>> It still slightly frightens me that Haskell is actually this old... 
>> Just think how much better the world could be today if its ideas had 
>> caught on back then?
> 
> A lot of the stuff you take for granted wasn't possible back then.
> 
> It's like "how much cooler would movies be if the ideas behind modern 
> GPUs caught on back when we were still using discrete transistors and 
> core memory?"

A GPU isn't much use without the ability to actually display the image 
it produces. (Hell, they didn't even have enough memory to implement a 
framebuffer. You'd have to print the image on to film incrimentally or 
something.) And given that they also didn't have colour TV yet... or 
even colour film, IIRC...

A paradigm for writing mathematical transformations, however, would seem 
useful no matter how slow the system is. (Although compiling the sucker 
might take a while.)

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>> Yes, typically the record structure is defined in an include file, 
>> much like C.
> 
> Heh. More like a COBOL file division. ;-)
> 
> "Hand me the stack of cards for the payroll file definition."

Suddenly Pascal makes so much more sense... o_O

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>>> Yes. That's why DEL is up at 127. Think about it.
>>
>> Oh... oh dear god. You *are* kidding me, right??
> 
> He is not. It the smart thing to do. Is it not?

Chances of making the new holes line up with the existing ones? Minimal. :-S

> Oh! on second thoughts you could glue the chad back into the holes. :-P

Or just, say, print a new card? :-P

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>>> Yes. That's why DEL is up at 127. Think about it.
>>
>> Oh... oh dear god. You *are* kidding me, right??
> 
> He is not. It the smart thing to do. Is it not?

But the really scary part, of course, is that today, 60 years later, the 
DEL code-point is *still defined* and still has the same value. WTF is 
up with *that*?!

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scott wrote:
>>  Then why are you using the American billion above?
> 
> Because he doesn't realise he is using the same billions as America (as 
> have the rest of the UK for a few decades now).

More exactly, I didn't realise that that is how Wolfram Alpha would 
interpret it.

> I wonder if there are actually any English-speaking countries that use 1 
> billion = 1e12?  If you see "billion" written (in English) then you can 
> probably assume it is 1e9.

I always assumed that 1 billion = 1 million million.

The solution, of course, is to simply never use the word "billion". Then 
there can be no ambiguity. (Possibly the one and only grammar suggestion 
from MS Word that actually makes sense...)

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On 19/05/2010 9:13 AM, Invisible wrote:
>
> Chances of making the new holes line up with the existing ones? Minimal.
> :-S

I would say 100%

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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On 19/05/2010 9:17 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>>> Yes. That's why DEL is up at 127. Think about it.
>>>
>>> Oh... oh dear god. You *are* kidding me, right??
>>
>> He is not. It the smart thing to do. Is it not?
>
> But the really scary part, of course, is that today, 60 years later, the
> DEL code-point is *still defined* and still has the same value. WTF is
> up with *that*?!

Why not, what would you suggest?


-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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>> But the really scary part, of course, is that today, 60 years later, the
>> DEL code-point is *still defined* and still has the same value. WTF is
>> up with *that*?!
> 
> Why not, what would you suggest?

Firstly I would suggest that we no longer _need_ character encodings for 
*control codes*. But more importantly, I would suggest that we shouldn't 
still be using 60-year old technology.

But hey, who gives a fig what *I* think?

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>> Because he doesn't realise he is using the same billions as America (as 
>> have the rest of the UK for a few decades now).
>
> More exactly, I didn't realise that that is how Wolfram Alpha would 
> interpret it.

Why not?  As UK and USA both use 1 billion = 1e9, it makes perfect sense for 
an English website to use that.

> I always assumed that 1 billion = 1 million million.

You assumed incorrectly.  Whenever you see "billion" mentioned in the UK it 
means 1e9.  For example in this news article from BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8686822.stm

The "59bn euro" means 59e9 euro.  Ditto for all other places "bn" or 
"billion" is mentioned.  The universe is also 13.7 bn years old, that means 
13.7e9 years old.  Note in some languages/countries they have two separate 
words for 10e9 and 10e12, so there is no such confusion.

> The solution, of course, is to simply never use the word "billion". Then 
> there can be no ambiguity.

Or just be aware that in some places (but not UK or USA) "billion" (or a 
word sounding like it) might have the alternative meaning.

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On 19/05/2010 9:50 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>> But the really scary part, of course, is that today, 60 years later, the
>>> DEL code-point is *still defined* and still has the same value. WTF is
>>> up with *that*?!
>>
>> Why not, what would you suggest?
>
> Firstly I would suggest that we no longer _need_ character encodings for
> *control codes*. But more importantly, I would suggest that we shouldn't
> still be using 60-year old technology.
>

How long have we been using levers, wheels, pulleys etc.? Do you think 
we should change everything every ten years or so.


> But hey, who gives a fig what *I* think?

Well it is up to you to make suggestions that are worth listening to.


-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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