Re: low sugar - spotty vision


"Chris Malcolm" <cam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Freckles <locksmith9999@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Chris Malcolm" <cam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4mq5j2F79f9fU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Freckles <locksmith9999@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Chris Malcolm" <cam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4mnuq4F724d8U1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Freckles <locksmith9999@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Alan S" <loralweightandcarbs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:6i0dg2pd3mn3abtaq31n3cf46llkn4812n@xxxxxxxxxx

We crossed "in the mail". See my other response. Note the
timing.

Pax.

Crossed in the mail?

I think you are the one who needs to "note the timing'"

Of course you wouldn't know how to temporally change the date and
time
on
your computer do you?

Never heard of the asynchrony of newsgroup propagation have you? And
never heard of newsreaders that download the current newsgroups state
all at once, and leave you to potter through it at your own pace with
no updates while you're doing it?

Before you light the touch paper on your paranoia, it's a good idea to
check the facts. Otherwise you get hoist with your own petard. I'd
better point out that there's a French pun involved in that
Shakespearean joke, meaning you get levitated by your own fart. That
can cause spots before the eyes too.

I'm not certain your post is intended for me, but if it is I must admit
I
have no idea what you are talking about.
I have never heard of the asynchrony of newsgroup propagation, and as
far
as
I know I have never had a newsreader that did whatever it is you
mentioned
above. I guess YOU would say I am computer illiterate

Sorry to hear it. Batch mode newsreaders are still commonplace over
dial up connections and in Unix-type systems. I happen at the moment
to be using a dial up connection to a unix system which gets its
newsgroups in batch mode from my newsgroup server.

Dial up connections are alright and I used them for many years like
everyone
did when there was nothing faster available, but now since I run my own
businesses I have a cable service which is much faster.

So do I, but dial up services still have their uses, such as when
travelling. Last week when I was away from home I used a cell phone
modem to do my email. On my current desktop home computer, which will
very shortly become supersede by a much bigger and faster dual-boot
system, it happens to be most convenient to access the web via cable
and newsgroups via a dial up connection.

Unix systems are
still around and being used by some, but in order to be compatible and
able
to compete, most businesses, here in the U.S.A.don't use it.

In order to be compatible my university dept runs Linux and various
flavours of MacOS and Microsoft Windows, but recommends and devotes
the bulk of its support effort to Linux. While Unix/Linux has been the
province of a few enthusiasts for a long time, in the form of
easy-install Linux variants like Kubuntu it is now growing rapidly in
popularity. Ten years ago most people I met who had a home computer
didn't even know that running Linux on it was an option, if they'd
even heard of it. Now nearly everyone I meet has a friend who has just
installed Kubuntu. It has become part of the arsenal of those
following the move towards the intellectual commons movement as
opposed to the rigidly defensive attitude of the like of Microsoft and
Sony.

It made me sad to see how the US, whose early pre-eminence in the
field of computers was very largely due to the far-sighted and
ingenious efforts of von Neumann to keep US computer development
public and keep it out of the hands of profiteers, later allowed their
computer industry to become hobbled and hamstrung with patents and
copyrights. Now that the web has arrived, and software has become
books and music and films as well as computer programs, the defensive
armies of lawyers employed by the big boys in computers and
entertainment software are strangling the industry.

I'm not saying the UK did better. We were far more stupid, and drove
our best pioneering computer scientist to suicide in a narrow-minded
paranoid pursuit of "national security".

Maybe those things are well known in England and in Europe, but not
here
in
the U.S.A.

Sadly true, even though newsgroups were invented in the USA.

Yes, I guess the U.S.A. is more modern in many things.

It's sad to see them leading the world in the modern fashionable trend
towards ignorance. It doesn't bode well for the future of US science
and technology.

However, I bought my first computer in 1975, and at the end of this
year
I
will be buying my eleventh or twelfth.

Congrats. I didn't buy my first computer until 1979, although I'd been
programming them since the mid 1960s.

That's interesting, except for a few game playing machines, the first
computers we had here, except mainframes, were from the Tandy
Corporation,
that were not avalible to the general public until the mid seventies.

I started my programming life as a mainframe programmer. And you've
missed out the minicomputers which were enabled by the LSI technology
jump, the prior jump to the VLSI which enabled microcomputers.

I have had Radio Shacks, IBMs,
Apples, Compaqs, Dells and a number of off brands. At years end I'll be
buying at least two more Dell computers for business and home use. I
know
how to write computer programs in four languages and I'm now attempting
to
learn two more; C+ and Visual Basic.

Can't remember how many computer languages I've programmed in. At a
guess it's well over a dozen.

Hope you're keeping up. Many of those older programming languages are
obsolete because more modern ones are being developed that are much
faster
and efficient.

Well, the reason I've had to learn so many is because most of them are
now obsolete. Modern high level languages, however, are only faster
and more efficient to *write* programs in. They're not faster and more
efficient in terms of computer power and memory, although some of the
best optimising compilers of the lower-level systems programming
languages can sometimes get close to what an expert programmer can do
in the assembler language which is matched to the hardware of the
particular computer, and in some special cases can surpass it. Even
today, however, there are very few high level languages which use all
the resources available to the programmer in the computer's hardware.
People who need every scrap of performance they can scrape from the
hardware still program in assembly code, or a language which allows
them to drop to that level for critical tasks.

I have designed and set up three
different websites for my home businesses and one for my personal use.
I
have had five different ISPs.

I guess I must have set at least half a dozen websites. I've got five
ISPs at the moment, although only two of them are general purpose and
frequently used. No idea how many I've actually had over the years.

That great! How many of them have ever made money for you?

None, because they were never intended to make any money. I don't rank
web sites in terms of money.

Before I retired 15 years ago I was a production manager for a fortune
500
company and I had to help the software techs write programs for
inventory
control and other business related programs on the IBM mainframe.

Well, since I started life as a systems programmer in the 1960s,
retired two years ago, still work part time for the largest university
computer science dept in the UK, and still occasionally write
programs, I guess my experience trumps yours.

"Systems programmer," I thought you said you were a retired professor
from
some prestigious university in England.

<sigh> Edinburgh is the capital of SCOTLAND!

Before I became a university academic I was a computer systems
programmer for ICL, Britain's national mainframe computer
manufacturer.

What job did you say you do part time at that university?

It's not part time employment. Like a number of retired academics I
swop some unpaid PhD supervision and research for office and lab
facilities. I can do what I like when I like with the facilities, so
long as the odd published paper and PhD rolls out now and then.

I believe you
mentioned something about robots?

The primary focus of my research and teaching has been robotics.

Let's see, I was a Production Manager for a Fortune 500 company. I am now
fully retired from that vocation. I still write computer programs too,
but
the ones I write are for my own businesses and personal use. I also write
for a number of national publications here in the U.S.A. I guess maybe
your
experiences aren't all that overwhelming after all. are they?

You seemed to be boasting that you knew so much about computers that
this asynchronous propagation of newsgroup messages must be either
non-existent or pretty trivial. All I was claiming was that I knew
more about computers than you, and that the asynchronous propagation of
newsgroup messages was a relevant and ignored fact at the heart of the
fight you were trying to pick with Alan.

Man! You really are a befuddled poor old soul. I never mentioned anything
about computers until you stuck your runny nose into the discussion. Read
the thread from start to finish again. I'm assuming of course that you do
know how to read.

Of course that's not to say that any of this applied to Alan. He could
as you suggest be a devious *** who deliberately changed the time
in his computer so he could pretend he hadn't seen your message when
he posted his. And as another poster has pointed out, it's quite
possible his "good chap" persona is just a camouflage for the real
reason for his posting to asd, which is the profits he gets from
promoting certain book sales.

I didn't call Alan a "***.", and I made my accusation of his
changing
the time because of the sequence of times shown on the ASD headers not
because of what I may think of him.

You're wriggling unconvincingly. That accusation clearly involved the
assumption that Alan was the sort of person who would falsify times in
order to deceive.

Clearly to you perhaps, but with your feeble clouded mind most anything
could confuse you.


What I think, or don't think of Alan, is no concern of yours.

This is a public newsgroup, Freckles. Whatever you post to it is as
much my or anyone else's business as we choose to make it.

That's because you are a useless busy body.


I think anyone who posted more than 400 post to ASD last month would be
more
than able to defend himself if he thought he needed to do so.

I was correcting ignorance. It's a hobby of mine.

If you're good at correcting ignorance, you should look inward, that should
keep you busy on your hobby for a long time.


You, on the other hand, would better serve all if you just kept playing
with
your robots, and sweeping out that prestigious university you work for.

Your insults are pretty pathetic. If you want to keep us amused you
need to try a bit harder.

As long as you understood the insult, that's all I care about.


--
Chris Malcolm cam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]


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