Did anyone catch the promise in the FrontPorch video ad that customers could use the technology to "gather valuable business intelligence"? Guess it doesn't only deliver ads... it ransacks the device!!!
You obviously know nothing about electronics and magic smoke
Good point -- it's been a while since I've had a puff of that, if you know what I mean...
Seriously, though, I'm picturing a scenario where you accidentally drop a CFL or LED. Besides the mercury vapour issue, it's also nice that one of these stays fully functional after a drop.
Strong the whoosh with this one is, FYFT
FYTF.
The positional argument for starting with 0 makes sense in C, because it's such a low-level language. It makes sense to expose this low-level view on arrays so you can do things like pointer arithmetic.
For anything higher-level, you'd think the language should make things easier for people who deal with everyday countable items. But even in an otherwise nice high-level language like Python you can find some thoroughly messy array logic, because it basically takes the positional idea even further. While a[0] is the first item, a[0:2] is a range of the first two items, instead of three. The logic is called slices: you start at position 0, which is just before the first item, and end at 2, just after the second one. You've spanned a distance of 2, over the first 2 items.
Physicists and mathematicians have indexed, say, vectors, starting with 1 for ages, except in recent times where sometimes they use 0 for very special reason (like chapter 0 in a book).
One common example of vector indices is in relativity. Since we traditionally used indices 1 to 3 for spatial dimensions, it made sense to keep them that way. The spatial dimension was given index 0 probably to denote its special/fundamental position (e.g. energy in the energy-momentum vector).
The traditional programming language of scientists, Fortran, starts its arrays with 1 by default, but it can also be instructed to start wherever you want. For example -n to +n is sometimes quite convenient.
Also, considering something like Star Trek, there is some comfort in imagining a society where intellect and honesty are rewarded rather than ridiculed. Which, of course, can be a central aspect of speculative fiction; how far can an ideal geek society go, or do you need someone to be an asshole to take action in the end.
However, I agree with the OP to some extent. As a science/math/electronics/programming/music geek, I've never understood the stereotypical geek fascination with games, comics and other plasticky entertainment. Reading books I can understand, collecting superhero figures not that much.
Agreed, you can be a programming monkey or a software development monkey. To me, the use of a higher register often implies the kind of professionalism where a suit and a bunch of certificates matter more than real problem solving ability.
The moon is made of green cheese. -- John Heywood
