[OT] Indian C programmers and "u"

[Floyd Davidson]

Reading a dictionary is not enough. Understanding grammar is necessary
as well. If you think that "good" in "John looks good" is an adverb then
you are clueless.

"John looks..." doesn't describe an action of John, it describes his
appearance.

It describes what he is doing, rather than defining what he is.
"John is good." shows no action. "John looks good." does.

It is not a linking verb, the following modifier is an adverb.

 

[Nils Petter Vaskinn]

In <[email protected]> "Nils Petter


You know, Google works for non-C topics, too...

I didn't search because I assumed that it was a typo that the word
"radioactive" was in there (I know that coal pollutes more, but I didn't
know it involved radiation). We all know what the children of assumption
are

OK, how many kWh are *you* planning to spare per day starting right now?
And how?

How? I don't really know, as always it's more comfortable to be general
and talk about what "people" should do and not what _I_ should do.

But the fact is that if the population of the worlds poorer countries were
to use as much energy as the population of the rich countries earth would
become uninhabitable really fast. So the people of the rich countries have
a resonsibility to reduce their resource usage.

Personally I don't think that nuclear power is that bad compared to fossil
fuel based power which is a larger problem for the environment, at least
right now.

So what could I do:
- Quit taking unnessesarily long showers just because I like hot water.
- Wear a wool sweater and turn the heat down.
- Turn off the lights when I leave.
- Turn off my computer when I leave.
- Use clothes longer, reducing power for washing them.
- Turn off the TV and read a book instead.
- Insulate my house better.
- Switch to a heat exchanger (is that the english word? I'm thinking of the
thing like a refridgerator backwards that cools outside air to give the
inside more heat per W than plain old electrical ovens) even though they're
really expensive (but pay off in the long term)


Things "people" might do:
- All of the above.
- Turn the Air Conditioning down.
- Turn stuff off when they're not using it.

Reducing usage of fossil fuels is comparatively easy:
- Bus/Train
- Fuel efficient cars instead of huge SUVs

 

[Nils Petter Vaskinn]

Sorry, but this is idealistic bullshit. To win a modern war, you have to
destroy the economic potential of your opponent. How do you propose to do
that while preserving the lives of the civilians?

You bomb the factories instead of the homes of the people working in them.

Both Nagasaki and
Hiroshima were economically significant. If the USA simply wanted to
maximise the civilian death count, Tokio would have been the ideal
target.

So it's wan't about maximizing the civilian deaths but about estimating
how many civilians would be _enough_ to make them surrender?

Why would I want to keep fighting a war that I cannot win?

Because somtimes surrendering is worse, it all comes down to how you think
the winner will behave after the surrender. Beeing capable of nuking a
city doesn't inspire confidence.

Thirst for revenge plays no role in modern warfare, which is not a
kindergarten game.

What do you think the background is for the whole mess in the middle east?

 

[Christian Bau]

It describes what he is doing, rather than defining what he is.
"John is good." shows no action. "John looks good." does.

It is not a linking verb, the following modifier is an adverb.

John is happy.
John stays happy.
John becomes happy.
John appears happy.
John seems happy.
John looks happy.

All the same thing, they describe John. Use an adjective.

John looks happily out of the window.

Different thing, John acts. Use an adverb.

John looks happy in the mirror.
(The image of John that I can see in the mirror shows a happy person).
John looks happily into the mirror.
(John directs his open eyes onto the mirror, and smiles while doing
this).

 

[J. J. Farrell]

You are citing the English language equivalent of Schildt. Burn,
baby, burn.

Careful - you're getting dangerously close to being on-topic.

 

[Richard Bos]

I've no doubt about the Zero being invented by our ancestors.
Indians developed not only the zero, they also found the positional decimal
number system, the decimal point, algebra, arithmetic, most of the astronomy,
and many other scientific systems and sub-systems.

For values of "Indian" that include "Babylonian" and "Egyptian",
perhaps.

I agree with you. Oh c'mon! we're programmers not pirates.
But then, I'm forced to think of C.
C is an alphabet, not a word.

Letter, ISYM.

What does it mean, by the way?
Nothing.

I remember a friend telling me that 'C' stood for 'Compiler' or 'Compiled'.
I had a hard time making him understand that it was a mere hack. That it came
after B. Now the million dollar question is, why isn't someone asking the C
committee to explain what C stands for? LISP, Fortran, APL, PL/1, BCPL and even
the pitiful BASIC ...are all abbreviations. Ada, Pascal, Python, Java etc. are
names. I mean, someone should explain the choice of 'hackish' names like B, C
and C++.

Of course not! C is much more l33t than all those managers' and armchair
programmers' languages - it doesn't _need_ an expansion!

Richard

 

[CBFalconer]

.... snip ...

My workspace is roughly 50ft x 50ft (2500 sq ft) or 16m x 16m
(256 sq m) and this fall I designed, built, and installed passive
solar heating panels to provide all of the heat it needs.

The space is used to manufacture high-efficiency passive solar
heating panels using (relatively) energy-efficient robotics -
controlled by software generated by my own /C/ programs.

Great. Does that mean you survived the Reagan extermination of
solar? Are you into power generation at all, or just heating.

 

[Floyd Davidson]

John is happy.
John stays happy.
John becomes happy.
John appears happy.
John seems happy.
John looks happy.

John looks well today.

Adverb.

John looks good today.

Same.

John is good today.

Adjective.

 

[carl mcguire]

You bomb the factories instead of the homes of the people working in them.




So it's wan't about maximizing the civilian deaths but about estimating
how many civilians would be _enough_ to make them surrender?




Because somtimes surrendering is worse, it all comes down to how you think
the winner will behave after the surrender. Beeing capable of nuking a
city doesn't inspire confidence.




What do you think the background is for the whole mess in the middle east?

Nils, firstly, can, you stop doing _that_ please? It's worse than using u.

Now, if the USA wanted to maximise civilian casualties, as Dan said,
Tokyo would be the ideal target. Why do you then ask him about the
thought processes that were involved when selecting the actual targets,
how the heck should he know? It you are _that_ interested, dig out the
info yourself. You seem to be using your prejudices acquired from recent
US conflicts to comment on the actions of the allied forces in WWII,
that seems wrong to me when you have shown no actual understanding of
the true horror or scale of WWII.

We (the British) were in the middle of a fully fledged war, way before
the US got involved. There had been _high_ civilian casualties on both
sides, it might shock you to hear that laser guided missiles weren't
being used in 1939. Look up "The Blitz" and "Doodlebug" in your history
book.

You should also look up the conditions in which allied prisoners were
being held, and the way they were treated by the Japanese. It makes
Guantanamo look like a holiday resort. Course, you will also be an
expert on this too _right_? The way the Japanese were treating prisoners
hardly inspired confidence in them either. I think we can be thankful
that they didn't actually win.

You also seem to have a full understanding of the current Middle East
situation (amongst other things). Could you detail this please as there
are several million of us, including some national leaders, that aren't
aware of _all_ the issues you seem to be such an expert on.

 

[Dan Pop]

I can't resist.

My workspace is roughly 50ft x 50ft (2500 sq ft) or 16m x 16m
(256 sq m) and this fall I designed, built, and installed passive
solar heating panels to provide all of the heat it needs.

The space is used to manufacture high-efficiency passive solar
heating panels using (relatively) energy-efficient robotics -
controlled by software generated by my own /C/ programs.

Is this the kind of thing you had in mind?

BTW, I /don't/ drive an SUV.

If you drive any kind of car, this will render all your savings described
above insignificant. Furthermore, depending on your actual location,
the passive solar heating panels may fail to provide all the needed heat
on cold and cloudy days. What do you plan to do on such days?

Dan

 

[Dan Pop]

But the fact is that if the population of the worlds poorer countries were
to use as much energy as the population of the rich countries earth would
become uninhabitable really fast. So the people of the rich countries have
a resonsibility to reduce their resource usage.

Nope, they consume what *they* produce, just as the people of the poorer
contries. Should the people of the rich countries also starve, because
there isn't enough food to (properly) feed the whole world?

Personally I don't think that nuclear power is that bad compared to fossil
fuel based power which is a larger problem for the environment, at least
right now.

So what could I do:
- Quit taking unnessesarily long showers just because I like hot water.
- Wear a wool sweater and turn the heat down.
- Turn off the lights when I leave.
- Turn off my computer when I leave.
- Use clothes longer, reducing power for washing them.
- Turn off the TV and read a book instead.
- Insulate my house better.
- Switch to a heat exchanger (is that the english word? I'm thinking of the
thing like a refridgerator backwards that cools outside air to give the
inside more heat per W than plain old electrical ovens) even though they're
really expensive (but pay off in the long term)


Things "people" might do:
- All of the above.
- Turn the Air Conditioning down.
- Turn stuff off when they're not using it.

In the real world, people won't do any of the above, unless constrained.
Most likely, neither would you ;-)

Reducing usage of fossil fuels is comparatively easy:
- Bus/Train
- Fuel efficient cars instead of huge SUVs

Even fuel efficient cars are much less efficient than public
transportation.

An interesting idea is using fuel cells and getting the necessary H and O
by exploiting the solar energy on the sunniest spots of the planet. The
technology is well proven (the Apollo missions used fuel cells as their
DC power supply). But people won't bother, as long as oil is still
available at reasonable prices.

Dan

 

[Dan Pop]

You bomb the factories instead of the homes of the people working in them.

Until very recently, this was technically impossible.

So it's wan't about maximizing the civilian deaths but about estimating
how many civilians would be _enough_ to make them surrender?

Nope, it's about estimating what kind of damage would be enough to make
them surrender. And if they don't surrender, to be sure that the damages
to the enemy economy have made the exercise worthwhile.

Because somtimes surrendering is worse, it all comes down to how you think
the winner will behave after the surrender. Beeing capable of nuking a
city doesn't inspire confidence.

Surrendering is also unavoidable and anyone responsible should assess the
costs of postponing it. The A bombs merely suggested that the costs would
be even higher and made immediate surrendering look like the optimal
option of the Japanese. They really saved a lot more lives than they
destroyed.

What do you think the background is for the whole mess in the middle east?

The artificial creation of the Israel state by the USA, back in the late
forties. But I'm not convinced at all that, if that didn't happen, the
middle east would be now a place of peace and harmony.

Dan

 

[Alan Balmer]

I agree with you. Oh c'mon! we're programmers not pirates.
But then, I'm forced to think of C.
C is an alphabet, not a word. What does it mean, by the way?

"C", in this context, is a name, and need not have a meaning. Just as
"Balmer" or "Singh" is a name, and need not have a meaning in order to
serve its purpose.

 

[gokrix]

Well based on his name (wich sounds like a scandinavian male name) and the
fact that the majority of programmers are male it's safe to assume that
_parts_ of Joona are indeed kloots, so you (probably) didn't say anything
untrue.

I was addressing the part of his anatomy with which he thinks..

Thanks,
--GS

 

[Morris Dovey]

Great. Does that mean you survived the Reagan extermination of
solar? Are you into power generation at all, or just heating.

I designed and built my first solar collector in 1973; but during
most of the Reagan years I was too busy traveling and writing
firmware for new product development to do much building.

Later (in the 1980's) I solar-heated my rural Minnesota home
(with an LPG [liquified petroleum gas] stove backup) but couldn't
afford an adequate wind generation system. At that time the
CDC/Jacobs wind generator, installed, cost about US$20K, with
significant add-on for batteries, inverter, transfer switch, etc.

My present location has enough year-round wind to provide
electrical power; but is located in an aircraft hanger - and
absolutely no one would look kindly on my installing a generator
in close proximity to the airport's flight pattern. I did spot a
pair of (used) Danish megawatt wind generators for sale on the
web for $18K each; and if I move the shop I'll definitely
re-visit the wind power option.

The current panels are designed to provide a maximum discharge
temperature of 175ºF. They're mounted vertically to produce a
minimum of heat at summer solstice (think critical angle) and
maximum heat at winter solstice. Snow on the ground boosts
performance significantly by reflecting additional energy into
the heat exchanger.

I'm not really an alternative energy fanatic; but I am /very/
interested in the possibilities. There are situations where solar
heating is reasonable and others where it isn't. This fall Iowans
were warned that heating costs might double or even triple this
winter - and it seemed like a good time to prepare to make these
collectors available to farmers - most of whom use either #2
diesel fuel or LPG for heating - and many of whom would simply
not be able to pay the triple price.

After a career of (mostly) developing high-tech control systems
for others, I'm having a lot of fun building a self-regulating,
no moving parts, low-technology (if you're willing to ignore the
thermodynamics, heat-transfer, fluid dynamics, etc. efforts) product.

Actually, the most difficult and interesting part of the whole
project has been a global search for suppliers of the best/right
materials: special insulated glazing material from a Dutch
company, extruded aluminum from the US and Taiwan, stainless
steel hardware from China, and wood from Sweden, Thailand, and
the US. When I embarked on this project I never even suspected
that I'd be shipping stuff from all over the world to use in my
tiny factory.

BTW, finding good wood is much more of a problem than I'd
expected - and I suspect that globally we've seriously
over-harvested our trees.

 

[Morris Dovey]

If you drive any kind of car, this will render all your
savings described above insignificant. Furthermore, depending
on your actual location, the passive solar heating panels may
fail to provide all the needed heat on cold and cloudy days.
What do you plan to do on such days?

Without public transportation, I'd have to drive the car anyway.

You're absolutely right. We do have cold, dark days and on such
days the shop does get chilly. If it's a busy period, heat from
the tools and fleece pullovers are usually adequate. If it's not
a busy period, everybody gets a day off - we declare a "dark"
holiday and stay home.

If/when this mode doesn't work well for us, I'll install a backup
heating system (there's a natural gas supply line running up to
the building ready for connection). We haven't yet experienced
the schedule pressures which might make that necessary - so we
just keep that option "on the shelf". It seems better to rely on
the product we sell to maintain our motivation for continuous
improvement.

A solar heating panel is nothing more than a radiation trap - the
comfort level in the shop depends very much more on the
brightness of the day than on the outside temperature. A bright
hazy day still allows the collectors to provide plenty of heat;
and in this region the coldest temperatures tend to come with the
clear skies accompanying the high pressure "bubbles" (nicknamed
"Alberta clippers") that the jet stream brings down from the
Arctic. Since clear skies deliver more solar radiation we stay
warm inside on the coldest days.

Actually, the idea of staying home on the relatively few cold,
dark days seems particularly agreeable.

 

[Slartibartfast]

(e-mail address removed) (Dan Pop) wrote in message

The point is that there is no consensus on the issue.
What one dictionary considers slang, other considers normal usage. Which
is unsurprising, considering the differences between British English and
American English (my quotes are from the Web interface of the
Merriam-Webster).

Now, find a single well reputed dictionary describing "u" as a normal
alternative to "you" and you may have a valid point.

I don't have to - you've already made the case for me. As you said
above, UseNet is an *informal* medium and, as such, the *only* issue
is whether or not the message is intelligible (assuming it's not
actually offensive, that is). I don't for one second believe that you
or anybody else will fail to understand a message because its author
wrote "u" instead of "you".

The only complaints have been concerned with style - that certain
abbreviations "look silly" or do not conform to some arbitrary rule.
The former is ridiculous and irrelevant. The latter might be a valid
argument if it were applied consistently - but it is not. What is or
is not acceptable varies from one complainant to another and depends
on little more than personal preference.

There is even an example, elsewhere in this thread, of somebody
objecting to the use of characters bracketing words for emphasis, like
*this* or _this_, fer chrissakes.

 

[Dan Pop]

Actually, the idea of staying home on the relatively few cold,
dark days seems particularly agreeable.

I'd love it, given how common they are over here, during the cold season.

Dan

 

[Dan Pop]

(e-mail address removed) (Dan Pop) wrote in message


I don't have to - you've already made the case for me. As you said
above, UseNet is an *informal* medium and, as such, the *only* issue
is whether or not the message is intelligible (assuming it's not
actually offensive, that is).

Being an informal medium is not the same as everything goes. See below.

I don't for one second believe that you
or anybody else will fail to understand a message because its author
wrote "u" instead of "you".

No one ever claimed that such posts are unintelligible, merely that they
are less intelligible than they should be. And that is not to the
advantage of the respective posters.

The only complaints have been concerned with style - that certain
abbreviations "look silly" or do not conform to some arbitrary rule.
The former is ridiculous and irrelevant. The latter might be a valid
argument if it were applied consistently - but it is not. What is or
is not acceptable varies from one complainant to another and depends
on little more than personal preference.

Wrong. Over time (c.l.c was not born yesterday) each community develops
its own rules as well as inheriting others from the larger community to
which it belongs. Such rules are a lot more than anyone's personal
preference.

Dan

 

[Morris Dovey]

I'd love it, given how common they are over here, during the cold season.

Ok. You're invited. Tell 'em you'll be back (or not) in Spring.

My invitation is sincere - but is (obviously) of questionable
practicality. If this kind of thing appeals to you, then why not
start your own business closer to home and family? If you're
really interested in solar panel production, I'd be glad to help
you get started.