hsmyers

While I appreciated the article, another one of his caught my eye and I thoroughly enjoyed it: http://www.jefftk.com/p/teach-yourself-any-instrument

Has GCC got the necessary pragma foo to implement this?

It is usually against the rules to drool in libraries...

Can't step in the same river twice is true in all domains, not just software. Admittedly with some languages it is worse than others, assembler and APL come to mind but same truth still applies.

Excellent platform for fractal research. And trust me not all of those who search are academics :)

One of my favorite differences between my painting and my programming is that it is much easier to clean up my work space after programming---no brushes to clean :)

Need to import from feedly, any suggestions?

As a long time low level bit twiddler, I would have killed for this in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. It would have been my killer app :)

63. C Users Group Extended Precision package. Written on an 8 bit S-100 machine in BDS C (Brain Damage Software, Leor Zolman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDS_C). Late 70's early 80's.

Good start but a little shallow. Try 'Tolkien' or 'Lord of the Rings'...

I think (please check) that LuLu will convert a .pdf file into dead trees for you.

Anybody know if the sports writer is a rated chess player? While I don't particularly agree with the article it is at least interesting. From my perspective, the world championship is somewhat like the superbowl---if I like the opponents, I pay attention; else not. Should it be fixed? I think it better to spend time 'fixing' FIDE first, then returning to the layered approach of some decades back. Most of what many rated players that I talk/play with think the obvious corruption and manipulation need to go, but many point out that the bent politics is a tradition in of itself :)

While I've only been playing the game for 35 years, I didn't see anything to argue against.

Reasonable article. In support:

Joseph Campbell: "These bits of information from ancient times [myths], which have to do with the themes that have supported man's life, built civilizations, informed religions over the millennia, have to do with deep inner problems, inner mysteries, inner thresholds of passage. And if you don't know what the guide signs are along the way you have to work it out yourself. "

See http://www.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/perspectives1.html

Why is that when the government says "But, but computer!" judges abandon common sense and case law. Even when the tables are turned there is still an amazing amount of techno-ignorance in the process. Consider the long ago (tech time anyway) prosecution of Microsoft. The idiots in charge completely ignored their success with IBM and attacked via the browser vector. Andrew Schulman at the time of pre-trial investigation had three books entitled Undocumented this that and the other thing. Each should have been a successful blueprint in terms of anti competitive behavior. Had this and the browser been part of their war chest I think the result would have been considerably stronger (i.e. the bust them apart goal would have been reached) with a appropriately more useful public result. <end_of_slightly_off_topic_rant/>

Is there an award for oddest bedfellows? 'Cause this has got to be a real contender. I particularly like Hatch's bond mechanism as this will force the revelation of the money trail. And as every CSI show will tell you 'follow the money' is key to solving crime.

What ever the bill-payer wants.

As a painter I've been fanatically attached to the use of black probably longer than the article user has been alive. That said I say in his defense that there isn't a pure black available no matter what you do. Secondly a little goes a very long way and it is extremely easy for it to do a visual 'crash the party' on your design efforts so his cautions are right on the money. If anyone gives a damn, I've a painting gallery on my web site, http://www.sdragons.org to show what I mean by my own use of black. Warning, prolonged exposure may deepen existing depression :)

W00t indeed! +1 to you :)

Been an editor for quite a while---mostly to correct things. Could be typos, factual errors, errors of omission, normal editor kind of stuff for those categories I know well enough to do the job. I've rarely been involved in a disagreement and as I remember it all of those were resolved peaceably :) Funny that you should ask this as I just did an edit on the 4th Infantry page a few hours ago. You kind of have to be a little bit OCD for this kind of stuff, but as I am, no problem!

As an ex-bikie (I earned my disabled vet status and at 63 I'm reaping the 'benefits') this story resonates with me quite loudly. The idea of anonymous competition is one I've always craved in that I find actual competition painful for reasons I'm not clear on. So while Strava may be described as anti-social, I see that as a plus. Further I'd point out the subject of the article became quite competitive in the normal bikie fashion. Powerful article for those who think in similar fashion...

If version >= 5.10 you can drop the 'or die' and for that matter neither of the close statements are necessary(in any recent version).

I don't know if our aiming capability is accurate but it might be fun to send an un-armed(empty)ICBM to a farm field outside of Beijing...OTOH it would be very bad joss to off a farmer---decisions, decisions.

So you are suggesting that discrimination on skin color is complicated? That discrimination based on prospect is older the the person conducting the interview is not something you can just say avoid? That a woman wouldn't fit into your macho 'Brogrammer' culture? I'd go on but you seem to be a fan of very short sighted thinking.

Check that. I would like to suggest that wisdom from the prehistoric days of programming seems to fit best here: 'Use the right tool(individual) for the task' Nothing else is relevant. The only subject worthy of discussion in an interview is can they do the job. If the answer is yes then you can solve 'other' problems after they become a problem...

Is there an emoticon for head shake?

Long ago, there was music, call it pop. Much time passes and the same music is still played, but it has been renamed folk. Edison, got involved and the guy on the Martin discovered Fender so now they call it folk rock. Just to be clear, folk didn't go away, it is still around and thriving---fix your genres please :)

I don't see this as an 'anti' C or C++ article. I see it as an effort to explain (initially to himself) why the phenomena exists. Not sure I agree with all of it but being a C/C++ programmer on micro-computers from the very beginning, much of what is said resonates. I've pretty much be multi-lingual from my start with IBM360 BAL (the programmers version of 'been down so long everything looks like up :) ) That said when I was able to use C (actually a C subset called BDS C [yes BDS does stand for Brain Dead Software]) I immediately set aside PL1, Fortran, Pascal etc. Because I had found a HLA (High Level Assembler) and was as happy as a pig in mud (how happy is that?). That was in the beginning days of the S100 bus and therefore long ago. Since then I accumulated many languages, somethimes for the hell of it (it looked interested), sometimes because the client wished it and sometimes because it was clearly the right choice. The one pattern I've maintained over all of this time is to learn and test the language by writing a parser in it. Not a random one, but a particular problem I was deeply familiar with. The parsing of chess games. It usually winds up a middling tiny sized work of about a 1000 lines and when done I've a reasonable idea of the workings of the language and more importantly how hard it is to write parsers in. Why parsers? Because to paraphrase the wisdom of turtles, 'It's parsers all of the way down...'

This winds up being a windy version of 'I suppose I'll have to try go to see what's what'

One thing I've always wanted is to be able set a browser switch to delete any returns from EE. There probably is a way that I've been too distracted to find. BTW, my only reason for such dislike is the 'Ooh ooh---we've got the answer' behind our paywall. Just don't like paywalls...

I wonder if the proportion of 'students' of Musashi who use this phrase as a reason for no strategy at all is the same as the number of programmers who disdain optimization of any kind?

I'm lucky enough to still own and use what I've always held as the perfect keyboard---the OmniKey Ultra. Bought it new. It has never needed repair although it could stand a good cleaning---every now and then I clean the worst off with a paintbrush full of Fantastic :) I like its layout to the point of not liking any other. F1-F12 are in a double column at the left of the keyboard. SF1-SF12 are across the top. The cursor keys are in their own grid as are the number keys. The control key is where it belongs above the shift key on the left and to the right of the space bar otherwise. The alt keys are on the extreme right and left of the bottom row. It is heavier than the Atwood. The keys response and sound are very similar to the IBM keyboards---stiff and loud. I've been a touch typist since the early '60s and this is the keyboard for me. In order to balance my review, it is a little bit difficult for me to find the home keys since I suffer from diabetic neuropathy in my hands; been thinking about using some Sugru to provide a bit more feedback. But that is my only quibble. Oh and the fact that they are no longer manufactured <sigh/>