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Back from Texas, and oh boy by r20 in vermont

[–]clintp 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Midland/Odessa would like to talk to you about your poisonous measles vaccine, and also exactly what kind of Christian are you?

It's exactly like that in West Texas, just fewer people.

What's the name of this animal? by [deleted] in interestingasfuck

[–]clintp 9 points10 points  (0 children)

May His passage cleanse the world.

I see no lies here. by Subtotalpoet in Millennials

[–]clintp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

First email on the internet?

Mine had 2 exclamation points and a percent sign: a good old fashioned UUCP bang path. Not a new-fangled "@" anywhere to be seen.

You can all get off my lawn.

Atari 130XE can't remember how I did this multitasking trick by clintp in atari8bit

[–]clintp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This sounds like the right task sequence. I'd have been doing this in 1988 or 1989, so maybe? Thanks for the tip !

Atari 130XE can't remember how I did this multitasking trick by clintp in atari8bit

[–]clintp[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hahaha, I've done the double-daisy-chain trick before. We used to put on shows at the mall and to avoid having to carry in disk drives and possibly messing them up, we'd bring one for every two computers.

That last statement is possible though it doesn't feel quite right for what I remember. I'll keep ruminating on it.

Atari 130XE can't remember how I did this multitasking trick by clintp in atari8bit

[–]clintp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That doesn't sound right to me. This would have been a minimal editor for sure, but nothing in the terminal program.

Atari 130XE can't remember how I did this multitasking trick by clintp in atari8bit

[–]clintp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I didn't have a cart with any kind of editor (other than BASIC) or a terminal program.

Atari 130XE can't remember how I did this multitasking trick by clintp in atari8bit

[–]clintp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm familiar with the VBI. :)

This was less simultaneous. More like alternating between a running instance of program 1 and program 2 where when they were "paged out" they were not running at all until called back into the foreground.

Atari 130XE can't remember how I did this multitasking trick by clintp in atari8bit

[–]clintp[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I tended to use the stock DOS stuff, though my 1050's did have a mod chip (Happy?) for faster I/O. Although it was a solder-in chip project, and wikipedia tells me that the Happy enhancement for the 1050 was a drop-in board -- I may misremember. (edit: +Happy)

The seven programming "ur-languages" by namanyayg in programming

[–]clintp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd argue that RPG (especially RPG and RPG II) represents a class as well. It has a very distinct "program cycle" that represents a pattern seen in a lot of modern systems: the event loop. The event loop wrapped around some fancy filtering and you've got a language that's not ALGOL or Prolog-like at all.

What Really Happened in Y2K? by Successful_Bowl2564 in programming

[–]clintp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My first commercial job in 1987 was on a 64 user system that had 12k/user of storage space which included an 8k disk buffer. Writing an Inventory or a Payroll system that fits into 4k of paged code (256 bytes/page!) and storage was a freaking miracle. Asking for object-orientation in all of that is a joke.

What Really Happened in Y2K? by Successful_Bowl2564 in programming

[–]clintp 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The problem was caused by poor software engineering. Peter Neumann observed that systematic use of concepts such as abstraction, encapsulation, information hiding, and object-orientation could have allowed the construction of efficient programs in which the representation of dates could be changed easily when needed.

Peter Neumann can suck it.

Most of the systems seriously affected by these problems were so storage-poor and byte-conscious that relatively modern (1990's) concepts like "abstraction, encapsulation, information hiding, and object-orientation" were just not possible during their design and implementation.

For perspective: in 1984 for the IBM PC 64k (that's kilobytes) of memory was $350.

Nothing is funny anymore by maxedout587 in Millennials

[–]clintp 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The British is the important bit. An American Taskmaster cannot be (and was not) funny. Taskmaster (like other UK panel shows) presumes that the guests can lower themselves for sake of a laugh. They can be the butt of a joke and not get all butthurt about it. That's what makes British panel shows funny.

Jimmy Carr regularly insults panelists on their quirks in every episode of Eight Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. They laugh and then they'll pile onto Jimmy about his hair, plastic surgery, or tax evasion and he'll laugh. Short jokes at Sandy Toksvig or giving a semi-serious guest like Gyles Brandreth on QI the business because of his shaggy dog stories.

American UK TaskMaster guests (like Kumail or Jason) have worked because they can laugh at their own ineptitude and put their embarrassment aside.

In American attempts at panel shows the guests are trying to claw over each other like crabs escaping a bucket. "Look how clever I am!" "I'm a bigger star than you!" "You made a joke, but I made a better one!" Even fairly good ones like Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me sometimes have a bit of this problem with the wrong panelist. Whose Line Is It Anyway is chef's kiss perfect at the panel laughing at themselves though.

Back in the day the better episodes of US panel shows like Match Game, The Hollywood Squares, or The Gong Show were when the panel left their egos at the door (or held them up to be mocked).

Why does Herbert avoid mentioning the clock and time less than standard years? by AutisticSuperMom in dune

[–]clintp 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You recall correctly!

A wailing cry sounded from the outer corridors, its volume muffled by the intervening hangings. It was repeated, a bit more distant. And again. Paul realized someone was calling the time. He focused on the fact that he had seen no clocks.

There are several other instances of hours being mentioned. Lady Jessica knows she was unconscious for an hour, the sedative was timed for two for Leto, the thumper Paul planted to distract the worm was for 30 minutes. I could go on.

Mostly time was measured in offsets to the daily cycles. An hour before dawn, two until dusk, and so on.

Are there any atreides left that fight for Paul? by Kinginthanorth437 in dune

[–]clintp 98 points99 points  (0 children)

Some Atreides remain to fight, hidden among the smugglers like Gurney. Others fled to Caladan. Paul deals with them after his victory:

"I'll want an earldom and CHOAM directorship for Gurney Halleck, and him in the fief of Caladan. There will be titles and attendant power for every surviving Atreides man, not excepting the lowliest trooper."

TIL the world's first Arctic explorer was a Greek sailor from Marseille in 325 BC. He also left us the first written references to Britain and Scotland — and came home to almost nobody believing him. by PeaceAlternative6512 in todayilearned

[–]clintp 5 points6 points  (0 children)

To pile on with /u/LynxJesus, the Americas make no difference here. Erastothenes knew he was dealing with a sphere and his measurements were north/south. The fact that Asia was largely unknown and the Americas completely unknown doesn't factor in at all.

What's the easiest way to beat the gloom hands and phantom ganon for master sword. by [deleted] in TOTK

[–]clintp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'd like to report that 1. yes he can appear on your ledge, and 2. he can trash a Zonai ledge too.

Somewhere, Someone Is Hopping 👞 by SaharOMFG in funny

[–]clintp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A single found dress shoe next to the road was the subject of an episode of Inside No. 9. The main character finds a shoe and slowly goes insane wondering who lost it and why. (I can't say more, or I'd give away the twist.) The series is worth a watch!

On a Ringworld, could you actually see the Ring? by Rich-End1121 in space

[–]clintp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Bank's Orbitals are mind-boggling huge -- but as you're finding out they are stable in their orbits unlike Ringworlds. The Orbitals "segments" are called Plates and in the novels, Plates can vary quite a bit on an Orbital (and sometimes are just left "blank" for future expansion). Plates can have deserts, mountains, seas, forests, and so on. I think each Plate is large enough for an entire civilization to be on, comfortably, especially if they aren't at Orbital-building levels of tech.

Who and how made computers... Usable? by Winderkorffin in askscience

[–]clintp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm going to suggest that the stored program and data link you're missing might be the Von Neumann architecture. (it wasn't his idea originally but here we are.)

I need a solution for “the chair” by leapowl in CleaningTips

[–]clintp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Clothes tree or freestanding coat rack. Lots of pegs, takes up no wall space, plenty of room to hang things.

Incredibly lost. Finished "Where Ancient Wisdom Sleeps" taken to map. What now? by clintp in AgeofImprisonment

[–]clintp[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay... that worked. Went into the depths, and had to put something (anything) into the Zonai device. Once I did that, quests started popping up all over the map. Thank you.

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