dforsey - Slashdot User

Comment PL/C on mark-sense cards (Score 1) 633

by dforsey on Sunday April 23, 2017 @01:14PM (#54287903) Attached to: Slashdot Asks: What Was Your First Programming Language?

Jan, 1976 - UoGuelph

PL/C using mark-sense cards, lying in an infirmary with a collapsed lung and nothing to read but textbooks.

Read the whole PL/C textbook while waiting to heal - never had to go to class afterwards except for exams.

Then a parade of languages: COBOL, APL, PDP assembler, VAX assembler, IBM 360 assembler, C, Snobol, Lisp, Pascal, Fortran and a bunch I've forgtotten - all while getting a Zoology degree.

Ended up as a CS prof. That collapsed lung wasn't the catastrophe I thought it was at the time.

Submission + - Theologian attempts censorship after losing public (wordpress.com) 3

Submitted by RockDoctor on Tuesday November 01, 2011 @04:29PM

RockDoctor writes: Theologian John Haught publicly debated prominent evolutionary scientist and atheist Jerry Coyne at the University of Kentucky back in October. Before the debate, both parties agreed to the debate being video-taped. Coyne is of the opinion that he convincingly won the debate over Haught. But we'll never know, because Haught, with the assistance of staff at University of Kentucky who sponsored the debate, is banning publication of the video of the event. They are even refusing to release the half of the debate containing Coyne's comments and questions, which is his intellectual property. And that latter is theft, plain and simple, in addition to Haught's cowardice.

Comment Re:Evolution (Score 1) 453

by dforsey on Monday December 29, 2008 @04:00PM (#26260939) Attached to: Evolution of Intelligence More Complex Than Once Thought

Of course, evolution is happening N-dimensionally, so going "downhill" in one aspect may be taking you "uphill" in another - which one wins depends upon selection pressure, luck etc.

And since selection pressures also happen in multiple dimensions (as well as being time and space varying - oh and non-linearities), the landscape of your objective function is constantly changing as well - so from one generation, "down" may become level or uphill, and genetic variation will also tend to scatter individuals through this N-dimensional hyperspace giving them slightly different starting points.

Enough for now? :-)

Submission + - Nissan turns to high-tech to stop drink driving

Submitted by StonyandCher on Friday August 03, 2007 @02:57AM

StonyandCher writes: As part of its drive to reduce road deaths and injuries, Nissan Motor has installed in a car three prototype high-tech systems designed to stop drink driving.

The first attempts to directly detect alcohol in the driver's sweat and gear shift lever. A second system in the car uses a camera mounted in front of the driver to monitor eye movement. If the driver is drowsy it triggers the seat belt to tighten and this movement will hopefully snap the driver out of their drowsiness or prompt them to take a rest. A third system monitors the path of the vehicle to ensure it's traveling in a straight line and not weaving about the road, as is common with a drunken driver.

Submission + - Encouraging Students to Drop Mathematics

Submitted by

Coryoth

on Tuesday April 24, 2007 @10:08PM

Coryoth writes: "The BBC is reporting that students in the UK are being encouraged to drop math at the senior levels. It seems that schools are seeking to boost their standing on league tables by encouraging students not to take "hard" subjects like mathematics, in favour of easier subjects in which they are assured good grades. The result is Universities being forced to provide remedial math classes for science students who haven't done math for two years. The BBC provides a comparison between Chinese and UK university entrance tests — a comparison that makes the UK look woefully behind. Is the UK slipping behind in science education?"

Submission + - Using Google Earth to see destruction

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 12, 2007 @09:58PM

An anonymous reader writes: On Monday, an environmental advocacy group [Appalachian Voices] joined with Google to deliver a special interactive layer for Google Earth. This new layer will tell "the stories of over 470 mountains that have been destroyed from coal mining, and its impact on nearby ecosystems. Separately, the World Wildlife Fund has added the ability to visit its 150 project sites using Google Earth.

The State of Video Connections 235

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 13, 2007 @07:00PM from the so-many-plugs dept.

mikemuch writes "Joel Durham provides a nice rundown on what's happening in video interfaces as we leave VGA behind and move through the DVI flavors, visit HDMI along the way, and look forward to UDI and DisplayPort."

Slashdot Top Deals