Youtube comments of Jeffrey Phipps (@jeffreyphipps1507).

  1. This is so valuable. I also grew up in that era and slightly before. By the time I was teaching programming at university, students were already getting abstract information without any base history. It was a little painful to watch. I still teach, and I’m now having to make videos on steps to programming that I never thought would be necessary. Students come to my courses with nearly no understanding of what a computer is or does, even if they are reasonably good at using one. The horrors of tech support are hilarious reading, but also a tale of shame. If you get a chance to read Reddit’s tech support tales, highly recommended.
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  2. I wondered how he was going to get 45 languages compared in 22 minutes!
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  3. As a university teacher, I wholeheartedly disagree. Frustration is a terrible tool. Repetition is a good tool. The more your do something with a good outcome, the more fluidly you'll remember it. Frustration breeds psychological blockage. It can even lead to an irrational amount of anxiety. Why should anyone learn that way when there is an easier way. The problem is that traditional math leads people to believe that they are learning something that is useless to them. Theory is often pushed to extreme without real world examples. A person does need to see theory, but people also need to see relatable real world examples (preferably two or three for each concept) so that they can see how it relates to things they already understand. We build our knowledge on foundations of pre-existing knowledge. You can't build your knowledge practically out of thin air. Will you make mistakes? Yes, but it will be for the right reasons - you executed the solution wrong. You'll figure out what you did wrong and try not to do it again. However, that won't be frustration - that's disappointment. It's not the same. If examples trouble you that much, you need to ask questions. Your instructor is PAID to answer your questions. If you need a tutor (though I haven't seen many good tutors) you are paying them for better answers, better examples. These people are paid to answer questions. They may think of you as a pest for asking a lot of questions, but you have the right AND the responsibility to ask questions. Your instructor cannot read your mind. If you are working and you have a question, ask your colleagues to avoid missing the deadline. Missing deadlines costs money. Write down every question you ask in a notebook including the answer that made perfect sense, that "a-ha" moment you finally got it. If you are learning something and you don't understand, try to figure it out. If you haven't figured it out in one hour, stop and ask questions. Here's why, after an hour your chances of finally finding a solution drop 75%. It's like the conundrum of trying to remember how to spell a word - you can think of two ways, but both can't be right (most times), and in fact neither might be right. Your brain can and often does get stuck trying to fill-in unwanted details. You need, as they say, a "new pair of eyes". What you really need is a refreshed brain. Sometimes you can do this yourself. Stuck? walk away for a few DAYS. Then come back. Sometimes the time will reset your view. Just never keep pounding at it for hours on end. That's just wrong and does nothing for your ability to learn. In my 35 years of teaching, I've never seen one instance where frustration helps. I have seen many instances where students refuse to ask for help. I have seen many instances where math is poorly taught.
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  4. I personally won't use a keyboard WITHOUT the numeric keypad. I realize there are those who don't need it - fine for you. However I use it a LOT. It's good to see this keyboard. I liked the review - very thorough. I agree about the cord - would have been nice to have a removable cord. Cords wear out. My studio headphones have a replaceable cord - I've damaged the cord a couple of times. It was cheap to replace the cord. Corded items should have replaceable cords.
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  5. Why do Python programmers use "while True"? You've already initialized here. Instead of adding an extra if statement that slows things down just check the value at the while. def while_true() -> None: count: int = 0 while (count != 1_000_000): count += 1 Don't even get me started on the lack of a proper do/while()...
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  6. In other words, learn to identify what your inputs will be, what your outputs will be, and how to go from point a-to-point b before you head to a computer to code. Coding is easy once you know how to develop ideas. I was taught assembly language after being taught how to set out the inputs, outputs, and flow. We had to learn to write steps to go through. What inputs will we need (with output prompts), what outputs from computation will we need, and what computation steps were required to get there? We were first taught via geometry proofs and statistics. Not the best way, but did get me to understand step-by-step via geometric proofs, and a little statistics (mainly for looping). However, I was taught that a simple step-by-step process led you to know where to go next. Don't get bogged down by the big picture, just take baby steps until you get where you are going. When I took assembly language on the mainframe (before all of you young people had home computers), we had to draw flow charts and draw up plans for input/output, then a plan for the program. If that was approved by the instructor, we were allowed to code and then do a desk check - pretend you are the computer, use data, and execute the code line by line on paper. If that was approved, we could schedule time with the card punches (yes, I'm that old) to punch the program and data. Then I took the cards to the system operator (SYSOP) for execution. a few days later you could pick up the cards and the printout. That was the cycle. If you had coded right, you turned in the assignment. If not, you went back to find where you failed. I then took two semesters of COBOL, a semester of FORTRAN, a semester of RPG, a semester of BASIC, and an optional semester of ALGOL or Pascal (I took both - I was paying for it, one more wasn't going to break me). C didn't exist then, I picked it up later. The assembler I took was S/360 BAL, I later got microcomputers and learned 6502 assembler, Z-80 assembler, and ultimately moved to x86+ assembler and I learned Motorola 68K assembler. I have yet to consider learning the newer RISC assembler concepts at my age. I learned many dialects of languages (BASIC, Pascal, C/C++/C#/Java/JavaScript/TypeScript/ECMAScript, RPG/RPG III/RPG400/ILE RPG, database languages leading up to SQL, etc.). I learned new languages like Perl, Python, Ada, Natural, Supernatural, Lisp, Prolog, Logo, Pilot, and so many others that I forget to name here. Then there's shell scripting languages. Early shell languages could not be considered languages per se, but each later generation added necessary structure to make them full scripting languages. Almost 60 years of programming has taught me personally one thing - students in schools don't get the startup understanding they need. They're pushed into a programming language course and onto their computer and told to find answers on the Internet. Regrettably, most examples on the Internet are at best sloppy or at worst wrong. Worse, it gets to the point where programming instructors don't even interact with students and students get stranded in dead-end degrees.
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  7. Work on those grades then!
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  8. In order to get things paid for, there's a lot over initial over-billing. Not all insurance companies pay for this or that. So hospitals and doctors over-bill, insurance companies tell them what they will pay, and the hospital/doctors/etc. accept that amount and/or bill a patient for non-covered services (or try to - sometimes it's not legal). This over-billing is also used to cover expenses of under/non-insured people in the US.
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  9. "Share with your friends... if you have any" - well I feel victimized. 🤣🤣🤣
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  10. Removing functionality: like removing the controls for bass/treble in W10, removing the ability to put the taskbar any place you want/need in W11. I hear you...
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  11. 1. Use your GenEd courses to refine your communication skills. Knowing how to speak, present ideas, and read with understanding is important. You will always need to learn more in whatever field you're in, and you likely won't get it at college - as stupid as it sounds, no matter what your major is you'll never learn enough. 2. Everyone learns differently. Watch videos, take notes, record lectures (where allowed), do a little bit of everything until a pattern emerges that works for you - and find more than one method, because one may not be available sometimes. Also, note taking doesn't have to be super organized at the time. Write a number and scribble down an idea or a page number. Don't get caught in the details. Just write down what it will take to remind you of what the concept was. 3. If you are attending a publicly funded school, remember that the school is motivated to see you graduate. Here's the thing most students don't know: if you are stressed or your life has hit a bump - maybe you got sick for several weeks, the school can provide programs to help you. It may delay your graduation (they may move your classes to another term), or they might find funds to help pay for a single semester, or several other things. Life happens, but schools have programs to help - but you have to tell your advisor and be willing to work with them. Also, if it's just one course you can try asking an instructor for an extension, but it's often better to ask your advisor. The school will then reach out to your instructor(s) to see if they are willing to work with the school. As an instructor, I prefer for the school's retention coordinator to assist in working with the student. It's sort of like a contract between the school and the student to encourage them to not procrastinate. 4. Ask questions - for the love of everything... I have students who either never ask any questions or wait until a deadline before asking questions. Your instructor hates it when you don't ask questions and despises it when you wait until the last second. Seriously. If you ask me early in the week, I have lots more time then and I can take more time to explain extra things you might be missing. I also cannot read your mind. When I taught CompSci in the classroom I walked around the lab when students were there (I'm old - computers where in labs, or terminals for mainframes were in labs). As I walked around in the lab, I could sometimes see that a student was having a problem by the look on their face. However, I teach online now and am completely dependent on students asking questions. If you work on projects for a classroom on a home computer/laptop I'd still not be able to see your face if I wasn't walking around. 5. Modern CompSci is sometimes taught wrong IMHO. There's no explanation as to what comes before you start coding on the keyboard. That's wrong, and far too many schools have brushed that away with RAD tools. Nobody discusses proper GUI development either, or the necessary psychology needed to understand it (even though it'd only take a few minutes to read about some necessary basics in a $5 book on the topic). OK - enough of my rants. I'm not at all sure that getting a second bachelors is worth your money. Most of it will be a recap of GenEd. You'll have around 6-8 courses tied to your engineering degree. You could have taken them separately, unless the GenEd courses were more than five years old. Then you'd likely be required to take them. You might also have been better with certificates covering the same material. Most jobs these days only look to see that you completed some college, then look to see what certificates you have. I'm sure your college didn't tell you that.
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  12.  @DavesGarage  You are correct. The Model F did not have right side CTRL or ALT keys because the numpad was jammed up against it on the right side. All of the features associated with the 100+ key keyboards we use today didn't exist Separate PrtSc/ScrLk/Pause, Ins/Del/Home/End/PgUp/PgDn, directional arrows did not exist and were scattered across the numpad. This meant that code editors needed the numpad OFF and accountants needed it ON. When the Model M came along, it was possible to have the numpad on while having all the editing features as well. Newer 100+ keyboards may rearrange these slightly (some poorly), but the inspiration of the M was a breath of fresh air to those of us who used the F. Some of us had used teletypes that were better. Once in a while I see keyboards without numpads and I wonder wtf? ;-)
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  13. I agree with this massively. I cringe every time i hear the words "Stack Overflow". I teach college and and I can't count the number of times horrible code has come from that site.
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  14. As a university instructor, I always stress to students that if you have an error, to not spend more than 15 minutes to solve it. In the real world, there's usually someone to ask. Spending time blending your mind into cheese wiz never helps. It's like when you can't remember how to spell a word then you never will. Even if you don't ask someone for help, taking a break after 15 minutes of struggle, doing something else helps. Play your favorite song, watch a fun YouTube video (watch a funny cat or dog video), or do something fun for for 15 minutes to an hour. You'll likely come back refreshed and maybe even think of one or more solutions. Write them down on a pad of paper. Don't rush back to the computer - you'll probably just forget it. You're absolutely right about this is how to learn, and students spend years NOT learning how to learn. This is complicated by the fact that each level of education isn't the same as another level. To complicate this further, not every student learns the same way except for ONE specific item that you mentioned - experience. However, schools have adopted the erroneous concept that churning out students in short periods of time using certain metrics will accomplish significant learning and students leave thinking they are fully prepared for the workforce. Often, what they really need is a course on various ways to learn and retain information. Learning in elementary school isn't the same as writing a research paper for a PhD. In addition, tools exist for various types of learners that will help them get the experience they need to learn.
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  15. dBase III+/Clipper (don't get me wrong - I like SQL). WordPerfect was powerful, but sometimes I preferred the simplicity of WordStar. I did like the simplicity of DOS also. Many people made it much more complicated than it really was. That was also true of many command line applications. There was a learning curve, but once things were set in a batch file it was easy.
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  16. #13 "Bob, who's obviously named Jeff" - gets me every time... 🤣🤣🤣
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  17.  @dmckim3174  Common sense isn't really learnable. Problem solving and assessment is learnable. Education in K-12 doesn't encourage that because they teach for the test. I see it a lot as a college instructor. Molding people into problem solvers who assess problems that can be solved without making more problems is part of my job.
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  18. Something I constantly have to teach students - input/output. They get that a little with PHP or with CICS. But in normal programming, they ignore the WFA form (or WPF, etc.) until the last minute. I was always taught to use spacing charts to plan I/O before coding (partially because it helped plan some of the variables).
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  19. "Bob's age, which is obviously 1209" - without laughing, that was a good one!
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  20.  @HansBezemer  Local variables in languages (particularly numbers and memory locations are stored on the stack in any language). Forth is closer to assembly language in that fashion. His description is simply structured programming. All languages are interpreted/compiled down to binary/machine language - your primitives in this case. This brings up a point - a language like C can do OOP, but it gets difficult and ugly. However, C++ didn't compile to machine language originally. It compiled to C and then the C compiler was used to make it into machine language. C++ OOP was converted into the ugly commands in C for use in the C compiler. In math we start with arithmetic. Algebra is merely a group of formulas that save serious quantities of arithmetic being necessary. Similarly, Calculus breaks down the monotony of repetitive Algebra. We use what's appropriate for the job. Still, I've been trained on 40+ programming languages (I'm old) and the one thing I've come to realize is that they are common and get easier and easier to learn. He mentions FORTRAN - heck, that's an easy language to learn. I subbed for a uni teacher for the first class in a course and zipped through the entire book in the night class with a break in the middle. When he came back from his family emergency, all he could talk about was how everybody knew the language. Some languages are easier than others. Many are quite similar if you exclude I/O statements. C/C++/C#/Java/JavaScript/ECMAScript are fundamentally the same - except for their I/O statements. If you change from command line to a GUI, that changes the I/O even more. AND/OR/NOT are command primitives in silicon, in math we call this Predicate Calculus. It's all relative to what we need.
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  21. Basically these are the rules to Structured Programming. I teach these at uni year after year - I call them the "DNA of programming". All programming. All of these structures exist in all programming languages from high-level languages (pick your favorite) down to assembly language and its generated machine language. Learn one language and the next will be easier. Only the I/O statements really change from language to language. The structures are always there and change very little.
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  22. Ah yes. IBM Boca Raton (mouth of the rat) campus built for a lot of PC projects. Mainframe repair people and such came from West Palm Beach a little farther north. OS/2 - the original version worked as well as can be expected, but was clunky. It was as if they wrote a PC version of mainframe software. OS/2 Warp was a better version (IMHO).
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  23. I miss green phosphor :-(
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  24.  @marthahawkinson-michau9611  Agreed. I mostly just want to sleep it off. I know that there's a risk given the number of concussions I've had, but I'm not going to be nice or talkative after a seizure.
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  25.  @ianfurqueron5850  Purely as a bookkeeping measure would only damage the hospital financial standing - they would lose credit standing and the ability to buy supplies. The tax incentive =may= apply because they can itemize the loss without impacting their bottom line. That said, the write off is limited. Several hospitals have failed because their overall fiscal stability deteriorated beyond repair. Tax write offs can never save a business. It's a common misconception that you can write off all your losses. As an ongoing entity, a business is expected to operate within its budget. If it fails to do so the government is under no obligation to help them. Tax write offs exist to cover things that businesses cannot insure against, cannot get loans to pay to cover costs, and things that government wants to subsidize. Write offs exist for expenses that cannot be expected to recover from if a situation makes the institution vital in the eyes of government. Those write offs are written into law and are typically so general that many businesses take advantage of them, hospitals included. However, there are limits and legal specifics they must meet.
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  26. 32-bit up to 4 billion - if-and-only-if all the numbers being calculated were positive. Otherwise you had a 4 billion spread across half positive and half negative with 2 billion each.This time expansion was fun!
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  27. Are you aware of the movies "Snow White and the Huntsman" and the sequel "The Huntsman: Winter's War"? I tend to think that the Grimm versions (which I read) provide better contrast and made the resolution more exciting. I'm glad Disney is able to fill children with a sense of peace, but I'm not sure the lack of danger or work toward a positive outcome helps them.
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  28. Has anyone ever taken a video to show to you? I've had epilepsy over 50 years, but I've never seen my own seizures, only others and they vary a lot. Mine could be resolved by a very expensive surgery, but until now the seizures have been minimized with Depakote and Vimpat. Now the seizures are rising and I'm at maximum dosages.
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  29. "640K is enough for everything" - caught that. LOL!
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  30. Click-click-click "The door's locked" - "Yeah, your mom and I are having sex" That should drive them away for awhile...
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  31. Eons ago, before we had personal computers and we had to walk to and from school uphill in 20 feet of snow, we had to sketch out the UI (and where necessary a print chart) and then plan the overall program flowchart to link to the UI/print chart before getting approved to make punch cards (yeah, I'm that old). With modern IDEs I find that my students (I teach CompSci at uni) use RAD too often and just don't think things out.
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  32. Teaching students that unless they follow excellent procedures in CS, even experts can have hardware be a pain-in-the-rump just because. My students have seen the same type of thing.
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  33. Are there key caps for mechanical keyboards that have oversized lettering for people with poor eyesight? I feel I would be more productive if I could more easily see the letters/numbers/symbols. I'm less concerned with the top row nums/symbols being raised in size. When I use numbers I tend to use the numpad. Consequently, I don't need all the directional arrows and editing things already on separate keys that are printed on the numpad - I just need the numbers. I just want to know if there are key caps like this. Thanks!
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  34. knowing where to look for answers is more important than trying to remember everything.
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  35. Perhaps before your time, but multiplication and division were handled another way. You looked up the two numbers on the slide rule to get the logarithms and added them then looked up that number on a different part of the slide rule for the anti-logarithm. For division you subtracted instead of adding. In addition, in many schools the logarithms were printed on the desks (along with sin, cos, tan). We got to be very fast with a slide rule.
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  36. Chas Abetz Before progressing to full grand mal seizures, I had petits and had a grade school teacher who didn't get the memo. I came out of the seizure hearing her say to another teacher that I was the stupidest student she ever had because she would look me in the face and talk to me and I wouldn't/couldn't respond.
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  37. I have a hardware cloner, HOWEVER if the drive is borked like so many Dell drives seem to be when I get them, they cannot be cloned. Off to data recovery it goes. If the drive will clone (I usually do that first) then extraction of data is nearly always possible.
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  38. I think this is essential for a more important reason. A programmer may never use any of these directly, but the knowledge that these mechanics imprint can be used in other places. I had an instructor once who wanted students to make a faster sort. Spending the time to do that wasn't worth it - I already knew seven sort methods. I dropped the course and told him why. I later retook the course with another instructor. What I didn't learn the first time was that I could use methodologies from three sorts to leverage different data structures that I had never seen before. You may never know that until an instructor tells you that. The first one didn't, the second one did. The difference was that the first instructor was also a math instructor and taught theory. The second was also a systems analyst instructor used to teaching OS design. His POV was different. I learned something else from that experience - I later became an instructor, and I had learned that not everybody's background/experience is the same. When answering a question, it's a good idea to know what the student's experiences are.
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  39.  @Junksaint  I have epilepsy. I've been found and taken to a hospital after saying I didn't want to go. My worst problem has always been the stiffness after and the soreness from the banging of my head. Some people have been smart and turned me (and removed my glasses). In a Walmart parking lot, they basket people went in and reported to the manager after calling 911. The manager sent the employee back out with a pillow from stock for my head. Super nice. My Epileptologist (Neurologist specializing in Epilepsy) has been trying to decide if I need surgery since I'm now at maximum dosage taking two meds. If it weren't for insurance it would be $1400 a month. All that has had detrimental effects.
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  40.  @TreebeardsHome  Universal insurance and education is a tough thing. In most countries where that exists, the income tax is 50%-60%. Most Americans won't go there. Still, we might go for a happy medium in exchange for certain dropped concepts. education is one. The US odes have some expensive universities - I know, because I am a university instructor. However, most people want to go to one with a "name" rather than one with a good reputations that's free. Yes, free. In nearly every state there's at least one school that allows you to exchange work at the school for tuition and fees. Nothing in life is or should be free without obligation. Entitlement means that one expects others to work for them no matter what. This leads to a lot of people who don't care. Both the workers and the served. I've had tons of students through the years who were on scholarship who frittered it away. Such a waste since it could have paid for someone who really did care. As for religion, I was clinically dead for several minutes. What I remember is indescribable, so I don't. What I will say is believe in the beyond. That belief is the difference between the soul and nothingness. The concept of hell is pointless. No matter what you choose to believe, believe there is something more. That's the big thing. I used to get offended. I don't now.
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  41. I have fallen forward twice (I have epilepsy) and bitten through my top lip. Lost the the tooth permanently the second time.
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  42. For instance, don't want to have my ISP see me Googling Murder/Murderer/Nazi - um, yeah, I'm hesitant to click thumbs up to those.
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  43. IDE was the successor to hard drives with controllers on ISA ports that were not integrated on the hard drive itself. What you kept calling IDE was parallel ATA (short for ATAPI). This was significant because prior drive controllers required settings in the CMOS to hold the cylinders/heads/sectors for the drive before it could be formatted. The IDE technology hid that information largely or returned it only when requested. The OS needed only know abstract information common to storage, not how to run the device. So initially, it applied to hard drives and tape backup drives. When CD drives came on the scene, they too were separately controlled (usually from the sound card). CD drives were then converted to IDE later, probably a result of sound being added to the motherboard. Making CD drives IDE made sense. It also made them bootable. Somewhere along the line (as you showed on motherboards) we switched from parallel ATA (PATA) to serial ATA (SATA) which had various advantages including speed and improved airflow without ribbon cables. The drives still use IDE to simplify OS interfacing. Prior to IDE, each drive had to have separate drivers added to the OS to interface them to the system. Two different manufacturers or even models within the same manufacturer would potentially lead to two drivers. Adding tape backup required another driver, CD drives yet another. Multiple drivers may conflict or cause other issues. IDE made this simple one driver interfaces all hard drives, tape backup, and CD (etc). The IDE driver identifies the drive and enumerates it. It controls reads and writes (where possible) and does not require a manufacturer driver. The BIOS can boot from the devices because it has base code to do so. USB drives use the USB driver to direct drive transactions to the IDE driver. It acts as a middleman between the IDE drive and the system. This is why some motherboards that recognize USB can boot from external IDE devices, including thumb drives (which are also IDE devices).
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  44. No tips, no release notes, can I just do what I was trying to do??? Modern software... :-( Thanks for this video! Very helpful!
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  45. FAT has the ability to mark files read-only. NTFS provides the ability to provide finer control based on privilege.
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  46. I teach CompSci at uni. I have done so for 35 years. The desire to push students out in fewer credit hours has caused schools to remove necessary courses. One of those was Structured Programming using pseudocode/flowcharting (really one or the other is adequate, but flowcharting demonstrates flow, while pseudocode demonstrates logic). When this course was dropped, I started getting students unprepared for programming courses that focus on syntax. The dropped course also discussed development details such as Input/Process/Output. As simple as those things are, students aren't prepared. Another thing students aren't prepared for is UI planning. Know what input on-screen is necessary, know what output on-screen is required - BEFORE writing a single line of code and how the differences between a Command Line Interface (CLI) and a Graphical User Interface (GUI) affect the program. Then there's a short discussion that needs to occur regarding Event-Driven Programming (in regards to GUI programming). Yet all of this is now lost. All of that necessary knowledge is lost. Coding students are dropped in the deep end, struggling to learn coding, learning bad habits because they often won't ask questions from the instructor and instead scour the Internet where there are thousands of bad examples.
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  47. Anybody know of an EASY way to use e-readers with a type of "playlist" support. For example, my real books are arranged on my shelves in specific order - not the date I published them, Not the title alphabetical order or author. I want to put them in the order that works for me. I want to create "bookshelves" that I can display and then choose the book I want to read from a shelf. The Kindle system has been a nightmare and a total failure. While on the topic, if you buy movies, why can you not group them the way you want? Such a digital pain.
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  48. Oh my. Such memories. I still have boxes of this stuff. Some things I put in boxes (cd drives, crap display cards, old cables). I retained 3.5” floppies of relevant things back to DOS 1 and CP/M. I usually use DOSBOX for running DOS apps though. I have the Encarta CD (which I enjoyed immensely). All kinds of programming languages (CS major). We forget the hoops we jumped through to make things work. Configuring display cards and printers in each DOS program. Windows solved that and introduced all new problems. Apps crashed to DOS or took DOS with it. Somehow though recovery seemed easier. Hard to say.
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  49. I was using C-A-D when the PC had the Model F keyboard (10 function keys). That predates the Model M (I have both!). As for the Windows key, though less convenient, you can access the Start menu using CTRL-ESC. Regrettably, no other combo exists, and some are quite handy. However, I usually access things in Windows using the search box anyway. The only thing I find myself using the Win-key for is Win-Prt to take screenshots with because it helps make excellent web receipts. It's worth having the Model M. Like the Model F, if someone breaks into your house you can kill the intruder with it by hitting them over the head.
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  50. As a CS professor at Uni, I am not pleased with either your initial explanation or you first example. Your initial explanation assumes older processor logic or the use of a non-multicore or multi-threading OS. With the proper OS, it is not necessary to discard a section of code because ALL possible predicted code can be loaded into different threading and/or cores. As for the example, one should NEVER use multiple return statements. Structured Programming dictates that all structures including functions should be written such that there is only one-entry/one-exit to guarantee no mistakes are made by the compiler (and I've seen students have problems have problems based on this even as late as the last year). Not all compilers properly resolve this issue. This is a common and sloppy thing that I always have to break students of when teaching recursion. The problem is that returning static variables can work, however the returning of dynamic variable might fail and damage the stack. Switching between upper and lower case without context can be done by logical masking (as you know), but if I am programming in a mid-high level language (and not using the built-in libraries), I don't want to switch to AL just for minimal things. Simply put, if you're willing to shift to processing that your processor is faster doing to optimize for some reason, that's great - but there needs to be a reason. Also, you didn't mention the one way to massively increase mathematical/logical calculations - GPUs are specifically designed for this. Lastly, swapping branching for multiplication may or may not be efficient. Multiplication takes multiple cycles on some processors. Having said that, some optimization is worthwhile.
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  51. My students get penalized every time I see them use artsy-fartsy BS when all the user need do is type in a simple piece of data. While certain drop downs are useful, many are excessive. The thing is this: using excessive real-estate for "art" is stupid. Making things take longer than necessary because of drop downs or worse scroll boxes for forever is aggravating. Some are so poor in design that mousing is hard. Excessive use wild colors (like you see too often on web pages) also is one of my pet peeves. I teach students that 1 in 8 men have some form of color blindness. Men also sometimes can't distinguish shades (ever wonder why women buy seven shades of things that to men look like the same color)? Sorry - hot button topic to me. I did study UI design. Rant over. I think.
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  52.  @amberjean4044  I have never had the auras so many people talk about. I get partially dysphasic for a few minutes prior. I repeat words or sentences. If I spot it myself I sit down on the ground or floor. If others are around, I make it clear that I'm going to have a seizure and to leave me alone.
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  53.  @amberjean4044  I don't know if I overheat (though I might). I definitely have issues with words. What you describe as tunnel vision might be related to two issues I experience. One is that I (erroneously) believe that if I do this or that I can stop the seizure. Two, I have a separate thing not directly related to the seizure. Not sure how to describe this. Normally I can focus almost to an OCD level to problem solve. However, if something important pops up, I can drop it and walk away. When I am leading up to a seizure, I'll randomly pick a thing I was working on and laser-focus on working toward a solution. This is bad. It's like starting a second mind-storm in the midst of another. It almost always accelerates the seizure. I've become accustomed to try and push all thoughts out, but that's also a thought. So then I began inserting random thoughts - noise. It doesn't stop the seizure - nothing would. It just stops the acceleration. I live with my sister. If I know I'm working toward a seizure at home, I literally park in the middle of my bed. Pillows, padding - best place for me. If my sister sees me, I apparently look "offline" and she asks if I'm "having problems" If my response isn't what she thinks it should be she marches me to bed. I'm lucky - we have "fluid" lives. I work online and my hours can easily be adjusted. The rest of my life can be readjusted if necessary. The only serious problem for me is that as I need more and more medicine it makes me more tired and this causes the meds to build up tolerances. At some point, the balance tips and the meds no longer work. I'm fast approaching that mark. I may have and out, but it won't be easy or cheap. My epilepsy is caused by a birth defect in my brain. It's increasingly common in late births (my mother was 39 when I was born). However, advances have made it possible to spot on an MRI. Surgery is VERY expensive, but I could end up free of the epilepsy forever. I don't like the idea of poking about my brain, but my doctor happens to be a specialist in this and if I reach the end of meds control - you get the idea. Take care of yourself. Take care of your family in this pandemic also.
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  54. I liked the "disco bars" personally, probably because I lived that era and found them relatable. I HATE the swirly whirlpool which conveys NOTHING. Useless steaming pile of elephant dung.
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  55. Does this operate as a full live system, and if I have lots of RAM will it operate faster? I have 64GB.
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  56. "Over the Hills and Far Away" was covered by Nightwish and became very popular. "Self Control" was huge - what rock was the producer living under? "No Easy Way Out" was made popular by the movie. It was well know, but I could see it being overlooked. I know Kim Wilde from another song that I can't think of the title (that I'm pretty sure was a cover). "Ride Like the Wind" was hugely popular - again, what rock was the producer living under? "Wild, Wild, West" was indeed popular in the US.
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  57. C'mon, press the key - you can do it. I wish I had a nickel each time. Could have saved myself the self slap.
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  58.  @Maxfr8  LOL! Here at ABC Insurance, we'll only pay you $49999.43. After all, we need to keep our rates high for the stupid customer...
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  59.  @ianfurqueron5850  One area that hospitals make up the difference is medical reuse. It might sound gross, but tubing, needles, etc. can be sent for sterilization. Although it can never be reused for medical use for humans or even animals, it can be used for other things like mortuary use, training purposes not involving actual medical use. Needles can be used being stuck into fake skin to practice phlebotomy or sewing up wounds long before a student gets to do that on a person. Some medical waste can be recycled. The rest must be destroyed as a bio-threat. Some things are sent home with each patient and are included in your bill. These are fees that your insurance must pay. The costs that insurance will pay may cost more than you could source individually, but cover basic services - every hospital has a handyman department, an IT department, an electrical department/plumbing, engineering - the list goes on and on. Hospitals have check-in people, various people whose jobs are otherwise not listed in the billing. People think the expenses listed are expensive, but averaged across all the personnel and daily expenses, the cost isn't as bad as you would think. In a socialized system, a lot of these costs are absorbed by taxes. Specific additional costs are averaged and absorbed by taxes. Taxes, taxes, taxes. When a country says "we have free health care", that's a lie. They have health care paid for by taxes. "Free" is an illusion paid for by some other action. That doesn't make it something we should demonize or something we should admire. It just is-what-it-is. When we need doctors we hope that they are available. In the first-world nations that's something we typically can rely on. In third-world nations, not so much.
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  60. LOL!!! Make it write it in PILOT! BWAH HA HA HA! 🤐
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  61. Did you do YouTube before coming to the US? :-)
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  62. Yeah, who needs that troublesome GUI. When I was young I was happy with Edit on TSO and the SEU on the AS/400. When I came over to Linux, it had that wonderful Vi editor and on MS-DOS they had that tolerable Turbo Pascal IDE based on WordStar. It was good enough for me! Then these people decided everything had to be mouse enabled. Then GUI enabled. <sigh> I miss the old days.
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  63. Mine is the "feature" changes I didn't want. Let's take the Snipping Tool or Paint, threatening to replace the simple tool. Would it kill them to simply make a separate tool? I have ZERO need for all the fancy extra features. I'm not saying get rid of the new options, I'm simply saying don't make my simple tool complicated. Make your options in a new tool. You own the source code for crying out loud! I'm less an less sold on the registry. Use it to integrate the OS - I get it (mostly). If you MUST have a database of default apps to open certain files - fine. I have never needed that (coming from the DOS era and before, that was never an option). Opening the program I want an getting the data file from the menu was fine. DLL Hell. I get why this was originally a thing (and why it screwed Windows over again and again). However, today we have enough space to put a dedicated copy in the folder where the program is located so that programs can be both installed/deleted without involving the registry as a rule. Be gone shared DLLs, or find a DLL/library manager that works to disconnect a program from a shared DLL/library. Not being able to fully uninstall programs is the bane of Windows. Programs and Websites designed by idiots. There's a line between clever and garish and MANY programs/websites cross that line. I teach CS. I have to force students not to play excessively with colors, fonts, etc. This is because schools NEVER TEACH UI/GUI DESIGN ANYMORE! When I was a student, the UI had to be practical first, had to meet accessibility requirements, and more. Creativity was what was left AFTER YOU DID THE JOB. Students seem to think that it's their decision what the program looks like - it isn't. It's the decision of the systems analyst who determined the specs. The programmer's job is to write the program in accordance with the specs and within the constraints of the OS. Color themes in an OS are set to meet the needs of disabled (dare I say the PC term "Differently Abled"). One out of eight men are at least partially color blind. Certain colors mean different things in different cultures psychologically (and yes I studied GUI design). Changing the color on a control is also disruptive - the whole idea for a GUI is to make things the same from program-to-program to make using new programs easier to learn. So this all drives me bonkers. Web layout. At the risk of offending web designers, put the products and services at the top so that I don't have to scroll. Like he said in the video, setting a scroll is a pain. Trying to scroll with a skinny bar is hard and scrolling with the wheel can be difficult. Put all the options at the top. Design multiple pages and don't scroll. How's that for an idea? While I join the complaint about skinny scroll bars, WTF is it about programs with tab closing x's that ARE ONLY ACCESSIBLE IF YOU CLICK THE DAMN X??!?!? Yes, I'm shouting! Because of you I have a difficult time closing a tab/program with the mouse. I have tremors. Would it be so bad to make the whole box the x is in clickable??? It's getting to the point where I don't use a mouse for much. The device is becoming almost useless. I can more easily use the keyboard - MOST of the time. Which brings me to the next thing... Just because you have a GUI, don't assume that the mouse is always available. I had a situation arise where the default driver for the mouse croaked/got corrupted - dunno. I do know that no mouse worked, not a wired one and not a cordless one. I used the keyboard shortcuts to get to the device manager to flush the driver and rebooted and a new copy was found at startup that worked. On a job, I had a user who had a six button mouse that he reprogrammed so that finding the right buttons was just impossible. I could have reset it, but he was a client and I just had to install software. Since the GUI prompts for doing that were the defaults, I could use the keyboard and ignore his mouse. It's not that I hate the mouse. It's that I hate that we have gotten to the point where in a few places there is no option for the keyboard. I could go on-and-on.
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  64. Then there was the manual for the NES BASIC (Taylor/Amy)...
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  65. I taught Linux basics at university in the 90s and rudimentary Awk was part of that. I definitely think a video is something I want to see on your channel.
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  66. I think that not all things are as "intuitive" as people in IT assume. Also, older people from IT have a knack for feeling at home with the non-intuitive versus the so-called "intuitive" things of today. GUIs of today seem less intuitive than things like Veronica may remember (ever use ISPF fast tracking?). I find myself using more keyboard shortcuts than mousing into oblivion (partially due to medical reasons - tremors - that make typing easier than using the mouse).
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  67. Want to help every new programming student? Do videos on how structured programming works. Maybe how to design good UI work. How to debug the old fashioned way. Lastly, teach them IPO - Input Process Output. Students aren’t getting introduction to programming anymore because schools want them to graduate sooner.
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  68. Ooh! Cover Nevada COBOL!
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  69. I am old. After learning assembly language, I learned another language but I can't remember the name of it. I only remember that it had the primitives of assembler, but added ways to build new primitives that stayed with the language going forward. In essence, it grew every time you used it. However, this was a double-edged sword. You could potentially keep adding junk commands and slow down the process. You could forget better commands unless you wrote them down in a notebook. Rust seems like a tool for some jobs, but not for all - just like any other language.
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  70. This was quite enjoyable!
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  71. Amber - ick. The color of puke. However, I realize CRTs are hard to find.
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  72. Seems like a good reason to A) strip the C library of deprecated functions, or B) use C++
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  73. I didn't know you could assign the snipping tool to PRT. That was useful. I had it pinned to the taskbar. However, I prefer to use the keyboard most times. I put it in a spot in the first 10 so I could WIN-# the item. W11 Snip is a little different. BTW, do you know how to make MS SQL Server run in a system with an m.2 SSD drive? Asking for students forced to use MySQL...
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  74. Which did you prefer: "Abort, Retry, Ignore" or "Abort, Retry, Fail"
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  75. I always sit down. Too lazy to stand.
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  76. On the Model F, The ALT was on the bottom left of the space bar and the function keys were the only thing to the left of the primary part of the keyboard. Shift was above ALT, and CTRL was above Shift. DEL was on the bottom of the numeric keypad. So it was VERY easy to do a C-A-D by pressing the C/A with your fingers and tapping your elbow on the DEL assuming the numeric keypad wasn't on. Since I did more development it was usually off at the time. There were no arrow keys on the Model F except those on the Num Pad. Once we got the VASTLY superior Model M, similar to our modern layout, booting to numlock on was the norm. It wasn't that much effort to use the second hand for hitting DEL and was a small price to pay for a MUCH better keyboard.
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  77. Gosh this brought back memories. Around 1981 and the release of the IBM PC I was put into a course and IBM had offered a prize of top three winners get fast food. Three teams of four. We were given a page of 30 problems to solve in BASIC. The top three teams who solved the most got a paid voucher at wherever we wanted. My team came in third (because the math genius choked and couldn't seem to remember Cartesian coordinates). We ate pizza. Anyway, later in life I would get a scholarship to a community college with a mainframe (IBM4381). We did this problem. It was with some joy that we were doing this competition style. The instructor was happy to get out of the typical grade rut. We used FORTRAN and then when we reached the end of what we could wring out of the compiler (where I discovered a bug!) those of us who knew BAL/370 used it. Modern mainframes amaze me with their power, but it is hilarious to look at 64-bit machines leave old mainframes in the dust. We were running in a batch system - not sure if our jobs were being multi-tasked on a much larger scale. There were about 1000 users on the system, many tying up processing with CICS. Now I'm a CS instructor at university. We will just start teaching Python in eight weeks at this school. Back when I first learned Python I remember feeling a little odd about the indentation rules, but I warmed to it pretty quick. Less typing than braces. Loved this video!
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  78. Veronica, you don't think Man Pages measure up??? LOL!
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  79. LOL! Wrist Vlog.
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  80. grubby bugs...
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  81. Thanks for spending around $18,000 to make this work with only about 10% Commodore original parts! LOL! Seriously, this was both amusing and something visceral. Once you start down a path, it's hard to let it go...
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  82. "If you're still using 32-bit Windows, why?" Not always, but backward compatibility (me blinking in Morse code - "help me"). 🤣🤣🤣
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  83. Back in her day? Last year? 🤣 I feel so old. Back in my day I was wire wrapping circuit boards because soldering killed chips that were very expensive.
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  84. I don't care how loud my keyboard is! You can have it when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers! Seriously, my only desire is for bigger letters/numbers on my mechanical key caps.
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  85. 1. Python isn't a bad language to start (even if it's still incomplete). However, when I started learning, it didn't exist. I started with BASIC because there were far fewer languages. 2. Learn data types as part of Structured Programming (loops/if-else/sequence) and functions. OOP is not fully supported in Python. It does not implement inheritance nor part of polymorphism requiring inheritance. OOP must implement all three pillars (Inheritance, encapsulation, and polymorphism) before qualifying the language as a fully OOP language. I foresee a time (probably in the not too distant future) when Python will extend itself into the total OOP implementation. As a longtime instructor, the worst thing that I see is that new programmers have no experience with Structured Programming. Without this start, progressing into OOP is dangerous. 3. I agree here - having an interactive environment is very helpful (not unlike BASIC in the past). IDLE does provide this partially, but if you miss one little checkbox at the beginning of installation or have another language installed that supports Python (e.g. VS or VS Code) you might run into conflicts. 4. I agree here as well - unless you practice (and more than once) you'll forget it. The more often the better. I worry that some books and web sites provide horrible examples. In Python, I find the whole "while True:" construct poor quality. For the same number of lines you can do it right and avoid the "break". This construct in Python breeds bad habits that wouldn't be allowed in other languages. 5. Yes - there are details, but don't keep banging your head on the table if some detail eludes you. If you get stuck, and the detail isn't essential, move on. You may well get an exercise that clears it up later. Also, if the basic concept is eluding you, see if someone is available to help. I teach online and remind students constantly - ask questions. I'm here to teach you, you paid tuition whic includes my salary. 6. a. I tell my students to find projects that are interesting/useful and think about that for a final project. In a classroom (physical or online) work with the projects assigned and after you do them play around with them to try the concepts further. Keep practicing all along. Just remember - in a classroom you are expected to follow the specifics of the assignment, however, I want you to keep using what you learn outside of the projects. b. Start small - in classroom assignments we generally start small, however, outside of the assignment practice extending it. 7. Algorithms and data structures are something necessary to take programs to the next level. Eons ago when I was a beginning student, I was expected to figure out how to make a program sort (in FORTRAN). learning how to create these algorithms and data structures helps you to understand how things work - and how to experiment on how to make things better. 8. One gripe I have regarding Python is that sometimes error messages are vague. If you do manage to install an environment like VS Code, you can use debugging tools to help find causes of errors. StackOverflow is generally a decent source, but sometimes the examples are from sloppy programmers (another reason I tell students to ask me questions - I owned two businesses and I've taught programming since the 1980s - there's very few errors I haven't seen). Another minor issue is that Internet access isn't always available. 9. Sometime you may have to learn a newer programming language, a new scripting language to interface with, or even an old language that you need to interface with to update a business (for me it was ALGOL!). Not all businesses use the same programming languages or tools.
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  86. What? No csh or zsh?
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  87. I'm gonna laugh my a$$ off if IBM drops one on your doorstep... 🤣🤣🤣 Thanks for this. I also recommend the movie "Hidden Figures" - it's humorous to watch the portrayal of IBM techs failing to assemble one of their own computers and one woman walking in, assembling it, learning FORTRAN, and programming it before anyone realizes it. It was also funny watching them having the problem of getting the machine into the computer room because the size of the doors were too small. Ironically, that's not even the only topic of the movie. Based on a true story!
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  88. The "bounce" is practice for touch-and-go on an aircraft carrier.
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  89. Old knowledge of all kinds is always passed down. If the knowledge is necessary it will always be there. It's called "on-the-job-training". I had no problem teaching the necessary things to the people I left when I moved on to another company. Plus, you young things have the Internet where vast quantities of information are stored. You can even watch videos on the topic. People who work on mainframes know the differences between the minutia of servers and mainframes. @ David Lewis 
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  90. Actually, with the right type of scoop you can scoop ice cream (American) easily. The scoop I use draws heat from my hand and transfers it to the scoop and it goes through the ice cream easily. Also, how cold ice cream is coming out of a freezer is a different issue - freezers are sometimes much colder than the minimum requirement for ice cream. If the ice cream appears to have ice crystals on top or seems a little discolored when scooped, it's because it has been stored below the recommended temperature. It might also mean that it has thawed slightly and then been refrozen. We also sell Gelato at several fast food restaurants (Like Dairy Queen). We have ice cream trucks that meander through suburbs selling ice cream to kids in the summer.
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  91. WXP? What about DOS?
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  92. Like a James Bond villain…
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  93. If you were in Florida, you could have an alligator on the porch - we do have a bit of wildlife...
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  94. Enjoyed this video also! Thanks!
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  95. Where's the casting couch? Oh! Wrong channel...
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  96. Full tutorial (although I used FORTRAN before F77 and then F77 when it came out). Some of the things you mentioned were new (presumably new standards).
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  97. We can't spam anybody? Damn! You and your freaking RULES! <insert teenage style door slam> ;-)
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  98. Most cats do not live very long outside in our suburbs. US cats were born into a lineage that were not capable of defending themselves against predatory birds in the US (of which there are many). Vets will most;y discourage declawing and some will not do it. While it exists, I feel it isn't common. People who do it should be considered as cruel to their animals (my opinion).
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  99. I own both an F (which I started with in school) and an M (which came later). The thing I remember most about the F is how heavy it is. I always said that if someone broke into the house that I could grab the keyboard and kill the intruder with it. Yes, it's that heavy. The M was a little lighter - (you'd only put an intruder in the hospital with it - maybe six weeks in traction). I use the keyboards on the respective machines that I now own. On my modern machines I use mechanical keyboards because of medical reasons - I can tell on a tactile key type if I have pressed the key far enough to make it register or if I have accidentally pressed it twice. I have tremors, and this type of keyboard helps. I can also pull the key caps AND the keys to clean it thoroughly. I'm not a keyboard snob per se. I like what works for me. Use what you want. Other than the F, M, and my mechanical keyboard, I have two identical keyboards from MS that for some reason the layout fits my hands perfectly. The key quality is tolerable. I use one on a 486 computer and one (through an adapter) on a Tandy 1000 which I bought before heading off to college after HS. The Tandy keyboard was adequate at best at the time, but the MS keyboard works great with the adapter. I could use a mechanical keyboard, but the MS keyboards were already in my possession. I can't begin to tell how many crappy keyboards I've thrown away and that I still have because they'd work in an emergency. Mostly. I have three "solar" keyboards that take FOREVER to charge. I have two USB wireless keyboards that aren't bad, but with my tremors I really need the keyboard to be mechanical. I did get different color key caps to help separate function keys, Windows, and context key. Makes them easy to spot. It's what works for me. It's funny that the layouts on the C64 I had and the Plus/4 seemed "normal" at the time. Now going back to those two seems really hard. I imagine that's true for users on other retro machines.
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  100. My mechanical keyboards DON'T have SysRq. Neither did the Model F. This begs the question - why was it on the Model M? Wait, I just checked the MS Internet Keyboard and it is there. One of the old crappy Dell keyboards has it (I have a walk-in closet of computer parts). Someone traded me a keyboard for something minor or I wouldn't know. I have a keyboard with HUGE letters for the visually impaired and it doesn't have it (though if I needed space on a key cap...). The Tandy 1000 is an odd keyboard. It has 12 function keys and directional arrow keys. However, it doesn't really have the standard organization between the keyboard and the numpad. I don't see SysRq at a glance, but given the layout it could be almost anywhere. I have the machine, I keep the keyboard in case I sell it (not likely - it was my first IBM clone that I owned), but I bought an adapter and connected another MS Internet keyboard to it. The fancy keys are pretty much useless in DOS (without mapping them), but the keyboard is really good. One of MS' best IMHO. On my daily computers, I use Havic keyboards. I have some others in my closet, but it seems about a third have SysRq and the rest don't (probably owing to the fact nobody made use of it). I seem to have a memory of it being used when the computer was used as a terminal (additional hardware/software) on the original IBM enterprise solutions. I think for the 3270 style. I don't remember and I don't know if the system used the key for a similar thing for the 5250s. To long in the mists of time. Kind of a pity. I lived Just north of Boca Raton. Knew lots of IBM people. Maybe it never got used on PCs because of that?
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  101. My issue as an instructor is that students come into my programming courses not knowing how computers work and struggle learning how to program. Their attention spans are short. I need to make videos that teach them how things work, while keeping them short enough to keep their attention. I didn't have this problem 30 years ago.
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  102. "Ruining your downloads folder since 1995" - 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Not even the first funny thing and and only 54 seconds in.
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  103. Maybe this is why the W11 update broke MS SQL Server on some SSD based machines like laptops. Maybe they were trying to optimize caching.
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  104.  @OvertonWindex  Still a risk that was not a good idea. ER doctors I've seen for my epilepsy seizures said they lost count of patients with damaged lungs from broken teeth and sticks bit through during seizures. If you're having a heart attack, the first thing after calling 911 is chest compressions (assuming they are unconscious). Keeping the heart as close to normal to a normal rate as possible. Compressions also tend to keep the breathing pattern normalized. Your tongue can be treated when you are stabilized.
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  105.  @TreebeardsHome  Clearly MS is no fun either - sorry for that. At least I have a potential path for improvement. I hope that some day you can find one also. I understand that meds can be a problem. One med we tried was terrible for me. It made me almost comatose. My surgeon/neurologist is board certified and did residencies at three different hospitals specializing in these surgeries. I was totally unaware that there was a surgical option when I sought a new neurologist (I quit one because he was hateful). I'm lucky in this case. It'll be difficult, but if successful it could cure me. It's just not easy or cheap. If it does work, I lose my state insurance. At that point it'd be cheaper to pay my GP, blood test, and remaining meds costs monthly rather than buy a regular insurance plan - by far. It still might be worth it. Take care of yourself - both with the MS and the pandemic!.
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  106. Finally, a reasonable opinion. Mechanics don't have one tool in their toolboxes, why should computer people be expected to do so? Because of my development jobs, I use multiple versions of Windows, multiple distros of Linux, and Mac OS off a Citrix server. I use 11 different programming languages (which has dragged me through many languages through the years). My computer hobbies make me use more languages, hardware, and emulators). Well spoken!
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  107. I suspect that even a totalitarian government provided certain stability. You didn't expect certain things because you knew they weren't going to be there. It's not unlike people in the US who have given up on politicians because government doesn't really seem to change (or at least not in good ways). However, you have psychological stability - it is what it is. When the GDR crumbled, the rug was essentially pulled out from under the citizens. Their "norm" no longer existed, and the new "norm" being thrust upon them was the people that they were told to distrust and hate by the previous "norm" government. How would you feel? They don't want the totalitarian government back - they want the feelings of stability they felt back before a new government came along and started changing everything and telling them it would be better. It will take generations before they believe that - the generation(s) that lived with the GDR will likely have to age out and die off before that feeling will fully start to shift. Even then, it may take two more generations for the effects to work it out of the mindset. I could see it being from 2060-2075 before the effects of the GDR fade into distant memory, both socially and politically.
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  108. No WIN-PRT??? I use it all the time to save the screen to the screen shot directory.
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  109. Great color choice!!!
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  110. A keyboard should always weigh as much as a Model F so you have something to defend yourself with in case someone breaks in.
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  111. Who eats cookies that aren't straight out of the oven? :-) I imagine it has to do with availability of ingredients over time. I'd check the history of bread and cookies over 100 years time. A century ago Germany and the US might have had much different availability of baking ingredients.
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  112. The clean option has four other advantages. 1) Many people don't realize that spyware is installed and the clean install eliminates it. 2) Windows tends to carry forward "sludge" - partial installs, aborted updates, and anything that will slow operations either in files or in registry settings. 3) having the ability to separate data files offline into separate folders and onto multiple copies of media helps organize data and speed retrieval of current data. 4) Re-installation of the OS and the apps makes sure that you have the latest drivers and app versions. You may like the older versions better, but unless you have the older versions to reinstall and plan on being your own tech support for that version, understand that vendors will stop supporting that older version. Using the newer version may be undesirable, but at least you'll have support. ----------- You may also benefit in other minor ways when reinstalling. 1) It gives you a chance to reset passwords. It's a good idea to do that once in a while. I do write them down and stick them in my safe. Using a good password manager will come first, but paper in a safe is good backup. Reinstalling is a good chance to relearn keyboard shortcuts (or learn new ones). If your mouse battery fails, you should always know how to save your work from the keyboard (or vice versa). It might also be a good time to buy a cheap USB corded mouse/keyboard as an emergency backup. All that cordless stuff can fail if the charge fails, but corded stuff can sit in a box for years until needed. Keep multiple backup drives with the same backup. Drives fail. Plan ahead. Do an image backup on multiple drives and/or media. Eons ago when I just started out, I worked tech support on physical machines. First step, ALWAYS, back up the image of the HDD twice - we didn't keep it, but we gave the client the option for a copy. Few took us up on the offer. Those that did were mighty happy when down the road a few months they at least had most of their programs and data. One client went further. They had their computers fitted for automatic backup before shut down and took a copy home. One day vandals destroyed two computers. We built new duplicates the next day and their machines reimaged from the backup and were back up and running in three hours. We had that contract for over a decade. The point here is that you should use a backup image for backup. You should start anew on new hardware and sort out the mess from old setups and data. It will run faster, and you'll be more productive over the long haul. You change machines (hopefully) every three to five years. Spending maybe one/two days starting over and preventing things from breaking is better than the nightmare of trying to "transfer" everything - trust me. Every problem imaginable manifests in a "Transfer".
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  113. Very interesting. My head hurts, but I found it really interesting! Thanks!
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  114. Hey, I have 45-50 computers... don't at me. LOL! I also chucked crap keyboards into my parts closet and replacing them with better keyboards.
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  115. "How do you start task manager these days?" LOL! 🤣
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  116. Liked. Check. Subscribed (already). Check.
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  117. "spin and rust" 🤣🤣🤣
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  118. Actually, we do have one free college in the state of Missouri.
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  119. I really liked the AS/400.
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  120. You mean like the Commodore 1541 users manual? Hmm...
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  121. Organized yada, yada, organized, yada, yada - yeah. That'll happen.
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  122. Maybe print photos of places in Germany on a tapestry/sheet/blanket. Usually under $20. Just a thought. Having it printed on a blanket may cost more, but would kill echo better. Rather than potentially cracking drywall with the weight of cloth, You might want to get a rolling clothes rack and put the cloth around and over the rack. It would be movable and potentially provide storage behind. Something like this: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Heavy-Duty-Commercial-Garment-Rack-Rolling-Collapsible-Clothing-Shelf-Chrome/781918135?selected=true or better yet this: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Yaheetech-Commercial-Grade-Garment-Rack-Rolling-Collapsible-Hanger-Holder-Heavy-Duty-Double-Rail-Clothes-Extensible-Hanging-2-Omni-directional-caster/185774419?athcpid=185774419&athpgid=athenaItemPage&athcgid=null&athznid=PWVUB&athieid=v0&athstid=CS020&athguid=4820a106-006-174455a2579997&athancid=null&athena=true. As for the cat, (s)he's adorable. German Girl in America Cat Videos might increase subscribers. LOLz! I'll drop you some "coffee" cash.
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  123. When I was 6, personal computers had to be wire-wrapped part-to-part.
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  124. Almost all physical key locking no longer exists. People using/repairing Commodore 64 equipment are having issues with the shift-lock key (Caps Lock like key) because it's getting harder and harder finding a physical locking key. The benefit of a non-locking key is that the mechanism can be reassigned by software. On mechanical keyboards, an entire key can be replaced and the new key can take the old key cap. Some of the newer mechanical keyboards have hot swappable key mechanisms that don't require desoldering to remove the switch. As a result, one can change to a different switch type without having more advanced skills. They can use different key mechanisms and keep the same key cap. Given the way a physical on/off key works, it would cost more money and be harder to maintain. I imagine that the ability to remap keys is also desired in software because it can be useful in localization and for the odd person using DVORAK layouts - or lately the new keyboards in steno layout.
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  125. Love the music. Should have added an over voice saying "Dave? What are you doing Dave?"
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  126. I both miss and don't miss tractor fed dot matrix printers. The wide, green bar paper was handy for program printouts compared to laser printers of today, but I prefer lasers to green bar/tractor fed dot matrix for other things. It just depends on the job.
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  127. Oddly, I've never used any thing for this except ls - for decades. I didn't know there was anything else.
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  128. Freedom of speech in the US is often misunderstood - it is illegal to say (or do) something that endangers other people or can cause harm.
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  129. Actually, most states do have laws regarding the naming of infants.
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  130. Wait... How did you know my name is Jeff? LOL!
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  131. I teach at uni and I would say every bit of this applies to uni students as well. I owned an international company for several years (sold it because dealing with software “engineers” - uni grads or self-taught that were poorly educated divas was enough). Too many schools concentrate on dumping unprepared students onto a compiler and telling them to write programs. I’ve been trying to build videos on topics like where to start writing a program, or structured programming, or OOP. However, you can’t make them watch the video (or all the video). Multiple times I’ve had students not watch more than half a video, only to do a task wrong and complain when points are deducted. I tell them that the program was completely demonstrated, and if they had watched the video completely it would have been an easy A. The biggest difference from the past was that a how to write programs/structured programming course was a prerequisite for all programming language courses. Now, students want to graduate in three years or less. They have fewer courses and less time to absorb those courses. Ok. Rant over. I absolutely agree with everything you say here - except I say it applies to both grads and self taught students.
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  132. I think I agree with all your points. I prefer full HDMI ports, I want a bootable m.2 media (though I don't care if it's internal if I'm honest - at least external makes it easy to change. However, it must be bootable). I'd like to have another USB-C port for a dedicated drive. Why it doesn't run Ubuntu and other systems that RPi 5 does is concerning. Essentially they're saying they're willing to break backward compatibility. That consideration should be taken seriously. A wimpy keyboard doesn't help. If we can buy an RPi 5 and use it as a dock for connecting things we do want why would I buy the RPi 500 when I can get the keyboard I want. I don't know about most people, but I a person who has a closet with like 20 keyboards and I can pick whatever keyboard I want, ditto mice, etc. When a computer fails and goes to eWaste, I don't throw away perfectly good keyboards/mice/wires/etc. when I might could use them in other use-cases.
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  133. I've built 100's of computers for a business that needed custom computers. I was working on one of my own and reached up to the top where the power and USB connections are in the case. One of the wires was stuck. I managed to get it loose and yanked my hand out and cut it bad enough to spurt blood all over the inside of the case. Wrap finger/go to ER for stitches. Back when "razor" cases (bad edges everywhere) existed on cheap cases I never cut my hand like that. This case was smooth everywhere - except where it wasn't. As for screw stripping, I feel your pain. I ended up buying my own screws bolts that better fit some holes. Not as much a problem on quality parts, but it still happens. Dropping screws - I made a table out of wood with a half centimeter / quarter-inch (not exact on either) lip ostensibly to keep screws from rolling off. I found that it didn't keep me from accidentally flinging them across the room. I built two computers with RGB and now I'm sick of it - but partially for a reason that I never thought of before. I can (and did) put fans on the front and enjoy the colors. But to see colors on the inside, the machine has to be positioned at and angle where you're looking at the side. Often, I can't see it. Having mobo lighting, lighting on top of m.2, lighting for the RAM, and lighting of the CPU pump on an AIO (let alone the fans) proved frivolous. I'll never build a machine with lighted guts again. I'll just get a case with more side ventilation. Less money, less trouble, less wiring. If you like that stuff - more power to you. It's just not me.
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  134. Actually, most of the underwater footage at the beginning of "Titanic" is not real. The remote cameras to video, but much of it was lost and what made it was very grainy. What was used was cleaned up by computer and the rest was CGI made to match up. The Titanic is in very deep water and is very dangerous to visit. Even military submarines don't go that deep.
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  135. Wacken Open Air!
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  136. -The seal is on the door frame (if it's not some cheap worthless door). -In houses over a certain size, there is always a foyer -Heating/cooling (HVAC) is common,. Old houses here (like mine) do have radiators (mine is controlled through the HVAC thermostat). There is also radiant flooring. -Those windows are available but are VERY expensive. Also, our average windows also have seals. The glass on good windows is a minimum of double thick with a vacuum gap to prevent temperature transfer. Some decent windows are designed with blinds between the glass to keep them clean (if they get dirty the seal is broken). There are also electric glass windows that can be darkened with just an electric charge (no blinds). -We have light switches that are larger also, but they aren't standard. We also have dimmers. You didn't mention that - Does Germany have those? -I get that the outlets are different, most are. What is the voltage? AC or DC? -Yeah, one of the first things Americans do is change to a different shower head. It's very easy to do. I've done it in every house I've ever lived in. -Personally I HATE single handles because when they wear out the handle it's usually more expensive to replace it. It's also easier to remember what to do to get my perfect temperature. I'm old fashioned though. I DO hate that my bathtub/shower has FOUR handles though! Darn 90 year old house... -I feel that the area you're in is really weird regarding stoves. Most stoves in every state I've lived in have had the ceramic top stoves and more are getting induction stoves. The coils went away largely because they are a fire hazard. If something drops into the drip pans or some idiot turns it on with a cover on it the results can be disastrous. Cooking geeks always want gas. Crazy people. :-) -A lot of Americans definitely want carpet. I have had both. I really prefer wood floors and although mine aren't parquet, they are that color. They need sanding and sealing to protect them when you have pets, but not real often. Laminates need sealing more frequently, but there are more options for looks. Ceramic tile needs to be sealed to prevent the grout from being damaged. -Fenced front yards are frequently illegal in the US because cities typically have right-of-way to maintain electrical, water, sewer, etc. utilities. Houses may or may not have porches - it depends on the style of architecture usually. Mine doesn't, nor do any of my neighbors, but I have seen many Victorian styled homes that do. There are other styles where it is common also. I wish mine did, especially when it's raining. Yards vary a lot on size. Mailboxes in larger cities often don't have the resident's name on them for security reasons.
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  137. Hi Bob!
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  138. To be fair, does anybody wanting a GOOD keyboard shop at Walmart? Basically, you did a test of what the Best-of-the-Worst was list. Still, amusing to watch! Thanks!
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  139. Eons ago, when I taught in classroom, I was in a room teaching about MS-DOS. At the back of the room, was 30 seats with IBM Selectric typewriters used for a typing class sometimes scheduled in the room. I was assuming that most of the people in my class knew what a typewriter was and how it basically worked, even if they weren't marginally proficient at using it. At the break, I let students come to me and ask questions that they didn't feel comfortable asking publicly. I had a student come to me during break who asked a simple question - "What's a typewriter?". I noticed he had an accent. I asked where he was from and he said, "Siberia" (this was just after the fall of the USSR). So I showed him one of the Selectric machines at the back. Unfortunately, he didn't get it. He left the course. However, I learned that not everybody knew about all comparative technologies. I would stumble over this only one more time - a student didn't know what the triangle for "play" meant in a media component on a programming project. I believe he was from Haiti (around the time of the earthquake we got more students from the islands). You try very hard as a teacher to find common ground to build knowledge on with students, however there are times when you are surprised to find people with no foundation.
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  140. Tar paper and black caulking.
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  141. Cute, meh. I want key caps to use for accessibility for people with eyesight issues. You can adjust the GUI for this, but there aren't key caps that come in high contrast (white on black, or black on white) where the printed lettering is large. You can buy cheap keyboards that are crap, but no mechanical keyboard key caps for good keyboards with click feedback.
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  142. Is it bad that this shtuff interests me more than most modern stuff? I just have to remember to not drink during it because he makes me laugh out my nose every time!
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