celsius. The conversion isn't difficult to do in ones head and for laboratory work, naturally, it's just as easy to read one thermometer scale as another. F
72.
by todd8 3y ago
I adopted two tools early on and have used them for decades: Emacs and LaTeX/TeX. Both are programmable and have an amazing set of available extensions that enhance their use. As a computer scientist it’s easy to spend time tweaking ei
73.
by todd8 3y ago
In my experience, LaTeX has the advantage of being able to handle even very complex documents and books. LaTeX can be challenging to master, but in return it can produce amazing results. See some of the references below. In particular take
74.
by todd8 3y ago
I learned APL on an IBM 2741 terminal[1], a terminal kind of like a teletype but with a Selectric typewriter attached to it for the keyboard and typing mechanism. This APL360 system had APL particular and idiosyncratic symbols on each of th
75.
The R programming language: The good, the bad, and the ugly(epatters.org)
2 points by todd8 3y ago|0 comments
76.
by todd8 3y ago
An endowed public library changed my life. The McGregor Public Library in Highland Park Michigan was close to my Junior High School. I grew up in central Detroit a few miles from downtown. The neighborhood was rough and having been assaulte
77.
by todd8 3y ago
In grad school in the 80’s I used Emacs. At home around 1984 I got my first PC running MSDOS. For years I used a commercial product that used Emacs keybindings (Epsilon) because Emacs wouldn’t run on my PC. When I went to work at IBM I was
78.
by todd8 3y ago
I believe it is my comment that you find distasteful. Please reread my post, I didn’t intend it to be dismissive of the Inuit culture. I even stated that these new numeral glyphs should be included in Unicode. I believe this aids in preserv
79.
by todd8 3y ago
I dislike these pseudo-scientific claims about alternative number systems and methods of paper and pencil arithmetic: > Because of the tally-inspired design, arithmetic using the Kaktovik numerals is strikingly visual. Addition, subtract
80.
by todd8 3y ago
I've seen Uni-ball 207 recommended too. I also have some Mont Blanc fountain pen ink that claims to forgery resistant (meeting ISO 14145-2) that I've used to for check writing. Here's a YouTube video about the subject [1]. No
81.
by todd8 3y ago
In the early 1900s, three Japanese fountain pen companies were founded: Sailor (1911), Namiki (1918), and Platinum (1919). Namiki changed its name to Pilot in the 1930s, but some Pilot pens are still sold under the Namiki brand. I have pens
82.
by todd8 3y ago
Featured in this list are two of my favorite fountain pens, the Pilot Vanishing Point and the Lamy 2000. Both of these in my collection write very well and both have unique and interesting designs. The Pilot Vanishing Point doesn't nee
83.
by todd8 3y ago
According to the featured article, the Julia programming language is going to be used for a new and better climate model.
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Computing our climate future 2022(news.mit.edu)
4 points by todd8 3y ago|1 comments
85.
by todd8 3y ago
Slide rules are good for only around 3 significant digits, just a little more than most people’s mental math for multiplication. However, slide rules include scales for squares, cubes, trig, exponential, log functions and others. All of th
86.
by todd8 3y ago
Between 1963 and 1965, I had a good paper route (i.e. a set of customers to which I delivered newspapers each morning before school). I found myself flush with cash. I can’t remember exactly, but I think I was paid around $7 per week. I bo
87.
by todd8 4y ago
I once wrote a Boot loader for a minicomputer that had a card reader. One card holds 80 chars and a physical buttons on the machine would load those bytes into low memory and set the program counter to the address of the first byte. I could
88.
by todd8 4y ago
Solar power isn't available 24 hours per day so the LCOE (levelized cost of energy) for solar is claimed be be between $59 to $91 per MWh, see [1], lets say $75/MWh, already higher than the article's $60/MWh cost for nuc
89.
by todd8 4y ago
Interesting, much cheaper than solar.
90.
by todd8 4y ago
Fascinating. I was just a kid in 1964 when I learned about fluidics. My December issue of Scientific American had an article on fluidics featured on the cover and I always wondered why there never seemed to be any applications of the device

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