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From: Peter T. Daniels on 26 Feb 2010 09:43 On Feb 26, 1:40 am, "PaulJK" <paul.kr...(a)paradise.net.nz> wrote: > Peter T. Daniels wrote: > > On Feb 24, 4:49 am, "benli...(a)ihug.co.nz" <benli...(a)ihug.co.nz> wrote: > >> On Feb 24, 11:43 am, Mike Barnes <mikebar...(a)bluebottle.com> wrote: > >>> Brian M. Scott <b.sc...(a)csuohio.edu>: > >>>> On Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:57:11 -0800, Skitt > >>>> <skit...(a)comcast.net> wrote in > >>>> <news:hm18ef$9gh$1(a)news.albasani.net> in > >>>> sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.lang,alt.usage.english: > >>>>> Brian M. Scott wrote: > >>>>>> Skitt wrote: > >>>>>>> PaulJK wrote: > >>>>>>>> We invented DST to set clocks back one hour in summer > >>>>>>> forward > >>>>>> That's the usual terminology, at least in the U.S., but it > >>>>>> does depends on one's point of view. > > >>>>> Deciding whether a clock runs forward or backward, you mean? > > >>>> No. When you push the time from (say) 10 to 11, you can see > >>>> this as pushing it away from you, just as you might push an > >>>> opponent back. When you let it go from 11 to 10, you're > >>>> then letting it approach you, i.e., come forward. > > >>> That's true only before the event. Afterwards, going from 11 to 10 is > >>> receding. > > >>> But I have some sympathy with your confusion. I get totally confused > >>> when someone describes a time zone as being "ahead of" or "behind" > >>> another. It can be either, depending on one's viewpoint. > > >> Discussion on sci.lang during the Beijing Olympics: > > >> Ross in New Zealand: > > >>>> We are 4 hours later than China. During the games we were getting live > >>>> coverage from noon to 2am, i.e. 8am to 10pm Beijing time. > > >> Peter in NY: > > >>> I think you're earlier, because your 8:00 was 4 hours before their > >>> 8:00. > > >> Ross: > >> We are earlier in arriving at a given time, but on the other hand, if > >> you ask "What time is it?", it is four hours later here than there. > > >> Peter: > > >>> Surely you can't say that NY is 12 hr earlier than China? We're > >>> _behind_ them, you're _ahead_ of them. > > >> etc.- > > > It's really annoying this year -- Vancouver is only three hours ahead > > of us (i.e., they've already had their morning events by the time it's > > morning here), > > aren't they behind? :-) > > > so lots of what NBC is showing us on tape could easily > > have been done live. (The first night of figure skating had the magic > > notation "Live," but it disappeared since -- presumably so they can do > > time compression and eliminate the waits between performance and > > score, and between performances. They even broke in the other day to > > show the last minute of the US-Canada hockey game, which was being > > shown live on MSNBC for those with cable, instead of their prepared > > piece on the day's [yawn] two-man bobsledding.) > > > Do the Pacific states get the same coverage we do? > > Ignoring the various pay, satellite, and cable channels, there > are about twelve free-to-air locally broadcast channels. > One of the free-to-air channels (Prime) broadcasts Winter > Olympics every day nonstop from 5:30am to 6:30pm. Looking > at today's Friday schedule, apart from the half-hour WO news > at 5:30am and Cross Country skiing at 10:30-11:30am all the > events are live. > > If by "same coverage" you mean "identical programming" then > the answer is no. All commentators are either New Zealanders > or people who are aware of commenting for the downunder > or specifically kiwi audience. Now and then they interrupt > the program to switch to another competition to show > a kiwi athlete, who would we normally not see, perform > their shtick and then switch back. Eh? You take "Pacific states" -- in the context of time zones -- to include New Zealand?? Washington, Oregon, and California are in the same time zone as Vancouver -- and we have already had testimony that NBC is showing the same delayed coverage there as it is here in Eastern Time. > The boring waits between performances don't worry me > too much. I hardly ever watch TV in real time. I record all > 13 hours of it every day and then watch it later in the evening > skipping over the boring bits and replaying in slow motion > the interesting sections. > > I take it slowly, I watch the Olympics only when I feel like it. > Today I am already five days behind. :-) > Thankfully, most of my friends are not interested in winter > sports as I am and kiwi athletes are not expected to do > spectacularly well, so I don't run the risk of overhearing > the results before I watch the events days later. There are a lot more than 13 hr of activities going on each day. NBC claims that with their set of five networks (four of them cable), they broadcast _everything_.
From: Mensanator on 26 Feb 2010 09:44 On Feb 26, 2:00 am, "PaulJK" <paul.kr...(a)paradise.net.nz> wrote: > Mensanator wrote: > > On Feb 25, 5:00 pm, Peter Moylan <gro.nalyomp(a)retep> wrote: > >> Adam Funk wrote: > >>> On 2010-02-24, Bob Myers wrote: > > >>>> Andrew Usher wrote: > > >>>>> Well, I'm astounded. Indexing from 0 is so obviously the Right Way > >>>>> that I can't imagine why anyone would do it the other way. > >>>> Oh, absolutely. Why, I see people in the stores every day, > >>>> counting out their money or the number of items they're > >>>> going to purchase, and saying to themselves "Zero, one, two..." > > >>> The initialized state of my shopping basket contains 0 items. Each > >>> item I put in increments it. If I initialized at 1, my shopping would > >>> crash with a 1-off error on unpacking. > > >> If your shopping basket had been designed by a C programmer, its initial > >> state would be the state just before the zeroth item was inserted. That > >> suggests that initially the basket contains -1 items. > > > This is still wrong. As a database programmer, the initial > > state of my shopping basket is Null. Only after I make a > > decision about whether to buy Mallomars does the state > > (with respect to Mallomars) change to 0 or 1. The initial > > state is never -1. > > > Don't be confused by the practical consideration of not > > being able to distinguish between Null and 0. In databases, > > there is no ambiguity at all, since anything added to a > > Null results in Null, anything compared to a Null is false. > > Null compared to a Null is false too? Yep, there's a special function for this, isnull(). To compare A and B you must first test if either is null (assuming you actually need to know that rather than blindly accept the False that a A<B, A=B or A>B test will return). Makes database programming fun. > > > > > The same does NOT hold for values of 0. > > > 99 bottles of beer on the wall, > > 99 bottles of beer! > > If Null bottles should happen to fall, > > Null bottles of beer on the wall! > > >> -- > >> Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia.http://www.pmoylan.org > >> For an e-mail address, see my web page.- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text -
From: Brian M. Scott on 26 Feb 2010 10:25 On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:47:16 +1300, PaulJK <paul.kriha(a)paradise.net.nz> wrote in <news:hm7u3v$etu$1(a)news.eternal-september.org> in sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.lang,alt.usage.english: > jmfbahciv wrote: >> Bob Myers wrote: >>> Andrew Usher wrote: >>>> Well, I'm astounded. Indexing from 0 is so obviously the Right Way >>>> that I can't imagine why anyone would do it the other way. >>> Oh, absolutely. Why, I see people in the stores every day, >>> counting out their money or the number of items they're >>> going to purchase, and saying to themselves "Zero, one, two..." >>> ;-) >> Especially when the clerk counts change. I'm sure Usher wouldn't >> object when he gets a dollar short. > Would he perhaps see some value in minting zero cent coins? Probably: after all, its zero sense. Brian
From: James Silverton on 26 Feb 2010 10:38 Brian wrote on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:25:03 -0500: >> jmfbahciv wrote: >>> Bob Myers wrote: >>>> Andrew Usher wrote: >>>>> Well, I'm astounded. Indexing from 0 is so obviously the >>>>> Right Way that I can't imagine why anyone would do it the >>>>> other way. >>>> Oh, absolutely. Why, I see people in the stores every day, >>>> counting out their money or the number of items they're >>>> going to purchase, and saying to themselves "Zero, one, >>>> two..." >>>> ;-) >>> Especially when the clerk counts change. I'm sure Usher >>> wouldn't object when he gets a dollar short. >> Would he perhaps see some value in minting zero cent coins? > Probably: after all, its zero sense. I am trying to remember when Fortran introduced arrays with arbitrary indexing, that is, starting at numbers other than 1. I have not programmed in Fortran in years and I do remember the change but not when it happened. -- James Silverton Potomac, Maryland Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
From: R H Draney on 26 Feb 2010 11:26
James Silverton filted: > >I am trying to remember when Fortran introduced arrays with arbitrary >indexing, that is, starting at numbers other than 1. I have not >programmed in Fortran in years and I do remember the change but not when >it happened. Somewhere buried in storage I have a book on Fortran that compares seventy or eighty implementations of the language (each time a feature is introduced, there's a table showing whether it exists in that flavor, and exactly what the restrictions are)...the table on subscripting gives such varieties as: positive integer constant scalar integer variable (n) integer variable plus or minus integer constant (n+i, n-i) integer multiple of variable plus or minus constant (i*n+j, i*n-j) arbitrary integer expressions arbitrary expressions of any type so long as they're convertible to integer Most Fortrans allowed only the first four of these; the last two were considered wild-eyed and radical...you couldn't run backwards through an array with a loop incrementing KOUNT from 1 to 10, subscripting the array with 11-KOUNT; things had to be in exactly one of the approved forms...and you certainly couldn't combine multiple variables in one, or use an element of one array as an index in another like VALUES(ISIZE(ITABLE(K))).... *Defining* arrays was even more strict...either a constant or, if the array was a subroutine parameter, a constant that was *also* a parameter.... A similar table gave the same levels of complexity for the upper and lower bounds of a DO statement, and for the increment....r -- "Oy! A cat made of lead cannot fly." - Mark Brader declaims a basic scientific principle |