• Datasheet-flation?

    From Don Y@21:1/5 to All on Sat Nov 23 03:50:54 2024
    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    This is getting ridiculous. I thought 2,000 page datasheets were
    over the top, but this one is a personal record! <frown>

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to blockedofcourse@foo.invalid on Sat Nov 23 07:38:16 2024
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 03:50:54 -0700, Don Y
    <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:

    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    This is getting ridiculous. I thought 2,000 page datasheets were
    over the top, but this one is a personal record! <frown>

    On the other hand, data sheet quality is generally going down.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Joe Gwinn@21:1/5 to john larkin on Sat Nov 23 12:12:19 2024
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 07:38:16 -0800, john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 03:50:54 -0700, Don Y
    <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:

    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    This is getting ridiculous. I thought 2,000 page datasheets were
    over the top, but this one is a personal record! <frown>

    On the other hand, data sheet quality is generally going down.

    My experience is similar - these are usually written in cookbook form,
    and there must be a recipe for every possible use. It can be just
    about impossible to find the principles of operation documented in a
    coherent way. Even if badly written, it would still beat the immense
    cookbook approach.

    In some cases (networking comes to mind), the vendors have immense documentation bases, large enough that it's physically impossible to
    be fully expert in more than one vendor's product line.

    Joe Gwinn

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  • From Cursitor Doom@21:1/5 to john larkin on Sat Nov 23 16:53:48 2024
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 07:38:16 -0800, john larkin wrote:

    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 03:50:54 -0700, Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:

    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    This is getting ridiculous. I thought 2,000 page datasheets were over
    the top, but this one is a personal record! <frown>

    On the other hand, data sheet quality is generally going down.

    Not just datasheets, but app notes and textbooks as well. They were all
    far, far clearer and better-written decades ago compared with today. I
    suspect it's perhaps due to the schools not teaching formal English
    grammar any more.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Waldek Hebisch@21:1/5 to Don Y on Sat Nov 23 19:05:36 2024
    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    In my country people would ask why are you putting decimal
    comma in a number that is supposed to be an integer?

    This is getting ridiculous. I thought 2,000 page datasheets were
    over the top, but this one is a personal record! <frown>

    Size depends on complexity of the processor, on what is included
    (Chinese makers tends to have short datasheets which frequently
    skip useful information) and style of presentation. I recently feched
    Intel datasheet giving essentually the instruction set, it is
    more than 5000 pages. Several STM datasheet for relatively simple
    processors have more than 1000 pages. Some STM datasheets contain
    a lot of examples in C, that adds bulk. STM has general timer
    design which can be specialized to remove various features.
    Instead of describing general design and then specifying features
    of each timer they have separate section for each compbination
    of features present in a timer. This leads to significant
    duplication, where bulk of a section is the same as section
    for another timer, but some places differ.

    IIRC have a datasheet with about 5000 pages. 16000 pages would
    be reasonable if the processor contains a lot of features
    and they want to describe it in depth. Or could be just
    mistuned text-generator which is spitting text based on some
    templates and a database.

    --
    Waldek Hebisch

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  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to cd999666@notformail.com on Sat Nov 23 12:06:33 2024
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 16:53:48 -0000 (UTC), Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 07:38:16 -0800, john larkin wrote:

    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 03:50:54 -0700, Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>
    wrote:

    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    This is getting ridiculous. I thought 2,000 page datasheets were over >>>the top, but this one is a personal record! <frown>

    On the other hand, data sheet quality is generally going down.

    Not just datasheets, but app notes and textbooks as well. They were all
    far, far clearer and better-written decades ago compared with today. I >suspect it's perhaps due to the schools not teaching formal English
    grammar any more.

    The grammar is occasionally bad, but the technical content is worse.

    I'm thinking that designers must be kept designing, so data sheet
    writers and app engineers are not designers, and are directed to
    minimally annoy them.

    I just got a good, fast response from TI, about over-driving the input
    of an ADS7052 ADC. I expected them to say "don't exceed the abs max
    input voltage of Vcc+0.3" but I got a more intelligent response. I was
    shocked.

    In past times all sorts of chips would get weird if you pumped a
    little current into their ESD diodes, or latched up and fried, but
    that is rare now, thank Goodness.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Jeff Liebermann@21:1/5 to blockedofcourse@foo.invalid on Sat Nov 23 12:40:15 2024
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 03:50:54 -0700, Don Y
    <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:

    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    I suggest you switch to a RISC processor. Fewer instructions implies
    that there might be fewer pages of documentation. Let's see if that
    works.

    The RISC-V instruction set manual is 238 PDF pages: <https://riscv.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/riscv-spec.pdf>
    while the Intel 64 and IA-32 combined developer manual is 5,237 PDF
    pages: <https://cdrdv2-public.intel.com/835781/325462-sdm-vol-1-2abcd-3abcd-4.pdf> Yep. More instructions means more pages.

    This is getting ridiculous. I thought 2,000 page datasheets were
    over the top, but this one is a personal record! <frown>

    Nobody RTFM's the entire manual. You're not expected to read and
    understand everything, just the part that is useful for whatever
    you're doing. I have numerous books where I've only read a few
    relevant chapters, skimmed a few others, and ignored the rest. When
    you lookup a telephone number in a telephone directory, do you read
    the entire directory? Same with modern devices, which are often full
    of features that you'll never need or use.

    --
    Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
    PO Box 272 http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
    Ben Lomond CA 95005-0272
    Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

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  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to Hebisch on Sat Nov 23 12:51:50 2024
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 19:05:36 -0000 (UTC), antispam@fricas.org (Waldek
    Hebisch) wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    In my country people would ask why are you putting decimal
    comma in a number that is supposed to be an integer?


    Are there any English-speaking countries that show an integer as
    123.456.789 ?

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  • From Liz Tuddenham@21:1/5 to Waldek Hebisch on Sat Nov 23 22:02:07 2024
    Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    In my country people would ask why are you putting decimal
    comma in a number that is supposed to be an integer?

    It's a convention used in banking and accountancy to divide the '0's
    into groups of three and make them easier to count with less chance of
    error. It is also used by newspapers and sometimes in ordinary
    correspondence but very rarely in scientific communications, where the
    10^x notation is preferred. The decimal divider in English is the
    full-stop [American: "period"]

    Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million
    (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American and
    French.. Most English people seem ignorant of this and use it
    incorrectly with the American meaning.


    --
    ~ Liz Tuddenham ~
    (Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
    www.poppyrecords.co.uk

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Joe Gwinn@21:1/5 to Liz Tuddenham on Sat Nov 23 17:31:54 2024
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 22:02:07 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    In my country people would ask why are you putting decimal
    comma in a number that is supposed to be an integer?

    It's a convention used in banking and accountancy to divide the '0's
    into groups of three and make them easier to count with less chance of
    error. It is also used by newspapers and sometimes in ordinary >correspondence but very rarely in scientific communications, where the
    10^x notation is preferred. The decimal divider in English is the
    full-stop [American: "period"]

    Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million
    (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American and
    French.. Most English people seem ignorant of this and use it
    incorrectly with the American meaning.

    True. In IEEE computer standards such as 1003.1 (POSIX/Linux), the
    word billion is not used, replaced by a thousand million. In related documents, I usually also say something like "billion (10^9)" to be
    precise.

    Joe Gwinn

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Don Y@21:1/5 to Jeff Liebermann on Sat Nov 23 15:57:26 2024
    On 11/23/2024 1:40 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 03:50:54 -0700, Don Y
    <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:

    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    I suggest you switch to a RISC processor. Fewer instructions implies
    that there might be fewer pages of documentation. Let's see if that
    works.

    THIS documentation just addresses hardware capabilities. And,
    only parts of it. E.g., the details of the FPU, MMU, crypto
    processing, GPU, etc. are handled in other documents.

    There are 12000 pages documenting the *registers* (peripherals)
    in the device.

    The RISC-V instruction set manual is 238 PDF pages: <https://riscv.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/riscv-spec.pdf>
    while the Intel 64 and IA-32 combined developer manual is 5,237 PDF
    pages: <https://cdrdv2-public.intel.com/835781/325462-sdm-vol-1-2abcd-3abcd-4.pdf> Yep. More instructions means more pages.

    More instructions often address more capabilities. Does the
    RISC processor, above, have an MMU? Hardware support for
    floating point? GPU?

    This is getting ridiculous. I thought 2,000 page datasheets were
    over the top, but this one is a personal record! <frown>

    Nobody RTFM's the entire manual. You're not expected to read and
    understand everything, just the part that is useful for whatever
    you're doing.

    If you are responsible for writing the OS -- and its drivers -- you
    need to understand all of the peripherals in-built to the device. "Applications" don't talk directly to UARTs, or display hardware,
    or PWM controllers, or timers, or...

    And, even if you OPT not to use a particular "I/O" device, you
    have to understand how to ensure it can't interfere with the
    operation of the other I/O devices in the machine. The whole
    notion of a "spurious" interrupt -- from a device that should be
    quiescent!

    I have numerous books where I've only read a few
    relevant chapters, skimmed a few others, and ignored the rest. When
    you lookup a telephone number in a telephone directory, do you read
    the entire directory? Same with modern devices, which are often full
    of features that you'll never need or use.

    You select a device for the capabilities that you need. You
    wouldn't select a device with an FPU/MMU/GPU/etc. if you didn't
    plan on using/needing those features. You wouldn't select a device
    with a hardware (integer) multiplier if THAT wasn't needed.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Don Y@21:1/5 to Waldek Hebisch on Sat Nov 23 15:49:30 2024
    On 11/23/2024 12:05 PM, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    In my country people would ask why are you putting decimal
    comma in a number that is supposed to be an integer?

    I18N/L10N. In the US, there are many conventions for the presentation
    of numeric values.

    Magnitudes greater thatn 10^3 *can* be separated into triads of
    digits (right justified) using the comma as a separator.
    1,000; 1,000,000; 1,000,000,000; etc. For four digit values,
    the separator is often omitted.

    Years, in dates, are never represented with a comma: 2024, 1999, etc.

    Numeric street addresses are also not so punctuated. 2981, 10322, etc. (additionally, street addresses are referenced as "hundreds" -- the
    last of those would be spoken as "hundred and three hundred")

    This is getting ridiculous. I thought 2,000 page datasheets were
    over the top, but this one is a personal record! <frown>

    Size depends on complexity of the processor, on what is included
    (Chinese makers tends to have short datasheets which frequently
    skip useful information) and style of presentation.

    Of course! The datasheet typcially only deals with hardware related issues and, possibly, a coarse overview of the programmer's model -- but no documentation of the instruction set, or instruction timing, etc.

    I recently feched
    Intel datasheet giving essentually the instruction set, it is
    more than 5000 pages.

    Yes. The programmer's reference (for the main cores), FPU, MMU, crypto processor and the "support processors" are handled in other documents.
    As I said, the datasheet just describes the HARDWARE. (though the actual
    pin descriptions -- 400+ -- are described elsewhere, electrically.

    Several STM datasheet for relatively simple
    processors have more than 1000 pages.

    There are 12,000+ pages describing the registers in the device.

    Some STM datasheets contain
    a lot of examples in C, that adds bulk. STM has general timer
    design which can be specialized to remove various features.
    Instead of describing general design and then specifying features
    of each timer they have separate section for each compbination
    of features present in a timer. This leads to significant
    duplication, where bulk of a section is the same as section
    for another timer, but some places differ.

    Yes. The "core specific" registers are repeated four times
    (as there are a set for each core). While this is a
    relatively straightforward way of presenting the material,
    it leaves you wondering if there is some SUBTLE difference
    in the descriptions that may prove significant: "I'd better
    verify they are truly identical!"

    IIRC have a datasheet with about 5000 pages. 16000 pages would
    be reasonable if the processor contains a lot of features
    and they want to describe it in depth.

    No. This just enumerates lots of details. LOTS of tables.
    Tables that span 10 or 20 pages! The days of the "M6800
    Programming Reference Manual" that laid out complete applications
    (because such devices were relatively new) are gone.

    Or could be just
    mistuned text-generator which is spitting text based on some
    templates and a database.

    With ARM products, documentation often seems to be "documentation
    modules" that are slapped together. And, as the documentation
    also serves to explain the devices to their licensees, it can
    often seem like they aren't talking about a real device but,
    rather, abstract silicon.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to Liz Tuddenham on Sat Nov 23 15:05:19 2024
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 22:02:07 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    In my country people would ask why are you putting decimal
    comma in a number that is supposed to be an integer?

    It's a convention used in banking and accountancy to divide the '0's
    into groups of three and make them easier to count with less chance of
    error. It is also used by newspapers and sometimes in ordinary >correspondence but very rarely in scientific communications, where the
    10^x notation is preferred. The decimal divider in English is the
    full-stop [American: "period"]


    Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million
    (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American and
    French.. Most English people seem ignorant of this and use it
    incorrectly with the American meaning.

    Units, thousands, millions, billions, trillions makes sense. 1000:1
    steps.

    Unless you mean national debts, where quadrillions are the next step.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Jeroen Belleman@21:1/5 to Joe Gwinn on Sun Nov 24 00:30:02 2024
    On 11/23/24 23:31, Joe Gwinn wrote:
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 22:02:07 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    In my country people would ask why are you putting decimal
    comma in a number that is supposed to be an integer?

    It's a convention used in banking and accountancy to divide the '0's
    into groups of three and make them easier to count with less chance of
    error. It is also used by newspapers and sometimes in ordinary
    correspondence but very rarely in scientific communications, where the
    10^x notation is preferred. The decimal divider in English is the
    full-stop [American: "period"]

    Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million
    (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American and
    French.. Most English people seem ignorant of this and use it
    incorrectly with the American meaning.

    True. In IEEE computer standards such as 1003.1 (POSIX/Linux), the
    word billion is not used, replaced by a thousand million. In related documents, I usually also say something like "billion (10^9)" to be
    precise.

    Joe Gwinn

    I'd use metric prefixes. So 10^9 is 1G and 10^12 is 1T. I even
    wrote a desktop calculator program styled after Unix's 'dc' that
    uses that notation.

    Jeroen Belleman

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Don Y@21:1/5 to Liz Tuddenham on Sat Nov 23 16:32:14 2024
    On 11/23/2024 3:02 PM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    In my country people would ask why are you putting decimal
    comma in a number that is supposed to be an integer?

    It's a convention used in banking and accountancy to divide the '0's
    into groups of three and make them easier to count with less chance of
    error. It is also used by newspapers and sometimes in ordinary correspondence but very rarely in scientific communications, where the
    10^x notation is preferred. The decimal divider in English is the
    full-stop [American: "period"]

    The thousands separator is "locale specific" (and, as I outlined,
    elsewhere, often has exceptions). Commas, spaces, dots, underscores
    and apostrophes are used. With typeset documents, often a
    THIN SPACE (U+2009 ) is used to keep the digit groups close together
    (where a real space would tend to separate them) yet allow the
    eye to easily note the groupings.

    Numerics are never "broken" across line (or PAGE! Gasp!) breaks
    whereas a comma, for example, used to separate a clause would
    be welcomed in such a place.

    Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million
    (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American and
    French.. Most English people seem ignorant of this and use it
    incorrectly with the American meaning.

    Yeah, first time in the UK we had several misunderstandings
    about that! (along with things like life ASSURANCE, vacumn,
    "way out", etc.)

    Amusing to ALMOST share a common language! :>

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Bill Sloman@21:1/5 to Cursitor Doom on Sun Nov 24 13:43:50 2024
    On 24/11/2024 3:53 am, Cursitor Doom wrote:
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 07:38:16 -0800, john larkin wrote:

    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 03:50:54 -0700, Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>
    wrote:

    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    This is getting ridiculous. I thought 2,000 page datasheets were over
    the top, but this one is a personal record! <frown>

    On the other hand, data sheet quality is generally going down.

    Not just datasheets, but app notes and textbooks as well. They were all
    far, far clearer and better-written decades ago compared with today. I suspect it's perhaps due to the schools not teaching formal English
    grammar any more.

    Probably not. Having to print the data sheets and bind them into books
    and get customers to find shelf space for those books imposed a
    discipline that isn't there any more.

    Formal English grammar is a gross over-simplification of language
    structure. Machine translation didn't work until computers could handle
    huge sample of real language and access the actual examples they needed.

    --
    Bill Sloman, Sydney

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  • From Don Y@21:1/5 to Liz Tuddenham on Sat Nov 23 20:54:56 2024
    On 11/23/2024 3:02 PM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:

    In my country people would ask why are you putting decimal
    comma in a number that is supposed to be an integer?

    It's a convention used in banking and accountancy to divide the '0's

    s/0/digit/

    into groups of three and make them easier to count with less chance of

    It's also a convenient way to get a feel for magnitudes.
    "All those zeroes..."

    error. It is also used by newspapers and sometimes in ordinary correspondence but very rarely in scientific communications, where the

    OTOH, in software, scientific notation "abbreviations" lose
    precision (for integers that can easily *BE* 10 digits).

    There, we have a choice of multiple radix to express values.
    (and, even then, there are oddball representations: what's
    "377 377"?)

    10^x notation is preferred. The decimal divider in English is the
    full-stop [American: "period"]

    Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million
    (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American and
    French..

    .. where it is a "milliard"

    Most English people seem ignorant of this and use it
    incorrectly with the American meaning.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Don Y@21:1/5 to Liz Tuddenham on Sun Nov 24 05:02:11 2024
    On 11/24/2024 4:30 AM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:


    Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million
    (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American and
    French..

    .. where it is a "milliard"

    The Milliard is English for a thousand million, which Americans call a "Billion".

    Ah! I thought it was *french*!

    Logically the English runs:
    10^3 Thousand
    10^6 Million
    10^9 Milliard
    10^12 Billion (bi-million)
    10^15 Billiard (yes, really ! )
    10^18 Trillion (tri-million)
    10^18 Trilliard ....etc.



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  • From Liz Tuddenham@21:1/5 to Don Y on Sun Nov 24 11:30:34 2024
    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:


    Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million
    (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American and French..

    .. where it is a "milliard"

    The Milliard is English for a thousand million, which Americans call a "Billion".

    Logically the English runs:
    10^3 Thousand
    10^6 Million
    10^9 Milliard
    10^12 Billion (bi-million)
    10^15 Billiard (yes, really ! )
    10^18 Trillion (tri-million)
    10^18 Trilliard ....etc.


    --
    ~ Liz Tuddenham ~
    (Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
    www.poppyrecords.co.uk

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to Liz Tuddenham on Sun Nov 24 07:48:33 2024
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 11:30:34 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:


    Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million
    (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American and
    French..

    .. where it is a "milliard"

    The Milliard is English for a thousand million, which Americans call a >"Billion".

    Logically the English runs:
    10^3 Thousand
    10^6 Million
    10^9 Milliard

    No, that's a duck.


    10^12 Billion (bi-million)
    10^15 Billiard (yes, really ! )
    10^18 Trillion (tri-million)
    10^18 Trilliard ....etc.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Waldek Hebisch@21:1/5 to john larkin on Sun Nov 24 16:03:21 2024
    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 19:05:36 -0000 (UTC), antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    In my country people would ask why are you putting decimal
    comma in a number that is supposed to be an integer?


    Are there any English-speaking countries that show an integer as
    123.456.789 ?

    AFAIK in my country (Poland) this is an official format. But I
    do not remember seeing it in real life. I an not saying that
    I newer saw it, simply if I saw it it was rare enough that I
    do not remember.

    This is an international place, and assumption that people who
    read it speak English is unwarranted. There are folks that
    manage to read and write something resembling English but
    they can not speak it. However, the point is that writing
    commas in numbers invites confusion (commas are too overloaded),
    especially since 16 looks like much more likely number.

    BTW: When needing to speparate digits I normally use underscores.
    That seem to minimize chance of confusion.

    --
    Waldek Hebisch

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to blockedofcourse@foo.invalid on Sun Nov 24 09:26:13 2024
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 15:49:30 -0700, Don Y
    <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:

    On 11/23/2024 12:05 PM, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    In my country people would ask why are you putting decimal
    comma in a number that is supposed to be an integer?

    I18N/L10N. In the US, there are many conventions for the presentation
    of numeric values.

    Magnitudes greater thatn 10^3 *can* be separated into triads of
    digits (right justified) using the comma as a separator.
    1,000; 1,000,000; 1,000,000,000; etc. For four digit values,
    the separator is often omitted.

    Years, in dates, are never represented with a comma: 2024, 1999, etc.

    Numeric street addresses are also not so punctuated. 2981, 10322, etc. >(additionally, street addresses are referenced as "hundreds" -- the
    last of those would be spoken as "hundred and three hundred")

    Some towns start street addresses at 10000. Our cabin is at 12076 Some
    Lane.

    People don't seem to use commas for that.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Liz Tuddenham@21:1/5 to john larkin on Sun Nov 24 17:25:43 2024
    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 11:30:34 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:


    Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million
    (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American and
    French..

    .. where it is a "milliard"

    The Milliard is English for a thousand million, which Americans call a >"Billion".

    Logically the English runs:
    10^3 Thousand
    10^6 Million
    10^9 Milliard

    No, that's a duck.


    What goes "Quick! Quick!" ?
    |

    |

    |

    |

    |

    A duck with hiccups.




    (It will soon be Christmas cracker time.)

    --
    ~ Liz Tuddenham ~
    (Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
    www.poppyrecords.co.uk

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to Liz Tuddenham on Sun Nov 24 09:37:38 2024
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 17:25:43 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 11:30:34 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:


    Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million
    (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American and
    French..

    .. where it is a "milliard"

    The Milliard is English for a thousand million, which Americans call a
    "Billion".

    Logically the English runs:
    10^3 Thousand
    10^6 Million
    10^9 Milliard

    No, that's a duck.


    What goes "Quick! Quick!" ?
    |

    |

    |

    |

    |

    A duck with hiccups.




    (It will soon be Christmas cracker time.)

    Wonderful birds. It's unfortunate that they taste so good.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to Hebisch on Sun Nov 24 09:46:55 2024
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 16:03:21 -0000 (UTC), antispam@fricas.org (Waldek
    Hebisch) wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 19:05:36 -0000 (UTC), antispam@fricas.org (Waldek
    Hebisch) wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    In my country people would ask why are you putting decimal
    comma in a number that is supposed to be an integer?


    Are there any English-speaking countries that show an integer as
    123.456.789 ?

    AFAIK in my country (Poland) this is an official format. But I
    do not remember seeing it in real life. I an not saying that
    I newer saw it, simply if I saw it it was rare enough that I
    do not remember.

    This is an international place, and assumption that people who
    read it speak English is unwarranted. There are folks that
    manage to read and write something resembling English but
    they can not speak it. However, the point is that writing
    commas in numbers invites confusion (commas are too overloaded),
    especially since 16 looks like much more likely number.

    BTW: When needing to speparate digits I normally use underscores.
    That seem to minimize chance of confusion.

    If you design electronics in Poland, you are pretty much stuck with
    having to read datasheets in American English.

    I wonder if anything like Google Translate can make sensible
    translations of data sheets.

    Do people in Poland code processors or FPGAs in Polish? I suspect not.

    Does LT Spice have language versions?

    I think the world is trending towards AE as a universal second
    language.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Cursitor Doom@21:1/5 to Don Y on Sun Nov 24 18:01:06 2024
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 05:02:11 -0700, Don Y wrote:

    On 11/24/2024 4:30 AM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:


    Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million
    (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American and
    French..

    .. where it is a "milliard"

    The Milliard is English for a thousand million, which Americans call a
    "Billion".

    Ah! I thought it was *french*!

    It's German actually. And the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no confusion.


    Logically the English runs:
    10^3 Thousand 10^6 Million 10^9 Milliard 10^12 Billion
    (bi-million)
    10^15 Billiard (yes, really ! )
    10^18 Trillion (tri-million)
    10^18 Trilliard ....etc.



    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeff Liebermann@21:1/5 to Liz Tuddenham on Sun Nov 24 10:38:43 2024
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 11:30:34 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:


    Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million
    (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American and
    French..

    .. where it is a "milliard"

    The Milliard is English for a thousand million, which Americans call a >"Billion".

    Logically the English runs:
    10^3 Thousand
    10^6 Million
    10^9 Milliard
    10^12 Billion (bi-million)
    10^15 Billiard (yes, really ! )
    10^18 Trillion (tri-million)
    10^18 Trilliard ....etc.

    You left out zillion, gazillion, jillion, gajillion, bazillion,
    bajillion, ad absurdum. These are very large numbers waiting to be
    defined and appear in common use. They are useful for projecting the
    size of the US national debt: <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/zillion>

    --
    Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
    PO Box 272 http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
    Ben Lomond CA 95005-0272
    Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Liz Tuddenham@21:1/5 to Cursitor Doom on Sun Nov 24 18:22:22 2024
    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.


    --
    ~ Liz Tuddenham ~
    (Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
    www.poppyrecords.co.uk

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeroen Belleman@21:1/5 to john larkin on Sun Nov 24 20:25:59 2024
    On 11/24/24 18:37, john larkin wrote:
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 17:25:43 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 11:30:34 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:


    Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million
    (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American and >>>>>> French..

    .. where it is a "milliard"

    The Milliard is English for a thousand million, which Americans call a >>>> "Billion".

    Logically the English runs:
    10^3 Thousand
    10^6 Million
    10^9 Milliard

    No, that's a duck.


    What goes "Quick! Quick!" ?
    |

    |

    |

    |

    |

    A duck with hiccups.




    (It will soon be Christmas cracker time.)

    Wonderful birds. It's unfortunate that they taste so good.


    That may be what will save them. Animals that taste good
    don't go extinct. But what a destiny...

    Jeroen Belleman

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Liz Tuddenham@21:1/5 to Jeroen Belleman on Sun Nov 24 19:43:13 2024
    Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

    On 11/24/24 18:37, john larkin wrote:
    [...]
    Wonderful birds. It's unfortunate that they taste so good.


    That may be what will save them. Animals that taste good
    don't go extinct.

    Dodos did-did.

    --
    ~ Liz Tuddenham ~
    (Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
    www.poppyrecords.co.uk

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to jeroen@nospam.please on Sun Nov 24 13:43:33 2024
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 20:25:59 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
    <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

    On 11/24/24 18:37, john larkin wrote:
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 17:25:43 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 11:30:34 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:


    Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million
    (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American and >>>>>>> French..

    .. where it is a "milliard"

    The Milliard is English for a thousand million, which Americans call a >>>>> "Billion".

    Logically the English runs:
    10^3 Thousand
    10^6 Million
    10^9 Milliard

    No, that's a duck.


    What goes "Quick! Quick!" ?
    |

    |

    |

    |

    |

    A duck with hiccups.




    (It will soon be Christmas cracker time.)

    Wonderful birds. It's unfortunate that they taste so good.


    That may be what will save them. Animals that taste good
    don't go extinct. But what a destiny...

    Jeroen Belleman

    I wonder if any animals have evolved to taste bad. Or be outright
    poisonous.

    Plants do that.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeroen Belleman@21:1/5 to john larkin on Sun Nov 24 23:08:52 2024
    On 11/24/24 22:43, john larkin wrote:
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 20:25:59 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
    <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

    On 11/24/24 18:37, john larkin wrote:
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 17:25:43 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 11:30:34 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid >>>>> (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:


    Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million
    (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American and >>>>>>>> French..

    .. where it is a "milliard"

    The Milliard is English for a thousand million, which Americans call a >>>>>> "Billion".

    Logically the English runs:
    10^3 Thousand
    10^6 Million
    10^9 Milliard

    No, that's a duck.


    What goes "Quick! Quick!" ?
    |

    |

    |

    |

    |

    A duck with hiccups.




    (It will soon be Christmas cracker time.)

    Wonderful birds. It's unfortunate that they taste so good.


    That may be what will save them. Animals that taste good
    don't go extinct. But what a destiny...

    Jeroen Belleman

    I wonder if any animals have evolved to taste bad. Or be outright
    poisonous.

    Plants do that.


    Some frogs and insects.

    Jeroen Belleman

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Joe Gwinn@21:1/5 to jeroen@nospam.please on Sun Nov 24 18:15:17 2024
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 00:30:02 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
    <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

    On 11/23/24 23:31, Joe Gwinn wrote:
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 22:02:07 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    In my country people would ask why are you putting decimal
    comma in a number that is supposed to be an integer?

    It's a convention used in banking and accountancy to divide the '0's
    into groups of three and make them easier to count with less chance of
    error. It is also used by newspapers and sometimes in ordinary
    correspondence but very rarely in scientific communications, where the
    10^x notation is preferred. The decimal divider in English is the
    full-stop [American: "period"]

    Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million
    (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American and
    French.. Most English people seem ignorant of this and use it
    incorrectly with the American meaning.

    True. In IEEE computer standards such as 1003.1 (POSIX/Linux), the
    word billion is not used, replaced by a thousand million. In related
    documents, I usually also say something like "billion (10^9)" to be
    precise.

    Joe Gwinn

    I'd use metric prefixes. So 10^9 is 1G and 10^12 is 1T. I even
    wrote a desktop calculator program styled after Unix's 'dc' that
    uses that notation.

    If only people all used metric prefixes, and used them consistently.

    In POSIX, first formally standardized in 1988, it was necessary to
    avoid the word billion. POSIX was originally written in California
    English, not EU English.

    Joe Gwinn

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Cursitor Doom@21:1/5 to Liz Tuddenham on Mon Nov 25 00:50:52 2024
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 18:22:22 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many years ago at one
    thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    Try this:
    https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/why-are-uk-and- american-billions-different

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Carlos E.R.@21:1/5 to john larkin on Mon Nov 25 03:41:59 2024
    On 2024-11-24 18:46, john larkin wrote:
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 16:03:21 -0000 (UTC), antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 19:05:36 -0000 (UTC), antispam@fricas.org (Waldek
    Hebisch) wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    In my country people would ask why are you putting decimal
    comma in a number that is supposed to be an integer?


    Are there any English-speaking countries that show an integer as
    123.456.789 ?

    AFAIK in my country (Poland) this is an official format. But I
    do not remember seeing it in real life. I an not saying that
    I newer saw it, simply if I saw it it was rare enough that I
    do not remember.

    This is an international place, and assumption that people who
    read it speak English is unwarranted. There are folks that
    manage to read and write something resembling English but
    they can not speak it. However, the point is that writing
    commas in numbers invites confusion (commas are too overloaded),
    especially since 16 looks like much more likely number.

    BTW: When needing to speparate digits I normally use underscores.
    That seem to minimize chance of confusion.

    If you design electronics in Poland, you are pretty much stuck with
    having to read datasheets in American English.

    I wonder if anything like Google Translate can make sensible
    translations of data sheets.

    Do people in Poland code processors or FPGAs in Polish? I suspect not.

    We use a mixed language (Spain).

    If you use software like Libre Office spreadsheets, numbers are
    automatically printed in the local style, unless you specify to use some
    other locale, say British. But then you get other problems, like wrong spelling, or wrong monetary unit. You might choose a customized locale
    so that only numbers are USA style, but then it might print dollars
    instead of euros...

    It is not that simple.


    On another era, when we started to use calculators, we started to use
    the dot for decimals, instead of the comma. This was a problem with
    strict teachers.

    Then you have cash registers...


    Oh, programming language. Some decades ago, Telefónica had the software translated. The commands of the Lucent machine (5ESSS) were in Spanish.
    That must have been really expensive to do.


    --
    Cheers, Carlos.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Waldek Hebisch@21:1/5 to john larkin on Mon Nov 25 02:21:12 2024
    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 16:03:21 -0000 (UTC), antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 19:05:36 -0000 (UTC), antispam@fricas.org (Waldek
    Hebisch) wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    In my country people would ask why are you putting decimal
    comma in a number that is supposed to be an integer?


    Are there any English-speaking countries that show an integer as
    123.456.789 ?

    AFAIK in my country (Poland) this is an official format. But I
    do not remember seeing it in real life. I an not saying that
    I newer saw it, simply if I saw it it was rare enough that I
    do not remember.

    This is an international place, and assumption that people who
    read it speak English is unwarranted. There are folks that
    manage to read and write something resembling English but
    they can not speak it. However, the point is that writing
    commas in numbers invites confusion (commas are too overloaded),
    especially since 16 looks like much more likely number.

    BTW: When needing to speparate digits I normally use underscores.
    That seem to minimize chance of confusion.

    If you design electronics in Poland, you are pretty much stuck with
    having to read datasheets in American English.

    Yes. But they are technical documents that make at least some
    attempt to clarity (possibly limited to avoiding commas in
    numbers).

    I wonder if anything like Google Translate can make sensible
    translations of data sheets.

    I saw result from translating a chinese datasheet, did not look
    nice, but one could get from it useful info.

    Do people in Poland code processors or FPGAs in Polish? I suspect not.

    I suspect that some do. Not when there is international cooperation
    or they want to sell code. Of course syntax is standard but
    comments and variable names may be in Polish.

    Does LT Spice have language versions?

    I am using ngspice which I think is English only.

    I think the world is trending towards AE as a universal second
    language.

    EU has English as one of official languages, but it is subtly different
    from British English and more from American English.

    And concerning datasheets, a lot of datasheets is Chinese only.

    --
    Waldek Hebisch

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don Y@21:1/5 to Carlos E.R. on Sun Nov 24 20:19:07 2024
    On 11/24/2024 7:41 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    We use a mixed language (Spain).

    I thought there were *several*. Or, are these "nonofficial"
    or simply treated as dialects?

    If you use software like Libre Office spreadsheets, numbers are automatically printed in the local style, unless you specify to use some other locale, say British. But then you get other problems, like wrong spelling, or wrong monetary unit. You might choose a customized locale so that only numbers are USA style, but then it might print dollars instead of euros...

    It is not that simple.

    Nope! L10N/I18N is not a "checkbox" activity that you can bolt onto
    a product after it is complete. You have to design FOR it so you
    don't end up using buffers sized for a different "notion" of the
    item you want to display/process, etc.

    And, what about arabic, hebrew, chinese, etc.?

    Note how many words have plural forms that differ from their singular forms.
    Or verbs that change based on their subjects. (i.e., if you are
    generating error messages, prompts, etc.)

    On another era, when we started to use calculators, we started to use the dot for decimals, instead of the comma. This was a problem with strict teachers.

    The most common "calculator" problem is the layout of the 10-key
    as it differs from telephones.

    Then you have cash registers...

    Oh, programming language. Some decades ago, Telefónica had the software translated. The commands of the Lucent machine (5ESSS) were in Spanish. That must have been really expensive to do.

    Imagine designing data entry mechanisms to tolerate this variety
    of options. How big (and what shape) should the "text box" be,
    on the screen? Where should the cursor be placed, initially?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Liz Tuddenham@21:1/5 to Cursitor Doom on Mon Nov 25 10:21:56 2024
    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 18:22:22 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many years ago at one
    thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    Try this: https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/why-are-uk-and- american-billions-different

    It just repeats the myth but doesn't give a reference.


    --
    ~ Liz Tuddenham ~
    (Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
    www.poppyrecords.co.uk

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Carlos E.R.@21:1/5 to Don Y on Mon Nov 25 13:08:25 2024
    On 2024-11-25 04:19, Don Y wrote:
    On 11/24/2024 7:41 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    We use a mixed language (Spain).

    I thought there were *several*.  Or, are these "nonofficial"
    or simply treated as dialects?

    True, there are several (each one official in their regions, and Spanish
    in all), but the point I live at it is only Spanish. Other regions are bilingual; but if they are programmers they probably use a mixture of
    English and the local language. Documentation is often in English, and
    even when not, the most recent version of the docs is in English
    usually. Unless the software you are using originated in non English
    country.

    ...

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Carlos E.R.@21:1/5 to Jeroen Belleman on Mon Nov 25 13:18:07 2024
    On 2024-11-24 23:08, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 11/24/24 22:43, john larkin wrote:
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 20:25:59 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
    <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:


    Logically the English runs:
    10^3   Thousand
    10^6   Million
    10^9   Milliard

    No, that's a duck.


    What goes "Quick!  Quick!" ?
    |

    |

    |

    |

    |

    A duck with hiccups.




    (It will soon be Christmas cracker time.)

    Wonderful birds. It's unfortunate that they taste so good.


    That may be what will save them. Animals that taste good
    don't go extinct. But what a destiny...

    Jeroen Belleman

    I wonder if any animals have evolved to taste bad. Or be outright
    poisonous.

    Plants do that.


    Some frogs and insects.

    A fish, that is a delicatessen in Japan, is deadly poisonous. Fugu, I
    think it is.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugu



    --
    Cheers, Carlos.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don Y@21:1/5 to Carlos E.R. on Mon Nov 25 06:01:09 2024
    On 11/25/2024 5:08 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-25 04:19, Don Y wrote:
    On 11/24/2024 7:41 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    We use a mixed language (Spain).

    I thought there were *several*.  Or, are these "nonofficial"
    or simply treated as dialects?

    True, there are several (each one official in their regions,

    Really? That level of recognition? Not just "tolerated" as a local
    version?

    E.g., if you went to a gummit agency in Region A to apply for a service, license, etc. and, some time later, moved to another region -- B. Would
    you have to interact with those officials in the official language
    of that new region?

    [ISTR Quebec requires the use of French in all official transactions?]

    I.e., do regions fiercely defend their "personalities" and make an
    effort to coerce such use? Or, is it just a formality that is
    often overlooked?

    E.g., here (US), certain official documents (like ballots) must be offered
    in specific languages to address the needs of those constituents. And, as
    they are "official", there can be little room for translation errors/

    By contrast, if you spoke Castilian Spanish to a Mexican, here, they
    likely (?) would understand your meaning. In a formal (court-of-law)
    setting, they may be able to lean on technicalities of differences
    beyond pronunciation characteristics (e.g., cerveza)

    and Spanish in
    all), but the point I live at it is only Spanish. Other regions are bilingual;

    And, presumably, there, people are "fluent" in each?

    but if they are programmers they probably use a mixture of English and the local language. Documentation is often in English, and even when not, the most
    recent version of the docs is in English usually. Unless the software you are using originated in non English country.

    I've seen software internals that contained a lot of non-english.
    Choices of variable names, ("what the hell is a 'puntero'?"),
    blocks of commentary to explain the function's purpose, etc. Some
    of these things are easy to just "accept" -- after all, an identifier
    is just a collection of characters used as a symbolic reference.

    But, it has an amazing impact (to the detriment) on comprehension!
    Instead of trying to understand the code, you are trying to understand
    the actual *words*!

    It made me wonder how folks with other native tongues can adapt to
    the prevalence of English in such uses! And, how that affects their
    code...

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to Hebisch on Mon Nov 25 07:49:33 2024
    On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 02:21:12 -0000 (UTC), antispam@fricas.org (Waldek
    Hebisch) wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 16:03:21 -0000 (UTC), antispam@fricas.org (Waldek
    Hebisch) wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 19:05:36 -0000 (UTC), antispam@fricas.org (Waldek
    Hebisch) wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages. >>>>>> (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    In my country people would ask why are you putting decimal
    comma in a number that is supposed to be an integer?


    Are there any English-speaking countries that show an integer as
    123.456.789 ?

    AFAIK in my country (Poland) this is an official format. But I
    do not remember seeing it in real life. I an not saying that
    I newer saw it, simply if I saw it it was rare enough that I
    do not remember.

    This is an international place, and assumption that people who
    read it speak English is unwarranted. There are folks that
    manage to read and write something resembling English but
    they can not speak it. However, the point is that writing
    commas in numbers invites confusion (commas are too overloaded), >>>especially since 16 looks like much more likely number.

    BTW: When needing to speparate digits I normally use underscores.
    That seem to minimize chance of confusion.

    If you design electronics in Poland, you are pretty much stuck with
    having to read datasheets in American English.

    Yes. But they are technical documents that make at least some
    attempt to clarity (possibly limited to avoiding commas in
    numbers).

    I wonder if anything like Google Translate can make sensible
    translations of data sheets.

    I saw result from translating a chinese datasheet, did not look
    nice, but one could get from it useful info.

    Do people in Poland code processors or FPGAs in Polish? I suspect not.

    I suspect that some do. Not when there is international cooperation
    or they want to sell code. Of course syntax is standard but
    comments and variable names may be in Polish.

    Makes sense that you would use net names and variable names and make
    comments in a comfortable language, but you probably have to use
    compilers whose keywords and commands are in English.

    I have rarely seen an online engineering app in another language. Good
    thing for me; I hate music and can't learn languages. French almost
    flunked me out of high school.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to robin_listas@es.invalid on Mon Nov 25 07:52:38 2024
    On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 13:18:07 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24 23:08, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 11/24/24 22:43, john larkin wrote:
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 20:25:59 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
    <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:


    Logically the English runs:
    10^3   Thousand
    10^6   Million
    10^9   Milliard

    No, that's a duck.


    What goes "Quick!  Quick!" ?
    |

    |

    |

    |

    |

    A duck with hiccups.




    (It will soon be Christmas cracker time.)

    Wonderful birds. It's unfortunate that they taste so good.


    That may be what will save them. Animals that taste good
    don't go extinct. But what a destiny...

    Jeroen Belleman

    I wonder if any animals have evolved to taste bad. Or be outright
    poisonous.

    Plants do that.


    Some frogs and insects.

    A fish, that is a delicatessen in Japan, is deadly poisonous. Fugu, I
    think it is.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugu

    Puffer fish, right.

    Has anyone tried it? I've never seen it here in California.

    I like eel; we get that on Dragon Rolls.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Cursitor Doom@21:1/5 to Liz Tuddenham on Tue Nov 26 00:15:20 2024
    On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:21:56 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 18:22:22 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many years ago at
    one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    Try this:
    https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/why-are-uk-and-
    american-billions-different

    It just repeats the myth but doesn't give a reference.

    It's not a myth. UK and US billions have been harmonized at 1,000,000,000
    for as long as I can remember now. As I recall, it was just done simply
    via adoption rather than any Act of Parliament or Statutory Instrument.
    IIRC, I think the pressure to do so came from the finance industry.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Liz Tuddenham@21:1/5 to Cursitor Doom on Tue Nov 26 07:51:04 2024
    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:21:56 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 18:22:22 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many years ago at
    one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    Try this:
    https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/why-are-uk-and-
    american-billions-different

    It just repeats the myth but doesn't give a reference.

    It's not a myth. UK and US billions have been harmonized at 1,000,000,000
    for as long as I can remember now. As I recall, it was just done simply
    via adoption rather than any Act of Parliament or Statutory Instrument.
    IIRC, I think the pressure to do so came from the finance industry.

    Do you have a reference that isn't just heresay?


    --
    ~ Liz Tuddenham ~
    (Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
    www.poppyrecords.co.uk

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Carlos E.R.@21:1/5 to Don Y on Tue Nov 26 14:07:48 2024
    On 2024-11-25 14:01, Don Y wrote:
    On 11/25/2024 5:08 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-25 04:19, Don Y wrote:
    On 11/24/2024 7:41 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    We use a mixed language (Spain).

    I thought there were *several*.  Or, are these "nonofficial"
    or simply treated as dialects?

    True, there are several (each one official in their regions,

    Really?  That level of recognition?  Not just "tolerated" as a local version?

    E.g., if you went to a gummit agency in Region A to apply for a service, license, etc. and, some time later, moved to another region -- B.  Would
    you have to interact with those officials in the official language
    of that new region?

    In theory, they all have also to handle Spanish.


    [ISTR Quebec requires the use of French in all official transactions?]

    I.e., do regions fiercely defend their "personalities" and make an
    effort to coerce such use?  Or, is it just a formality that is
    often overlooked?

    Depends... some are more fierce than others, and also depends on who won
    the last election :-)

    For example, you know that there are many distributions of Linux. Well,
    some of these regionalities did their own distributions, properly
    translated to their language. Or, they funded translators that submitted
    their translations upstream.

    They may be better (more complete) translated than to Spanish itself.



    E.g., here (US), certain official documents (like ballots) must be offered
    in specific languages to address the needs of those constituents.  And, as they are "official", there can be little room for translation errors/

    By contrast, if you spoke Castilian Spanish to a Mexican, here, they
    likely (?) would understand your meaning.  In a formal (court-of-law) setting, they may be able to lean on technicalities of differences
    beyond pronunciation characteristics (e.g., cerveza)

    Right.


    and Spanish in all), but the point I live at it is only Spanish. Other
    regions are bilingual;

    And, presumably, there, people are "fluent" in each?

    Not everybody, but yes.


    but if they are programmers they probably use a mixture of English and
    the local language. Documentation is often in English, and even when
    not, the most recent version of the docs is in English usually. Unless
    the software you are using originated in non English country.

    I've seen software internals that contained a lot of non-english.
    Choices of variable names, ("what the hell is a 'puntero'?"),
    blocks of commentary to explain the function's purpose, etc.  Some
    of these things are easy to just "accept" -- after all, an identifier
    is just a collection of characters used as a symbolic reference.

    But, it has an amazing impact (to the detriment) on comprehension!
    Instead of trying to understand the code, you are trying to understand
    the actual *words*!

    It made me wonder how folks with other native tongues can adapt to
    the prevalence of English in such uses!  And, how that affects their
    code...

    My own code can be in Spanglish :-p

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don Y@21:1/5 to Carlos E.R. on Tue Nov 26 06:38:13 2024
    On 11/26/2024 6:07 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    but if they are programmers they probably use a mixture of English and the >>> local language. Documentation is often in English, and even when not, the >>> most recent version of the docs is in English usually. Unless the software >>> you are using originated in non English country.

    I've seen software internals that contained a lot of non-english.
    Choices of variable names, ("what the hell is a 'puntero'?"),
    blocks of commentary to explain the function's purpose, etc.  Some
    of these things are easy to just "accept" -- after all, an identifier
    is just a collection of characters used as a symbolic reference.

    But, it has an amazing impact (to the detriment) on comprehension!
    Instead of trying to understand the code, you are trying to understand
    the actual *words*!

    It made me wonder how folks with other native tongues can adapt to
    the prevalence of English in such uses!  And, how that affects their
    code...

    My own code can be in Spanglish :-p

    But, presumably, in business settings, there are some standards that
    firms adopt. So, english proficiency is an unintended prerequisite?

    I can see learning to recognize:

    pendant-que( quelque-chose ) {
    blah
    }

    as a particular control structure -- treating the words as just
    abstract symbols instead of knowing their proper translations.

    But, variable names and function names for imported libraries
    seem to NEED a translation to be meaningful.

    I can't imagine an english language developer GUESSING what
    "crée(3C)" would mean!

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to Liz Tuddenham on Tue Nov 26 07:29:26 2024
    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 07:51:04 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:21:56 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 18:22:22 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many years ago at
    one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    Try this:
    https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/why-are-uk-and-
    american-billions-different

    It just repeats the myth but doesn't give a reference.

    It's not a myth. UK and US billions have been harmonized at 1,000,000,000
    for as long as I can remember now. As I recall, it was just done simply
    via adoption rather than any Act of Parliament or Statutory Instrument.
    IIRC, I think the pressure to do so came from the finance industry.

    Do you have a reference that isn't just heresay?

    You can go to BBC.com and search for stories with "billions". They
    obviously mean 1e9.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Cursitor Doom@21:1/5 to john larkin on Tue Nov 26 16:35:03 2024
    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 07:29:26 -0800, john larkin wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 07:51:04 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:21:56 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 18:22:22 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many years ago
    at one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    Try this:
    https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/why-are-uk-
    and-
    american-billions-different

    It just repeats the myth but doesn't give a reference.

    It's not a myth. UK and US billions have been harmonized at
    1,000,000,000 for as long as I can remember now. As I recall, it was
    just done simply via adoption rather than any Act of Parliament or
    Statutory Instrument. IIRC, I think the pressure to do so came from
    the finance industry.

    Do you have a reference that isn't just heresay?

    You can go to BBC.com and search for stories with "billions". They
    obviously mean 1e9.

    Yep, or Financial Times will be liberally sprinkled with it, too.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Liz Tuddenham@21:1/5 to john larkin on Tue Nov 26 22:27:12 2024
    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 07:51:04 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:21:56 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 18:22:22 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many years ago at >> >> >> one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    Try this:
    https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/why-are-uk-and- >> >> american-billions-different

    It just repeats the myth but doesn't give a reference.

    It's not a myth. UK and US billions have been harmonized at 1,000,000,000 >> for as long as I can remember now. As I recall, it was just done simply
    via adoption rather than any Act of Parliament or Statutory Instrument.
    IIRC, I think the pressure to do so came from the finance industry.

    Do you have a reference that isn't just heresay?

    You can go to BBC.com and search for stories with "billions". They
    obviously mean 1e9.

    That is not evidence that the two have been harmonised, it just shows
    that BBC journalists have adopted American terminology.

    To harmonise two systems requires formal discussion, decision and
    documentation and neither you nor I have found any evidence of that.

    --
    ~ Liz Tuddenham ~
    (Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
    www.poppyrecords.co.uk

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to Liz Tuddenham on Tue Nov 26 15:12:11 2024
    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 22:27:12 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 07:51:04 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:21:56 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 18:22:22 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many years ago at >> >> >> >> one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    Try this:
    https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/why-are-uk-and- >> >> >> american-billions-different

    It just repeats the myth but doesn't give a reference.

    It's not a myth. UK and US billions have been harmonized at 1,000,000,000 >> >> for as long as I can remember now. As I recall, it was just done simply >> >> via adoption rather than any Act of Parliament or Statutory Instrument. >> >> IIRC, I think the pressure to do so came from the finance industry.

    Do you have a reference that isn't just heresay?

    You can go to BBC.com and search for stories with "billions". They
    obviously mean 1e9.

    That is not evidence that the two have been harmonised, it just shows
    that BBC journalists have adopted American terminology.

    To harmonise two systems requires formal discussion, decision and >documentation and neither you nor I have found any evidence of that.

    Sometimes the people win.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Carlos E.R.@21:1/5 to Don Y on Wed Nov 27 00:26:28 2024
    On 2024-11-26 14:38, Don Y wrote:
    On 11/26/2024 6:07 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    but if they are programmers they probably use a mixture of English
    and the local language. Documentation is often in English, and even
    when not, the most recent version of the docs is in English usually.
    Unless the software you are using originated in non English country.

    I've seen software internals that contained a lot of non-english.
    Choices of variable names, ("what the hell is a 'puntero'?"),
    blocks of commentary to explain the function's purpose, etc.  Some
    of these things are easy to just "accept" -- after all, an identifier
    is just a collection of characters used as a symbolic reference.

    But, it has an amazing impact (to the detriment) on comprehension!
    Instead of trying to understand the code, you are trying to understand
    the actual *words*!

    It made me wonder how folks with other native tongues can adapt to
    the prevalence of English in such uses!  And, how that affects their
    code...

    My own code can be in Spanglish :-p

    But, presumably, in business settings, there are some standards that
    firms adopt.  So, english proficiency is an unintended prerequisite?

    It depends on the programming language used (its documentation), that of
    the libraries, and the company culture.

    Methinks that at least reading some English is necessary.


    I can see learning to recognize:

    pendant-que( quelque-chose ) {
        blah
    }

    as a particular control structure -- treating the words as just
    abstract symbols instead of knowing their proper translations.

    But, variable names and function names for imported libraries
    seem to NEED a translation to be meaningful.

    I can't imagine an english language developer GUESSING what
    "crée(3C)" would mean!

    Right.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Carlos E.R.@21:1/5 to john larkin on Wed Nov 27 02:33:59 2024
    On 2024-11-27 00:12, john larkin wrote:
    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 22:27:12 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 07:51:04 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:21:56 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 18:22:22 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many years ago at >>>>>>>>> one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    Try this:
    https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/why-are-uk-and- >>>>>>> american-billions-different

    It just repeats the myth but doesn't give a reference.

    It's not a myth. UK and US billions have been harmonized at 1,000,000,000 >>>>> for as long as I can remember now. As I recall, it was just done simply >>>>> via adoption rather than any Act of Parliament or Statutory Instrument. >>>>> IIRC, I think the pressure to do so came from the finance industry.

    Do you have a reference that isn't just heresay?

    You can go to BBC.com and search for stories with "billions". They
    obviously mean 1e9.

    That is not evidence that the two have been harmonised, it just shows
    that BBC journalists have adopted American terminology.

    To harmonise two systems requires formal discussion, decision and
    documentation and neither you nor I have found any evidence of that.

    Sometimes the people win.

    Here a billion is still a million million.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Dave Platt@21:1/5 to All on Tue Nov 26 19:21:11 2024
    Back on the original subject a bit: it's not just huge data sheets
    which can be... well, less than wonderful. I invite you to take a
    look at the sheet for the Skyworks SKY65050-372LF low noise
    transistor. The evaluation board schematic on page 8, and its
    associated bill of materials, invite careful examination.

    The fact that they went to the trouble of actually _saying_ that
    the schematic diagram is a mess, rather than actually fixing it...
    well, I assume this was a Management decision. I think I'd
    have been ashamed to be the Engineer, though.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don Y@21:1/5 to Dave Platt on Wed Nov 27 01:20:34 2024
    On 11/26/2024 8:21 PM, Dave Platt wrote:
    Back on the original subject a bit: it's not just huge data sheets
    which can be... well, less than wonderful. I invite you to take a
    look at the sheet for the Skyworks SKY65050-372LF low noise
    transistor. The evaluation board schematic on page 8, and its
    associated bill of materials, invite careful examination.

    Too funny!

    The fact that they went to the trouble of actually _saying_ that
    the schematic diagram is a mess, rather than actually fixing it...
    well, I assume this was a Management decision. I think I'd
    have been ashamed to be the Engineer, though.

    Well, at least that SUGGESTS that they have a "review process".
    One that sucks -- but, at least it's in place!

    Documentation (like security) seems to be a "check off" item
    with many products: let's give it lip service but not spend
    too much time (or money) on it!

    Imagine, though, finding a comparable error/oversight on page
    143 of 16000. How much trust do you put on the remaining 15000+
    pages?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don Y@21:1/5 to Carlos E.R. on Wed Nov 27 09:57:30 2024
    On 11/26/2024 4:26 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    My own code can be in Spanglish :-p

    But, presumably, in business settings, there are some standards that
    firms adopt.  So, english proficiency is an unintended prerequisite?

    It depends on the programming language used (its documentation), that of the libraries, and the company culture.

    Methinks that at least reading some English is necessary.

    Do *you* "write for yourself" or "write for others"?

    I.e., do you write assuming YOU are the Reader? Or, that
    OTHERS will be the Reader?

    [There seems to be a split on how developers write; I think
    this would affect their choice of (spoken) languages as well.]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Cursitor Doom@21:1/5 to Liz Tuddenham on Wed Nov 27 17:20:27 2024
    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 22:27:12 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 07:51:04 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:21:56 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 18:22:22 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many years
    ago at one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    Try this:
    https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/why-are-uk-
    and-
    american-billions-different

    It just repeats the myth but doesn't give a reference.

    It's not a myth. UK and US billions have been harmonized at
    1,000,000,000 for as long as I can remember now. As I recall, it was
    just done simply via adoption rather than any Act of Parliament or
    Statutory Instrument. IIRC, I think the pressure to do so came from
    the finance industry.

    Do you have a reference that isn't just heresay?

    You can go to BBC.com and search for stories with "billions". They
    obviously mean 1e9.

    That is not evidence that the two have been harmonised, it just shows
    that BBC journalists have adopted American terminology.

    To harmonise two systems requires formal discussion, decision and documentation and neither you nor I have found any evidence of that.

    Fine believe whatever delusions you want to believe but it doesn't change
    the fact that a UK billion today is one thousand million. Period.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to Platt on Wed Nov 27 19:00:07 2024
    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 19:21:11 -0800, dplatt@coop.radagast.org (Dave
    Platt) wrote:

    Back on the original subject a bit: it's not just huge data sheets
    which can be... well, less than wonderful. I invite you to take a
    look at the sheet for the Skyworks SKY65050-372LF low noise
    transistor. The evaluation board schematic on page 8, and its
    associated bill of materials, invite careful examination.

    The data sheet ain't bad, for an RF part. It actually has DC curves.

    But what happens if you try to use it below 0.45 GHz?


    The fact that they went to the trouble of actually _saying_ that
    the schematic diagram is a mess, rather than actually fixing it...
    well, I assume this was a Management decision. I think I'd
    have been ashamed to be the Engineer, though.

    There was a division of GE that didn't call parts Rs or Ls or anything
    on schematics. They just gave a part a number. Not R141, just 141.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Liz Tuddenham@21:1/5 to Cursitor Doom on Thu Nov 28 10:36:08 2024
    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 22:27:12 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 07:51:04 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:21:56 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 18:22:22 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many years
    ago at one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    Try this:
    https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/why-are-uk- and-
    american-billions-different

    It just repeats the myth but doesn't give a reference.

    It's not a myth. UK and US billions have been harmonized at
    1,000,000,000 for as long as I can remember now. As I recall, it was
    just done simply via adoption rather than any Act of Parliament or
    Statutory Instrument. IIRC, I think the pressure to do so came from
    the finance industry.

    Do you have a reference that isn't just heresay?

    You can go to BBC.com and search for stories with "billions". They
    obviously mean 1e9.

    That is not evidence that the two have been harmonised, it just shows
    that BBC journalists have adopted American terminology.

    To harmonise two systems requires formal discussion, decision and documentation and neither you nor I have found any evidence of that.

    Fine believe whatever delusions you want to believe but it doesn't change
    the fact that a UK billion today is one thousand million. Period.

    You have still produced no no proof for your original assertion that the
    UK billion has been harmonised with the US billion, which was the point
    in question. Common misusage does not alter the facts.

    Gas is not stored in Gasometers.
    UK pylons do not carry a current of 132,000 volts.
    The "Morse Code" was not invented by Morse.

    ...the fact that most people, including journalists at the BBC, get it
    wrong doesn't make it right..


    --
    ~ Liz Tuddenham ~
    (Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
    www.poppyrecords.co.uk

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Carlos E.R.@21:1/5 to Don Y on Thu Nov 28 14:49:42 2024
    On 2024-11-27 17:57, Don Y wrote:
    On 11/26/2024 4:26 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    My own code can be in Spanglish :-p

    But, presumably, in business settings, there are some standards that
    firms adopt.  So, english proficiency is an unintended prerequisite?

    It depends on the programming language used (its documentation), that
    of the libraries, and the company culture.

    Methinks that at least reading some English is necessary.

    Do *you* "write for yourself" or "write for others"?

    I.e., do you write assuming YOU are the Reader?  Or, that
    OTHERS will be the Reader?

    [There seems to be a split on how developers write; I think
    this would affect their choice of (spoken) languages as well.]


    Ah. If I write a script I tend to mix English and Spanish. I tend to use English thinking of sharing the script or asking questions about it. The
    places where I do that are English speaking mostly.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to Liz Tuddenham on Thu Nov 28 07:22:01 2024
    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 10:36:08 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 22:27:12 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 07:51:04 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:21:56 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 18:22:22 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many years
    ago at one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    Try this:
    https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/why-are-uk- >> and-
    american-billions-different

    It just repeats the myth but doesn't give a reference.

    It's not a myth. UK and US billions have been harmonized at
    1,000,000,000 for as long as I can remember now. As I recall, it was >> >> >> just done simply via adoption rather than any Act of Parliament or
    Statutory Instrument. IIRC, I think the pressure to do so came from
    the finance industry.

    Do you have a reference that isn't just heresay?

    You can go to BBC.com and search for stories with "billions". They
    obviously mean 1e9.

    That is not evidence that the two have been harmonised, it just shows
    that BBC journalists have adopted American terminology.

    To harmonise two systems requires formal discussion, decision and
    documentation and neither you nor I have found any evidence of that.

    Fine believe whatever delusions you want to believe but it doesn't change
    the fact that a UK billion today is one thousand million. Period.

    You have still produced no no proof for your original assertion that the
    UK billion has been harmonised with the US billion, which was the point
    in question. Common misusage does not alter the facts.

    Gas is not stored in Gasometers.
    UK pylons do not carry a current of 132,000 volts.
    The "Morse Code" was not invented by Morse.

    ...the fact that most people, including journalists at the BBC, get it
    wrong doesn't make it right..

    Who gets to decide "right"?

    If I carry a check into a British bank and it says "one billion
    pounds", how much will they pay me?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to blockedofcourse@foo.invalid on Thu Nov 28 07:30:27 2024
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 03:50:54 -0700, Don Y
    <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:

    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    This is getting ridiculous. I thought 2,000 page datasheets were
    over the top, but this one is a personal record! <frown>

    These idiots want me to fill out a form, and volunteer to be spammed,
    to see their ad.

    https://info.littelfuse.com/bodos-isoplus-smpd-whitepaper

    That's a trend. My trend is to buy something else.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Cursitor Doom@21:1/5 to john larkin on Thu Nov 28 23:11:50 2024
    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:22:01 -0800, john larkin wrote:

    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 10:36:08 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 22:27:12 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 07:51:04 +0000,
    liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:21:56 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 18:22:22 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many
    years ago at one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    Try this:
    https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/why-
    are-uk-
    and-
    american-billions-different

    It just repeats the myth but doesn't give a reference.

    It's not a myth. UK and US billions have been harmonized at
    1,000,000,000 for as long as I can remember now. As I recall, it
    was just done simply via adoption rather than any Act of
    Parliament or Statutory Instrument. IIRC, I think the pressure
    to do so came from the finance industry.

    Do you have a reference that isn't just heresay?

    You can go to BBC.com and search for stories with "billions". They
    obviously mean 1e9.

    That is not evidence that the two have been harmonised, it just
    shows that BBC journalists have adopted American terminology.

    To harmonise two systems requires formal discussion, decision and
    documentation and neither you nor I have found any evidence of that.

    Fine believe whatever delusions you want to believe but it doesn't
    change the fact that a UK billion today is one thousand million.
    Period.

    You have still produced no no proof for your original assertion that the
    UK billion has been harmonised with the US billion, which was the point
    in question. Common misusage does not alter the facts.

    I'm not obliged to provide you with *anything*. The fact that I informed
    you what a billion is today was a courtesy extended to you by my infinite patience as a decent human being.

    Gas is not stored in Gasometers.
    UK pylons do not carry a current of 132,000 volts.
    The "Morse Code" was not invented by Morse.

    ...the fact that most people, including journalists at the BBC, get it >>wrong doesn't make it right..

    Who gets to decide "right"?

    If I carry a check into a British bank and it says "one billion pounds",
    how much will they pay me?

    Nothing. You'll bankrupt it. :-)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From ehsjr@21:1/5 to Dave Platt on Thu Nov 28 18:22:03 2024
    On 11/26/2024 10:21 PM, Dave Platt wrote:
    Back on the original subject a bit: it's not just huge data sheets
    which can be... well, less than wonderful. I invite you to take a
    look at the sheet for the Skyworks SKY65050-372LF low noise
    transistor. The evaluation board schematic on page 8, and its
    associated bill of materials, invite careful examination.

    The fact that they went to the trouble of actually _saying_ that
    the schematic diagram is a mess, rather than actually fixing it...
    well, I assume this was a Management decision. I think I'd
    have been ashamed to be the Engineer, though.


    It seems that the block diagram on page 1 may establish
    the caliber of the documentation. :-(

    (What's the emoticon for hold your nose?)
    Ed

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to ehsjr on Thu Nov 28 17:56:59 2024
    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 18:22:03 -0500, ehsjr <ehsjr@verizon.net> wrote:

    On 11/26/2024 10:21 PM, Dave Platt wrote:
    Back on the original subject a bit: it's not just huge data sheets
    which can be... well, less than wonderful. I invite you to take a
    look at the sheet for the Skyworks SKY65050-372LF low noise
    transistor. The evaluation board schematic on page 8, and its
    associated bill of materials, invite careful examination.

    The fact that they went to the trouble of actually _saying_ that
    the schematic diagram is a mess, rather than actually fixing it...
    well, I assume this was a Management decision. I think I'd
    have been ashamed to be the Engineer, though.


    It seems that the block diagram on page 1 may establish
    the caliber of the documentation. :-(

    (What's the emoticon for hold your nose?)
    Ed

    It's not even a block.

    The RF geeks like to call fet pins RF_IN and RF_OUT and RF_COM,
    whereas normal people say gate, drain, source. Maybe compromise on
    SOME and MORE and NONE.

    And their biasing algorithm is usually "turn the pot until it works."

    I use $100 RF switches and PHEMTs and MMICs and $300 distributed amp
    chips in time domain, to make pulses. The data sheets are pretty much
    useless to me. You never know if a part will actually work under 100
    MHz (some won't) , or if that's as low as their VNA will go.

    Mini-Circuits has assured me that they have no interest in amplifying
    pulses and will never have Spice models for their parts.

    I wonder if Q-spice is intended to bring RF design into the 20th
    Century. It's the 21st already so it's overdue.

    We had to add a DC block here, and it didn't help that some of the RF
    parts were poorly specified.

    https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3j1eyfu850n5bb3xwlx10/DC_Block.jpg?rlkey=055ej3zuo5siukis8q0aaj8ft&raw=1

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to cd999666@notformail.com on Thu Nov 28 17:19:04 2024
    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 23:11:50 -0000 (UTC), Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:22:01 -0800, john larkin wrote:

    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 10:36:08 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 22:27:12 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 07:51:04 +0000,
    liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:21:56 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 18:22:22 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many
    years ago at one thousand million so there's no confusion. >>>> >> >> >> >
    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    Try this:
    https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/why- >are-uk-
    and-
    american-billions-different

    It just repeats the myth but doesn't give a reference.

    It's not a myth. UK and US billions have been harmonized at
    1,000,000,000 for as long as I can remember now. As I recall, it >>>> >> >> was just done simply via adoption rather than any Act of
    Parliament or Statutory Instrument. IIRC, I think the pressure
    to do so came from the finance industry.

    Do you have a reference that isn't just heresay?

    You can go to BBC.com and search for stories with "billions". They
    obviously mean 1e9.

    That is not evidence that the two have been harmonised, it just
    shows that BBC journalists have adopted American terminology.

    To harmonise two systems requires formal discussion, decision and
    documentation and neither you nor I have found any evidence of that. >>>>
    Fine believe whatever delusions you want to believe but it doesn't
    change the fact that a UK billion today is one thousand million.
    Period.

    You have still produced no no proof for your original assertion that the >>>UK billion has been harmonised with the US billion, which was the point >>>in question. Common misusage does not alter the facts.

    I'm not obliged to provide you with *anything*. The fact that I informed
    you what a billion is today was a courtesy extended to you by my infinite >patience as a decent human being.

    Gas is not stored in Gasometers.
    UK pylons do not carry a current of 132,000 volts.
    The "Morse Code" was not invented by Morse.

    ...the fact that most people, including journalists at the BBC, get it >>>wrong doesn't make it right..

    Who gets to decide "right"?

    If I carry a check into a British bank and it says "one billion pounds",
    how much will they pay me?

    Nothing. You'll bankrupt it. :-)

    Bummer. I was planning a party.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to john larkin on Thu Nov 28 19:15:26 2024
    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 17:56:59 -0800, john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 18:22:03 -0500, ehsjr <ehsjr@verizon.net> wrote:

    On 11/26/2024 10:21 PM, Dave Platt wrote:
    Back on the original subject a bit: it's not just huge data sheets
    which can be... well, less than wonderful. I invite you to take a
    look at the sheet for the Skyworks SKY65050-372LF low noise
    transistor. The evaluation board schematic on page 8, and its
    associated bill of materials, invite careful examination.

    The fact that they went to the trouble of actually _saying_ that
    the schematic diagram is a mess, rather than actually fixing it...
    well, I assume this was a Management decision. I think I'd
    have been ashamed to be the Engineer, though.


    It seems that the block diagram on page 1 may establish
    the caliber of the documentation. :-(

    (What's the emoticon for hold your nose?)
    Ed

    It's not even a block.

    The RF geeks like to call fet pins RF_IN and RF_OUT and RF_COM,
    whereas normal people say gate, drain, source. Maybe compromise on
    SOME and MORE and NONE.

    And their biasing algorithm is usually "turn the pot until it works."

    I use $100 RF switches and PHEMTs and MMICs and $300 distributed amp
    chips in time domain, to make pulses. The data sheets are pretty much
    useless to me. You never know if a part will actually work under 100
    MHz (some won't) , or if that's as low as their VNA will go.

    Mini-Circuits has assured me that they have no interest in amplifying
    pulses and will never have Spice models for their parts.

    I wonder if Q-spice is intended to bring RF design into the 20th
    Century. It's the 21st already so it's overdue.

    We had to add a DC block here, and it didn't help that some of the RF
    parts were poorly specified.

    https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3j1eyfu850n5bb3xwlx10/DC_Block.jpg?rlkey=055ej3zuo5siukis8q0aaj8ft&raw=1


    And for SOT-143 fets, i believe that every possible pin numbering
    scheme has been used, including the FxxxR (reversed pinout) versions,
    CW and CCW numbers.

    And the bigfoot can be on the left or the right side. It's usually a
    source pin. The one across from it is the gate or sometimes the drain.
    Not to mention enhancement and depletion and wirebonds tuned to one
    band.

    So when CEL EOLs a part, which they enjoy doing, it's a nuisance to
    find a replacement.

    https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/5rpsajll41lkiojh8qg6t/ALjyqBI8R3BMI0CXQFpOZxs?rlkey=m6ijaefcsso42hwc4zwyjhcz6&dl=0

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don Y@21:1/5 to Carlos E.R. on Thu Nov 28 20:42:59 2024
    On 11/28/2024 6:49 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    Do *you* "write for yourself" or "write for others"?

    I.e., do you write assuming YOU are the Reader?  Or, that
    OTHERS will be the Reader?

    [There seems to be a split on how developers write; I think
    this would affect their choice of (spoken) languages as well.]

    Ah. If I write a script I tend to mix English and Spanish. I tend to use English thinking of sharing the script or asking questions about it. The places
    where I do that are English speaking mostly.

    I always write for others -- as, if I have to revisit the code
    a year or five hence, *I* will effectively BE one of those
    "others".

    This is yet another hidden advantage that benefits english language
    speakers in the market. I can't imagine what it would be like if I
    had to think (or "post process") to a "second language"!

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Liz Tuddenham@21:1/5 to Cursitor Doom on Fri Nov 29 08:56:17 2024
    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:22:01 -0800, john larkin wrote:

    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 10:36:08 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 22:27:12 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 07:51:04 +0000,
    liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:21:56 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 18:22:22 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many
    years ago at one thousand million so there's no confusion. >>> >> >> >> >
    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    Try this:
    https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/why- are-uk-
    and-
    american-billions-different

    It just repeats the myth but doesn't give a reference.

    It's not a myth. UK and US billions have been harmonized at
    1,000,000,000 for as long as I can remember now. As I recall, it >>> >> >> was just done simply via adoption rather than any Act of
    Parliament or Statutory Instrument. IIRC, I think the pressure
    to do so came from the finance industry.

    Do you have a reference that isn't just heresay?

    You can go to BBC.com and search for stories with "billions". They
    obviously mean 1e9.

    That is not evidence that the two have been harmonised, it just
    shows that BBC journalists have adopted American terminology.

    To harmonise two systems requires formal discussion, decision and
    documentation and neither you nor I have found any evidence of that. >>>
    Fine believe whatever delusions you want to believe but it doesn't
    change the fact that a UK billion today is one thousand million.
    Period.

    You have still produced no no proof for your original assertion that the >>UK billion has been harmonised with the US billion, which was the point >>in question. Common misusage does not alter the facts.

    I'm not obliged to provide you with *anything*. The fact that I informed
    you what a billion is today was a courtesy extended to you by my infinite patience as a decent human being.

    Making a statement does not place you under any absolute obligation to
    back it up with facts - but a failure to do so lays you open to the
    suspicion that the statement was false.


    --
    ~ Liz Tuddenham ~
    (Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
    www.poppyrecords.co.uk

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jasen Betts@21:1/5 to john larkin on Fri Nov 29 10:32:45 2024
    On 2024-11-23, john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
    On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 19:05:36 -0000 (UTC), antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
    The data "sheet" for the new processor I'm using is ~16,000 pages.
    (note carefully the position of the comma separator)

    In my country people would ask why are you putting decimal
    comma in a number that is supposed to be an integer?


    Are there any English-speaking countries that show an integer as
    123.456.789 ?

    Do you consider Denmark to be English speaking?
    Or are they only 86% English speaking?

    --
    Jasen.
    🇺🇦 Слава Україні

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jasen Betts@21:1/5 to Liz Tuddenham on Fri Nov 29 10:46:14 2024
    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/SN04440.pdf

    --
    Jasen.
    🇺🇦 Слава Україні

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jasen Betts@21:1/5 to john larkin on Fri Nov 29 10:53:34 2024
    On 2024-11-24, john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 20:25:59 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
    <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

    On 11/24/24 18:37, john larkin wrote:
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 17:25:43 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 11:30:34 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid >>>>> (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:


    Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million
    (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American and >>>>>>>> French..

    .. where it is a "milliard"

    The Milliard is English for a thousand million, which Americans call a >>>>>> "Billion".

    Logically the English runs:
    10^3 Thousand
    10^6 Million
    10^9 Milliard

    No, that's a duck.


    What goes "Quick! Quick!" ?
    |

    |

    |

    |

    |

    A duck with hiccups.




    (It will soon be Christmas cracker time.)

    Wonderful birds. It's unfortunate that they taste so good.


    That may be what will save them. Animals that taste good
    don't go extinct. But what a destiny...

    Jeroen Belleman

    I wonder if any animals have evolved to taste bad. Or be outright
    poisonous.

    puffer fish, Koala, several other animals with extreme diets.

    --
    Jasen.
    🇺🇦 Слава Україні

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Carlos E.R.@21:1/5 to Liz Tuddenham on Fri Nov 29 15:33:48 2024
    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no confusion. >>>
    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation. The English Billion still
    exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American
    meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister.

    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still
    countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million
    million. So one has to be careful when translating.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Liz Tuddenham@21:1/5 to Jasen Betts on Fri Nov 29 14:22:56 2024
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation. The English Billion still
    exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American
    meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister.

    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still
    countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    --
    ~ Liz Tuddenham ~
    (Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
    www.poppyrecords.co.uk

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to Liz Tuddenham on Fri Nov 29 07:23:34 2024
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 08:56:17 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:22:01 -0800, john larkin wrote:

    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 10:36:08 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 22:27:12 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 07:51:04 +0000,
    liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:21:56 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 18:22:22 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many
    years ago at one thousand million so there's no confusion. >> >>> >> >> >> >
    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    Try this:
    https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/why-
    are-uk-
    and-
    american-billions-different

    It just repeats the myth but doesn't give a reference.

    It's not a myth. UK and US billions have been harmonized at
    1,000,000,000 for as long as I can remember now. As I recall, it >> >>> >> >> was just done simply via adoption rather than any Act of
    Parliament or Statutory Instrument. IIRC, I think the pressure
    to do so came from the finance industry.

    Do you have a reference that isn't just heresay?

    You can go to BBC.com and search for stories with "billions". They
    obviously mean 1e9.

    That is not evidence that the two have been harmonised, it just
    shows that BBC journalists have adopted American terminology.

    To harmonise two systems requires formal discussion, decision and
    documentation and neither you nor I have found any evidence of that. >> >>>
    Fine believe whatever delusions you want to believe but it doesn't
    change the fact that a UK billion today is one thousand million.
    Period.

    You have still produced no no proof for your original assertion that the >> >>UK billion has been harmonised with the US billion, which was the point
    in question. Common misusage does not alter the facts.

    I'm not obliged to provide you with *anything*. The fact that I informed
    you what a billion is today was a courtesy extended to you by my infinite
    patience as a decent human being.

    Making a statement does not place you under any absolute obligation to
    back it up with facts - but a failure to do so lays you open to the
    suspicion that the statement was false.

    Gosh, how can he live with the shame?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to blockedofcourse@foo.invalid on Fri Nov 29 07:21:58 2024
    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 20:42:59 -0700, Don Y
    <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:

    On 11/28/2024 6:49 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    Do *you* "write for yourself" or "write for others"?

    I.e., do you write assuming YOU are the Reader?  Or, that
    OTHERS will be the Reader?

    [There seems to be a split on how developers write; I think
    this would affect their choice of (spoken) languages as well.]

    Ah. If I write a script I tend to mix English and Spanish. I tend to use
    English thinking of sharing the script or asking questions about it. The places
    where I do that are English speaking mostly.

    I always write for others -- as, if I have to revisit the code
    a year or five hence, *I* will effectively BE one of those
    "others".

    Some guy wrote a c program that strips comments from c programs. His
    reasoning is that the code speaks for itself, and the comments are
    always wrong.

    I assume that program was not commented.


    I saw a bit of actual Windows source code, and it had a mandatory,
    standard comment section at the start of any block of code. It said

    */
    Author: Jim Smith
    Date: 2018
    Purpose: what it says
    /*

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to robin_listas@es.invalid on Fri Nov 29 07:32:52 2024
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 15:33:48 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/SN04440.pdf >>
    Thank you, that clarifies the situation. The English Billion still
    exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American
    meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister.

    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still
    countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million
    million. So one has to be careful when translating.

    What is a thousand million in Spanish? Does it have a name? You could
    call it a heap or a muddle or a toomany. Heap is best because H is
    available... M and T are already used. J and L are a excellent letters
    too... Jillion or Lump.

    Aligning common names with SI units may be the wave of the future.
    Actuaslly, the past.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeroen Belleman@21:1/5 to Carlos E.R. on Fri Nov 29 18:32:08 2024
    On 11/29/24 15:33, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no
    confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that?  I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/SN04440.pdf >>
    Thank you, that clarifies the situation.  The English Billion still
    exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American
    meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister.

    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still
    countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million
    million. So one has to be careful when translating.


    All this abundantly demonstrates that we're better off using the
    metric prefixes instead. It'll be next to impossible to make
    politicians and finance accept that though...

    Jeroen Belleman

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeroen Belleman@21:1/5 to john larkin on Fri Nov 29 18:40:23 2024
    On 11/29/24 16:32, john larkin wrote:
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 15:33:48 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote: >>>>> Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation. The English Billion still
    exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American
    meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister. >>>
    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still
    countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million
    million. So one has to be careful when translating.

    What is a thousand million in Spanish? Does it have a name? You could
    call it a heap or a muddle or a toomany. Heap is best because H is available... M and T are already used. J and L are a excellent letters
    too... Jillion or Lump.

    Aligning common names with SI units may be the wave of the future.
    Actuaslly, the past.


    At the place I worked, budgets and spending were usually specified
    in kSFr, sometimes MSFr. But that's how engineers and physicists
    talked. The finance types used strings of zeroes.

    Jeroen Belleman

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Carlos E.R.@21:1/5 to john larkin on Fri Nov 29 23:32:24 2024
    On 2024-11-29 16:32, john larkin wrote:
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 15:33:48 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote: >>>>> Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation. The English Billion still
    exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American
    meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister. >>>
    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still
    countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million
    million. So one has to be careful when translating.

    What is a thousand million in Spanish? Does it have a name?

    Nope.

    You could
    call it a heap or a muddle or a toomany. Heap is best because H is available... M and T are already used. J and L are a excellent letters
    too... Jillion or Lump.

    Aligning common names with SI units may be the wave of the future.
    Actuaslly, the past.



    --
    Cheers, Carlos.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Carlos E.R.@21:1/5 to john larkin on Fri Nov 29 23:30:59 2024
    On 2024-11-29 16:21, john larkin wrote:
    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 20:42:59 -0700, Don Y
    <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:

    On 11/28/2024 6:49 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    Do *you* "write for yourself" or "write for others"?

    I.e., do you write assuming YOU are the Reader?  Or, that
    OTHERS will be the Reader?

    [There seems to be a split on how developers write; I think
    this would affect their choice of (spoken) languages as well.]

    Ah. If I write a script I tend to mix English and Spanish. I tend to use >>> English thinking of sharing the script or asking questions about it. The places
    where I do that are English speaking mostly.

    I always write for others -- as, if I have to revisit the code
    a year or five hence, *I* will effectively BE one of those
    "others".

    Some guy wrote a c program that strips comments from c programs. His reasoning is that the code speaks for itself, and the comments are
    always wrong.

    Ridiculous.


    I assume that program was not commented.


    I saw a bit of actual Windows source code, and it had a mandatory,
    standard comment section at the start of any block of code. It said

    */
    Author: Jim Smith
    Date: 2018
    Purpose: what it says
    /*


    My first job was as programmer for small company. They had tasked an
    external programmer with creating a software for them with LabWindows.
    This thing creates displays; think a virtual oscilloscope display, for instance, measuring things like temperature, pressure, rpm, etc. My boss
    says "I want you to add a voltage display". Simple.

    Well, the original programmer had removed the header file that assigned
    labels to both the display windows and the code. The code would say "display_crt(31, A1)", where 31 was the element in the display to
    display rpm, for instance. If I inserted "voltage" in the display
    window, all the numbers shifted by one, so that 31 became pressure, for instance.

    The programmer had sabotaged the code so that no one could touch it by replacing labels with their values.

    It took me months to recreate the header file with labels. My boss
    thought I was useless: it is difficult to explain this to a non programmer.

    I carefully documented since then every program I wrote. I did not want
    any other person to suffer what I did.




    --
    Cheers, Carlos.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Carlos E.R.@21:1/5 to Jeroen Belleman on Fri Nov 29 23:35:11 2024
    On 2024-11-29 18:32, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 11/29/24 15:33, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote: >>>>> Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no
    confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that?  I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/
    SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation.  The English Billion still
    exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American
    meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister. >>>
    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still
    countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million
    million. So one has to be careful when translating.


    All this abundantly demonstrates that we're better off using the
    metric prefixes instead. It'll be next to impossible to make
    politicians and finance accept that though...

    Right!

    Or notations like 5*10^9 or 5E9 (calculators did this. Do they still
    do? 5E9 is very simple)



    --
    Cheers, Carlos.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Waldek Hebisch@21:1/5 to john larkin on Fri Nov 29 22:50:35 2024
    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 15:33:48 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote: >>>>> Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation. The English Billion still
    exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American
    meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister. >>>
    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still
    countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million
    million. So one has to be careful when translating.

    What is a thousand million in Spanish? Does it have a name? You could
    call it a heap or a muddle or a toomany. Heap is best because H is available... M and T are already used. J and L are a excellent letters
    too... Jillion or Lump.

    Europe has miliard, that was already mentioned. I would use it
    when meaning 1.0e9, no chance for confusion. For 1.0e12 I
    would use "thousend of miliards", as that IMO is less confusing
    for Americans than "billion".

    --
    Waldek Hebisch

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Joe Gwinn@21:1/5 to robin_listas@es.invalid on Fri Nov 29 18:50:47 2024
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:30:59 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 16:21, john larkin wrote:
    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 20:42:59 -0700, Don Y
    <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:

    On 11/28/2024 6:49 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    Do *you* "write for yourself" or "write for others"?

    I.e., do you write assuming YOU are the Reader?  Or, that
    OTHERS will be the Reader?

    [There seems to be a split on how developers write; I think
    this would affect their choice of (spoken) languages as well.]

    Ah. If I write a script I tend to mix English and Spanish. I tend to use >>>> English thinking of sharing the script or asking questions about it. The places
    where I do that are English speaking mostly.

    I always write for others -- as, if I have to revisit the code
    a year or five hence, *I* will effectively BE one of those
    "others".

    Some guy wrote a c program that strips comments from c programs. His
    reasoning is that the code speaks for itself, and the comments are
    always wrong.

    Ridiculous.


    I assume that program was not commented.


    I saw a bit of actual Windows source code, and it had a mandatory,
    standard comment section at the start of any block of code. It said

    */
    Author: Jim Smith
    Date: 2018
    Purpose: what it says
    /*


    My first job was as programmer for small company. They had tasked an
    external programmer with creating a software for them with LabWindows.
    This thing creates displays; think a virtual oscilloscope display, for >instance, measuring things like temperature, pressure, rpm, etc. My boss
    says "I want you to add a voltage display". Simple.

    Well, the original programmer had removed the header file that assigned >labels to both the display windows and the code. The code would say >"display_crt(31, A1)", where 31 was the element in the display to
    display rpm, for instance. If I inserted "voltage" in the display
    window, all the numbers shifted by one, so that 31 became pressure, for >instance.

    The programmer had sabotaged the code so that no one could touch it by >replacing labels with their values.

    I also have a war story:

    In the early 1980s, we had a young programmer who was not getting to
    done for some time. The language was plain C. She named all the
    variables in the pattern AAA, AAB, AAC, and so on. No comments of
    course. Nobody could figure out what she was doing, so I was
    eventually asked to figure out what was going on. So I talked to her
    and reverse engineered her code, generating a big flow chart in the
    process.

    It was apparent that the approach was completely wrong, and far more
    complex than needed. My instinct is that she didn't know how to do
    whatever it did (I no longer remember), and so was playing for time,
    which worked until it didn't. She was reassigned. If she had asked
    for help, she would have been OK.


    It took me months to recreate the header file with labels. My boss
    thought I was useless: it is difficult to explain this to a non programmer.

    I carefully documented since then every program I wrote. I did not want
    any other person to suffer what I did.

    Yeah.

    Joe Gwinn

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don Y@21:1/5 to Carlos E.R. on Fri Nov 29 18:00:21 2024
    On 11/29/2024 3:30 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    My first job was as programmer for small company. They had tasked an external programmer with creating a software for them with LabWindows. This thing creates displays; think a virtual oscilloscope display, for instance, measuring
    things like temperature, pressure, rpm, etc. My boss says "I want you to add a
    voltage display". Simple.

    Well, the original programmer had removed the header file that assigned labels
    to both the display windows and the code. The code would say "display_crt(31, A1)", where 31 was the element in the display to display rpm, for instance. If
    I inserted "voltage" in the display window, all the numbers shifted by one, so
    that 31 became pressure, for instance.

    The programmer had sabotaged the code so that no one could touch it by replacing labels with their values.

    It took me months to recreate the header file with labels. My boss thought I was useless: it is difficult to explain this to a non programmer.

    I took a contract, years ago, to address a similar issue; they had hired
    a "student" to write the code, he managed to get it working, then finished school and "moved on".

    Of course, they eventually wanted to modify the product and discovered that they didn't have a *copy* of the source code -- not even a PRINT copy!

    So, I reverse engineered the binary (not just "decompile" because that
    sort of result adds very little to understanding the code) adding comments, judiciously choosing function and variable names, etc.

    Some years later, I took on a much larger reverse engineering job (500KB binary). But, relied on tools to help with a lot of the grunt work.

    I carefully documented since then every program I wrote. I did not want any other person to suffer what I did.

    Be thankful it wasn't intentionally obfuscated! In your case, all you had
    to do was recreate the symbol mappings. Imagine if the original code had
    been passed through an obfuscator so, in addition to symbolic names, the
    actual control flow had been deliberately distorted!

    For closed designs, it is relatively easy to embed invisible dependencies
    in the code that are highly resistant to "tampering" (revising the
    software is just a special case of tampering!). If you don't understand
    that this has been done to thwart your efforts, you can spend AGES looking
    for elusive bugs that have been DESIGNED to deliberately hide!

    [The goal of any such effort is to increase the cost of copying/modifying
    to the point where it approaches the cost of designing from scratch]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to robin_listas@es.invalid on Fri Nov 29 18:12:17 2024
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:30:59 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 16:21, john larkin wrote:
    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 20:42:59 -0700, Don Y
    <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:

    On 11/28/2024 6:49 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    Do *you* "write for yourself" or "write for others"?

    I.e., do you write assuming YOU are the Reader?  Or, that
    OTHERS will be the Reader?

    [There seems to be a split on how developers write; I think
    this would affect their choice of (spoken) languages as well.]

    Ah. If I write a script I tend to mix English and Spanish. I tend to use >>>> English thinking of sharing the script or asking questions about it. The places
    where I do that are English speaking mostly.

    I always write for others -- as, if I have to revisit the code
    a year or five hence, *I* will effectively BE one of those
    "others".

    Some guy wrote a c program that strips comments from c programs. His
    reasoning is that the code speaks for itself, and the comments are
    always wrong.

    Ridiculous.


    I assume that program was not commented.


    I saw a bit of actual Windows source code, and it had a mandatory,
    standard comment section at the start of any block of code. It said

    */
    Author: Jim Smith
    Date: 2018
    Purpose: what it says
    /*


    My first job was as programmer for small company. They had tasked an
    external programmer with creating a software for them with LabWindows.
    This thing creates displays; think a virtual oscilloscope display, for >instance, measuring things like temperature, pressure, rpm, etc. My boss
    says "I want you to add a voltage display". Simple.

    Well, the original programmer had removed the header file that assigned >labels to both the display windows and the code. The code would say >"display_crt(31, A1)", where 31 was the element in the display to
    display rpm, for instance. If I inserted "voltage" in the display
    window, all the numbers shifted by one, so that 31 became pressure, for >instance.

    The programmer had sabotaged the code so that no one could touch it by >replacing labels with their values.

    It took me months to recreate the header file with labels. My boss
    thought I was useless: it is difficult to explain this to a non programmer.

    I carefully documented since then every program I wrote. I did not want
    any other person to suffer what I did.

    I worked with (with not for, briefly!) a company that had an engineer
    make one thing work somehow and then sent it to manufacturing and told
    them to make copies. No drawings, no schematics.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Carlos E.R.@21:1/5 to Don Y on Sat Nov 30 02:44:46 2024
    On 2024-11-30 02:00, Don Y wrote:
    On 11/29/2024 3:30 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    My first job was as programmer for small company. They had tasked an
    external programmer with creating a software for them with LabWindows.
    This thing creates displays; think a virtual oscilloscope display, for
    instance, measuring things like temperature, pressure, rpm, etc. My
    boss says "I want you to add a voltage display". Simple.

    Well, the original programmer had removed the header file that
    assigned labels to both the display windows and the code. The code
    would say "display_crt(31, A1)", where 31 was the element in the
    display to display rpm, for instance. If I inserted "voltage" in the
    display window, all the numbers shifted by one, so that 31 became
    pressure, for instance.

    The programmer had sabotaged the code so that no one could touch it by
    replacing labels with their values.

    It took me months to recreate the header file with labels. My boss
    thought I was useless: it is difficult to explain this to a non
    programmer.

    I took a contract, years ago, to address a similar issue; they had hired
    a "student" to write the code, he managed to get it working, then finished school and "moved on".

    Of course, they eventually wanted to modify the product and discovered that they didn't have a *copy* of the source code -- not even a PRINT copy!

    So, I reverse engineered the binary (not just "decompile" because that
    sort of result adds very little to understanding the code) adding comments, judiciously choosing function and variable names, etc.

    Some years later, I took on a much larger reverse engineering job (500KB binary).  But, relied on tools to help with a lot of the grunt work.

    I carefully documented since then every program I wrote. I did not
    want any other person to suffer what I did.

    Be thankful it wasn't intentionally obfuscated!  In your case, all you had to do was recreate the symbol mappings.  Imagine if the original code had been passed through an obfuscator so, in addition to symbolic names, the actual control flow had been deliberately distorted!

    Huh. I think not, because then the LabWindows environment would not run.


    For closed designs, it is relatively easy to embed invisible dependencies
    in the code that are highly resistant to "tampering" (revising the
    software is just a special case of tampering!).  If you don't understand that this has been done to thwart your efforts, you can spend AGES looking for elusive bugs that have been DESIGNED to deliberately hide!

    [The goal of any such effort is to increase the cost of copying/modifying
    to the point where it approaches the cost of designing from scratch]

    Or to force hiring again the original developer.


    --
    Cheers, Carlos.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to Hebisch on Fri Nov 29 18:15:07 2024
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 22:50:35 -0000 (UTC), antispam@fricas.org (Waldek
    Hebisch) wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 15:33:48 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote: >>>>>> Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation. The English Billion still
    exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American
    meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister. >>>>
    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still
    countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million >>>million. So one has to be careful when translating.

    What is a thousand million in Spanish? Does it have a name? You could
    call it a heap or a muddle or a toomany. Heap is best because H is
    available... M and T are already used. J and L are a excellent letters
    too... Jillion or Lump.

    Europe has miliard, that was already mentioned. I would use it
    when meaning 1.0e9, no chance for confusion. For 1.0e12 I
    would use "thousend of miliards", as that IMO is less confusing
    for Americans than "billion".


    We understand giga and tera. I hear people say gigabucks, 1e9 dollars.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don Y@21:1/5 to Don Y on Fri Nov 29 20:08:57 2024
    On 11/29/2024 8:06 PM, Don Y wrote:
    E.g., display_crt(31, A1) might be transformed into:

        figger = 961;
        bugger(123, 9987, foo);
        blandow();


    bugger(int vvvrs, int vvvsr, char *gobbler) {
        fftre = strlen(gobbler) + 88;
        for (greg = fftre; greg -= 3; greg > 4)
                 sstste += greg[gobbler];
        figger += 8*8 - 1;
    }

    blandow() {
        display_crt(sqrt(figger), A1);

    s.b. "sqrt(figger) - 1", I think

        figger -=25;
    }

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don Y@21:1/5 to Carlos E.R. on Fri Nov 29 20:06:58 2024
    On 11/29/2024 6:44 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-30 02:00, Don Y wrote:
    On 11/29/2024 3:30 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    My first job was as programmer for small company. They had tasked an
    external programmer with creating a software for them with LabWindows. This >>> thing creates displays; think a virtual oscilloscope display, for instance, >>> measuring things like temperature, pressure, rpm, etc. My boss says "I want >>> you to add a voltage display". Simple.

    Well, the original programmer had removed the header file that assigned
    labels to both the display windows and the code. The code would say
    "display_crt(31, A1)", where 31 was the element in the display to display >>> rpm, for instance. If I inserted "voltage" in the display window, all the >>> numbers shifted by one, so that 31 became pressure, for instance.

    The programmer had sabotaged the code so that no one could touch it by
    replacing labels with their values.

    It took me months to recreate the header file with labels. My boss thought I
    was useless: it is difficult to explain this to a non programmer.

    I took a contract, years ago, to address a similar issue; they had hired
    a "student" to write the code, he managed to get it working, then finished >> school and "moved on".

    Of course, they eventually wanted to modify the product and discovered that >> they didn't have a *copy* of the source code -- not even a PRINT copy!

    So, I reverse engineered the binary (not just "decompile" because that
    sort of result adds very little to understanding the code) adding comments, >> judiciously choosing function and variable names, etc.

    Some years later, I took on a much larger reverse engineering job (500KB
    binary).  But, relied on tools to help with a lot of the grunt work.

    I carefully documented since then every program I wrote. I did not want any >>> other person to suffer what I did.

    Be thankful it wasn't intentionally obfuscated!  In your case, all you had >> to do was recreate the symbol mappings.  Imagine if the original code had >> been passed through an obfuscator so, in addition to symbolic names, the
    actual control flow had been deliberately distorted!

    Huh. I think not, because then the LabWindows environment would not run.

    Obfuscators preserve the intended functionality. They just dick with
    the steps to get TO it.

    E.g., display_crt(31, A1) might be transformed into:

    figger = 961;
    bugger(123, 9987, foo);
    blandow();


    bugger(int vvvrs, int vvvsr, char *gobbler) {
    fftre = strlen(gobbler) + 88;
    for (greg = fftre; greg -= 3; greg > 4)
    sstste += greg[gobbler];
    figger += 8*8 - 1;
    }

    blandow() {
    display_crt(sqrt(figger), A1);
    figger -=25;
    }

    Though, more likely, superfluous whitespace and newlines would be
    omitted just to make it look like a REAL mess!

    [If I've done this correctly (in my head), you will see that display_crt
    is invoked with the same arguments in your original case. There's just
    lots of other cruft inserted that does nothing productive (though that
    stuff could also be looking forward to something ELSE that will be done,
    later -- e.g., arranging for figger to have a particular value that
    can be exploited later.]

    You can also "break rules", like using values left on the stack after
    a function return -- because you KNOW you aren't going to do anything
    to compromise those values before you can access them (a taboo,
    otherwise)

    For closed designs, it is relatively easy to embed invisible dependencies
    in the code that are highly resistant to "tampering" (revising the
    software is just a special case of tampering!).  If you don't understand
    that this has been done to thwart your efforts, you can spend AGES looking >> for elusive bugs that have been DESIGNED to deliberately hide!

    [The goal of any such effort is to increase the cost of copying/modifying
    to the point where it approaches the cost of designing from scratch]

    Or to force hiring again the original developer.

    This is most often done BY the principal to protect his IP.

    I had a client complain that my code was "broken" (I provide free
    lifetime support as an indication of the faith I have in my
    deliverables). Yet, the binary he delivered in the sample product
    (I don't keep client prototypes as they take up too much space)
    was obviously different from the code delivered (amusing how
    often this happens! Do you really think I won't notice that you're
    giving me something that is different from what I delivered? Do
    you think that I don't KEEP copies of all this stuff???).

    He begrudgingly admitted that he had run an obfuscator on my
    code with the "guarantee" that the code would function as originally
    intended.

    Nope.

    "Well, can you at least take a LOOK at it?"

    "Sorry, I have no desire to sort out YOUR mess. Talk to the folks
    who made the 'guarantee'."

    Your goal (as an employee, contractor, supplier, etc.) should always
    be to have the client/customer NOT need you after the "sale". If
    he likes what he got, then he'll come back for more work/product.
    Forcing or coercing the client or customer inevitably leaves a
    bad taste in their mouth -- that they associate with *you*!

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Carlos E.R.@21:1/5 to Don Y on Sun Dec 1 14:27:19 2024
    On 2024-11-30 04:06, Don Y wrote:
    On 11/29/2024 6:44 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-30 02:00, Don Y wrote:
    On 11/29/2024 3:30 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    My first job was as programmer for small company. They had tasked an
    external programmer with creating a software for them with
    LabWindows. This thing creates displays; think a virtual
    oscilloscope display, for instance, measuring things like
    temperature, pressure, rpm, etc. My boss says "I want you to add a
    voltage display". Simple.

    Well, the original programmer had removed the header file that
    assigned labels to both the display windows and the code. The code
    would say "display_crt(31, A1)", where 31 was the element in the
    display to display rpm, for instance. If I inserted "voltage" in the
    display window, all the numbers shifted by one, so that 31 became
    pressure, for instance.

    The programmer had sabotaged the code so that no one could touch it
    by replacing labels with their values.

    It took me months to recreate the header file with labels. My boss
    thought I was useless: it is difficult to explain this to a non
    programmer.

    I took a contract, years ago, to address a similar issue; they had hired >>> a "student" to write the code, he managed to get it working, then
    finished
    school and "moved on".

    Of course, they eventually wanted to modify the product and
    discovered that
    they didn't have a *copy* of the source code -- not even a PRINT copy!

    So, I reverse engineered the binary (not just "decompile" because that
    sort of result adds very little to understanding the code) adding
    comments,
    judiciously choosing function and variable names, etc.

    Some years later, I took on a much larger reverse engineering job (500KB >>> binary).  But, relied on tools to help with a lot of the grunt work.

    I carefully documented since then every program I wrote. I did not
    want any other person to suffer what I did.

    Be thankful it wasn't intentionally obfuscated!  In your case, all
    you had
    to do was recreate the symbol mappings.  Imagine if the original code
    had
    been passed through an obfuscator so, in addition to symbolic names, the >>> actual control flow had been deliberately distorted!

    Huh. I think not, because then the LabWindows environment would not run.

    Obfuscators preserve the intended functionality.  They just dick with
    the steps to get TO it.

    E.g., display_crt(31, A1) might be transformed into:

        figger = 961;
        bugger(123, 9987, foo);
        blandow();


    bugger(int vvvrs, int vvvsr, char *gobbler) {
        fftre = strlen(gobbler) + 88;
        for (greg = fftre; greg -= 3; greg > 4)
                 sstste += greg[gobbler];
        figger += 8*8 - 1;
    }

    blandow() {
        display_crt(sqrt(figger), A1);
        figger -=25;
    }

    Though, more likely, superfluous whitespace and newlines would be
    omitted just to make it look like a REAL mess!

    [If I've done this correctly (in my head), you will see that display_crt
    is invoked with the same arguments in your original case.  There's just
    lots of other cruft inserted that does nothing productive (though that
    stuff could also be looking forward to something ELSE that will be done, later -- e.g., arranging for figger to have a particular value that
    can be exploited later.]

    You can also "break rules", like using values left on the stack after
    a function return -- because you KNOW you aren't going to do anything
    to compromise those values before you can access them (a taboo,
    otherwise)


    Ok, but the LabWindows IDE of the time would possibly explode. That
    thing converted code C <-> Basic, so the C language you could use was
    limited.

    Besides, I would tell my boss not to pay him or to sue.




    For closed designs, it is relatively easy to embed invisible
    dependencies
    in the code that are highly resistant to "tampering" (revising the
    software is just a special case of tampering!).  If you don't understand >>> that this has been done to thwart your efforts, you can spend AGES
    looking
    for elusive bugs that have been DESIGNED to deliberately hide!

    [The goal of any such effort is to increase the cost of copying/
    modifying
    to the point where it approaches the cost of designing from scratch]

    Or to force hiring again the original developer.

    This is most often done BY the principal to protect his IP.

    I had a client complain that my code was "broken" (I provide free
    lifetime support as an indication of the faith I have in my
    deliverables).  Yet, the binary he delivered in the sample product
    (I don't keep client prototypes as they take up too much space)
    was obviously different from the code delivered (amusing how
    often this happens!  Do you really think I won't notice that you're
    giving me something that is different from what I delivered?  Do
    you think that I don't KEEP copies of all this stuff???).

    He begrudgingly admitted that he had run an obfuscator on my
    code with the "guarantee" that the code would function as originally intended.

    Nope.

    "Well, can you at least take a LOOK at it?"

    "Sorry, I have no desire to sort out YOUR mess.  Talk to the folks
    who made the 'guarantee'."

    Your goal (as an employee, contractor, supplier, etc.) should always
    be to have the client/customer NOT need you after the "sale".  If
    he likes what he got, then he'll come back for more work/product.
    Forcing or coercing the client or customer inevitably leaves a
    bad taste in their mouth -- that they associate with *you*!

    Right.


    --
    Cheers, Carlos.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Cursitor Doom@21:1/5 to Waldek Hebisch on Sun Dec 1 18:08:23 2024
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 22:50:35 -0000 (UTC), Waldek Hebisch wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 15:33:48 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid>
    wrote:
    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many years ago >>>>>>> at one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/ SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation. The English Billion still
    exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American
    meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime
    Minister.

    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still
    countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million >>>million. So one has to be careful when translating.

    What is a thousand million in Spanish? Does it have a name? You could
    call it a heap or a muddle or a toomany. Heap is best because H is
    available... M and T are already used. J and L are a excellent letters
    too... Jillion or Lump.

    Europe has miliard, that was already mentioned. I would use it when
    meaning 1.0e9, no chance for confusion. For 1.0e12 I would use
    "thousend of miliards", as that IMO is less confusing for Americans than "billion".

    Big numbers came in handy in Germany in the 1920s when banknote values
    became very, very silly indeed:

    https://images.app.goo.gl/dgiwRx1H6Wm3TczTA

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Cursitor Doom@21:1/5 to john larkin on Sun Dec 1 18:03:27 2024
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 07:23:34 -0800, john larkin wrote:

    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 08:56:17 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:22:01 -0800, john larkin wrote:

    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 10:36:08 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 22:27:12 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 07:51:04 +0000,
    liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:21:56 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 18:22:22 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many
    years ago at one thousand million so there's no
    confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found
    one.

    Try this:
    https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/
    why-
    are-uk-
    and-
    american-billions-different

    It just repeats the myth but doesn't give a reference.

    It's not a myth. UK and US billions have been harmonized at
    1,000,000,000 for as long as I can remember now. As I
    recall, it was just done simply via adoption rather than any
    Act of Parliament or Statutory Instrument. IIRC, I think the
    pressure to do so came from the finance industry.

    Do you have a reference that isn't just heresay?

    You can go to BBC.com and search for stories with "billions".
    They obviously mean 1e9.

    That is not evidence that the two have been harmonised, it just
    shows that BBC journalists have adopted American terminology.

    To harmonise two systems requires formal discussion, decision
    and documentation and neither you nor I have found any evidence
    of that.

    Fine believe whatever delusions you want to believe but it doesn't
    change the fact that a UK billion today is one thousand million.
    Period.

    You have still produced no no proof for your original assertion that
    the UK billion has been harmonised with the US billion, which was
    the point in question. Common misusage does not alter the facts.

    I'm not obliged to provide you with *anything*. The fact that I
    informed you what a billion is today was a courtesy extended to you by
    my infinite patience as a decent human being.

    Making a statement does not place you under any absolute obligation to
    back it up with facts - but a failure to do so lays you open to the >>suspicion that the statement was false.

    Gosh, how can he live with the shame?

    I'll manage. :) OTOH, "Liz" has exhibited extraordinary obtusity IRO this
    very simple matter and will have to live with THAT stain on "her"
    reputation.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Cursitor Doom@21:1/5 to john larkin on Sun Dec 1 18:10:25 2024
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 18:15:07 -0800, john larkin wrote:

    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 22:50:35 -0000 (UTC), antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 15:33:48 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid>
    wrote:
    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many years ago >>>>>>>> at one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/ SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation. The English Billion still
    exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American
    meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime
    Minister.

    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still
    countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million >>>>million. So one has to be careful when translating.

    What is a thousand million in Spanish? Does it have a name? You could
    call it a heap or a muddle or a toomany. Heap is best because H is
    available... M and T are already used. J and L are a excellent letters
    too... Jillion or Lump.

    Europe has miliard, that was already mentioned. I would use it when >>meaning 1.0e9, no chance for confusion. For 1.0e12 I would use
    "thousend of miliards", as that IMO is less confusing for Americans than >>"billion".


    We understand giga and tera. I hear people say gigabucks, 1e9 dollars.

    That's what we all call a trillion. Coincidentally, a trillion dollars is what's being added to the US national debt every month now IIRC. All those phoney wars are very expensive!

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Cursitor Doom@21:1/5 to Carlos E.R. on Sun Dec 1 18:15:49 2024
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:35:11 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 18:32, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 11/29/24 15:33, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid>
    wrote:
    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many years ago >>>>>>> at one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that?  I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/
    SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation.  The English Billion still
    exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American
    meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime
    Minister.

    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still
    countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million
    million. So one has to be careful when translating.


    All this abundantly demonstrates that we're better off using the metric
    prefixes instead. It'll be next to impossible to make politicians and
    finance accept that though...

    Right!

    Or notations like 5*10^9 or 5E9 (calculators did this. Do they still
    do? 5E9 is very simple)

    When you deal with RF it's essential to have a scientific calculator that
    can handle exponents like that. I continue to be amazed at the computing
    power they're capable of for next to no money. In real terms they're a
    fraction of the price they were when they first became available. The
    first ever scientific calculator I ever had was an HP one. A friend had
    the Sinclair one. Another had a Bowmar (they went bust around 1975 IIRC).
    They were a quantum leap over what we used beforehand.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Cursitor Doom@21:1/5 to Jasen Betts on Sun Dec 1 18:16:52 2024
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 10:53:34 -0000 (UTC), Jasen Betts wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 20:25:59 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
    <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

    On 11/24/24 18:37, john larkin wrote:
    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 17:25:43 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 11:30:34 +0000,
    liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:


    Also be aware that the term "Billion" means a million million >>>>>>>>> (Bi-million) in English but only a thousand million in American >>>>>>>>> and French..

    .. where it is a "milliard"

    The Milliard is English for a thousand million, which Americans
    call a "Billion".

    Logically the English runs:
    10^3 Thousand 10^6 Million 10^9 Milliard

    No, that's a duck.


    What goes "Quick! Quick!" ?
    |

    |

    |

    |

    |

    A duck with hiccups.




    (It will soon be Christmas cracker time.)

    Wonderful birds. It's unfortunate that they taste so good.


    That may be what will save them. Animals that taste good don't go >>>extinct. But what a destiny...

    Jeroen Belleman

    I wonder if any animals have evolved to taste bad. Or be outright
    poisonous.

    puffer fish, Koala, several other animals with extreme diets.

    Toads as well.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don Y@21:1/5 to Carlos E.R. on Sun Dec 1 13:08:57 2024
    On 12/1/2024 6:27 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    Obfuscators preserve the intended functionality.  They just dick with
    the steps to get TO it.

    E.g., display_crt(31, A1) might be transformed into:

         figger = 961;
         bugger(123, 9987, foo);
         blandow();


    bugger(int vvvrs, int vvvsr, char *gobbler) {
         fftre = strlen(gobbler) + 88;
         for (greg = fftre; greg -= 3; greg > 4)
                  sstste += greg[gobbler];
         figger += 8*8 - 1;
    }

    blandow() {
         display_crt(sqrt(figger), A1);
         figger -=25;
    }


    Ok, but the LabWindows IDE of the time would possibly explode. That thing converted code C <-> Basic, so the C language you could use was limited.

    Possibly. But, someone EXPERIENCED with it would likely know what you
    can do to make code "less readable" -- without throwing up red flags that
    you were intentionally doing so.

    Consider how many folks write unreadable code without even TRYING to do so!
    The "production code" that I've seen has, for the most part, been... GHASTLY! (as if the programmer was just trying to get it /work/ with no concerns for style, reliability, readability, etc.)

    Besides, I would tell my boss not to pay him or to sue.

    That assumes you have someone competent to review the original work.
    Often, folks hire "outside talent" because they don't have the
    skills, internally.

    And, such "evaluations" are always subjective; you can't POINT to
    some particular thing and say "this is bad" -- even if the whole
    thing is bad! The boss weighs that against "Yeah, but does it WORK?
    If I don't pay him, will I have to find someone else to solve MY
    problem?? And, how long will THAT take?"

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From DJ Delorie@21:1/5 to Liz Tuddenham on Sun Dec 1 17:08:03 2024
    liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) writes:
    Making a statement does not place you under any absolute obligation to
    back it up with facts - but a failure to do so lays you open to the
    suspicion that the statement was false.

    Do you have any facts to back that up with? ;-)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Liz Tuddenham@21:1/5 to Cursitor Doom on Mon Dec 2 09:55:57 2024
    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 07:23:34 -0800, john larkin wrote:

    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 08:56:17 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:22:01 -0800, john larkin wrote:

    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 10:36:08 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid >>> > (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 22:27:12 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 07:51:04 +0000,
    liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:21:56 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 18:22:22 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many >>> >>> >> >> >> >> years ago at one thousand million so there's no
    confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found
    one.

    Try this:
    https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/
    why-
    are-uk-
    and-
    american-billions-different

    It just repeats the myth but doesn't give a reference.

    It's not a myth. UK and US billions have been harmonized at
    1,000,000,000 for as long as I can remember now. As I
    recall, it was just done simply via adoption rather than any >>> >>> >> >> Act of Parliament or Statutory Instrument. IIRC, I think the >>> >>> >> >> pressure to do so came from the finance industry.

    Do you have a reference that isn't just heresay?

    You can go to BBC.com and search for stories with "billions".
    They obviously mean 1e9.

    That is not evidence that the two have been harmonised, it just
    shows that BBC journalists have adopted American terminology.

    To harmonise two systems requires formal discussion, decision
    and documentation and neither you nor I have found any evidence
    of that.

    Fine believe whatever delusions you want to believe but it doesn't >>> >>> change the fact that a UK billion today is one thousand million.
    Period.

    You have still produced no no proof for your original assertion that >>> >>the UK billion has been harmonised with the US billion, which was
    the point in question. Common misusage does not alter the facts.

    I'm not obliged to provide you with *anything*. The fact that I
    informed you what a billion is today was a courtesy extended to you by >>> my infinite patience as a decent human being.

    Making a statement does not place you under any absolute obligation to >>back it up with facts - but a failure to do so lays you open to the >>suspicion that the statement was false.

    Gosh, how can he live with the shame?

    I'll manage. :) OTOH, "Liz" has exhibited extraordinary obtusity IRO this very simple matter and will have to live with THAT stain on "her"
    reputation.

    It's a terrible burden when I eventually get to the truth and find I was
    right all along. Don't worry, I'll get over it after a bit of retail
    therapy.


    --
    ~ Liz Tuddenham ~
    (Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
    www.poppyrecords.co.uk

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Liz Tuddenham@21:1/5 to DJ Delorie on Mon Dec 2 09:55:57 2024
    DJ Delorie <dj@delorie.com> wrote:

    liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) writes:
    Making a statement does not place you under any absolute obligation to
    back it up with facts - but a failure to do so lays you open to the suspicion that the statement was false.

    Do you have any facts to back that up with? ;-)

    No - you'll just have to take my word for it. ;-)


    --
    ~ Liz Tuddenham ~
    (Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
    www.poppyrecords.co.uk

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Carlos E.R.@21:1/5 to Don Y on Mon Dec 2 14:16:08 2024
    On 2024-12-01 21:08, Don Y wrote:
    On 12/1/2024 6:27 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    Obfuscators preserve the intended functionality.  They just dick with
    the steps to get TO it.

    E.g., display_crt(31, A1) might be transformed into:

         figger = 961;
         bugger(123, 9987, foo);
         blandow();


    bugger(int vvvrs, int vvvsr, char *gobbler) {
         fftre = strlen(gobbler) + 88;
         for (greg = fftre; greg -= 3; greg > 4)
                  sstste += greg[gobbler];
         figger += 8*8 - 1;
    }

    blandow() {
         display_crt(sqrt(figger), A1);
         figger -=25;
    }


    Ok, but the LabWindows IDE of the time would possibly explode. That
    thing converted code C <-> Basic, so the C language you could use was
    limited.

    Possibly.  But, someone EXPERIENCED with it would likely know what you
    can do to make code "less readable" -- without throwing up red flags that
    you were intentionally doing so.

    Consider how many folks write unreadable code without even TRYING to do so! The "production code" that I've seen has, for the most part, been...
    GHASTLY!
    (as if the programmer was just trying to get it /work/ with no concerns for style, reliability, readability, etc.)

    That could be


    Besides, I would tell my boss not to pay him or to sue.

    That assumes you have someone competent to review the original work.
    Often, folks hire "outside talent" because they don't have the
    skills, internally.

    Correct, that's why they hired me ;-)



    And, such "evaluations" are always subjective; you can't POINT to
    some particular thing and say "this is bad" -- even if the whole
    thing is bad!  The boss weighs that against "Yeah, but does it WORK?
    If I don't pay him, will I have to find someone else to solve MY
    problem??  And, how long will THAT take?"


    There is that. He would have to pay that programmer in the future for
    any small modification of the program, though. And he did want a few modifications (the specs from the client got modified as they saw the
    result)

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to DJ Delorie on Mon Dec 2 05:58:10 2024
    On Sun, 01 Dec 2024 17:08:03 -0500, DJ Delorie <dj@delorie.com> wrote:

    liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) writes:
    Making a statement does not place you under any absolute obligation to
    back it up with facts - but a failure to do so lays you open to the
    suspicion that the statement was false.

    Do you have any facts to back that up with? ;-)

    Billions!

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Carlos E.R.@21:1/5 to Cursitor Doom on Mon Dec 2 14:19:52 2024
    On 2024-12-01 19:15, Cursitor Doom wrote:
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:35:11 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 18:32, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 11/29/24 15:33, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid>
    wrote:
    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many years ago >>>>>>>> at one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that?  I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/
    SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation.  The English Billion still >>>>> exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American
    meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime
    Minister.

    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still
    countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million
    million. So one has to be careful when translating.


    All this abundantly demonstrates that we're better off using the metric
    prefixes instead. It'll be next to impossible to make politicians and
    finance accept that though...

    Right!

    Or notations like 5*10^9 or 5E9 (calculators did this. Do they still
    do? 5E9 is very simple)

    When you deal with RF it's essential to have a scientific calculator that
    can handle exponents like that. I continue to be amazed at the computing power they're capable of for next to no money. In real terms they're a fraction of the price they were when they first became available. The
    first ever scientific calculator I ever had was an HP one. A friend had
    the Sinclair one. Another had a Bowmar (they went bust around 1975 IIRC). They were a quantum leap over what we used beforehand.

    I hated HP calculators with their reverse polish notation. I bought TI
    instead, or Casio later.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to Liz Tuddenham on Mon Dec 2 05:57:36 2024
    On Mon, 2 Dec 2024 09:55:57 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 07:23:34 -0800, john larkin wrote:

    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 08:56:17 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
    (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:22:01 -0800, john larkin wrote:

    On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 10:36:08 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid >> >>> > (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 22:27:12 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:

    On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 07:51:04 +0000,
    liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:21:56 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 18:22:22 +0000, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many >> >>> >>> >> >> >> >> years ago at one thousand million so there's no
    confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that? I haven't found
    one.

    Try this:
    https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/
    why-
    are-uk-
    and-
    american-billions-different

    It just repeats the myth but doesn't give a reference.

    It's not a myth. UK and US billions have been harmonized at
    1,000,000,000 for as long as I can remember now. As I
    recall, it was just done simply via adoption rather than any >> >>> >>> >> >> Act of Parliament or Statutory Instrument. IIRC, I think the >> >>> >>> >> >> pressure to do so came from the finance industry.

    Do you have a reference that isn't just heresay?

    You can go to BBC.com and search for stories with "billions".
    They obviously mean 1e9.

    That is not evidence that the two have been harmonised, it just
    shows that BBC journalists have adopted American terminology.

    To harmonise two systems requires formal discussion, decision
    and documentation and neither you nor I have found any evidence
    of that.

    Fine believe whatever delusions you want to believe but it doesn't >> >>> >>> change the fact that a UK billion today is one thousand million.
    Period.

    You have still produced no no proof for your original assertion that >> >>> >>the UK billion has been harmonised with the US billion, which was
    the point in question. Common misusage does not alter the facts.

    I'm not obliged to provide you with *anything*. The fact that I
    informed you what a billion is today was a courtesy extended to you by >> >>> my infinite patience as a decent human being.

    Making a statement does not place you under any absolute obligation to
    back it up with facts - but a failure to do so lays you open to the
    suspicion that the statement was false.

    Gosh, how can he live with the shame?

    I'll manage. :) OTOH, "Liz" has exhibited extraordinary obtusity IRO this
    very simple matter and will have to live with THAT stain on "her"
    reputation.

    It's a terrible burden when I eventually get to the truth and find I was >right all along. Don't worry, I'll get over it after a bit of retail >therapy.

    Ski lift tickets are cheaper than therapists, and more fun.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to robin_listas@es.invalid on Mon Dec 2 06:00:11 2024
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:35:11 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 18:32, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 11/29/24 15:33, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote: >>>>>> Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no
    confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that?  I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/
    SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation.  The English Billion still
    exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American
    meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister. >>>>
    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still
    countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million
    million. So one has to be careful when translating.


    All this abundantly demonstrates that we're better off using the
    metric prefixes instead. It'll be next to impossible to make
    politicians and finance accept that though...

    Right!

    Or notations like 5*10^9 or 5E9 (calculators did this. Do they still
    do? 5E9 is very simple)

    10^9 = 1e10 in some places.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeroen Belleman@21:1/5 to Carlos E.R. on Mon Dec 2 15:17:25 2024
    On 12/2/24 14:19, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    [...]

    I hated HP calculators with their reverse polish notation. I bought TI instead, or Casio later.


    That's surprising from a person comfortable with software.
    I found algebraic entry calculators clumsy. I went the
    opposite way.

    What gripe do you have with RPN?

    Jeroen Belleman

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to robin_listas@es.invalid on Mon Dec 2 06:10:48 2024
    On Mon, 2 Dec 2024 14:19:52 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-12-01 19:15, Cursitor Doom wrote:
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:35:11 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 18:32, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 11/29/24 15:33, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid>
    wrote:
    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was harmonised many years ago >>>>>>>>> at one thousand million so there's no confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that?  I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/ >>>>>>> SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation.  The English Billion still >>>>>> exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American >>>>>> meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime
    Minister.

    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still >>>>>> countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million
    million. So one has to be careful when translating.


    All this abundantly demonstrates that we're better off using the metric >>>> prefixes instead. It'll be next to impossible to make politicians and
    finance accept that though...

    Right!

    Or notations like 5*10^9 or 5E9 (calculators did this. Do they still
    do? 5E9 is very simple)

    When you deal with RF it's essential to have a scientific calculator that
    can handle exponents like that. I continue to be amazed at the computing
    power they're capable of for next to no money. In real terms they're a
    fraction of the price they were when they first became available. The
    first ever scientific calculator I ever had was an HP one. A friend had
    the Sinclair one. Another had a Bowmar (they went bust around 1975 IIRC).
    They were a quantum leap over what we used beforehand.

    I hated HP calculators with their reverse polish notation. I bought TI >instead, or Casio later.

    RPN is wonderful. Nested parentheses are a mess.

    What resistor do you put in parellel with 12K to get 7K? That takes 7 keystrokes on my HP32.

    My first calc was an HP9100. It cost as much as a new Chevrolet. Then
    I got an HP35 and a Honda S90 motorcycle; the bike was cheaper.

    I still have both calcs. Someone stole the bike.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Carlos E.R.@21:1/5 to john larkin on Mon Dec 2 16:00:36 2024
    On 2024-12-02 15:00, john larkin wrote:
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:35:11 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 18:32, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 11/29/24 15:33, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote: >>>>>>> Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no >>>>>>>> confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that?  I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/
    SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation.  The English Billion still >>>>> exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American
    meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister. >>>>>
    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still
    countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million
    million. So one has to be careful when translating.


    All this abundantly demonstrates that we're better off using the
    metric prefixes instead. It'll be next to impossible to make
    politicians and finance accept that though...

    Right!

    Or notations like 5*10^9 or 5E9 (calculators did this. Do they still
    do? 5E9 is very simple)

    10^9 = 1e10 in some places.

    er...

    10^9 = 1e9

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeroen Belleman@21:1/5 to john larkin on Mon Dec 2 15:24:23 2024
    On 12/2/24 15:00, john larkin wrote:
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:35:11 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 18:32, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 11/29/24 15:33, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote: >>>>>>> Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no >>>>>>>> confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that?  I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/
    SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation.  The English Billion still >>>>> exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American
    meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister. >>>>>
    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still
    countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million
    million. So one has to be careful when translating.


    All this abundantly demonstrates that we're better off using the
    metric prefixes instead. It'll be next to impossible to make
    politicians and finance accept that though...

    Right!

    Or notations like 5*10^9 or 5E9 (calculators did this. Do they still
    do? 5E9 is very simple)

    10^9 = 1e10 in some places.


    What??? Where?

    Jeroen Belleman

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Carlos E.R.@21:1/5 to Jeroen Belleman on Mon Dec 2 15:59:32 2024
    On 2024-12-02 15:17, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 12/2/24 14:19, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    [...]

    I hated HP calculators with their reverse polish notation. I bought TI
    instead, or Casio later.


    That's surprising from a person comfortable with software.

    I enter calculations in the calculators in the same way I do when I
    write Pascal, C, Basic, or plain language.


    I found algebraic entry calculators clumsy. I went the
    opposite way.

    What gripe do you have with RPN?

    Not human.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to jeroen@nospam.please on Mon Dec 2 07:48:27 2024
    On Mon, 2 Dec 2024 15:17:25 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
    <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

    On 12/2/24 14:19, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    [...]

    I hated HP calculators with their reverse polish notation. I bought TI
    instead, or Casio later.


    That's surprising from a person comfortable with software.
    I found algebraic entry calculators clumsy. I went the
    opposite way.

    What gripe do you have with RPN?

    Jeroen Belleman

    Free32 is nice on my phone. A little quirky.

    The real HP calcs are slowly dying. HP did a newer one that was so
    awful I threw it away. Probably Chinese junk.

    Towards the end, HP was labeling cheap stuff, like Rigol scopes.

    Read

    The HP Way by David Packard

    and then

    The Journey by Carly Fiorina.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to jeroen@nospam.please on Mon Dec 2 07:38:23 2024
    On Mon, 2 Dec 2024 15:24:23 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
    <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

    On 12/2/24 15:00, john larkin wrote:
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:35:11 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 18:32, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 11/29/24 15:33, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote: >>>>>>>> Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no >>>>>>>>> confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that?  I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/ >>>>>>> SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation.  The English Billion still >>>>>> exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American >>>>>> meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister. >>>>>>
    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still >>>>>> countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million
    million. So one has to be careful when translating.


    All this abundantly demonstrates that we're better off using the
    metric prefixes instead. It'll be next to impossible to make
    politicians and finance accept that though...

    Right!

    Or notations like 5*10^9 or 5E9 (calculators did this. Do they still
    do? 5E9 is very simple)

    10^9 = 1e10 in some places.


    What??? Where?

    Jeroen Belleman

    Some circuit simulator did that to me. ECA maybe.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to robin_listas@es.invalid on Mon Dec 2 07:55:43 2024
    On Mon, 2 Dec 2024 15:59:32 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-12-02 15:17, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 12/2/24 14:19, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    [...]

    I hated HP calculators with their reverse polish notation. I bought TI
    instead, or Casio later.


    That's surprising from a person comfortable with software.

    I enter calculations in the calculators in the same way I do when I
    write Pascal, C, Basic, or plain language.


    I found algebraic entry calculators clumsy. I went the
    opposite way.

    What gripe do you have with RPN?

    Not human.

    Do you program in Basic? It is not popular with the coder culture.

    I loved Basic-Plus on the Dec RSTS time-share system.

    I use the PowerBasic Console Compiler now. It's awesome. It has stuff
    like PRINT USING$ and TCP OPEN and 80-bit floats.

    I have a few ee programs I could share.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to robin_listas@es.invalid on Mon Dec 2 07:56:39 2024
    On Mon, 2 Dec 2024 16:00:36 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-12-02 15:00, john larkin wrote:
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:35:11 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 18:32, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 11/29/24 15:33, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote: >>>>>>>> Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no >>>>>>>>> confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that?  I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/ >>>>>>> SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation.  The English Billion still >>>>>> exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American >>>>>> meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister. >>>>>>
    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still >>>>>> countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million
    million. So one has to be careful when translating.


    All this abundantly demonstrates that we're better off using the
    metric prefixes instead. It'll be next to impossible to make
    politicians and finance accept that though...

    Right!

    Or notations like 5*10^9 or 5E9 (calculators did this. Do they still
    do? 5E9 is very simple)

    10^9 = 1e10 in some places.

    er...

    10^9 = 1e9

    Except when it ain't.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeroen Belleman@21:1/5 to Phil Hobbs on Mon Dec 2 19:06:28 2024
    On 12/2/24 18:17, Phil Hobbs wrote:
    Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
    On 12/2/24 15:00, john larkin wrote:
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:35:11 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 18:32, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 11/29/24 15:33, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote: >>>>>>>>> Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no >>>>>>>>>> confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that?� I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/ >>>>>>>> SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation.� The English Billion still >>>>>>> exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American >>>>>>> meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister.

    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still >>>>>>> countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million
    million. So one has to be careful when translating.


    All this abundantly demonstrates that we're better off using the
    metric prefixes instead. It'll be next to impossible to make
    politicians and finance accept that though...

    Right!

    Or notations like 5*10^9 or 5E9 (calculators did this. Do they still
    do? 5E9 is very simple)

    10^9 = 1e10 in some places.


    What??? Where?

    Jeroen Belleman


    Occasionally when I want 10 to the nine, I type 10E9.

    Cheers

    Phil Hobbs


    So it's you! Shame!

    Jeroen Belleman (Tongue in cheek)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Phil Hobbs@21:1/5 to Jeroen Belleman on Mon Dec 2 17:17:23 2024
    Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
    On 12/2/24 15:00, john larkin wrote:
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:35:11 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 18:32, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 11/29/24 15:33, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote: >>>>>>>> Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no >>>>>>>>> confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that?ÿ I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/ >>>>>>> SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation.ÿ The English Billion still >>>>>> exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American >>>>>> meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister. >>>>>>
    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still >>>>>> countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million
    million. So one has to be careful when translating.


    All this abundantly demonstrates that we're better off using the
    metric prefixes instead. It'll be next to impossible to make
    politicians and finance accept that though...

    Right!

    Or notations like 5*10^9 or 5E9 (calculators did this. Do they still
    do? 5E9 is very simple)

    10^9 = 1e10 in some places.


    What??? Where?

    Jeroen Belleman


    Occasionally when I want 10 to the nine, I type 10E9.

    Cheers

    Phil Hobbs

    --
    Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Joe Gwinn@21:1/5 to jeroen@nospam.please on Mon Dec 2 13:44:24 2024
    On Mon, 2 Dec 2024 19:06:28 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
    <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

    On 12/2/24 18:17, Phil Hobbs wrote:
    Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
    On 12/2/24 15:00, john larkin wrote:
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:35:11 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 18:32, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 11/29/24 15:33, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no >>>>>>>>>>> confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that?? I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/ >>>>>>>>> SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation.? The English Billion still >>>>>>>> exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American >>>>>>>> meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister.

    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still >>>>>>>> countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million >>>>>>> million. So one has to be careful when translating.


    All this abundantly demonstrates that we're better off using the
    metric prefixes instead. It'll be next to impossible to make
    politicians and finance accept that though...

    Right!

    Or notations like 5*10^9 or 5E9 (calculators did this. Do they still >>>>> do? 5E9 is very simple)

    10^9 = 1e10 in some places.


    What??? Where?

    Jeroen Belleman


    Occasionally when I want 10 to the nine, I type 10E9.

    Cheers

    Phil Hobbs


    So it's you! Shame!

    Jeroen Belleman (Tongue in cheek)

    So we need to standardize the world on 10^9.

    Joe

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don Y@21:1/5 to Carlos E.R. on Mon Dec 2 12:42:43 2024
    On 12/2/2024 6:16 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    Besides, I would tell my boss not to pay him or to sue.

    That assumes you have someone competent to review the original work.
    Often, folks hire "outside talent" because they don't have the
    skills, internally.

    Correct, that's why they hired me ;-)

    I was apparently hired at my last 9-to-5 to "make the other guy redundant".
    I guess he had tried to "hold up" (extort) the employer and they didn't like being on the weak side of that "negotiation".

    And, such "evaluations" are always subjective; you can't POINT to
    some particular thing and say "this is bad" -- even if the whole
    thing is bad!  The boss weighs that against "Yeah, but does it WORK?
    If I don't pay him, will I have to find someone else to solve MY
    problem??  And, how long will THAT take?"

    There is that. He would have to pay that programmer in the future for any small
    modification of the program, though. And he did want a few modifications (the specs from the client got modified as they saw the result)

    IME, it's in BOTH parties' best interests for the "transaction"
    to be fair and equitable.

    I've always tried to "not be needed" at the end of a project.
    First, this is a deliberate (over?)compensation to avoid being
    the sort of guy who effectively extorts the client by keeping
    them "needy".

    But, more importantly, I want to move on and do something else.
    Making a *second* (of ANYTHING), to me, is incredibly boring.
    You learn comparatively little for a shitload of time invested!

    By knowing that I've not left a client dependant/reliant on me
    (my services), its morally easier to "move on".

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeroen Belleman@21:1/5 to Joe Gwinn on Mon Dec 2 20:53:18 2024
    On 12/2/24 19:44, Joe Gwinn wrote:
    On Mon, 2 Dec 2024 19:06:28 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
    <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

    On 12/2/24 18:17, Phil Hobbs wrote:
    Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
    On 12/2/24 15:00, john larkin wrote:
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:35:11 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 18:32, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 11/29/24 15:33, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no >>>>>>>>>>>> confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that?? I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/ >>>>>>>>>> SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation.? The English Billion still >>>>>>>>> exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American >>>>>>>>> meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister.

    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still >>>>>>>>> countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million >>>>>>>> million. So one has to be careful when translating.


    All this abundantly demonstrates that we're better off using the >>>>>>> metric prefixes instead. It'll be next to impossible to make
    politicians and finance accept that though...

    Right!

    Or notations like 5*10^9 or 5E9 (calculators did this. Do they still >>>>>> do? 5E9 is very simple)

    10^9 = 1e10 in some places.


    What??? Where?

    Jeroen Belleman


    Occasionally when I want 10 to the nine, I type 10E9.

    Cheers

    Phil Hobbs


    So it's you! Shame!

    Jeroen Belleman (Tongue in cheek)

    So we need to standardize the world on 10^9.

    Joe

    That at least is unambiguous, contrary to billions and trillions
    which have become so confusing as to be useless. I still think using
    1G is easier.

    There is a wart on the SI system, where multiplier prefixes apply
    to *both* the amount *and* the unit when the unit is a power of
    a unit: 1mm^3 is in fact 10^-9 cubic meters. To make things worse,
    this does not apply to liters, despite the fact that a liter
    also has the dimension of a length cubed. To me, that feels just
    wrong. It sometimes still confuses me. I'd have much preferred
    that 1mm^3 equals 1n m^3. That is, the quantity is 1n and the unit
    is m^3.

    Jeroen Belleman

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Joe Gwinn@21:1/5 to jeroen@nospam.please on Mon Dec 2 15:45:27 2024
    On Mon, 2 Dec 2024 20:53:18 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
    <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

    On 12/2/24 19:44, Joe Gwinn wrote:
    On Mon, 2 Dec 2024 19:06:28 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
    <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

    On 12/2/24 18:17, Phil Hobbs wrote:
    Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
    On 12/2/24 15:00, john larkin wrote:
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:35:11 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 18:32, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 11/29/24 15:33, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
    Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no >>>>>>>>>>>>> confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that?? I haven't found one. >>>>>>>>>>>
    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/ >>>>>>>>>>> SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation.? The English Billion still >>>>>>>>>> exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American >>>>>>>>>> meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister.

    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still >>>>>>>>>> countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million >>>>>>>>> million. So one has to be careful when translating.


    All this abundantly demonstrates that we're better off using the >>>>>>>> metric prefixes instead. It'll be next to impossible to make
    politicians and finance accept that though...

    Right!

    Or notations like 5*10^9 or 5E9 (calculators did this. Do they still >>>>>>> do? 5E9 is very simple)

    10^9 = 1e10 in some places.


    What??? Where?

    Jeroen Belleman


    Occasionally when I want 10 to the nine, I type 10E9.

    Cheers

    Phil Hobbs


    So it's you! Shame!

    Jeroen Belleman (Tongue in cheek)

    So we need to standardize the world on 10^9.

    Joe

    That at least is unambiguous, contrary to billions and trillions
    which have become so confusing as to be useless. I still think using
    1G is easier.

    There is a wart on the SI system, where multiplier prefixes apply
    to *both* the amount *and* the unit when the unit is a power of
    a unit: 1mm^3 is in fact 10^-9 cubic meters. To make things worse,
    this does not apply to liters, despite the fact that a liter
    also has the dimension of a length cubed. To me, that feels just
    wrong. It sometimes still confuses me. I'd have much preferred
    that 1mm^3 equals 1n m^3. That is, the quantity is 1n and the unit
    is m^3.

    Hmm. I think that the ~liter is sacrosanct, particularly in
    beerhalls.

    Joe Gwinn

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Carlos E.R.@21:1/5 to john larkin on Mon Dec 2 22:26:54 2024
    On 2024-12-02 16:55, john larkin wrote:
    On Mon, 2 Dec 2024 15:59:32 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-12-02 15:17, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 12/2/24 14:19, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    [...]

    I hated HP calculators with their reverse polish notation. I bought TI >>>> instead, or Casio later.


    That's surprising from a person comfortable with software.

    I enter calculations in the calculators in the same way I do when I
    write Pascal, C, Basic, or plain language.


    I found algebraic entry calculators clumsy. I went the
    opposite way.

    What gripe do you have with RPN?

    Not human.

    Do you program in Basic? It is not popular with the coder culture.

    I had to maintain programs made by other people before me, in Basic.
    Before that job I did a bit of Basic with borrowed Spectrums, and then
    Casio calculators had Basic.

    In the engineering world, engineers in the 80's figured out things that
    could be done with computers, and they pioneered the field, in Basic,
    because PCs came with it, and it appeared simple enough. They had the engineering knowledge of their field, and learning Basic they invented
    things that could be done with computers that a computer profesional
    would not have imagined.

    We owe a lot to them.

    This is an electronics group, so perhaps you tried Microcaps (80s). At
    the time I saw it I think it was Microcaps II. You could draw an
    schematic and test it in your PC. It was done in compiled Basic. And it
    had bugs, crashes that the interpreter had not bumped into (like
    dividing by zero) that made the compiled program to crash. Some of the
    bugs a proper compiled language would have detected at compile time.


    I loved Basic-Plus on the Dec RSTS time-share system.

    I use the PowerBasic Console Compiler now. It's awesome. It has stuff
    like PRINT USING$ and TCP OPEN and 80-bit floats.

    I have a few ee programs I could share.


    Sorry, I don't do much programming nowdays...


    --
    Cheers, Carlos.

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  • From Jasen Betts@21:1/5 to john larkin on Fri Dec 6 10:00:22 2024
    On 2024-12-02, john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
    On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:35:11 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2024-11-29 18:32, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
    On 11/29/24 15:33, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2024-11-29 15:22, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
    Jasen Betts <usenet@revmaps.no-ip.org> wrote:

    On 2024-11-24, Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote: >>>>>>> Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:

    [...]
    the English and American "billion" was
    harmonised many years ago at one thousand million so there's no >>>>>>>> confusion.

    Can you give a reference for that?  I haven't found one.

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04440/
    SN04440.pdf

    Thank you, that clarifies the situation.  The English Billion still >>>>> exists but in 1957 British Ministers were told to use the American
    meaning as it was considered "International" by the then Prime Minister. >>>>>
    Obviously it cannot be completely international if there are still
    countries using it to mean Bi-million nowadays.

    And languages. Spanish, in Spain at least, a billion is a million
    million. So one has to be careful when translating.


    All this abundantly demonstrates that we're better off using the
    metric prefixes instead. It'll be next to impossible to make
    politicians and finance accept that though...

    Right!

    Or notations like 5*10^9 or 5E9 (calculators did this. Do they still
    do? 5E9 is very simple)

    10^9 = 1e10 in some places.

    It's 3 some places, but I've never seen it as 1e10

    however "109" = 1e10, that I have seen.

    --
    Jasen.
    🇺🇦 Слава Україні

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