Glad this is not the line I am taking. Though CTA is probably not the best train system in the world, but I would say it is fairly reliable... incidents like this don't happen often.
But when this happens dozens get sent to hospitals. I hope CTA recheck all its systems. Especially the trains that *I*'m on.
When I first learned about it on a old DOS machine. My reaction: gee this is weird and not so obvious. But then I was told this is weird because it is not to be triggered by mistake to reboot. Back then, some machines typically has the reset switch in the BACK of the machine for the same reason.
But I think a single button to reboot would even a bigger mistake. Triggering that by accident is no fun.
Waita minute, why do machines need to be rebooted? Yes, some programs crashes. Some don't even crash consistently. But I can't accept default out-of-box programs from Microsoft to crash inconsistently and sometimes quietly I don't even get an error message or even BSOD.
Yes it is poor programming.... or just programming is too easy to screw up. Got a while loop but forgot to increment that counter? .. on some environment that don't let you kill the job? (like DOS). Need to reboot. Well loops are easy to track, but often time it is tricky pointers to caused blue screen of death or other things... Modern OS now have Task Manager that lets you kill particular malfunctioning jobs. This is good. But Microsoft things sometimes still require you to reboot machine...
Besides the power switch (which you risk losing unsaved work), there is another way to reboot... the "shutdown" DOS command. But the DOS prompt may not be available. So the 3-finger-salute is the way to go... hope you don't have to salute often. Get a Mac you say? Yes the Mac crashes less, but not entirely crash proof.
Ok, besides rebooting, there is one more use: to get to the Login screen. You have seen "Press Control-Alt-Delete to login". Now this definitely is going to be difficult with one hand (let's say you're eating ice-cream cone in another hand). I've heard the reason is that no other programs can use this key combination... making it difficult to someone to steal your password with a fake login screen.
Why they come to Chicago again for completely unnecessary scenes of CG destruction around the city? Look, it is the FOURTH time around, time to head back to CYBERTRON! If that is not so accessible at least go to another city.
This new movie better give me something brand new... Prime AXED Megatron last time. What else to see? Please have a lot more autobots... and no more annoying little guys following Bumblebee. I want to see the dinobots... the giants such as Menasor and Computron... I want to see a team such as the Protectobots also.
Who is the new girl for this movie? You actually don't even need one. Focus on the never-gets-old good-vs-evil theme would be enough.
Give me a surprise factor. Ooh that Unicorn in 1986 movie... It is a freaking PLANET that can devour a moon. How do you beat that? A blood-boiling duel between Megatron and Prime in 1986. How can you beat that? The 1986 movie yet still find time to insert Starscream's ambition. How can you beat that?
That original movie still remain the best film ever.
This professor's teaching position perhaps should be scrapped instead.
He says, "But it could be that the study of fractions should be delayed until it can be understood, perhaps after a student learns calculus, "
I am sorry, how the heck are you going to talk about the slope of the tangent line... the fundamental concept of calculus without fractions?
Think decimal can do everything? Take this: 1/3.
All the ink in the world cannot write this down completely as a decimal as the 3 repeats forever.
The number 10 is actually not so convenient as denominator... This is why ancient people pick 12 hours in AM and PM, as you can talk about 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/6 of the morning or afternoon. However, decimal has the typographical convenience (unless you got MathML and all those plugins needed or know LaTex). Ok I praise Microsoft Word's equation editor too. It is A LOT easier to author equations and fractions now.
So afraid of long division? That actually is some ingenuous algorithm in action. I am saddened that this professor didn't have a good elementary school teacher. Praise Euclid for the Division Algorithm!. That unique part is the big deal here. Ok there is little merit to calculate square root by hand as you actually don't need to do such calculations often. But all kids must know how to do basic calculations without the calculator.
And people are clueless: not even sure who is the target, how many gunmen, what's the motive.
This line is alarming:
Chicago had more than 500 homicides in 2012 — more than any other city in the nation, and about 80 more than New York, which has three times as many people.
Even at the Navy Yard in DC... someone with mental health issues can go in gun... Go figure. Look something serious, red-line is going on. Yet no one can do anything about this?
I am willing to give up some freedom to see spy cameras on every corner, every park, everywhere, especially those troubled neighborhoods. And send clear messages that everyone is being recorded. That Boston bomber case was solved quickly because of those cameras.
I am staying indoors.
If you already have an IPhone are you tossing yours out and buy a new one? I am afraid not. What's its hottest new feature? Fingerprint! ooh. secure you say? Ok what if you cut your finger while cutting prepping your veggies? You lock your phone too until your fingers are healed? Fingerprint may look very secure but it is very easy to steal. Touch that door knob? You left behind finger print. Touch that cup/mouse/anything someone can copy that with a piece of tape. Stealing finger print is easier than read your mind for that password. But the "s" does not mean "same"... iOS7 seems to be a major update with many UI changes.
So if you don't have a smart phone maybe it is good time to toss that old phone and buy one... but Androids are a lot cheaper. And I am afraid not many is going to consider Microsoft/Nokia even if it has a 100 meg camera.
But if your smartphone is not broken keep it. The new iPhones seem not have some must-have feature to shell out $ to upgrade that working phone. So I am afraid iPhones won't be as hot as years ago... as ooh-must-have features are not so easy to identify and to add to an already powerful phone.
This is an excellent write up of great math topics that programmers should be interested in. (Well I covered much of these in my book and sadly nobody reads mine.) I visited the "Good Math, Bad Math Blog" mentioned in the back of book...hmm, it is intermixed with recipes and some quite-advanced mathematics.
But I object the title: "Geek's Guide". Those who enjoy mathematics shouldn't be labeled as geeks? I hope each section is a bit longer too to cover a bit more depth. Otherwise this is a great book and great gift idea for those who enjoy both math and computing. (Unfortunately nobody buys me gifts)
