On 16/12/2025 20:02, rbowman wrote:
On Tue, 16 Dec 2025 10:33:16 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/12/2025 08:06, rbowman wrote:
The finest politicians that money can buy watched it all happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QAKz_cxTlQ
I'd never heard of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLOLKvSmjAk
That's more my speed.
They are a couple of Dutch girls who loved the Beatles so much they
moved to Liverpool and started doing Beatles covers.
The point of the article is that every single historian poll has Trump
ranked in the bottom two. The sienna study actually shows how each is
rated based on a dozen or so factors.
On 2025-12-15 10:38, Johnny Billquist wrote:
So, you can see that even some font selections creeped in to Unicode,
as well as rendering of things in bold or italic. And all kind of other
crazy variants and details.
Searching for a "similar or equivalent" string must be a bitch.
On Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:57:57 +0000, mm0fmf wrote:
On 14 Dec 2025 11:56:42 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
My issues with python are:
- It's using indentations, so when I comment a block of code to see
''' and ''' are your friend
Unless the block has triply-quoted strings inside it ...
On Tue, 16 Dec 2025 05:54:30 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-12-15, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Mon, 15 Dec 2025 18:34:39 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 12/12/2025 19:26, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 12 Dec 2025 11:54:38 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
That will change in 4 tears time.
Was that a typo or a subtle statement of the conditions?
Freudian slip.
IN my 75 years I have never seen political leaders more incompetent
and yet with greater power to do harm, than now.
And that is in almost every country.
The times have changed. But the politics have not. Yet.
Perhaps it was youthful naivete but I remember the JFK years with the
'best and the brightest' with some fondness. Then the music died. I
recovered some hope with Reagan but it's been downhill from there.
Downhill, hell, more like off a cliff.
+1
IMHO the 1980s marked the start of the great decline, evidenced by the
rise of the Me Generation and the re-definition of greed as a virtue.
As for the 21st century...
I see the watershed as the '73 oil embargo followed by the stagflation.
Many industries had renewed their physical plant during WWII and the machinery was nearing the end of its service life. Fledgling robotics and more sophisticated automation promised the new generation of machinery
would increase productivity.
Then the apple cart was upset.
My sister made a very good living out of translating Spanish, Greek
English, German, Italian and French documents one to another for IIRC
NATO, but the EU is the same.
As we say 'Costa Packet'
All paid for by the good citizens .
I was interested in Forth in the early days because it seemed like a
solution for systems with very limited resources. The interpreter is (I believe) quite small, and your application can be built up from just the words you need with no added cruft. That was the attraction of C for me
back then, too. Unfortunately C gave up the idea of being a small
language and has ballooned and become less clear and readable.
However it SHOULD be viewed in context. The total economic mess left
by Carter and the OPEC embargoes left manufacturers in a tight spot.
They were afraid to 'invest in America' and also had less money to
invest.
On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 01:09:03 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/12/2025 20:02, rbowman wrote:
On Tue, 16 Dec 2025 10:33:16 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/12/2025 08:06, rbowman wrote:
The finest politicians that money can buy watched it all happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QAKz_cxTlQ
I'd never heard of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLOLKvSmjAk
That's more my speed.
They are a couple of Dutch girls who loved the Beatles so much they
moved to Liverpool and started doing Beatles covers.
Sort of related I see where the Stones canceled their 2026 tour. Richards
is finally slowing down. They played here a few years ago but I didn't go. Some things are better remembered as they used to be.
On Tue, 16 Dec 2025 21:45:42 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:57:57 +0000, mm0fmf wrote:
On 14 Dec 2025 11:56:42 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
My issues with python are:
- It's using indentations, so when I comment a block of code to see
''' and ''' are your friend
Unless the block has triply-quoted strings inside it ...
Yeah, well. I've been burned more than once by someone who added
/* stupid comment */
someplace west of the 80th column in the code.
In alt.folklore.computers Johnny Billquist <bqt@softjar.se> wrote:
<snip>
The biggest problem I have with any Unicode representation except (I
think) UTF-32 is that a program has no way of knowing how long a string
is without encoding/decoding it. Given a string of characters in some
codepage, how many bytes does it occupy when converted to UTF-8? Given a >>> UTF-8 character string, how many character positions does it occupy,
say, for example, when displayed on a screen?
True. However, that has nothing to do with Unicode as such, but the
UTF-8 encoding of it.
Unicode has combining "characters", so to know how many "real"
character you have you need to combine. IIUC for Korean Hangul
character can be buit from 3 separate pieces, each taking one code
point, but also there are "precomposed" combinations taking a
single code point. My reading of description is that 3 pieces
version and precomposed one are supposed to display the same.
There are also code point for ligatures, for most puproses ligature
fi' counts as two characters, but is a single code point. Terminal
may display it in a single cell, but arguably for noice monspaced
display one should expand ligatures. For display we have single
cell characters and double width one, so to know width one needs
at least table giving width of codepoint and add widths of all
codepoints.
On Tue, 16 Dec 2025 10:18:12 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Russia is on its knees.
How many more Paras are wandering around the Ukraine? All advisors, I'm sure.
On Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:47:00 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
He also conducted meetings while sitting on the shitter and defecating.
You've never carefully avoided flushing while on some cellphone
conference? I think LBJ did it in person though.
On Tue, 16 Dec 2025 23:15:50 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:
The point of the article is that every single historian poll has Trump
ranked in the bottom two. The sienna study actually shows how each is
rated based on a dozen or so factors.
You don't know how much better a Sienna study makes me feel. I grew up
about 6 miles from Sienna as the crow flies and a couple of my cousins
went there. You know how Wikipedia articles on colleges often have a 'Notable alumni' section? Even Saint Rose has one and they couldn't even keep the doors open.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_of_Saint_Rose
On Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:47:00 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
He also conducted meetings while sitting on the shitter and defecating.
You've never carefully avoided flushing while on some cellphone
conference? I think LBJ did it in person though.
On 15/12/2025 22:40, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 15 Dec 2025 18:38:21 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
But you only have to look at the EU region's national GDPs to see that
Britain is doing no worse and in many cases a lot better, than the rest
of Europe.
It helps that Germany seems dead set on committing suicide.
Russia owned more leaders than just Trump.
Germany was totally in its thrall
rbowman wrote this post by blinking in Morse code:
On Tue, 16 Dec 2025 23:15:50 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:
The point of the article is that every single historian poll has Trump
ranked in the bottom two. The sienna study actually shows how each is
rated based on a dozen or so factors.
You don't know how much better a Sienna study makes me feel. I grew up
about 6 miles from Sienna as the crow flies and a couple of my cousins
went there. You know how Wikipedia articles on colleges often have a
'Notable alumni' section? Even Saint Rose has one and they couldn't
even keep the doors open.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_of_Saint_Rose
Here's an unbiased study:
https://www.prageru.com/presidential-rankings-survey
===========
:-D :-D :-D
:-D :-D
:-D :-D :-D
:-D :-D :-D
Probably 50% of the text in my code - doesn't matter which lang - is
'comments'.
On Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:57:57 +0000, mm0fmf wrote:
On 14 Dec 2025 11:56:42 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
My issues with python are:
- It's using indentations, so when I comment a block of code to see
''' and ''' are your friend
Unless the block has triply-quoted strings inside it ...
Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
On Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:57:57 +0000, mm0fmf wrote:
On 14 Dec 2025 11:56:42 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
My issues with python are:
- It's using indentations, so when I comment a block of code to see
''' and ''' are your friend
Unless the block has triply-quoted strings inside it ...
Then """ and """ are your better friends.
Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
On Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:57:57 +0000, mm0fmf wrote:
On 14 Dec 2025 11:56:42 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
My issues with python are:''' and ''' are your friend
- It's using indentations, so when I comment a block of code to see
what happens, it breaks everything and I have to manage the
indentations. I can't just comment/uncomment a block of code as I do >>>> with other programming languages.
Unless the block has triply-quoted strings inside it ...
Then """ and """ are your better friends.
If you prefer the comment markers to match the indentation of the whole block, that works too:
On 2025-12-16 20:57, rbowman wrote:
On Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:47:00 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
He also conducted meetings while sitting on the shitter and defecating.
You've never carefully avoided flushing while on some cellphone
conference? I think LBJ did it in person though.
😳
On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 03:11:09 -0500, c186282 wrote:
Probably 50% of the text in my code - doesn't matter which lang - is
'comments'.
I looked at some of my code and it's pretty much comment free. There are a couple of .c files with comments that I reused from another project that
have somebody's comments.
I had a tendency to clone similar projects and inherit some code that I
could tweak so the final executable did one thing well. We had a couple of nightmares that originally did one thing well but for the next project the programmer said 'That's close to what I need. A few configuration values
here and there and it will work.' The next time around it got some more configuration values to do something else. I have a Swiss Army knife I found; it's in the junk drawer.
On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 16:17:30 -0500, Dan Espen wrote:
Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
On Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:57:57 +0000, mm0fmf wrote:
On 14 Dec 2025 11:56:42 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
My issues with python are:
- It's using indentations, so when I comment a block of code to see
''' and ''' are your friend
Unless the block has triply-quoted strings inside it ...
Then """ and """ are your better friends.
What if you have both present?
Well ... I'll better understand, and be able to mod, my
old programs better than you. I find 'excessive' commenting
anything BUT 'excessive'. I *enjoy* writing out the meaning
and implications of almost every step.
According to c186282 <c186282@nnada.net>:
Well ... I'll better understand, and be able to mod, my
old programs better than you. I find 'excessive' commenting
anything BUT 'excessive'. I *enjoy* writing out the meaning
and implications of almost every step.
That's fine as long as it's done with adequate discipline
i += 2; /* add one more bloofus to i */
According to c186282 <c186282@nnada.net>:
Well ... I'll better understand, and be able to mod, my old programs
better than you. I find 'excessive' commenting anything BUT
'excessive'. I *enjoy* writing out the meaning and implications of
almost every step.
That's fine as long as it's done with adequate discipline
i += 2; /* add one more bloofus to i */
Oh, I usually write "i=i+2". It's a bit more clear and becomes the
same code anyway. += is more a 'C' thing.
I keep it simple and use the first column, s/^/#/ in vim. s/^#// to make >them go away.
Both ''' and """ work ... but you need to close the comment block
with the same thing.
ANYway, block-comments ARE (at least now) to be had in Python.
Never used P1 or P2 worth anything, maybe they didn't have block
comments ???
... string# this is a real comment
"""this a a multiline
... stufffoo = """ more multiline
more multilineprint(foo)
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
I keep it simple and use the first column, s/^/#/ in vim. s/^#// to
make them go away.
Ctrl-V, down, I, '# ', Escape.
Those block commands are great! How have I ever lived without them?
On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 23:02:24 -0500, c186282 wrote:
Oh, I usually write "i=i+2". It's a bit more clear and becomes the
same code anyway. += is more a 'C' thing.
And Python, C#, JavaScript, C++, ...
https://peps.python.org/pep-0008/
"assignment (+=, -= etc.), comparisons (==, <, >, !=, <=, >=, in, not in,
is, is not), Booleans (and, or, not)."
There's some benighted language that does not have += etc. Maybe R. I
looked at that briefly before deciding anything I could do in R I could do
in Python without learning new weirdness.
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:#define Bollocks
I keep it simple and use the first column, s/^/#/ in vim. s/^#// to make
them go away.
Ctrl-V, down, I, '# ', Escape.
Those block commands are great! How have I ever lived without them?
Greetings
Marc
#define Bollocks
#ifdef BOLLOCKS
..
...
....
..
.
#endif
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
#define Bollocks
#ifdef BOLLOCKS
..
...
....
..
.
#endif
Has the disadvantage of being language specific.
Greetings--
Marc
On 12/17/25 14:17, rbowman wrote:
On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 03:11:09 -0500, c186282 wrote:
Probably 50% of the text in my code - doesn't matter which lang - is >>> 'comments'.
I looked at some of my code and it's pretty much comment free. There
are a
couple of .c files with comments that I reused from another project that
have somebody's comments.
I had a tendency to clone similar projects and inherit some code that I
could tweak so the final executable did one thing well. We had a
couple of
nightmares that originally did one thing well but for the next project
the
programmer said 'That's close to what I need. A few configuration values
here and there and it will work.' The next time around it got some more
configuration values to do something else. I have a Swiss Army knife I
found; it's in the junk drawer.
Well ... I'll better understand, and be able to mod, my
old programs better than you. I find 'excessive' commenting
anything BUT 'excessive'. I *enjoy* writing out the meaning
and implications of almost every step.
On Thu, 18 Dec 2025 08:03:47 +0100, Marc Haber wrote:
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
I keep it simple and use the first column, s/^/#/ in vim. s/^#// to
make them go away.
Ctrl-V, down, I, '# ', Escape.
Those block commands are great! How have I ever lived without them?
Learned something new. I seldom, if ever, use the visual mode so I mark
the end of the block and use the :.,'as/^/#/ form. Years of muscle
memory. I have a book on Vim somewhere. What it pointed out to me is how >much functionality Vim has that I don't use. I learned one way to skin a
cat long ago and stuck with it. For example I use :new foo.txt to get two >vertically stacked panes. I know you can do side by side panes but I
never do.
On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 01:09:03 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/12/2025 20:02, rbowman wrote:
On Tue, 16 Dec 2025 10:33:16 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/12/2025 08:06, rbowman wrote:
The finest politicians that money can buy watched it all happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QAKz_cxTlQ
I'd never heard of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLOLKvSmjAk
That's more my speed.
They are a couple of Dutch girls who loved the Beatles so much they
moved to Liverpool and started doing Beatles covers.
Sort of related I see where the Stones canceled their 2026 tour. Richards
is finally slowing down. They played here a few years ago but I didn't go. Some things are better remembered as they used to be.
I comment *A LOT*. When I had to go back and revisit some very old
code, I wished I had commented more. I've almost never looked at a
program and said "I wish it had fewer comments."
I’ve also encountered quite a few comments written by people who had
been instructed to add comments to under-commented code, but didn’t
really understand what they were looking at. The result generally
obscures more than it illuminates.
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Thu, 18 Dec 2025 08:03:47 +0100, Marc Haber wrote:
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
I keep it simple and use the first column, s/^/#/ in vim. s/^#// to >>>>make them go away.
Ctrl-V, down, I, '# ', Escape.
Those block commands are great! How have I ever lived without them?
Learned something new. I seldom, if ever, use the visual mode so I mark
the end of the block and use the :.,'as/^/#/ form. Years of muscle >>memory. I have a book on Vim somewhere. What it pointed out to me is how >>much functionality Vim has that I don't use. I learned one way to skin a >>cat long ago and stuck with it. For example I use :new foo.txt to get
two vertically stacked panes. I know you can do side by side panes but
I never do.
:sp[lit]
:vs[plit]
also work. I generally divide the vim screen into four 100 column wide panes.
But isn't && and || more better ? If the
meaning is more obscure then it MUST be better !
'R' ??? You must have some very special needs !
Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> writes:
I comment *A LOT*. When I had to go back and revisit some very old
code, I wished I had commented more. I've almost never looked at a
program and said "I wish it had fewer comments."
Regrettably, I’ve encountered plenty of comments that don’t actually reflect the code (for a variety of reasons).
If the code is wrong and the comment is right then that’s great, you
have a nice hint about how to fix the code, assuming you realize there’s
a problem at all.
However if the code is right but the comment is wrong then the comment
is worse than nothing. The code would be improved by removing it
(although almost certainly improved even more by correcting it).
I’ve also encountered quite a few comments written by people who had
been instructed to add comments to under-commented code, but didn’t
really understand what they were looking at. The result generally
obscures more than it illuminates.
On 12/16/25 20:18, rbowman wrote:
On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 01:09:03 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/12/2025 20:02, rbowman wrote:
On Tue, 16 Dec 2025 10:33:16 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/12/2025 08:06, rbowman wrote:
The finest politicians that money can buy watched it all happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QAKz_cxTlQ
I'd never heard of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLOLKvSmjAk
That's more my speed.
They are a couple of Dutch girls who loved the Beatles so much they
moved to Liverpool and started doing Beatles covers.
Sort of related I see where the Stones canceled their 2026 tour. Richards
is finally slowing down. They played here a few years ago but I didn't
go.
Some things are better remembered as they used to be.
When Richards dies, I suspect they will have a
special HazMat capsule ready for his body ...
only way to keep the public safe from all the
concentrated toxic substances :-)
And yes, 'yesteryear vision' often IS better.
One CURSE of the internet is in showing olde-tyme
movie/tv/pop stars from the 70s/80s/90s as they
are NOW. Too often dumpy nasty fat gits. SUCH
a downer !!! Better to remember 'as was' ...
Saw an old movie the other day "Sunset Boulevard",
Gloria Swanson. It was about an old silent-days
movie star OBSESSED with her past glory. She'd
become a suicidal loon over the years, spent
most of her day in her private theater re-watching
her old flix over and over and over. Got ALL hyped
when DeMille called her ... she thought he wanted
her to be a star again and prepped heavily. Turned
out he only wanted to rent her classic CAR for a
few days. A serious psychological tragedy.
Swanson, clearly, had seen this phenom in some
of her contemporaries - and did 'em perfectly.
She "got it" - but not all of her old crowd did.
. . .
Most missed old star - 'Hedy' Lamarr ... hottie
and GENIUS. She and her piano guy invented, and
filed a secret patent on, spread-spectrum radio
during WW2. Alas the tube-tech of the time really
wasn't up to it ... but everything that comes
in on yer iPhone today .........
"Secret patent" - common during the war for
'defense-sensitive' tech. It was all filed
under her proper name, Hedwig Kiesler, to
evade enemy scrutiny.
'Hedy's first husband was an arms contractor.
She was kept basically as a teen sex slave.
Had to fabricate a very sneaky escape plan to
get away from the asshole. Then she came to
the USA and some film people noticed her.
"Hot/smart/strong" COULD be very sexy and
easy to sell if done right. However, during
her servitude, she learned everything about
weapons and the biz ... quick guess, IQ 160+
based on various info/comments/histories. Wow.
Note she did NOT see any conflicts with being
an 'objectified' hottie and her 'womanhood/
autonomy/self'. It was all one continuum to
her, part of her 'whole' by reports. Must have
driven the latter misandrogynist 'femiNAZIS'
just nuts ! An older, more sensible, generation.
Since documentation never gets updated, if it's even created at all,
comments are the best you can get most of the time.
On 12/17/25 20:10, c186282 wrote:
On 12/17/25 14:17, rbowman wrote:
On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 03:11:09 -0500, c186282 wrote:
Probably 50% of the text in my code - doesn't matter which lang >>>> - is
'comments'.
I looked at some of my code and it's pretty much comment free. There
are a
couple of .c files with comments that I reused from another project that >>> have somebody's comments.
I had a tendency to clone similar projects and inherit some code that I
could tweak so the final executable did one thing well. We had a
couple of
nightmares that originally did one thing well but for the next
project the
programmer said 'That's close to what I need. A few configuration values >>> here and there and it will work.' The next time around it got some more >>> configuration values to do something else. I have a Swiss Army knife I >>> found; it's in the junk drawer.
Well ... I'll better understand, and be able to mod, my
old programs better than you. I find 'excessive' commenting
anything BUT 'excessive'. I *enjoy* writing out the meaning
and implications of almost every step.
I comment *A LOT*. When I had to go back and revisit some very old code,
I wished I had commented more. I've almost never looked at a program and said "I wish it had fewer comments."
On 17 Dec 2025 01:18:42 GMT
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 01:09:03 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/12/2025 20:02, rbowman wrote:
On Tue, 16 Dec 2025 10:33:16 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/12/2025 08:06, rbowman wrote:
The finest politicians that money can buy watched it all happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QAKz_cxTlQ
I'd never heard of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLOLKvSmjAk
That's more my speed.
They are a couple of Dutch girls who loved the Beatles so much they
moved to Liverpool and started doing Beatles covers.
Sort of related I see where the Stones canceled their 2026 tour. Richards
is finally slowing down. They played here a few years ago but I didn't go. >> Some things are better remembered as they used to be.
Feh, I thought they were over the hill by 1985! - you (gen) may disagree,
but I won't debate it further. Wrong NG.
Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> writes:
I comment *A LOT*. When I had to go back and revisit some very old
code, I wished I had commented more. I've almost never looked at a
program and said "I wish it had fewer comments."
Regrettably, I’ve encountered plenty of comments that don’t actually reflect the code (for a variety of reasons).
If the code is wrong and the comment is right then that’s great, you
have a nice hint about how to fix the code, assuming you realize there’s
a problem at all.
However if the code is right but the comment is wrong then the comment
is worse than nothing. The code would be improved by removing it
(although almost certainly improved even more by correcting it).
I’ve also encountered quite a few comments written by people who had
been instructed to add comments to under-commented code, but didn’t
really understand what they were looking at. The result generally
obscures more than it illuminates.
On Thu, 18 Dec 2025 15:43:49 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Thu, 18 Dec 2025 08:03:47 +0100, Marc Haber wrote:
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
I keep it simple and use the first column, s/^/#/ in vim. s/^#// to >>>>> make them go away.
Ctrl-V, down, I, '# ', Escape.
Those block commands are great! How have I ever lived without them?
Learned something new. I seldom, if ever, use the visual mode so I mark
the end of the block and use the :.,'as/^/#/ form. Years of muscle
memory. I have a book on Vim somewhere. What it pointed out to me is how >>> much functionality Vim has that I don't use. I learned one way to skin a >>> cat long ago and stuck with it. For example I use :new foo.txt to get
two vertically stacked panes. I know you can do side by side panes but
I never do.
:sp[lit]
:vs[plit]
also work. I generally divide the vim screen into four 100 column wide
panes.
I'd screw that up. I use i3/sway and I have a moment of hesitation of
whether Meta-h or Meta-v is going to split the way I want. 'I want two
panes stacked vertically so that's 'h'. Or is it 'v'?'
On Thu, 18 Dec 2025 04:25:35 -0500, c186282 wrote:
But isn't && and || more better ? If the
meaning is more obscure then it MUST be better !
Perfectly obvious. BTW any language that can't do bit operations should be drowned at birth.
'R' ??? You must have some very special needs !
https://www.anaconda.com/blog/python-vs-r-data-science-ai-workflows
The article is biased but R at one time was more popular for machine learning. Python caught up rapidly. One of the problems with R is a sort
of quirky syntax compared to most languages. With Python you can use TensorFlow and even if you don't know much about ML it looks like Python.
Both are interpreted so aren't the speediest languages. R originally had
an edge but as Python became more popular for ML packages like numpy were optimized.
Note: I draw a distinction between ML and LLMs. All the hype is for LLMs
and I'm not sure the balloon won't burst. ML is the poor relation but I
think it has more real value to offer in many domains.
On 2025-12-17 09:03, c186282 wrote:
On 12/16/25 20:18, rbowman wrote:
On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 01:09:03 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/12/2025 20:02, rbowman wrote:
On Tue, 16 Dec 2025 10:33:16 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/12/2025 08:06, rbowman wrote:
The finest politicians that money can buy watched it all happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QAKz_cxTlQ
I'd never heard of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLOLKvSmjAk
That's more my speed.
They are a couple of Dutch girls who loved the Beatles so much they
moved to Liverpool and started doing Beatles covers.
Sort of related I see where the Stones canceled their 2026 tour.
Richards
is finally slowing down. They played here a few years ago but I
didn't go.
Some things are better remembered as they used to be.
When Richards dies, I suspect they will have a
special HazMat capsule ready for his body ...
only way to keep the public safe from all the
concentrated toxic substances :-)
And yes, 'yesteryear vision' often IS better.
One CURSE of the internet is in showing olde-tyme
movie/tv/pop stars from the 70s/80s/90s as they
are NOW. Too often dumpy nasty fat gits. SUCH
a downer !!! Better to remember 'as was' ...
Saw an old movie the other day "Sunset Boulevard",
Gloria Swanson. It was about an old silent-days
movie star OBSESSED with her past glory. She'd
become a suicidal loon over the years, spent
most of her day in her private theater re-watching
her old flix over and over and over. Got ALL hyped
when DeMille called her ... she thought he wanted
her to be a star again and prepped heavily. Turned
out he only wanted to rent her classic CAR for a
few days. A serious psychological tragedy.
I remember that movie. Or think I do.
Swanson, clearly, had seen this phenom in some
of her contemporaries - and did 'em perfectly.
She "got it" - but not all of her old crowd did.
. . .
Most missed old star - 'Hedy' Lamarr ... hottie
and GENIUS. She and her piano guy invented, and
filed a secret patent on, spread-spectrum radio
during WW2. Alas the tube-tech of the time really
wasn't up to it ... but everything that comes
in on yer iPhone today .........
"Secret patent" - common during the war for
'defense-sensitive' tech. It was all filed
under her proper name, Hedwig Kiesler, to
evade enemy scrutiny.
'Hedy's first husband was an arms contractor.
She was kept basically as a teen sex slave.
Had to fabricate a very sneaky escape plan to
get away from the asshole. Then she came to
the USA and some film people noticed her.
"Hot/smart/strong" COULD be very sexy and
easy to sell if done right. However, during
her servitude, she learned everything about
weapons and the biz ... quick guess, IQ 160+
based on various info/comments/histories. Wow.
Note she did NOT see any conflicts with being
an 'objectified' hottie and her 'womanhood/
autonomy/self'. It was all one continuum to
her, part of her 'whole' by reports. Must have
driven the latter misandrogynist 'femiNAZIS'
just nuts ! An older, more sensible, generation.
I also seem to recall that history.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr>
On 12/18/25 13:38, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 18 Dec 2025 15:43:49 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Thu, 18 Dec 2025 08:03:47 +0100, Marc Haber wrote:
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
I keep it simple and use the first column, s/^/#/ in vim. s/^#//
to make them go away.
Ctrl-V, down, I, '# ', Escape.
Those block commands are great! How have I ever lived without them?
Learned something new. I seldom, if ever, use the visual mode so I
mark the end of the block and use the :.,'as/^/#/ form. Years of
muscle memory. I have a book on Vim somewhere. What it pointed out to
me is how much functionality Vim has that I don't use. I learned one
way to skin a cat long ago and stuck with it. For example I use :new
foo.txt to get two vertically stacked panes. I know you can do side
by side panes but I never do.
:sp[lit]
:vs[plit]
also work. I generally divide the vim screen into four 100 column
wide panes.
I'd screw that up. I use i3/sway and I have a moment of hesitation of
whether Meta-h or Meta-v is going to split the way I want. 'I want two
panes stacked vertically so that's 'h'. Or is it 'v'?'
NANO !!! :-)
On Fri, 19 Dec 2025 00:56:11 -0500, c186282 wrote:
On 12/18/25 13:38, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 18 Dec 2025 15:43:49 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Thu, 18 Dec 2025 08:03:47 +0100, Marc Haber wrote:
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
I keep it simple and use the first column, s/^/#/ in vim. s/^#// >>>>>>> to make them go away.
Ctrl-V, down, I, '# ', Escape.
Those block commands are great! How have I ever lived without them? >>>>>
Learned something new. I seldom, if ever, use the visual mode so I
mark the end of the block and use the :.,'as/^/#/ form. Years of
muscle memory. I have a book on Vim somewhere. What it pointed out to >>>>> me is how much functionality Vim has that I don't use. I learned one >>>>> way to skin a cat long ago and stuck with it. For example I use :new >>>>> foo.txt to get two vertically stacked panes. I know you can do side >>>>> by side panes but I never do.
:sp[lit]
:vs[plit]
also work. I generally divide the vim screen into four 100 column
wide panes.
I'd screw that up. I use i3/sway and I have a moment of hesitation of
whether Meta-h or Meta-v is going to split the way I want. 'I want two
panes stacked vertically so that's 'h'. Or is it 'v'?'
NANO !!! :-)
Whatever. I've used it in a pinch but it's definitely my favorite.
However as a PERFORMANCE band, tons of great material
to work with and everybody still loves Mick prancing
around - surprised he hasn't needed a metal hip joint
by now.
On 13 Dec 2025 11:55:35 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
Everything else is just a lot of lies. They pretend it's not strongly
typed, but in the real world you will only encounter a lot of issue if
you believe that.
Think about why both JavaScript and PHP need a “===” operator, while Python does not.
It’s because Python is strongly typed.
... there are a lot of libraries helping developers.
Other languages have done that before. Why do you think Python has been
able to leapfrog every prior language in this regard? Perl had a lot of libraries to its name (still does), and yet that no longer seems to be a good enough reason to continue using Perl, simply because Python now does
it better.
It’s because Python has such a strong core language on which to build extensions. The libraries tend to make heavy use of this.
On 12/14/25 06:56, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
Le 14-12-2025, c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> a écrit :
NOT sure why so many people want to trash Python.
My issues with python are:
- It's using indentations, so when I comment a block of code to see
what happens, it breaks everything and I have to manage the
indentations. I can't just comment/uncomment a block of code as I do
with other programming languages.
You CAN do block comments BTW ... use triple-quote at
the beginning/end. The double and single quote char
work.
Indents ... well ... those have been good programming[snip]
practice since forever. With Python they are also
functional, not just 'decorative'. I do pref the 'C'
start/end brackets or Pascal Begin/End ... but Python
isn't THAT hard to deal with. Typically use just TWO
space indents to keep line-lengths shorter. A few
editors put in vertical guide lines to help keep
Python code right. IDLE is the most common with that,
but more elaborate editors like PyCharm can be had.
I *think* geany can be set to do that also.
On 19/12/2025 05:32, c186282 wrote:
However as a PERFORMANCE band, tons of great material
to work with and everybody still loves Mick prancing around -
surprised he hasn't needed a metal hip joint by now.
Actually Mick was the band member I least liked.
Pretentious puppet-like chimpanzee on methedrine.
It was a RHYTHM and blues band, and the RHYTHM was keef, charlie and
bill.
The ed in Midnight Commander is a bit better, AND you can use it
easily over SSH.
Technically, this isn't a comment, but a multi-line string. It just
happens that Python ignores a string by itself, and multi-line strings
uses a similar parsing for it.
On Fri, 19 Dec 2025 10:47:35 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 19/12/2025 05:32, c186282 wrote:
However as a PERFORMANCE band, tons of great material
to work with and everybody still loves Mick prancing around -
surprised he hasn't needed a metal hip joint by now.
Actually Mick was the band member I least liked.
Pretentious puppet-like chimpanzee on methedrine.
It was a RHYTHM and blues band, and the RHYTHM was keef, charlie and
bill.
Very early before they took off I saw a magazine article with a photo of >Jagger. I mistook him for a chick. I preferred them to the Beatles but
lost interest about the 'Goats Head Soup' album. 'Angie' got a lot of >airplay but I can't name any other cuts from it.
The 'classic rock' station I listen to often plays 'Paint it Black' but
I've never heard 'Satisfaction', 'Under My Thumb', 'Nineteenth Nervous >Breakdown', or 'The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man'. I guess
they aren't classic.
On Fri, 19 Dec 2025 13:30:05 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 wrote:
Technically, this isn't a comment, but a multi-line string. It just
happens that Python ignores a string by itself, and multi-line strings
uses a similar parsing for it.
I'm mildly curious if it ignores the string or sticks it some place in >memory just in case. It's a different situation but in C
/* this customer is a jerk! */
log("this customer is a complete idiot!");
if you run strings on the executable the customer will find out you think
he is a idiot but the comment is gone.
On 12/14/25 06:56, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
Le 14-12-2025, c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> a écrit :
NOT sure why so many people want to trash Python.
My issues with python are:
- It's using indentations, so when I comment a block of code to see
what happens, it breaks everything and I have to manage the
indentations. I can't just comment/uncomment a block of code as I do
with other programming languages.
You CAN do block comments BTW ... use triple-quote at
the beginning/end. The double and single quote char
work.
Indents ... well ... those have been good programming
practice since forever.
With Python they are also
functional, not just 'decorative'.
but Python
isn't THAT hard to deal with. Typically use just TWO
space indents to keep line-lengths shorter. A few
editors put in vertical guide lines to help keep
Python code right.
- It's sold as an easy programming language. Which is true for
discovering it. And once I'm using it in the real life, I
discover the hard reality. A lot of things that should just work don't
because it's an exception.
Umm ... haven't had many problems myself - and I came
from COBOL, FORTRAN, Pascal, C .......
Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote at 02:05 this Sunday (GMT):
Think about why both JavaScript and PHP need a “===” operator, while
Python does not.
It’s because Python is strongly typed.
I thought it was because JS was too liberal with type-casting to make
things true, and the JS devs didn't want to break compatibility.
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
I'm mildly curious if it ignores the string or sticks it some place in >>memory just in case. It's a different situation but in C
/* this customer is a jerk! */
log("this customer is a complete idiot!");
if you run strings on the executable the customer will find out you think >>he is a idiot but the comment is gone.
We used to ROT-13 those strings and decode them in the log
statement so they wouldn't show up if strings was run
against the a.out.
log(rot13("guvf phfgbzre vf n pbzcyrgr vqvbg!\n"));
On Mon, 15 Dec 2025 18:44:06 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
[Python is] the modern BASIC. Great for hacking stuff up, bur bare
metal it aint.
Unlike BASIC, Python’s facilities for doing low-level stuff are a bit
more advanced than PEEK and POKE. ;)
On Fri, 19 Dec 2025 10:47:35 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 19/12/2025 05:32, c186282 wrote:
However as a PERFORMANCE band, tons of great material
to work with and everybody still loves Mick prancing around -
surprised he hasn't needed a metal hip joint by now.
Actually Mick was the band member I least liked.
Pretentious puppet-like chimpanzee on methedrine.
It was a RHYTHM and blues band, and the RHYTHM was keef, charlie and
bill.
Very early before they took off I saw a magazine article with a photo of Jagger. I mistook him for a chick. I preferred them to the Beatles but
lost interest about the 'Goats Head Soup' album. 'Angie' got a lot of airplay but I can't name any other cuts from it.
The 'classic rock' station I listen to often plays 'Paint it Black' but
I've never heard 'Satisfaction', 'Under My Thumb', 'Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown', or 'The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man'. I guess
they aren't classic.
or Emerson, Lake & Palmer's first album except "Lucky Man"?
It's not my issu. Vim is able to comment blocks of code without issue.
It's python that can't always manage it. Let say I have that part of
code:
if test1:
if test2:
do some stuff
If I comment the second line to see what happens if I remove my test2,
like I would do with any normal language, then with python it just
doesn't work because it breaks the indentation.
On Fri, 19 Dec 2025 22:03:49 GMT
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
or Emerson, Lake & Palmer's first album except "Lucky Man"?
*raises hand* Still on regular rotation at my house!
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled
was convincing the world he didn't exist.
-- The Usual Suspects
Was that a typo or a subtle statement of the conditions?
Why not both?
On 2025-12-19, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Fri, 19 Dec 2025 10:47:35 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 19/12/2025 05:32, c186282 wrote:
However as a PERFORMANCE band, tons of great material
to work with and everybody still loves Mick prancing around -
surprised he hasn't needed a metal hip joint by now.
Actually Mick was the band member I least liked.
Pretentious puppet-like chimpanzee on methedrine.
It was a RHYTHM and blues band, and the RHYTHM was keef, charlie and
bill.
Very early before they took off I saw a magazine article with a photo
of Jagger. I mistook him for a chick. I preferred them to the Beatles
but lost interest about the 'Goats Head Soup' album. 'Angie' got a lot
of airplay but I can't name any other cuts from it.
"Star Star" - one of my favourite rockers.
The 'classic rock' station I listen to often plays 'Paint it Black' but
I've never heard 'Satisfaction', 'Under My Thumb', 'Nineteenth Nervous
Breakdown', or 'The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man'. I guess
they aren't classic.
Radio play is amazingly selective. Who remembers anything from
America's first album except "Horse with No Name" - or Emerson,
Lake & Palmer's first album except "Lucky Man"?
There's a lot of wonderful music out there that nobody will ever hear.
Stéphane CARPENTIER <sc@fiat-linux.fr> writes:
It's not my issu. Vim is able to comment blocks of code without issue.
It's python that can't always manage it. Let say I have that part of
code:
if test1:
if test2:
do some stuff
If I comment the second line to see what happens if I remove my test2,
like I would do with any normal language, then with python it just
doesn't work because it breaks the indentation.
$ cat t.py test1=True test2=False
if test1:
if test2:
print("L6")
if test1:
#if test2:
print("L10")
$ python3 t.py L10
On Fri, 19 Dec 2025 13:30:03 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 wrote:
Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote at 02:05 this Sunday (GMT):
Think about why both JavaScript and PHP need a “===” operator, while >>> Python does not.
It’s because Python is strongly typed.
I thought it was because JS was too liberal with type-casting to make
things true, and the JS devs didn't want to break compatibility.
Is there some other interpretation of “strongly typed”?
On Sun, 14 Dec 2025 04:57:19 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world
he didn't exist.
-- The Usual Suspects
Funny how religious people keep saying this god is true, those others
are false, yet they never argue over which devil is true and which other
ones are false ...
Tells you something about their core beliefs, doesn’t it ...
On 19/12/2025 05:32, c186282 wrote:
However as a PERFORMANCE band, tons of great material
to work with and everybody still loves Mick prancing
around - surprised he hasn't needed a metal hip joint
by now.
Actually Mick was the band member I least liked.
Pretentious puppet-like chimpanzee on methedrine.
It was a RHYTHM and blues band, and the RHYTHM was keef, charlie and bill.
c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote at 04:36 this Monday (GMT):
On 12/14/25 06:56, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
Le 14-12-2025, c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> a écrit :
NOT sure why so many people want to trash Python.
My issues with python are:
- It's using indentations, so when I comment a block of code to see
what happens, it breaks everything and I have to manage the
indentations. I can't just comment/uncomment a block of code as I do >>> with other programming languages.
You CAN do block comments BTW ... use triple-quote at
the beginning/end. The double and single quote char
work.
Technically, this isn't a comment, but a multi-line string. It just
happens that Python ignores a string by itself, and multi-line strings
uses a similar parsing for it.
Indents ... well ... those have been good programming[snip]
practice since forever. With Python they are also
functional, not just 'decorative'. I do pref the 'C'
start/end brackets or Pascal Begin/End ... but Python
isn't THAT hard to deal with. Typically use just TWO
space indents to keep line-lengths shorter. A few
editors put in vertical guide lines to help keep
Python code right. IDLE is the most common with that,
but more elaborate editors like PyCharm can be had.
I *think* geany can be set to do that also.
The annoyance comes from different editors having different rules on it,
I think.
On Fri, 19 Dec 2025 03:30:56 -0500, c186282 wrote:
The ed in Midnight Commander is a bit better, AND you can use it
easily over SSH.
Back in the days of DJGPP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DJGPP
I ported MC back to Windows, from whence it came as a test.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Commander
The biggest problems were any network features. I should install it on one
of the machines for old times sake.
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Fri, 19 Dec 2025 13:30:05 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 wrote:
Technically, this isn't a comment, but a multi-line string. It just
happens that Python ignores a string by itself, and multi-line strings
uses a similar parsing for it.
I'm mildly curious if it ignores the string or sticks it some place in
memory just in case. It's a different situation but in C
/* this customer is a jerk! */
log("this customer is a complete idiot!");
if you run strings on the executable the customer will find out you think
he is a idiot but the comment is gone.
We used to ROT-13 those strings and decode them in the log
statement so they wouldn't show up if strings was run
against the a.out.
log(rot13("guvf phfgbzre vf n pbzcyrgr vqvbg!\n"));
Le 19-12-2025, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> a écrit :
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
I'm mildly curious if it ignores the string or sticks it some place in
memory just in case. It's a different situation but in C
/* this customer is a jerk! */
log("this customer is a complete idiot!");
if you run strings on the executable the customer will find out you think >>> he is a idiot but the comment is gone.
We used to ROT-13 those strings and decode them in the log
statement so they wouldn't show up if strings was run
against the a.out.
log(rot13("guvf phfgbzre vf n pbzcyrgr vqvbg!\n"));
Anyone with a little bit of experience will spot rot13 or base64 at a
glance.
Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote at 02:05 this Sunday (GMT):
On 13 Dec 2025 11:55:35 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
Everything else is just a lot of lies. They pretend it's not
strongly typed, but in the real world you will only encounter a lot
of issue if you believe that.
Think about why both JavaScript and PHP need a “===” operator, while
Python does not.
It’s because Python is strongly typed.
I thought it was because JS was too liberal with type-casting to make
things true, and the JS devs didn't want to break compatibility.
candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid>Well, I kind of liked PICK system ... everything was
writes:
Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote at 02:05 this Sunday (GMT):
On 13 Dec 2025 11:55:35 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
Everything else is just a lot of lies. They pretend it's not
strongly typed, but in the real world you will only encounter a lot
of issue if you believe that.
Think about why both JavaScript and PHP need a “===” operator, while >>> Python does not.
It’s because Python is strongly typed.
I thought it was because JS was too liberal with type-casting to make
things true, and the JS devs didn't want to break compatibility.
“No implicit type conversion” is one of the definitions of strong
typing, at least back to the 1970s[1]. And JavaScript is certainly
weakly typed in that sense:
> 'a' + 1
'a1'
> 1/false
Infinity
What dividing by a boolean could possibly mean is a mystery, but
JavaScript will do it anyway.
Python fits this definition of strong typing up to a point:
Stéphane CARPENTIER <sc@fiat-linux.fr> writes:
It's not my issu. Vim is able to comment blocks of code without issue.
It's python that can't always manage it. Let say I have that part of
code:
if test1:
if test2:
do some stuff
If I comment the second line to see what happens if I remove my test2,
like I would do with any normal language, then with python it just
doesn't work because it breaks the indentation.
$ cat t.py
test1=True
test2=False
if test1:
if test2:
print("L6")
if test1:
#if test2:
print("L10")
$ python3 t.py
L10
America invented Blues and R&B ... but the Brits
perfected it in the 60s. Not sure WHAT crevice of
the British soul is involved, but GOOD JOB !
On 12/17/25 20:10, c186282 wrote:
On 12/17/25 14:17, rbowman wrote:
On Wed, 17 Dec 2025 03:11:09 -0500, c186282 wrote:
Probably 50% of the text in my code - doesn't matter which
lang - is 'comments'.
I looked at some of my code and it's pretty much comment free.
There are a couple of .c files with comments that I reused from
another project that have somebody's comments.
I had a tendency to clone similar projects and inherit some code
that I could tweak so the final executable did one thing well.
We had a couple of nightmares that originally did one thing well
but for the next project the programmer said 'That's close to
what I need. A few configuration values here and there and it
will work.' The next time around it got some more configuration
values to do something else. I have a Swiss Army knife I found;
it's in the junk drawer.>>
Well ... I'll better understand, and be able to mod, my
old programs better than you. I find 'excessive' commenting
anything BUT 'excessive'. I *enjoy* writing out the meaning
and implications of almost every step.
I comment *A LOT*. When I had to go back and revisit some very old code,
I wished I had commented more. I've almost never looked at a program and said "I wish it had fewer comments."
Stéphane CARPENTIER <sc@fiat-linux.fr> writes:
It's not my issu. Vim is able to comment blocks of code without issue.
It's python that can't always manage it. Let say I have that part of
code:
if test1:
if test2:
do some stuff
If I comment the second line to see what happens if I remove my test2,
like I would do with any normal language, then with python it just
doesn't work because it breaks the indentation.
$ cat t.py
test1=True
test2=False
if test1:
if test2:
print("L6")
if test1:
#if test2:
print("L10")
$ python3 t.py
L10
On 2025-12-19, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
Stéphane CARPENTIER <sc@fiat-linux.fr> writes:
It's not my issu. Vim is able to comment blocks of code without issue.
It's python that can't always manage it. Let say I have that part of
code:
if test1:
if test2:
do some stuff
If I comment the second line to see what happens if I remove my test2,
like I would do with any normal language, then with python it just
doesn't work because it breaks the indentation.
$ cat t.py
test1=True
test2=False
if test1:
if test2:
print("L6")
if test1:
#if test2:
print("L10")
$ python3 t.py
L10
Doesn't this only work if there are no statements directly under "if
test1:" besides the second conditional?
On 2025-12-19, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
Stéphane CARPENTIER <sc@fiat-linux.fr> writes:
It's not my issu. Vim is able to comment blocks of code without issue.
It's python that can't always manage it. Let say I have that part of
code:
if test1:
if test2:
do some stuff
If I comment the second line to see what happens if I remove my test2,
like I would do with any normal language, then with python it just
doesn't work because it breaks the indentation.
$ cat t.py
test1=True
test2=False
if test1:
if test2:
print("L6")
if test1:
#if test2:
print("L10")
$ python3 t.py
L10
Doesn't this only work if there are no statements directly under "if
test1:" besides the second conditional?
A more general solution would be to force the condition to False, e.g.:
if test1:
if False or test2:
stuff...
more stuff...
On Fri, 19 Dec 2025 22:03:49 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
There's a lot of wonderful music out there that nobody will ever hear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3REXu1ZO3BY
'Monster/Suicide/America' Steppenwolf
Somehow it doesn't get the airplay that 'Born To Be Wild' does.
Another property suggested in [1] for ‘strong typing’ is that
functions can only be called with with arguments matching a declared
type. In Python, function arguments do not have declared types[2]
and does not even infer them; anything goes. You will only hit an
exception if you try to use the arguments in the wrong way.
The music, esp the older stuff, did borrow heavily from R&B and is
GOOD. Beatles and more borrowed heavily from that genre as well for
quite awhile.
On 20/12/2025 06:20, c186282 wrote:
America invented Blues and R&B ... but the Brits
perfected it in the 60s. Not sure WHAT crevice of the British soul
is involved, but GOOD JOB !
We had been through a war that white America had not. Black Americans
were born in a war.
WE understood...life wasn't all about sunshine and surf.
Nice. My favourite of theirs is "Black Pit" from "For Ladies Only".
Every now and then I'll put it on and ask people to identify who did it.
Stumps them every time.
Gotta research 'geany' ... it's a good editor. However I've forgotten
how to do the config file so it will rec "*.py3" - which I use for
everything - as meaning Python-3. I did it ONCE, but forgot .....
I load MC on EVERYTHING by default - and it COMES IN USEFUL more than
enough to be worth it.
ROT-13 is a horrible ENCRYPTION method ... but in some environments
'encryption' isn't actually much needed. "Obfuscation" can be more
than enough to suit 'office' needs.
Well, I kind of liked PICK system ... everything was equal, always
represented as a string. Numbers, chars, whatever - instantly/easily
converted between each other.
NO 'types'.
I would say that although Python does have some aspects of strong
typing, it is mostly weakly typed.
On Sat, 20 Dec 2025 04:15:04 -0500, c186282 wrote:
ROT-13 is a horrible ENCRYPTION method ... but in some environments
'encryption' isn't actually much needed. "Obfuscation" can be more
than enough to suit 'office' needs.
Jura lbh jnec gb gur Guveq Gbjre lbh’er arneol. Abj vg’f gvzr gb or yvxr gur Znevb Oebf…lrc vg’f qbja gurer!
Geocaching uses it for the hints so the hint isn't in plain text when you look at the page. There is a handy 'Decrypt' button.
One mistake I made and had to fix was filtering the word
"cumulative" :-D
On 20/12/2025 06:20, c186282 wrote:
America invented Blues and R&B ... but the Brits
perfected it in the 60s. Not sure WHAT crevice of
the British soul is involved, but GOOD JOB !
We had been through a war that white America had not.
Black Americans were born in a war.
WE understood...life wasn't all about sunshine and surf.
On 12/20/25 05:39, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 20/12/2025 06:20, c186282 wrote:
America invented Blues and R&B ... but the Brits
perfected it in the 60s. Not sure WHAT crevice of
the British soul is involved, but GOOD JOB !
We had been through a war that white America had not.
Black Americans were born in a war.
WE understood...life wasn't all about sunshine and surf.
Didn't spawn The Blues there ... but ...
DO like British kiddie books/films - the USA kind
are all butterflies and ice-cream. Brit plots
involve lots of conspiracies, oppression, suffering
and deadly threats :-)
DO like British kiddie books/films - the USA kind are all butterflies
and ice-cream. Brit plots involve lots of conspiracies, oppression,
suffering and deadly threats
One mistake I made and had to fix was filtering the word "cumulative"
:-D
On Sat, 20 Dec 2025 20:45:43 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Nice. My favourite of theirs is "Black Pit" from "For Ladies Only".
Every now and then I'll put it on and ask people to identify who did it.
Stumps them every time.
My favorite from that album is 'Tenderness'. I bought a lot of vinyl in those days but for some strange reason I remember buying 'Steppenwolf'. My wife was going to SUNY Albany at the time and we wound up in the college bookstore. I was idly flipping through the records and saw the album. I
had no idea about the band, the cover art wasn't captivating,
and 'Easy Rider' was in the future but I was reading Hesse and bought it. The synchronicity or whatever worked out well. Much better than the movie.--
On Sun, 21 Dec 2025 14:29:58 -0500, c186282 wrote:
DO like British kiddie books/films - the USA kind are all butterflies
and ice-cream. Brit plots involve lots of conspiracies, oppression,
suffering and deadly threats
Well the original fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm were pretty grim.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule_cat
On Sun, 21 Dec 2025 09:06:02 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
One mistake I made and had to fix was filtering the word "cumulative"
:-D
We had an overzealous IT guy who attempted to block access to NSFW sites. >One of the first casualties was expertS-EXchange.
On 2025-12-21, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Sat, 20 Dec 2025 20:45:43 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Nice. My favourite of theirs is "Black Pit" from "For Ladies Only".
Every now and then I'll put it on and ask people to identify who did
it.
Stumps them every time.
My favorite from that album is 'Tenderness'. I bought a lot of vinyl
in those days but for some strange reason I remember buying
'Steppenwolf'. My wife was going to SUNY Albany at the time and we
wound up in the college bookstore. I was idly flipping through the
records and saw the album. I had no idea about the band, the cover art
wasn't captivating,
Ah, but how about the inside photo? ;-)
On Mon, 22 Dec 2025 01:00:52 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-12-21, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Sat, 20 Dec 2025 20:45:43 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Nice. My favourite of theirs is "Black Pit" from "For Ladies Only".
Every now and then I'll put it on and ask people to identify who did
it.
Stumps them every time.
My favorite from that album is 'Tenderness'. I bought a lot of vinyl
in those days but for some strange reason I remember buying
'Steppenwolf'. My wife was going to SUNY Albany at the time and we
wound up in the college bookstore. I was idly flipping through the
records and saw the album. I had no idea about the band, the cover art
wasn't captivating,
Ah, but how about the inside photo? ;-)
'For Ladies Only'? with the penis on wheels?
I meant the first album, 'Steppenwolf'
https://vinyl-records.nl/hard-rock/steppenwolf-self-titled-vinyl-lp- album.html
Nothing outstanding for a '68 album cover, certainly not like the Blind
Faith album in '69 or 'Sticky Fingers'.
On Sat, 6 Dec 2025 22:50:50 -0800
Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:
On 12/6/25 22:19, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-12-07, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Sat, 6 Dec 2025 22:28:21 -0000 (UTC), John Levine wrote:
According to Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com>:
I've seen C written in languages other than English. To clarify, the C
key words are the same, if, else, int, #include, and so forth but >>>>> variable and function names, comments and everything else are in >>>>> Spanish, German, and so forth. It's difficult to read.
I've seen the same with PL/I. I understand there was once an ALGOL >>>> compiler where they used French keywords. Debut-Fin, etc.
Algol60 had a reference language which had boldface keywords, and every >>> implmentation made its own decision about how to translate that into the
local character set. (Yes, this made portable programming a lot
harder.) So while it was typical to turn the begin keyword into
something like 'BEGIN' it was just as valid to turn it into 'DEBUT'.
you could have real fun with Forth.
I did. I still have a copy of Leo Brodie's _Starting Forth_.
I got it running on my CP/M box and fiddled with it for a while.
I never got any real-world application going, but I did manage
to write a Sieve of Eratosthenes.
Forth love if honk then
On the Amiga I used a shareware text processor called Textra.
Forth written it it was and very handy for editing Startup Scripts.
It did tricks I have not seen in Linux text processors and did them
somewhat more reliably than bookmarks in KWrite or Kate. Both
are excellent but aimed toward programmers more than simple
ASCII. I believe we had a menu-based "insert file" and know
we could select vertical columns of text and that was using the
mouse.
bliss-Dell Precision 7730-PCLOS 2025.10-Linux 6.12.60-pclos1- KDE Plasma 6.5.3
xposted to clf, for more possible nostalgia.
On Sun, 21 Dec 2025 09:06:02 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
One mistake I made and had to fix was filtering the word "cumulative"
:-D
We had an overzealous IT guy who attempted to block access to NSFW sites. One of the first casualties was expertS-EXchange.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experts_Exchange
I was surprised it is still around. I thought it was long gone. It lasted longer than the IT guy.
On Mon, 22 Dec 2025 01:00:52 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-12-21, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Sat, 20 Dec 2025 20:45:43 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Nice. My favourite of theirs is "Black Pit" from "For Ladies Only".
Every now and then I'll put it on and ask people to identify who did
it.
Stumps them every time.
My favorite from that album is 'Tenderness'. I bought a lot of vinyl
in those days but for some strange reason I remember buying
'Steppenwolf'. My wife was going to SUNY Albany at the time and we
wound up in the college bookstore. I was idly flipping through the
records and saw the album. I had no idea about the band, the cover art
wasn't captivating,
Ah, but how about the inside photo? ;-)
'For Ladies Only'? with the penis on wheels?
I meant the first album, 'Steppenwolf'
https://vinyl-records.nl/hard-rock/steppenwolf-self-titled-vinyl-lp- >album.html
Nothing outstanding for a '68 album cover, certainly not like the Blind >Faith album in '69 or 'Sticky Fingers'.
On Mon, 22 Dec 2025 01:00:52 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-12-21, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Sat, 20 Dec 2025 20:45:43 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
Nice. My favourite of theirs is "Black Pit" from "For Ladies Only".
Every now and then I'll put it on and ask people to identify who did
it.
Stumps them every time.
My favorite from that album is 'Tenderness'. I bought a lot of vinyl
in those days but for some strange reason I remember buying
'Steppenwolf'. My wife was going to SUNY Albany at the time and we
wound up in the college bookstore. I was idly flipping through the
records and saw the album. I had no idea about the band, the cover art
wasn't captivating,
Ah, but how about the inside photo? ;-)
'For Ladies Only'? with the penis on wheels?
I meant the first album, 'Steppenwolf'
https://vinyl-records.nl/hard-rock/steppenwolf-self-titled-vinyl-lp- album.html
Nothing outstanding for a '68 album cover, certainly not like the Blind Faith album in '69 or 'Sticky Fingers'.
"Giant Penis" ... came across something yesterday on "Greek Reporter"
- about a big women-only celebration way back when. One of the
traditional props were 6-foot-tall "penises" ... some of which had
dildos strapped to the sides. There was a pic on a ceramic plate
.....
Lots of other fun, like doing my own security/kernel updates, running a
Linux box at work. (One manager ran a Mac, apparently supported by IT).
On Sun, 21 Dec 2025 09:06:02 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
One mistake I made and had to fix was filtering the word "cumulative"
:-D
We had an overzealous IT guy who attempted to block access to NSFW sites. >One of the first casualties was expertS-EXchange. ...
On Mon, 22 Dec 2025 02:21:16 -0500, c186282 wrote:
"Giant Penis" ... came across something yesterday on "Greek Reporter"
- about a big women-only celebration way back when. One of the
traditional props were 6-foot-tall "penises" ... some of which had
dildos strapped to the sides. There was a pic on a ceramic plate
.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%8Dnensai https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/japan-kanamara- matsuri-festival-steel-phallus-penis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingam
This is generically known as the Scunthorpe problem, named after a town
which is otherwise only notable for having the last steel blast furnace
plant in the UK.
On Mon, 22 Dec 2025 02:21:16 -0500, c186282 wrote:
"Giant Penis" ... came across something yesterday on "Greek Reporter"
- about a big women-only celebration way back when. One of the
traditional props were 6-foot-tall "penises" ... some of which had
dildos strapped to the sides. There was a pic on a ceramic plate
.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%8Dnensai https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/japan-kanamara- matsuri-festival-steel-phallus-penis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingam
On Mon, 22 Dec 2025 07:20:37 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
Lots of other fun, like doing my own security/kernel updates, running a
Linux box at work. (One manager ran a Mac, apparently supported by IT).
All programmers had a Linux box in addition to a Windows one. The product
had started on AIX so almost all the code could be built on Linux. IT
would drop off a bare metal box and leave rapidly. Installing a distro and maintaining it was strictly on us.
The Esri API was built on COM so I spent more time developing on Windows
than most of the programmers. There was also a map program built one
Visual Studio 6.0 that wound up in my lap. I tried to drag it into the
21st century but never could. I did a couple of browser based maps but the clients loved that obsolete POS. I had a powered down XP machine with
VS6.0 in case I ever had to do a bug fix.
According to rbowman <bowman@montana.com>:
On Sun, 21 Dec 2025 09:06:02 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
One mistake I made and had to fix was filtering the word "cumulative"
:-D
We had an overzealous IT guy who attempted to block access to NSFW sites.
One of the first casualties was expertS-EXchange. ...
This is generically known as the Scunthorpe problem, named after a
town which is otherwise only notable for having the last steel blast
furnace plant in the UK.
On 12/22/25 11:06, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 22 Dec 2025 02:21:16 -0500, c186282 wrote:
"Giant Penis" ... came across something yesterday on "Greek
Reporter"
- about a big women-only celebration way back when. One of the
traditional props were 6-foot-tall "penises" ... some of which had >>> dildos strapped to the sides. There was a pic on a ceramic plate
.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%8Dnensai
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/japan-kanamara-
matsuri-festival-steel-phallus-penis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingam
The Nation of Japan used to have phallic representations all over the
place. After the Emperor was restored and European culture began to
intrude the phallic idols began to be removed and now have their own
sacred reservation where people seeking divine intervention for fertility problems go to pray and make offerings to the deities in charge of reproduction.
Fertility is very important to a pre-scientific culture and actually the basis of all
cultures even our own. But the Japanese were not the only ones as you gaze at the bell towers of Christian churches all over the world, the
minarets of
mosques, etc. Skyscrapers though secular may be the result of fertility rather than a supplication for greater fertility.
On 12/22/25 16:26, John Levine wrote:Ah usta know a lad from tha.
According to rbowman <bowman@montana.com>:
On Sun, 21 Dec 2025 09:06:02 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
One mistake I made and had to fix was filtering the word "cumulative"
:-D
We had an overzealous IT guy who attempted to block access to NSFW
sites.
One of the first casualties was expertS-EXchange. ...
This is generically known as the Scunthorpe problem, named after a
town which is otherwise only notable for having the last steel blast
furnace plant in the UK.
Well, "CUNT" in the name ... what low-brow criminal
pervert kind of people must live there eh ? :-)
On 23/12/2025 06:55, c186282 wrote:
On 12/22/25 16:26, John Levine wrote:
According to rbowman <bowman@montana.com>:
On Sun, 21 Dec 2025 09:06:02 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
One mistake I made and had to fix was filtering the word "cumulative" >>>>> :-D
We had an overzealous IT guy who attempted to block access to NSFW
sites.
One of the first casualties was expertS-EXchange. ...
This is generically known as the Scunthorpe problem, named after a
town which is otherwise only notable for having the last steel blast
furnace plant in the UK.
Well, "CUNT" in the name ... what low-brow criminal
pervert kind of people must live there eh ? :-)
Ah usta know a lad from tha.
Nowt special. Just boring AF.
On 12/23/25 06:21, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 23/12/2025 06:55, c186282 wrote:
On 12/22/25 16:26, John Levine wrote:
According to rbowman <bowman@montana.com>:
On Sun, 21 Dec 2025 09:06:02 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
One mistake I made and had to fix was filtering the word "cumulative" >>>>>> :-D
We had an overzealous IT guy who attempted to block access to NSFW
sites.
One of the first casualties was expertS-EXchange. ...
This is generically known as the Scunthorpe problem, named after a
town which is otherwise only notable for having the last steel blast
furnace plant in the UK.
Well, "CUNT" in the name ... what low-brow criminal
pervert kind of people must live there eh ? :-)
Ah usta know a lad from tha.
Nowt special. Just boring AF.
Probably never told you what he got up to on
Saturday nights :-)
On 12/22/25 14:18, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 22 Dec 2025 07:20:37 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
Lots of other fun, like doing my own security/kernel updates, running aAll programmers had a Linux box in addition to a Windows one. The product
Linux box at work. (One manager ran a Mac, apparently supported by IT). >>
had started on AIX so almost all the code could be built on Linux. IT
would drop off a bare metal box and leave rapidly. Installing a distro
and
maintaining it was strictly on us.
The Esri API was built on COM so I spent more time developing on Windows
than most of the programmers. There was also a map program built one
Visual Studio 6.0 that wound up in my lap. I tried to drag it into the
21st century but never could. I did a couple of browser based maps but
the
clients loved that obsolete POS. I had a powered down XP machine with
VS6.0 in case I ever had to do a bug fix.
Well ... you can tweak kernel/system files all
you want - but the first UPDATE and you'll have
to do it all over again :-)
On Sat, 20 Dec 2025 02:52:15 -0500, c186282 wrote:
Gotta research 'geany' ... it's a good editor. However I've forgotten
how to do the config file so it will rec "*.py3" - which I use for
everything - as meaning Python-3. I did it ONCE, but forgot .....
VS Code is good if it doesn't get completely enshitified with AI. So far
you can tell it to FOAD. I've got Code-OSS on the Endeavour box but
haven't used it enough to discover the pitfalls. It's upstream of VS Code but without the MS secret sauce some of the extensions. For example it has the Python extension but not PyLance. Probably not a big loss and it is sometimes a PITA if I'm using MicroPython.
Vim, of course, has Python configurations. There is an option to highlight the whitespace in red (configurable) that I turned off.
The USA has maybe THE biggest dick in the world, prominently figured
at the govt center in DC. You can ascend to the tip,
symbolic sperm
On 12/22/25 23:41, c186282 wrote:
Well ... you can tweak kernel/system files all you want - but
the first UPDATE and you'll have to do it all over again :-)
We had the same problem with MVS/ESA. I had a tweak for VSAM performance
that was a zap to one of the open SVC modules. Every release it was back
to the fiche to fit it back in.
Probably never told you what he got up to on Saturday nights
Do you prefer tabs or spaces?
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 16:00:06 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 wrote:
Do you prefer tabs or spaces?
au BufRead,BufNewFile *.py,*pyw set shiftwidth=4
au BufRead,BufNewFile *.py,*.pyw set expandtab
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 01:59:00 -0500, c186282 wrote:
The USA has maybe THE biggest dick in the world, prominently figured
at the govt center in DC. You can ascend to the tip,
symbolic sperm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Smelter_Stack
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 06:34:54 -0500, c186282 wrote:
Probably never told you what he got up to on Saturday nights
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_and_Sunday_Morning
It's interesting the current conditions haven't spawned a 21st century version of the Beats or Angry Young Men. Perhaps this generation isn't
that literate.
On 2025-12-23, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 01:59:00 -0500, c186282 wrote:
The USA has maybe THE biggest dick in the world, prominently figured >>> at the govt center in DC. You can ascend to the tip,
symbolic sperm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Smelter_Stack
We ran into weather while flying in Montana a few years ago.
We decided to set down at the nearest airstrip and wait for the
weather to pass. That airstrip happened to be at Anaconda -
we dodged the stack on the way in. It's an impressive landmark.
On 2025-12-23, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 01:59:00 -0500, c186282 wrote:
The USA has maybe THE biggest dick in the world, prominently
figured at the govt center in DC. You can ascend to the tip,
symbolic sperm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Smelter_Stack
We ran into weather while flying in Montana a few years ago.
We decided to set down at the nearest airstrip and wait for the weather
to pass. That airstrip happened to be at Anaconda -
we dodged the stack on the way in. It's an impressive landmark.
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
On 2025-12-23, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 01:59:00 -0500, c186282 wrote:
The USA has maybe THE biggest dick in the world, prominently
figured at the govt center in DC. You can ascend to the tip,
symbolic sperm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Smelter_Stack
We ran into weather while flying in Montana a few years ago.
We decided to set down at the nearest airstrip and wait for the
weather to pass. That airstrip happened to be at Anaconda -
we dodged the stack on the way in. It's an impressive landmark.
These (at 500ft each) are almost as tall:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moss_Landing_Power_Plant
They're visible from the entire Monterey bay shoreline,
from Santa Cruz to Pacific Grove.
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 21:18:17 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-12-23, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 01:59:00 -0500, c186282 wrote:
The USA has maybe THE biggest dick in the world, prominently
figured at the govt center in DC. You can ascend to the tip,
symbolic sperm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Smelter_Stack
We ran into weather while flying in Montana a few years ago.
We decided to set down at the nearest airstrip and wait for the weather
to pass. That airstrip happened to be at Anaconda -
we dodged the stack on the way in. It's an impressive landmark.
When I was coming back from six days on the road I was happy to see it. It wasn't home, but close enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHbGhEfnh2E
Six days is optimistic; I was usually out for 3 weeks.
Maybe they find the visual arts better for self-expression. TheBeats
were WW II veterans but I don't know much about the
"Angry Young Men".
On 2025-12-23, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 21:18:17 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-12-23, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 01:59:00 -0500, c186282 wrote:
The USA has maybe THE biggest dick in the world, prominently
figured at the govt center in DC. You can ascend to the tip,
symbolic sperm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Smelter_Stack
We ran into weather while flying in Montana a few years ago.
We decided to set down at the nearest airstrip and wait for the
weather to pass. That airstrip happened to be at Anaconda -
we dodged the stack on the way in. It's an impressive landmark.
When I was coming back from six days on the road I was happy to see it.
It wasn't home, but close enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHbGhEfnh2E
Six days is optimistic; I was usually out for 3 weeks.
Yeah, but it doesn't make as good a song.
On 2025-12-23, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
On 2025-12-23, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 01:59:00 -0500, c186282 wrote:
The USA has maybe THE biggest dick in the world, prominently
figured at the govt center in DC. You can ascend to the tip,
symbolic sperm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Smelter_Stack
We ran into weather while flying in Montana a few years ago.
We decided to set down at the nearest airstrip and wait for the
weather to pass. That airstrip happened to be at Anaconda -
we dodged the stack on the way in. It's an impressive landmark.
These (at 500ft each) are almost as tall:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moss_Landing_Power_Plant
They're visible from the entire Monterey bay shoreline,
from Santa Cruz to Pacific Grove.
If we're talking about big stacks, we might as well
go for the granddaddy of them all:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inco_Superstack
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 23:40:14 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-12-23, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 21:18:17 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-12-23, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 01:59:00 -0500, c186282 wrote:
The USA has maybe THE biggest dick in the world, prominently
figured at the govt center in DC. You can ascend to the tip,
symbolic sperm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Smelter_Stack
We ran into weather while flying in Montana a few years ago.
We decided to set down at the nearest airstrip and wait for the
weather to pass. That airstrip happened to be at Anaconda -
we dodged the stack on the way in. It's an impressive landmark.
When I was coming back from six days on the road I was happy to see it.
It wasn't home, but close enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHbGhEfnh2E
Six days is optimistic; I was usually out for 3 weeks.
Yeah, but it doesn't make as good a song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G1j7l-aAxA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcI08VY0yhE
Other trucker favorites...
https://faculty.rpi.edu/john-tichy
That's a CV most former rockers don't have :)
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 14:21:44 -0800, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
Maybe they find the visual arts better for self-expression. TheBeats
were WW II veterans but I don't know much about the
"Angry Young Men".
John Osborne was one of the better known. His play, 'Look Back in Anger', became a movie with Richard Burton. It was post-WWII Britain with young people realizing the empire was gone and the future wasn't too rosy.
Burgess isn't grouped with them but 'Clockwork Orange' captures the
feeling. Much later there was the Sex Pistols 'God Save the Queen'. No
future for you.
Even the hippie generation or whatever you want to call what followed the Beats wasn't very literary.
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 06:34:54 -0500, c186282 wrote:
Probably never told you what he got up to on Saturday nights
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_and_Sunday_Morning
It's interesting the current conditions haven't spawned a 21st
century version of the Beats or Angry Young Men. Perhaps this
generation isn't that literate.
On 2025-12-23, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
On 2025-12-23, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 01:59:00 -0500, c186282 wrote:
The USA has maybe THE biggest dick in the world, prominently
figured at the govt center in DC. You can ascend to the tip,
symbolic sperm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Smelter_Stack
We ran into weather while flying in Montana a few years ago.
We decided to set down at the nearest airstrip and wait for the
weather to pass. That airstrip happened to be at Anaconda -
we dodged the stack on the way in. It's an impressive landmark.
These (at 500ft each) are almost as tall:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moss_Landing_Power_Plant
They're visible from the entire Monterey bay shoreline,
from Santa Cruz to Pacific Grove.
If we're talking about big stacks, we might as well
go for the granddaddy of them all:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inco_Superstack
On 12/23/25 12:28, rbowman wrote:
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 06:34:54 -0500, c186282 wrote:
Probably never told you what he got up to on Saturday nights
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_and_Sunday_Morning
It's interesting the current conditions haven't spawned a 21st century
version of the Beats or Angry Young Men. Perhaps this generation isn't
that literate.
Maybe they find the visual arts better for self-expression.
The Beats were WW II veterans but I don't know much about the
"Angry Young Men".
You might see something from the people who are veterans of the Afganistan or other wars.
bliss
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 14:21:44 -0800, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
Maybe they find the visual arts better for self-expression. TheBeats
were WW II veterans but I don't know much about the
"Angry Young Men".
John Osborne was one of the better known. His play, 'Look Back in Anger', became a movie with Richard Burton. It was post-WWII Britain with young people realizing the empire was gone and the future wasn't too rosy.
Burgess isn't grouped with them but 'Clockwork Orange' captures the
feeling. Much later there was the Sex Pistols 'God Save the Queen'. No
future for you.
Even the hippie generation or whatever you want to call what followed the Beats wasn't very literary.
Brian May (a guitarist in a band known as "Queen", m'lud) is a qualified astrophysicist, IIRC.
Erm why is all this banter being posted to afc and colm?
Hmm ... how long since 'writers' actually WROTE - ink
on paper ? Quill pens ?
Since the 1930s they 'wrote' mostly on typewriters.
The 'feel' isn't the same, dealing with the machine
surely affected what they composed, added its own
bit of 'businesslike feel' to the process.
Then word-processors ... easy to add, delete, copy,
paste and fix typos in an instant. No more tappety-tap
sort of machine "feel", something different.
From now on, everything Gen-A2+ "writes" will be
what they tell an "AI" to compose FOR them. Most
won't even know how to spell half the words, may
not even KNOW half the words. It's more "Old
storyteller, tell us a story about werewolves"
and they can get back to being depressed and
shooting Fentanyl while the "AI" does it.
Writing traditional Chinese or Japanese script with
brush on paper ... it fuses 'art' into the actual
written meaning for the author, more and different
brain pathways than seen using a Corona or Word.
A few years ago I saw a 'travel show' that involved
some westerners visiting China. There was a sort of
street vendor who made banners and such in traditional
characters. He challenged the tourist to paint just
one character ... and judged they got it all WRONG
even though to the western eye the results were
almost identical to the natives. Thing is, they
did not perform the correct 'swish' and 'swash' and
'blob' and such - and it showed, changed the fine
meaning of the character, the attached emotional
content at the very least.
It has long been thought that language unto itself
can affect, channel, limit, what the speaker CAN
frame as 'reality'. Might be more or less true.
But 'writing' - the nuances - may also affect
the kind of output in many subtle ways.
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 23:40:14 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-12-23, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 21:18:17 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-12-23, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 01:59:00 -0500, c186282 wrote:
The USA has maybe THE biggest dick in the world, prominently
figured at the govt center in DC. You can ascend to the tip,
symbolic sperm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Smelter_Stack
We ran into weather while flying in Montana a few years ago.
We decided to set down at the nearest airstrip and wait for the
weather to pass. That airstrip happened to be at Anaconda -
we dodged the stack on the way in. It's an impressive landmark.
When I was coming back from six days on the road I was happy to see it.
It wasn't home, but close enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHbGhEfnh2E
Six days is optimistic; I was usually out for 3 weeks.
Yeah, but it doesn't make as good a song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G1j7l-aAxA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcI08VY0yhE
Other trucker favorites...
https://faculty.rpi.edu/john-tichy
That's a CV most former rockers don't have :)
Translating poetry is VERY hard, because on top of the challenges
of prose, you often need to match one or more of rhymes, cadence
and allitterations.
Intelligent people are one thing, but intellectuals are the curse of the thinking classes.
On 2025-12-24, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Intelligent people are one thing, but intellectuals are the curse of the
thinking classes.
You know, it's one thing about intellectuals, they prove that
you can be absolutely brilliant and have no idea what's going on.
-- Woody Allen
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