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Admin
ara ara?
what's this? Paula unlisted an article correctly first time?!
Admin
@ben_lubar was right! The end times are upon us!
Admin
Paula and Snoofle clearly have a tryst going on
Admin
Yay for Semicolon-delimited fields?
Admin
IMO the only time manual entry is required is when transferring info between isolated air-gapped systems that can't be in the same network and which have such secure data that flash drives and disk transfers are not allowed. I'm sure at least one such environment rightfully exists.
In all other cases, you can just write a migration script like @ben_lubar
Admin
Ah Jimmy -- I can nae change the laws of physics http://thedailywtf.com/images/remy/drunkscotty.jpg
Admin
Decades ago my class at school had a Compact Electronic Engineer kit, a delightful little toy containing a couple of transistors (BC148 and BF194) soldered onto user-friendly mounts, and a variety of resistors, and capacitors and the like, and a breadboard to build a circuit on.
This was passed to our best and brightest, who then spend the next three days trying to assemble the first project in the book: the flashing light (approx 1-second period astable multivibrator). After a great deal of trouble, they finally produced a circuit in which the bulb glowed continually. "But it's supposed to flash," was my comment (I knew all about this kit, as I'd been given one of these toys for xmas that year and already mastered its delights).
"Don't be silly," replied the self-appointed chief of the team that had tried and failed to produce the appropriate functional output. "It's not a flasher bulb."
Admin
Are you telling me that they despite being supplied a diagram managed to build a multivibrator out of 2 transistors, a few resistors and capacitors which couldn't oscilate and tried for THREE DAYS??????
(or that the oscillation frequency was so high that the bulb just appeared to glow continuously, that is potentially not so big a WTF as it only requires to misread the value of a single resistor or capacitor, for instance choosing a 1uF instead of a 100 uF)
But then again, according to the response by the team 'lead' then I gues they were clueless and would manage to screw up no matter what :headdesk:
Admin
It really is unbelievable how dumb first graders were in those days.
Admin
I don't see anything ridiculous about it, particularly in an age of multimillion-dollar data breaches.
Admin
That's what I call a true Scotsman.
Admin
But who decides who gets the license? With the way the enterprise IT industry operates, the moron who can't do fizzbuzz but has 35 "certifications" from 6 different vendors will be licensed.
Admin
Are you kidding me? I mean, maybe this had a tinge of reason before mainstream OSes could handle multiple monitors. But there's no benefit to having two PCs when you could have two monitors, each one dedicated to one app, and only having to use one keyboard and one mouse. Oh, and being able to copy and paste between them.
Admin
I successfully completed every project in my 200 in 1 Radio Shack electronic kit (the kind with the coil spring clips) at, I dunno, 10.
Admin
Apparently, “It Can't Be Done”. :wink:
Admin
In this case ye can nae change the laws of stupidity.
Admin
Yeah, well... at [redacted] Corporation, I was told that the version control system for a certain project consisted of: Main Directory, containing an excel file and "TestBuild" subdirectory. Coders are directed to zip their test code bundles, get the next available ID number from the Excel sheet (manually updating a row in the spreadsheet, mind you), label the zip file, and put it in the "TestBuild" directory. Figuring it was hopeless to suggest opening an "experimental_X" branch on the real SortaForReleaseOnly subversion system that was only to be used by Super Special People, I just asked why there was a single subdirectory if there weren't any others planned. Reason: 'oh, some people can't find the Excel file if it's in the same folder as the zip files."
owwwwwwch.
Admin
I don't think it counts as a success if Paula then goes on to never bother to list the article.
Admin
Admin
Picture fail.
Scotty not only wrote the book, he threw it out and did everything the book said couldn't be done. He taught his generation of engineers how engineering was done right.
Despite the @RFoxmich comment, I'm pretty sure a couple of times physics rearranged itself...because it was easier to do that than to fight Scotty.
He wouldn't have had that problem with the kit mentioned by @Matt_Westwood either; when he finished the first project, that light would have been the core of a new type of warp drive.
The only thing he didn't do well was prevent drunken fights with Klingons.
Admin
It may in fact be a smart thing.
Consider Professor McElroy (http://gawker.com/professor-accidentally-sent-interesting-anal-bead-por-1696231817).
If she had set up two computers on her desk. One for "spreadsheets" and the other for professional activities related to being a law professor, then she could have been privately enjoying her "spreadsheets" while preparing emails for her law class. It would have been impossible for one of the "spreadsheet" links to get mixed in with her legal writing email.
Consider the cost and embarassment, she would have been better off with 2 computers. They are not that expensive.
Admin
It should be treated as a trade, and require an apprenticeship.
Admin
Agreed.
Many of the :wtf: we see is because companies allow "people who have never had in-hand experience on software that people actually use" to lead a team, solely because he got some acedemic degree or certifications.
"Acedemic degree and certifications" cannot replace real world experience.
Admin
Especially when the degree is in Business, thus "qualifying" the person to be a manager — even though the person hasn't a belgiuming clue about what the people he/she is managing actually do.
Admin
Hmm, assuming that isn't your real name, i'd be interested to know how you got it! It is familiar to me for some reason.
Admin
Yep, that's the size of it. I hated that school, it was two wasted years of my life. I had earned a scholarship (age 10) to go to grammar school a year early, then because of a change in circumstances we had to move and went to an area where elementary school lasted till I was 12, and my scholarship meant nothing. And so I had to waste two years with a bunch of mouth-breathers whose brains were in their fists.
Admin
Till you forget which keyboard you're on and reply to someone in one personal forum using the keyboard attached to the computer you're IMing with a client on.
Admin
I was about to make a snarky comment along the lines "What, you were still in first grade at age 10? That explains a lot about you" but then realised I'd forgotten to indicate that 10 (perhaps 11) was the age of the children involved here. Shoulda clarified.
Admin
I was 11, now I think back on it. I probably could have done it younger, but hadn't been offered the opportunity. I don't think you can get similar toys for children any more, at least, not in toy shops. I wandered around one a while back and found it was terribly disappointing.
Admin
Right because you can't copy from the spreadsheet on the first computer and paste into the import program running on the second computer.
Admin
Maybe it was 10 base 6?
Admin
All bases are base 10.
Admin
DARK MAGICKS
Admin
And, of course, it was even more astonishing that some of the students had trouble with that assignment at age 10 or 11.
Admin
Except for base 1. If we used that, you'd gain your majority at the age of 111111111111111111 or something like that…
Admin
Wouldn't it be 0s? That's what Unary uses
Admin
Any symbol would do.
Admin
Sounds like the electronic version of being (un)able to find your own ass with both hands and a map.
Admin
Which software applications output this format?
I sometimes receive reports in this format which I call dotmatrix or terminal which I hate for machine readability. It's always a hassle when you have to make a custom parser that has to worry about things like is this whitespae needed, what are these separators, etc..
Admin
Assuming the first column is fixed-width, that's actually pretty simple to write a parser for
Admin
Any of them probably would, if
Phone_Nohas typevarchar(255)and you store a semicolon-delimited list in it.Admin
Well I have a degree in business and I've never been anything but a software developer.
Admin
Oh god.
I just remembered it's also database cli client format. NOW I know what connector they are using.
CSV is always much better as there is no ambiguity about white space, borders, etc.
In the worst case you need to know if a header column is included and to know the escape sequence for fields which is usually quite basic. A quick regex with look behind or something usually does it if it's not quite the same as your stock CSV library uses.
Admin
is not a base. Tally marks are not a degenerate case of positional number systems. If there's only one digit-symbol, then there is either no way to write zero, or no way to write anything but zero.
Admin
Wrong.
The former, and that is irrelevant. You don't write zero in base-1.
Admin
base 1.
510 in base 1: 11111 510 in tally marks: [image]
Admin
You don't write zero in Roman numerals either. Being able to write zero is the distinguishing characteristic of a positional number system, which is the only kind of system to which the notion of "base" is applicable.
Admin
That's advanced tally marks. We don't cover those until next year.
Admin
No, place value is the distinguishing characteristic of a positional number system. A digit d at place k in base b has a place value of dbk.
abc.de10 = a 102 + b 101 + c 100 + d 10-1 + e 10-2
abc.de2 = a 22 + b 21 + c 20 + d 2-1 + e 2-2
abc.de1 = a 12 + b 11 + c 10 + d 1-1 + e 1-2
Admin
And the value of any digit d at place k in a base-b positional numbering system is constrained to lie in the range 0..b-1. In the hypothetical "base 1" system in your last line, all of a b c d and e would therefore have to be zero, as would the overall result.
8 is not a valid octal number. 22 is not a valid binary number. 11111 is not a valid "base-1" number, because no numbering system where all the columns are of equal place value is a positional numbering system; therefore no such system has a base.