h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is it just me or has the above list in the Programmer corner evolved from some things to another?

-- DoctorMO --

It does seem to have evolved, but I am not unhappy with the direction.

I no, thasts not what I meant. It an observation, one of which I often find leaves me in troble for being to deep and thoughtfull. Why can't I be shallow and stupid like everyone else in the world?

-- DoctorMO --

because then you would be dull and ordinary, and who would wish that fate on their worst enemy.

Somebody who was too unimaginitive to come up with a worse fate...?

true, but sometimes it makes me feel constrained to be constantly around people who don't understand the things I say, although I have to the internet cerinatly helps in this regard.

-- DoctorMO --

so try and educate them, and raise them to your level.

(I sometimes end up getting debugging sugestions from my 70 year old mother, even though she doesn't use computers).

just be carefull not to fall into the trap of "lecturing" people.

Especially not for a living... People still remind me of the days (about 12 years ago) when I would walk into the Students Union bar and say "Give me a drink! My face aches from smiling at idiots all day!"

At the time, part of my job was to provide introductory computer and A/V training to the unemployed, some of whom had never been in the same room as a computer before. The trick was to be "supportive" and not to let the panic show - I could be sure of at least an hour's overtime every night straightening buckled connector pins, ungunking mice, or on one memorable occasion emptying about a cupful of sand from the mechanism of a portable U-matic video recorder which was needed for a shoot at 9am.

We had one "regular client" who insisted that the only way he could work a mouse properly was to hold it at eye level and work the ball with his left hand while squinting at the monitor underneath it...

Tricky.

-- DoctorMO --

Peet has already been everywhere and done everything...
It shows 2 things:

1. Peet is a verry eclectic and eduacated smart human being .
2. Peet is also verry okl .

Love,

Dancer

HereHere.

-- DoctorMO --

Sounds like Pete worked the help desk one night too many.

who said anything about the help desk, I just think they stay up all night and program but I'm not quite sure what.

-- DoctorMO --

Wibble.

hey peet, does this sound familiar?

A friend of mine is doing post-doc work in computer science, and is thus required to teach. his computer class had a test. the questions were on computer, and all of the course work that they were taken from was available at the same time.

They were even encouraged to use the computer to look up the answers in the course work.

about 60% of them didn't even get a passing grade for a level of programming little above 10 print, 20 goto 10.

students!

That's quite similar to my first ever program, on a HUGE "portable" computer that used to be shared between several schools in the North of Scotland. It must have been in 1978, for reasons which will become clear in a moment, but first I need to describe the machine...

It was the size of a tea-chest, and travelled with an enormous teletype. It had a video interface, in the form of an RF-out which was used to show (monochrome) text on a TV set borrowed from whatever school it was in. You couldn't directly program using the text interface; it was just mapped to a block of memory you could write to. The operating system (some form of ROM BASIC) could only directly interact with the teletype. I wasn't into computers at the time, but thinking back I guess it was based on a "homebrew" kit such as a NASCOM.

Anyhow, I sneaked into the room where it was set up one lunch time, and by reading all the printouts lying on top of the bin I was able to work out the syntax sufficiently to write (and run) the following:

10 print "I think you ought to know, I'm feeling very depressed."
20 print "Life? Don't talk to me about life!"
30 goto 10

I kept a low profile after that, but I hear that when they came back to it after lunch they had a whole box of teleprinter paper with that printed over it, noticeably fading by the end as the ribbon wore through... For the next week, everybody's work had quotes from Marvin printed on the back, as the paper was too valuable to throw away... What a little cyber-vandal I was...

(It must have been 1978 because at the time I was a *huge* fan of the radio series of HHGTTG...)

Sounds like you had a great time, shame there wasn't somthing like that we could have got up to at college.

-- DoctoRMO --