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hkmaly

NP Monday, April 3, 2017

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http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp.php?id=598

I like the idea that it can be bug. I mean, while everyone have different opinion, there are outfits which would be hard to explain as "that persons like them". But there is no such limit in case of androids: their emotional programming might be very crude and full of bugs, so basically ANYTHING might be explained as something the android likes.

...

(Note: it's true that cosplayers can like wearing all sort of crazy stuff, but they are just copying other character which may lack sane reason to wear that.)

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5 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

I am in awe of the ability of some people to be awestruck by things that are in no way awesome whatsoever.

...

Did that come across as profound or just awe-full?

I dunno, let's ask mlooney. ;)

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1 hour ago, Scotty said:
1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

I am in awe of the ability of some people to be awestruck by things that are in no way awesome whatsoever.

...

Did that come across as profound or just awe-full?

I dunno, let's ask mlooney. ;)

Why me? 

At any rate, yeah, profound.   That has a very prog-rock fell to it.  Could, with a little work, be from a Rush/Styx/Blue Oyster Cult/REO Speedwagon song

/me on the other hand, while agreeing with the my basic concept, is a bit suspicious about the use of the term "awe-full".  Adds a note to The List.  No packets are needed at this time, but you should make sure you have some handy.

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49 minutes ago, showler said:

I like that all these high-tech scientists use dot-matrix computers with pin-feed paper.

They still have uses...

and are you going to spend your hard fought research money on a printer, or a new toy for doing the research itself...

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Yes, dot-matrix printers still have superior reliability in terms of pages printed between failures, and their ribbon-based ink is less finicky and lasts longer per cartridge than toner. The "endless paper" feed also helps when creating endless/continuous documents--e.g. near-real-time status printouts. Really, the only disadvantages for text printing (which doesn't need the high-resolution of laser or inkjet printing) are the lower print speed and the noise.

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26 minutes ago, ijuin said:

Yes, dot-matrix printers still have superior reliability in terms of pages printed between failures, and their ribbon-based ink is less finicky and lasts longer per cartridge than toner. The "endless paper" feed also helps when creating endless/continuous documents--e.g. near-real-time status printouts. Really, the only disadvantages for text printing (which doesn't need the high-resolution of laser or inkjet printing) are the lower print speed and the noise.

I thought the noise was an advantage, feels more authentic and all that. 

 

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42 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

I just like it because I am horribly nostalgic.

If I ever find the pattern again, I'll have to knit you a scarf like one I have half-finished somewhere....it was white with light green stripes, with white strips along either edge with holes in them.  :-)

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Ah, yes, striped tractor-feed paper. I was struggling with it long before most of you were born, mostly the wide version which had 132 characters per line as I remember (the home versions were usually 80-characters which could produce 8 1/2 by 11 sheets once you carefully separated them and tore off the feed strips.) The Navy must have leveled many a forest to create the mountain of printer rolls. Once printed, you had to wrestle them into special binders because, of course, you never throw away records. I don't think I ever saw a single officer actually reading one.

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1 minute ago, Tom Sewell said:

Ah, yes, striped tractor-feed paper. I was struggling with it long before most of you were born, mostly the wide version which had 132 characters per line as I remember (the home versions were usually 80-characters which could produce 8 1/2 by 11 sheets once you carefully separated them and tore off the feed strips.) The Navy must have leveled many a forest to create the mountain of printer rolls. Once printed, you had to wrestle them into special binders because, of course, you never throw away records. I don't think I ever saw a single officer actually reading one.

I did, but I was a paramedic and served in an infirmary. I guess doctors feel the occasional need to be reminded of where they're at with their patients.

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3 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

I did, but I was a paramedic and served in an infirmary. I guess doctors feel the occasional need to be reminded of where they're at with their patients.

I did also, but Air Defense officers need to know "things" about what is going on.

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7 hours ago, ijuin said:

The "endless paper" feed also helps when creating endless/continuous documents--e.g. near-real-time status printouts.

Also helps with keeping things together. If Charlotte is reading code listing (which doesn't have natural pages), it would be very impractical to read it from separate sheets of paper.

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I wrote this one management report (in Cobol 68)... they printed three copies of it, and that took between 90% and 110% of a box of fanfold paper.

One copy got distributed. First few pages went to the head of the company. Next several sets of a few pages went to managers who reported directly to the head. Next sets of a few pages went to managers who reported to them. And so on down the line. I don't think there was anyone who got as many as 10 pages unless they were temporarily handling two positions.

Another copy got filed in Accounting. And the third got filed in Information Systems.

Accounting and Information Systems really loved one thing I did on that report... I figured out how to easily put page footers on it (in addition to page headers) so they could look at the bottom of a page and see where they were in the stack, rather than having to open the binder wide enough to read the page headers. I also did a really good job of guessing what should be in the page footers.

Since I kept the code for the page handling separate, and could easily plug it into other programs, I got assigned to write a lot of reports after that.

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1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

Since I kept the code for the page handling separate, and could easily plug it into other programs, I got assigned to write a lot of reports after that.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?  :)

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5 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

I wrote this one management report (in Cobol 68)... they printed three copies of it, and that took between 90% and 110% of a box of fanfold paper.

 

People write in COBOL?

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1 hour ago, Scotty said:
3 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?  :)

A bit of extra job security I can imagine. ;)

Need to be careful about that sort of thing.  Write enough scripts to make your job easy and all at once they don't need you any more, just some monkey to run the scripts.  Then, of course six to eight weeks later they discover that not all of what you did was done by scripts.  Good for a couple of bucks an hour increase in pay to return.

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1 minute ago, ijuin said:
5 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

I wrote this one management report (in Cobol 68)... they printed three copies of it, and that took between 90% and 110% of a box of fanfold paper.

 

People write in COBOL?

I suspect this was a "back in the day" sort of story.  I'm going to tell you to get off of Mr. Edwards' lawn for him.

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1 hour ago, mlooney said:
2 hours ago, Scotty said:

A bit of extra job security I can imagine. ;)

Need to be careful about that sort of thing.  Write enough scripts to make your job easy and all at once they don't need you any more, just some monkey to run the scripts.  Then, of course six to eight weeks later they discover that not all of what you did was done by scripts.  Good for a couple of bucks an hour increase in pay to return.

The key is to write enough scripts to make your work fully automated BUT never tell anyone.

1 hour ago, ijuin said:
6 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

I wrote this one management report (in Cobol 68)... they printed three copies of it, and that took between 90% and 110% of a box of fanfold paper.

People write in COBOL?

Quote

The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.

 

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Just now, mlooney said:

Need to be careful about that sort of thing.  Write enough scripts to make your job easy and all at once they don't need you any more, just some monkey to run the scripts.  Then, of course six to eight weeks later they discover that not all of what you did was done by scripts.  Good for a couple of bucks an hour increase in pay to return.

 

Just now, hkmaly said:

The key is to write enough scripts to make your work fully automated BUT never tell anyone.

This was what I was thinking as well.

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