The perpetual calendar
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From: Leslie Danks on 1 Mar 2010 04:25 Peter T. Daniels wrote: [...] > "State" is not a useful term for 'nation-state' because it is serving > a different, much more salient function not only in the US, but also > in (at least) Mexico and Brazil, and I think Germany. The word is "Land" or "Bundesland" in Germany and Austria. As is the case for most political entities, exact translations are impossible and the terms are frequently left untranslated in English texts (and often written in italics). If members of English-speaking tribes wish to invent translations, it is up to them to deal with any ambiguities that may arise. The countries of the EU are known as "member states". -- Les (BrE)
From: jmfbahciv on 1 Mar 2010 07:19 Hatunen wrote: > On Sun, 28 Feb 2010 11:09:57 -0800, David Harmon > <source(a)netcom.com> wrote: > >> On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:56:25 -0500 in alt.usage.english, tony cooper >> <tony_cooper213(a)earthlink.net> wrote, >>> As far as I can tell, the only employers that are closed on >>> President's Day are government offices, schools, and banks. To the >> There is no such holiday as "President's Day" to US government offices. >> http://www.opm.gov/Operating_Status_Schedules/fedhol/2010.asp > > Interesting. I had assumed there was. And I see that there is one > in some states. Certainly businesses think there is one in their > sales advertisements. > so does the Post Office. /BAH
From: Peter Moylan on 1 Mar 2010 07:09 Skitt wrote: > Peter T. Daniels wrote: >> Hatunen wrote: >>> "Peter T. Daniels" wrote: >>>> Hatunen wrote: >>>>> David Harmon wrote: > >>>>>> There is no such holiday as "President's Day" to US government >>>>>> offices. >>>>>> http://www.opm.gov/Operating_Status_Schedules/fedhol/2010.asp >>>>> >>>>> Interesting. I had assumed there was. And I see that there is one >>>>> in some states. Certainly businesses think there is one in their >>>>> sales advertisements. >>>> >>>> The Post Office was closed for Presidents' Day in 2010. >>> >>> Not an American post office. They were closed for Washington's >>> Birthday, no matter what a sign on the door or whatnot might have >>> said. >> >> Don't be ridiculous. Washington's Birthday is February 22 (Gregorian), >> and Presidents' Day was observed on Feburary 15. > > Sorry, that's not the way it works. May I respectfully suggest that you stop rattling his cage? You're dealing here with ... well, he's not exactly a troll, but someone who has no ability to acknowledge his mistakes. The end result is boring for everyone looking on. I don't doubt that you're right, Skitt. In fact, I'm pretty certain that you're right. In the end, though, there's no entertainment to be had, and certainly no enlightment, from poking a stick at someone whose responses have become totally predictable. -- Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org For an e-mail address, see my web page.
From: jmfbahciv on 1 Mar 2010 07:37 Peter Moylan wrote: > jmfbahciv wrote: >> James Silverton wrote: > >>>> You always could "start" at numbers other than one. Or are >>>> you talking about the actual memory assigned to the array? >>> Yes, there were ways of doing that but when you defined an array with, >>> say, >>> >>> DIMENSION A(100) >>> >>> The array elements were A(1) to A(100). >>> >>> I think it was Fortran77 where, say, >>> >>> REAL (0:99) :: A >>> >>> became a valid declaration. >>> >> Thanks. I swear I read the 77 ANSI proposal but I don't >> remember this stuff. That one had to cause bugs. > > I've never used Fortran 77, but I don't see how that would cause bugs. > If the array bounds have to be declared, the compiler can insert checks > for subscripts being out of bounds, and in fact that is what is done in > most of the modern programming languages I know something about. Those checks are usually done at compile time, not runtime. Your FORTRAN example implies that indexing doesn't have to be an integer. That's what I was thinking about when I made the statement about "had to cause bugs". Someday I should reread the 77 standard again. > > The reason you get so many "array overrun" errors in C - it seems to be > the means most used by hackers to break system security - is not the > confusing "count from zero" convention, but the fact that the language > doesn't really have the concept of "array". Instead, it has a kludge > that lets you write pointer arithmetic in a way that looks like array > subscripting notation. As a result, the language specification more or > less explicitly prohibits compilers from inserting checks for subscript > errors. I've scanned several C programming books, but haven't practiced it. > > Admittedly the common "off by one" errors are often caused by zero-based > subscripting. With most programming languages, though, such an error > will make itself evident the first time you run the program, when you > run off the end of the array; Not if your testing doesn't test maximums+1 :-). My blind spot is exactly this when I coded. So I'd always give the program to somebody who would do that flavor of testing. >and the exception information will quickly > lead you to the cause of the crash. It's safe to declare subscript > ranges in any way that is natural to the application, as long as the > generated code includes range checks. Or you write your own. > The main thing that makes C so > unsuitable for real-world applications is the paucity of run-time checks. > That's one of the problems with having to expand memory on demand rather than reserve it at compile time. Memory addressing space was a scarce resource waybackwhen. /BAH
From: Peter T. Daniels on 1 Mar 2010 07:40
On Mar 1, 2:59 am, Nick <3-nos...(a)temporary-address.org.uk> wrote: > "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> writes: > > > "State" is not a useful term for 'nation-state' because it is serving > > a different, much more salient function not only in the US, but also > > in (at least) Mexico and Brazil, and I think Germany. > > So are you suggesting that "failed state" and "rogue state" are > expressions that have no meaning in the US. No, thre is a difference between a bare noun and a qualified noun. Did you not see that I used "nation-state" above? > Because I thought that's where they both originated. Or do they only > apply to one of your provinces going off the rails? What "provinces"? We are not Canada, or ancien regime France. |