netbooks

On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 09:24:12 -0700, Ken Blake
wrote:

On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:03:12 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

I'm good at languages (or was when I was younger), but still, my theory
is that all languages are difficult unless you're a native speaker,
i.e., learned it as a toddler.


Yes and no. A language that has either a grammar or a vocabulary (or
even better, both) that's similar to your native language is much
harder to learn

Ugh! Brain fart! I mean "easier," of course, not "harder."



than one that's very different. So as far as I'm
concerned, it's much easier for an English speaker to learn Dutch than
Hungarian. But if your native language is Finnish, it's probably the
other way around.



--
Ken Blake

--
Ken Blake

Ken Blake wrote:
On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:11:46 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

I have seen English majors who were superb programmers and newly minted
bachelors of Computer Science who had no idea what hexadecimal meant.


Ditto!

Using myself as an example, I was an English major (for at least part
of my college career; I graduated differently) and, if you will
forgive what sounds like boasting, I was a very good programmer (I
don't want to say I was a *superb* anything).



What's the largest program you wrote from scratch, in terms
of lines of source ?

The reason I ask, is I learned a valuable lesson about that,
when I was a teenager. The local university allowed high school
students to use the computer center on weekends. At first,
I thought I was God's gift to programming, when my 20 line
Fortran program would run first time. Then one day, I decided
to write a card game in Fortran. When I hit around 400 lines
of source or so, that's when I began to clue into the
"I really don't get this stuff" phase. Writing small programs
was easy, because they had no structure or organization to
worry about. The big program broke me. I learned a valuable
lesson, before even taking my first programming course.
(We were self-taught at that point.)

I've since written larger packages. But I wouldn't say it
was easy or I was good at it.

And for those of you thinking "I could do that", in my first
computer course, one of the students sitting next to me
had a conversation with the prof. And it was revealed that
the marks for the course, followed a "double camel hump" form.
Students either ended up knowing most of the material,
or next to none of the material. No student knew half the material.
Translated into English, you "either get it or don't get it",
when it comes to procedural programming. And no guarantees,
when the size of the program scales up.

The other test for you, is AI languages. I had an environment
set up for one of those (the AI language was written by our
own programmers). I wrote a simple "program", but I couldn't
figure out what constituted "output" from the program.
Pretty funny. My buddy said I had "Fortran brain damage", and
he was absolutely right :-) Some make the transition to
non-procedural languages with no problem, but I wasn't getting
it. So I ended up with some booleans set to either True or False.
I couldn't see the thing preparing a bank statement or anything.
The language did solve the 8 queens problem fairly rapidly though.
Complete with graphics.

Paul

tlvp has written on 2/21/2013 2:47 AM:
On Wed, 20 Feb 2013 17:30:35 -0500, Richard B. Gilbert wrote:

I reboot only when
my UPS's battery runs down and I'm forced to shut down.

Windows, Adobe, and Java updates don't intermittently *require* rebooting?
Or do you just not do those updates :-) ? Cheers, -- tlvp


Windows 7 and 8 do.

Chris S. has written on 2/21/2013 2:53 PM:

Bill, we talked about this in the past. My BS degree from Purdue (1962)
says "Electrical Engineer". That old... What University College of
Engineering did you obtain your degree? Just curious.

Huh! I was a TA in EE from 1957-1959! Maybe you were in one of my
classes!! (I was a terrible teacher back then! Taught the intro to
electromagnetic field theory class that was known as "my real name's
mystery hour"!!

On 2/22/2013 12:06 PM, Ken Blake wrote:
On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 09:24:12 -0700, Ken Blake
wrote:

On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:03:12 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

I'm good at languages (or was when I was younger), but still, my theory
is that all languages are difficult unless you're a native speaker,
i.e., learned it as a toddler.


Yes and no. A language that has either a grammar or a vocabulary (or
even better, both) that's similar to your native language is much
harder to learn

Ugh! Brain fart! I mean "easier," of course, not "harder."



than one that's very different. So as far as I'm
concerned, it's much easier for an English speaker to learn Dutch than
Hungarian. But if your native language is Finnish, it's probably the
other way around.



--
Ken Blake


Unless you are talking about, say Spanish and Latin.
I had serious troubles because I'd think of the Latin word instead of
the similar one in Spanish.

English is such a polyglot that German can be almost understandable to
an English speaking person. (With sometime hilarious results.)
Christmas Gift - Weihnacht Poison as an example (Sorry about that!)

"Juan Wei" wrote in message
...
Chris S. has written on 2/21/2013 2:53 PM:

Bill, we talked about this in the past. My BS degree from Purdue (1962)
says "Electrical Engineer". That old... What University College of
Engineering did you obtain your degree? Just curious.

Huh! I was a TA in EE from 1957-1959! Maybe you were in one of my
classes!! (I was a terrible teacher back then! Taught the intro to
electromagnetic field theory class that was known as "my real name's
mystery hour"!!

Could be Juan!

I was an entering freshman in 1957. I was 17 years old. Registered for the
draft
at the West Lafayette PO when I turned 18. Can't remember electromagnetic
field
theory per se, but guess I took it from someone! I was a DJ on the Purdue
Carrier Current radio station. "WCCR" was it?

Chris

On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 10:06:02 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 09:24:12 -0700, Ken Blake
wrote:

On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:03:12 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

I'm good at languages (or was when I was younger), but still, my theory
is that all languages are difficult unless you're a native speaker,
i.e., learned it as a toddler.

Yes and no. A language that has either a grammar or a vocabulary (or
even better, both) that's similar to your native language is much
harder to learn

Ugh! Brain fart! I mean "easier," of course, not "harder."

Damn! Before I read your correction, I thought you had proven my point!
:-)

I still maintain that any language is difficult for a non-native
speaker. You're just grading them along the axis of difficulty.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:45:34 -0500, charlie wrote:

On 2/22/2013 12:06 PM, Ken Blake wrote:
On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 09:24:12 -0700, Ken Blake
wrote:

On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:03:12 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

I'm good at languages (or was when I was younger), but still, my theory
is that all languages are difficult unless you're a native speaker,
i.e., learned it as a toddler.


Yes and no. A language that has either a grammar or a vocabulary (or
even better, both) that's similar to your native language is much
harder to learn

Ugh! Brain fart! I mean "easier," of course, not "harder."



than one that's very different. So as far as I'm
concerned, it's much easier for an English speaker to learn Dutch than
Hungarian. But if your native language is Finnish, it's probably the
other way around.



--
Ken Blake


Unless you are talking about, say Spanish and Latin.
I had serious troubles because I'd think of the Latin word instead of
the similar one in Spanish.

English is such a polyglot that German can be almost understandable to
an English speaking person. (With sometime hilarious results.)
Christmas Gift - Weihnacht Poison as an example (Sorry about that!)

What I'm about to say is bad for me because it leans toward agreeing
with Ken Blake's corrected post :-)

I recall reading a post in Dutch, and getting some idea what it meant
because I speak English and even had a year of German many years before.
Then I used BabelFish or Google to translate it. It ended up that I
understood the Dutch better than the translation.

One of my standard remarks goes like this: I am listening to the words
of an Armenian song, and I say "Why can't I understand this? It's just
another Indo-European language, f'gosh sakes".

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:45:34 -0500, charlie wrote:

Unless you are talking about, say Spanish and Latin.
I had serious troubles because I'd think of the Latin word instead of
the similar one in Spanish.

I have to add an anecdote here that came to mind after I wrote my other
reply.

I was at the DMV waiting (that's what one does there). Next to me was a
French woman; we chatted briefly (in English), and I learned that she
had some problem that required resolution. When she was called to the
window, I said "bonne sorte", to a blank look from her.

In Spanish, "luck" is "suerte"; I (weirdly and stupidly) converted that
to French in the obvious way, to her mystification. Later I recalled the
correct phrase, "bonne chance".

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On 2/20/2013 5:39 PM, Justin wrote:
Richard B. Gilbert wrote on [Wed, 20 Feb 2013 17:30:35 -0500]:
On 2/19/2013 9:06 PM, Justin wrote:
BillW50 wrote on [Tue, 19 Feb 2013 18:23:57 -0600]:
On 2/19/2013 5:49 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Tue, 19 Feb 2013 15:44:15 -0600, BillW50 wrote:

I have been waiting for Linux to catch up since '95. Sadly Linus
Torvalds, his father, and his sister even uses Windows. Only Linus'
mother uses Linux. That should tell you something right there.

His mother is the only smart one in the family?

Disclaimer: I use Windows :-)

I use both Linux and Windows. And Linux got to be the worst! The

Yes, Windows needs to be rebooted daily or weekly and sometimes Linux
needs to be rebooted annually


I have not found it so. Windows XP Service Pack 3 Has been running for
several years here. I can't claim that it works for the whole world

Since updates that require reboots comes out at least every two months,
either you are an irresponsible user or fibbing


I'm the owner and sole user of the system. My experience has been that
Microsoft updates create about as many new problems as they fix! I have
a system that has been running for several months. It works.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

I used to to do this for my living: Windows, Unix, IRIX, OpenVMS, and,
in the very distant past, IBM System/360 and IBM System/7. I'm sure
I've omitted two or three others.

If you install updates, you should be sure to to make a backup of any
and all your systems disks before doing so. Ideally you will have a
test system on which you will you will install the update(s) and run the
test system for a while.

On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:33:53 -0500, Paul wrote:

Up to a point. There is a legal definition as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_engineer

"Regulation and licensure in engineering is established by various
jurisdictions of the world to protect the ... interests of the general public"

Again, I think one can be an engineer without being a professional or
certified or licensed engineer...

I'm not sure that's true of mohels, however.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 09:31:13 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 09:44:11 -0600, Paul Miner
wrote:


I used to work with a guy who had a sign on his cubicle wall that said,
"Quick! What's 7 in hex?", and he'd get a kick out of people who stared at
the sign in obvious mental torture, trying to figure it out. Granted, these
weren't people who were expected to know, but it was still a bit comical.

I've never seen that one before, but it is funny.

That's one I've done to people, but most of my friends aren't mystified
by it, they just think I'm a dolt for thinking its funny. But I laughed
at Paul's post anyway :-)

Later, he changed to a new sign that I've since seen in multiple places,
"There are only 10 kinds of people: those who understand binary, and those
who don't." I imagine that one caused the same anguish.

Maybe it did a lot of years ago. But that one has become so common
that a lot of people must be able to understand it these days.

I can.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 09:28:41 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:11:46 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

I have seen English majors who were superb programmers and newly minted
bachelors of Computer Science who had no idea what hexadecimal meant.

Ditto!

Using myself as an example, I was an English major (for at least part
of my college career; I graduated differently) and, if you will
forgive what sounds like boasting, I was a very good programmer (I
don't want to say I was a *superb* anything).

Go ahead and say it - you haven't done much to disprove it here.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On 2/21/2013 2:47 AM, tlvp wrote:
On Wed, 20 Feb 2013 17:30:35 -0500, Richard B. Gilbert wrote:

I reboot only when
my UPS's battery runs down and I'm forced to shut down.

Windows, Adobe, and Java updates don't intermittently *require* rebooting?
Or do you just not do those updates :-) ? Cheers, -- tlvp


This is a personally owned system. I do not pay for software or
hardware support. What I have works. It HAS worked for a few years.

One of these days it it will need repairs and I'll probably just buy
a new one.

On 2/21/2013 11:33 PM, Paul wrote:
Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 16:46:18 -0500, Chris S. wrote:

"Chris S." wrote in message
...
.......... Lots of snippage.............
No not really. I went to school back in the mid-70's to become an
electronic engineer. I remember the instructor early on saying that
many would drop out. At first, that scared me because I thought
maybe I was wasting my time there. Later, it turned out
differently. Not only did I find it super easy, but I had the
highest tests scores they had in the last 5 years.

Later I needed programs that didn't exist at the time. Programming
was a lot like electronic engineering as it is all 1's and 0's at
the lowest level. The big difference was that programming lived in
RAM and not in the hardware (aka like ROM or hardware matrix, etc.).

I lived and breath this stuff back then. Thought about 24/7 and
even dreamt about it. I didn't really like programming too much, as
bug free code meant lots of caffeine and many nights with little or
no sleep. But it was something I was capable of doing.

There was one program I did write that I knew that had a bug. It
was actually a phone answering program. The bug was that it knew
the day that the phone call came in. But it didn't know if the day
changed after the call was completed (at automatically assumed it
was the same day). I planned to fix that one later and I never did.
I don't think many calls come in seconds before midnight anyway and
it wasn't a big priority at the time. But that is the only thing I
can think of that I should have fixed. Oh well, too late now and
nobody else caught that one either. ;-)

--
Bill
Motion Computing LE1700 Tablet ('09 era) - Thunderbird v12
Centrino Core2 Duo L7400 1.5GHz - 2GB RAM - Windows 7 Pro SP1 (x86)
Bill, we talked about this in the past. My BS degree from Purdue (1962)
says "Electrical Engineer". That old... What University College of
Engineering
did you obtain your degree? Just curious.

Chris
Bill,

Sorry, I accidentally deleted your response!

So you don't actually have a degree in engineering?
"Tested against civilian Engineers" seems vague.
All of my professional life I've come in contact with people
who call themselves "Engineers". It takes a BS degree
from an accredited School of Engineering. Sans that, you
are not.There are certainly a lot of talented Technicians out there.
But please, folks, don't call yourself an Engineer.

Chris

Well, in my view, an engineer is someone who does engineering. A
certified or credentialed engineer is someone who has a certificate or
credential in engineering.
And sometimes the former is better at it than the latter...

I have seen English majors who were superb programmers and newly minted
bachelors of Computer Science who had no idea what hexadecimal meant.


Up to a point. There is a legal definition as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_engineer

"Regulation and licensure in engineering is established by various
jurisdictions of the world to protect the ... interests of the general
public"

If mission critical infrastructure is involved, at least one
person in the organization has to be a P.Eng and have a stamp
to apply to the work. Basically signing off on the work of
other engineers who didn't bother becoming P.Engs.

When some kid climbs a fence, and gets electrocuted in
a substation, there is a scramble to find the design
document, and find the name of the P.Eng who signed off
on it. And at least a few times, the docs get shredded,
before the lawyers get there :-( So by all means,
claim to be an engineer, but remember to leave town
quickly, if there is trouble. Or have friends in
the shredder department.

Paul

Oh man! Are you way off the mark. Most companies will hire a trained
engineer from the military first vs. one with a civilian degree. I never
had a problem getting a electronic engineering job wherever I applied.
And I have worked for companies like Philips, Hitachi, Apple, etc. While
I do have all of my diplomas, all one really needs is your DD214 which
list your schools you graduated from.

You probably don't realize that most who signed up to be trained
electronic engineers in the military, never graduate. Only about 5% of
my original class ever graduated. The military doesn't screw around. If
you are not the cream of the crop, they will send you somewhere to do a
job that you can do well. Even if that means digging ditches.

When I volunteered to be tested against civilian EE grads, I was shocked
that most of them had problems even biasing a simple transistor
correctly. No wonder most companies will hire one with a military EE
degree over a civilian one.

--
Bill
Motion Computing LE1700 Tablet ('09 era) - Thunderbird v12
Centrino Core2 Duo L7400 1.5GHz - 2GB RAM - Windows 7 Pro SP1 (x86)