The perpetual calendar
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From: PaulJK on 28 Feb 2010 01:50 Brian M. Scott wrote: > 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. I bet he would forge them too. pjk > Brian
From: Brian M. Scott on 28 Feb 2010 02:11 On Sun, 28 Feb 2010 07:07:03 +0800, Robert Bannister <robban1(a)bigpond.com> wrote in <news:7utmsqF9gU1(a)mid.individual.net> in sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.lang,alt.usage.english: [...] > Although the "gates of hell" bit takes the reader straight > back to buildings and possibly even gargoyles. [...] Nah: sideless surcoats. [...] Brian
From: PaulJK on 28 Feb 2010 02:15 Roland Hutchinson wrote: > On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:21:36 -0800, Mensanator wrote: > >> On Feb 26, 12:33 pm, Roland Hutchinson <my.spamt...(a)verizon.net> wrote: >>> On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:00:40 +1100, Peter Moylan 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. >>> >>> "So I said to him, 'Moore, have you less than no apples in that >>> basket?"..." >> >> False, of course. > > Hard to tell definitively without empirical observation. Let's toss an > apple in and see if any remain in the basket after we don't take any more > out. If the basket contained a (large) unknown negative number of apples this method could be quite expensive. I propose to weigh the basket, then tip the negative apples out of the basket and weigh it again. Calculate the difference and divide it by an average weight of an apple. This method works reasonably well unless the basket also contains some negative watermelons. pjk
From: Brian M. Scott on 28 Feb 2010 02:17 On Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:30:39 +1300, PaulJK <paul.kriha(a)paradise.net.nz> wrote in <news:hmd328$27q$1(a)news.eternal-september.org> in sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.lang,alt.usage.english: > Peter T. Daniels wrote: [...] >> What does Korsakov indicate? > To me, it doesn't immediately indicate anything obvious. It's from <корсак> 'steppe fox'. [...] Brian
From: Brian M. Scott on 28 Feb 2010 02:20
On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 21:30:37 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim(a)verizon.net> wrote in <news:d71436df-5a65-4a7a-9949-8653dd7bf080(a)f35g2000yqd.googlegroups.com> in sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.lang,alt.usage.english: > On Feb 27, 4:58�pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...(a)csuohio.edu> wrote: >> On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 12:48:14 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels" >> <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote in >> <news:02dc31c7-bbee-4dd6-8c8f-f915da3acdab(a)g7g2000yqe.googlegroups.com> >> in >> sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.lang,alt.usage.english: >>> On Feb 27, 1:40 pm, "sjdevn...(a)yahoo.com" <sjdevn...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >> [...] >>>> Until you offer a definition of "Christian" with an >>>> explanation and evidence as to why it's superior to >>>> those generally accepted by lexicographers, there's not >>>> really much left to discuss.- >>> Again I point out, as a linguist, that lexicographers have >>> no special handle on truth, especially as concerns >>> technical terminology. >> But 'Christian' is very far from being exclusively a >> technical term. > When it concerns Christians' official definitions of what > constitutes a Christian, it certainly is. It never does. Individual brands of Christianity can have official definitions of what constitutes a Christian, but since those definitions don't all agree, the notion that Christians in general have an official definition of what constitutes a Christian is patently absurd. Brian |