OT.... but I need help

[Gene E. Bloch]

[snip]

Apropos which, I've just found this picture.
LOL.
http://tinyurl.com/brpjvee

They do not look to be stacked very securely. How many seconds
until they tumbled down?

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Normally, they're stored in boxes of 2000. Anyone who
has worked with punch cards, wouldn't treat them like that.

The boxes of 2000, stack very nicely, as shown in this photo.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/IBM_card_storage.NARA.jpg

The 80 column punch card, isn't entirely user data.
Columns 72-80 can contain a sequence number. And if
you ever drop a deck on the floor, that's how
you get it back in order.

That's not a free lunch, because you have to type
in that sequence number while you're writing your program.
It means some extra work up-front, to protect you from
a clumsy mistake later.

Paul

IIRC, our keypunches were sometimes set up to automatically add the
sequence number at the end, incrementing for each card.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

OK, what was?

See Tim Slattery's post in this thread:

Message-ID: <[email protected]>

 

[choro]

[snip]

That is exactly what I do. I check it against my computer's
clock just after I have resynced it with an Internet time server.

As I suspected. But that very small error wouldn't bother me at all.

Well, I figure that if I am going to use a watch, that it should
have the correct time to within about one minute.

Same here, but I can go a lot of weeks before I need to set it.

6-8 weeks for me.

Casio also has a trick for changing the battery. Simply changing
the battery does not work. There is some little trick to doing it.
This is not user-friendly.

Casio! <spit>

My next watch is very unlikely to be a Casio.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Yes, there is a microscopic spring. And you've had it if you lose it
unless you are lucky enough to find it like I did. And you also have to
short something. It is all in the instructions available on the
Internet. Changing the battery becomes a major operation. Begin by
taking a couple of Paracetamol tablets and then start with removing one
end of the bracelet. And make sure you have a magnifier so you can spot
that tiny spring! A very powerful magnet comes in handy if you drop that
damned spring.

But the battery in their digital watches seems to last around 10 years.
Why bother replacing the battery?

 

[Char Jackson]

And no one so far seems to have mentioned the most important function of
today's watches, the digital ones, at least.

They tell you the day of the week as well as the month, date, and year.

One can't figure those out very accurately by looking at the sun.

I usually know what year it is, plus or minus. ;-)

 

[choro]

Ok, I'll look into it. Promise. Thanks for explaining the reason to me.

Gene's "RFC 3676 section 4.3" meant nothing to me.

OK, I've corrected it now. Must have deleted the space at some stage.

Is it OK now?

 

[Ken Blake]

For certain values of "go".

LOL!

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Ok, I'll look into it. Promise. Thanks for explaining the reason to me.

Gene's "RFC 3676 section 4.3" meant nothing to me.

OK, I've corrected it now. Must have deleted the space at some stage.

Is it OK now?

Yes - excellent!

A lot of softwares display the .sig in a different colour, if they can
recognise it.

A somewhat smaller number of prog.s also handle .sigs in a special way.
I use one such (an ancient one called Turnpike). When I reply to an
email, or post a followup to a post, that contains a properly-delimited
signature (i. e. with a "-- " line), my reply or followup contains the
text in the original email/post - _except_ the signature; this is done
on the basis that there's no point in repeating someone's signature when
replying to them, as they know what it says (and the same applies to
followers of a newsgroup thread, they've seen it once and don't really
need to see it again).

[Of course, a _good_ reply to an email or followup to a post should
_manually_ snip the parts _not_ being responded to as well, but having
the .sig automatically snipped is a good start.]

 

[Gene Wirchenko]

Ok, I'll look into it. Promise. Thanks for explaining the reason to me.

Gene's "RFC 3676 section 4.3" meant nothing to me.

GIYF.

An RFC (Request For Comment) defines Internet standards (and some
very good April Fool's Day jokes).

OK, I've corrected it now. Must have deleted the space at some stage.

Is it OK now?

Yup.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

 

[choro]

Ok, I'll look into it. Promise. Thanks for explaining the reason to me.

Gene's "RFC 3676 section 4.3" meant nothing to me.

OK, I've corrected it now. Must have deleted the space at some stage.

Is it OK now?

Yes - excellent!

A lot of softwares display the .sig in a different colour, if they can
recognise it.

A somewhat smaller number of prog.s also handle .sigs in a special way.
I use one such (an ancient one called Turnpike). When I reply to an
email, or post a followup to a post, that contains a properly-delimited
signature (i. e. with a "-- " line), my reply or followup contains the
text in the original email/post - _except_ the signature; this is done
on the basis that there's no point in repeating someone's signature when
replying to them, as they know what it says (and the same applies to
followers of a newsgroup thread, they've seen it once and don't really
need to see it again).

[Of course, a _good_ reply to an email or followup to a post should
_manually_ snip the parts _not_ being responded to as well, but having
the .sig automatically snipped is a good start.]

Thanks for the info. Re snipping parts of mail being responded to that
are not relevant to the response, it can be a double edged sword. Unless
the correspondence gets too long I prefer not to snip anything. However,
snipping does become desirable if the thread gets too long and over
verbose. I must plead guilty to taking the easy route out and not
snipping anything unless I feel I literally have to. Same applies to top
posting. Sometimes it actually is more desirable to top post. But then
again one has to use a bit of common sense.--
choro
*****

 

[choro]

GIYF.

An RFC (Request For Comment) defines Internet standards (and some
very good April Fool's Day jokes).


Yup.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Thanks for letting me know. I wasn't aware of the intricacies of the
sig. And now I'll be the devil and try something else out. What if I
delete all blank spaces but one before the 2 dashes thus pulling the 2
dashes to the end line of my text while still leaving the blank space
after it? Does it still work OK? Or should I leave the double dash on
its own line before the sig? --
choro
*****

 

[Paul]

[snip]

That is exactly what I do. I check it against my computer's
clock just after I have resynced it with an Internet time server.

As I suspected. But that very small error wouldn't bother me at all.

Well, I figure that if I am going to use a watch, that it should
have the correct time to within about one minute.

Same here, but I can go a lot of weeks before I need to set it.

6-8 weeks for me.

Casio also has a trick for changing the battery. Simply changing
the battery does not work. There is some little trick to doing it.
This is not user-friendly.

Casio! <spit>

My next watch is very unlikely to be a Casio.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Yes, there is a microscopic spring. And you've had it if you lose it
unless you are lucky enough to find it like I did. And you also have to
short something. It is all in the instructions available on the
Internet. Changing the battery becomes a major operation. Begin by
taking a couple of Paracetamol tablets and then start with removing one
end of the bracelet. And make sure you have a magnifier so you can spot
that tiny spring! A very powerful magnet comes in handy if you drop that
damned spring.

But the battery in their digital watches seems to last around 10 years.
Why bother replacing the battery?

I'm impressed They took a simple thing like changing a
watch battery, and turned it into brain surgery.

http://forums.watchuseek.com/f43/how-change-battery-g-shock-19704.html

So apparently, there is a gold plated contact labeled "AC" next to
it, and the gold plated contact has to be raised to the same
potential as the (+) top terminal on the battery. it's some kind
of reset, after you've changed the battery.

You need two kinds of tweezers. Non-conducting tweezers while
handling the battery. You don't want to short (+) and (-)
on the battery, while using tweezers, so that's where the plastic
tweezers come in. The precision metal tweezers can be used for
the "AC reset" procedure (use the sharp points, to do the reset).

Opinions vary on the function of the tiny spring. I'm not sure
I believe them. One person suggested it "coupled quartz vibrations",
which is highly unlikely. A second suggested the spring was
"part of the alarm". A third reason, might be usage as a contact
to touch the back plate of the watch, but for that to make sense,
the back would have to be metal. (I have a multimeter, that uses
a spring like that, for an electrical contact to a shield over
the PCB.) If the back pf the watch was plastic, the
spring would be pointless as an electrical contact.

My watch, instead of a clasp for the battery bay, the metal back
of the watch provides any compressive forces needed to hold things
in contact. That makes it a slight nuisance to rotate the back
and screw it down on the threads its got. But, it's a lot
simpler than the Casio procedure. And my watch doesn't need to be
"reset", as it starts at 12:00 on its very own.

And my battery only lasts 2 years, tops. My watch uses an LR44.
According to this, it's about 60 milliamp-hour, perhaps a third
of the CR2032 on a computer motherboard (220 mAh). Considering the
age of my watch, it's gone through a *lot* of batteries. I've easily
spent more on batteries, than the original price of the watch.

http://www.batteryonline.com.my/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=39

Paul

 

[Bob I]

I usually know what year it is, plus or minus. ;-)

Wow, you can tell that by looking at the sun!? ;-)

 

[Robin Bignall]

Thanks for letting me know. I wasn't aware of the intricacies of the
sig. And now I'll be the devil and try something else out. What if I
delete all blank spaces but one before the 2 dashes thus pulling the 2
dashes to the end line of my text while still leaving the blank space
after it? Does it still work OK? Or should I leave the double dash on
its own line before the sig? --
choro
*****

Usually the last; just put it on a separate line on its own. Your post
above just has "--", but it should be followed by a space "-- ". That's
why my news client has not excluded your signature in my reply. See my
signature below.

 

[Paul]

LOL!

When you head to a foreign country, always be ready
for culture shock.

A buddy at work, went on a business trip to Europe, and visited
a major manufacturer (a company worth billions). He
heads to the can at break time, and... no toilet.
Just a hole in the floor. The rest of the building
was as modern looking as any in North America. He
wasn't really prepared for what he found behind that
door.

So while you may ask for a "water closet",
there may not actually be a water closet there.

Some countries, they prepare you ahead of time,
explaining bathroom practices so you wouldn't
be shocked. (China is interesting.) But where
he headed, he'd never considered doing any
research in advance.

Chances are, if you stick with hotels for your
needs, there'll be no surprises. It's the world
outside the hotel that could surprise you.

Paul

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I usually know what year it is, plus or minus. ;-)

What's the secret?

 

[choro]

--
choro
*****

Usually the last; just put it on a separate line on its own. Your post
above just has "--", but it should be followed by a space "-- ". That's
why my news client has not excluded your signature in my reply. See my
signature below.

Well, I'll be damned. I am sure that I left a blank space after the
double dash which appears at the end of the the last line of my posting.
So why is my sig showing in your reply?

Here I am trying it again. And I AM definitely going to leave a blank
space after the double dash. --
choro
*****

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Ok, I'll look into it. Promise. Thanks for explaining the reason to me.

Gene's "RFC 3676 section 4.3" meant nothing to me.

OK, I've corrected it now. Must have deleted the space at some stage.

Is it OK now?

Almost - *but* you put your reply after the sig delimiter, so your reply
has been greyed out in your post and suppressed in replies to the post.

*Put your reply ahead of the sig!*

 

[Gene Wirchenko]

[snip]

I'm impressed They took a simple thing like changing a
watch battery, and turned it into brain surgery.

http://forums.watchuseek.com/f43/how-change-battery-g-shock-19704.html

The feeling I got from reading that page was that I was watching
the defusing a bomb.

[snip]

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

 

[choro]

On 06/11/2012 22:41, Gene Wirchenko wrote:

[....]

Usually the last; just put it on a separate line on its own. Your post
above just has "--", but it should be followed by a space "-- ". That's
why my news client has not excluded your signature in my reply. See my
signature below.

OK. Holy cow! Now I get it. I didn't cut and paste the sig delemiter as
you call it. So it remained at the top messing things up. I remember
this happened once before and I was wondering what was happening.

Here, I'll give it one last try... Yep, I've got the space after the 2
dashes. By rights this should work now even though I've got the sig
delimiter at the end of the last line of my response. --
choro
*****

 

[Char Jackson]

What's the secret?

The secret is, don't look at the sun.