Oolite Bulletins

cim wrote:

Still probably in use in a whole load of legacy applications for much the same reasons, and also gets used (still) for research data processing by physicists, astronomers, etc. - though the younger ones will probably use something more modern nowadays (C and Python seem fairly popular with astrophysicists), there'll be plenty who learnt fortran ten, twenty, fifty years ago and still use it.

Diziet Sma wrote:

cim wrote:

Still probably in use in a whole load of legacy applications for much the same reasons, and also gets used (still) for research data processing by physicists, astronomers, etc. - though the younger ones will probably use something more modern nowadays (C and Python seem fairly popular with astrophysicists), there'll be plenty who learnt fortran ten, twenty, fifty years ago and still use it.

I had an interesting discussion on this very subject with some friends a while back..

Why Fortran is still the language for scientific use:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/05/ ... -behemoth/

Warning for non-geeks and/or non-programmers. Much of the article will probably cause you to bleed from the eyes and ears.

"You idiot. You naive, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop," Blair wrote of himself in his autobiography A Journey last year, recalling his adoption of the law, which took effect in 2005. "There is really no description of stupidity, no matter how vivid, that is adequate. I quake at the imbecility of it."

Cody wrote:

Regarding the Freedom of Information Act...

"You idiot. You naive, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop," Blair wrote of himself in his autobiography A Journey last year, recalling his adoption of the law, which took effect in 2005. "There is really no description of stupidity, no matter how vivid, that is adequate. I quake at the imbecility of it."

<guffaws>

Apart from Dr Kelly coming back from the dead, that is ...

“I just want space to feel less empty”

El Reg wrote:

Taking home this week's Golden Vulture Dropping of Excellence is Long John Brass, with this offering on the news that humanity had received a mysterious radio message from beyond our galaxy:

[tight beam, M32, tra. @n4.28.885.1008]

xROU Killing Time

oGCV Grey Area

Hey ... wanna see the monkeys freak out?

El Reg wrote:

Ergot poisoning used to be a fairly common occurrence until humans worked out it was bad for them: the substance has been linked to odd behavior within medieval cults and during the Salem Witch trials, and the installation of Windows on seven-inch tablets.

El Reg wrote:

One story insight that Adams – who was notorious for missing deadlines – gave during the interview, which has never made it into print before, came when I commented that Hitchhikers was famously written on a typewriter using thin carbon paper, with scripts being finished during recording. Adams was also a pioneer of home computing, and as he says here, a fan of the Macintosh. I asked if there was any difference between writing on a typewriter and a computer, and he said that when using a typewriter you could only stare out of the window, while with a computer you had a whole world of distractions.

Cody wrote:

Happy birthday, DA...

However, it makes light work of sleeping policemen and I was reminded of driving a (pink) Rolls Royce Silver Shadow over rumble strips which it didn’t seem to notice and thinking “yes, traffic calming is for poor people".

Disembodied wrote:

Cody wrote:

Happy birthday, DA...

Indeed! There's a good piece in the Grauniad about Neil Gaiman giving the annual Douglas Adams lecture last week – also comes with a video of the lecture itself. Books are sharks, and encyclopaedias are plesiosaurs!

... gravity weapons (the most obvious space-going equivalent of Cody's glue-gun)...

The governor of Wakayama Prefecture, Yoshinobu Nisaka, said it was important the practice of using feline staff at the railway station was maintained. Another cat, called Nitama, has since become an apprentice station master.