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tmharter on Feb 17, 2008

A, You are very rude.. Constructive remarks are welcome, but smart a... ones are not. I am just fine with random sends to myself. I do not consider this spam I take what I can, I let go what I can not. I like to be surprised what is sent. This is not Email. This is an icon collection website. Fine, there is some socialization going on, however, this is not Facebook. From your reply, I assumed you were some 15 year old child. To my surprise you are listed as 46 and 28 year old adults. Louie's reply isn't much better, but at least it offers something constructive. Personally, I thought it would help with trading. Rather than having to sift and sort through every user, you could check in with people that have similar dates. This suggestion was certainly not mandatory. No one says you or anyone else have to list any interests in your profile. Hey, you could leave all information out of your profile, not post at all, and then nobody could find you to send icon sets. Wouldn't that be wonderful? I think this is the first time in over 25 years of computing that I have responded like this. I just am getting very annoyed with users who think their way is the only way! And no, I am not professional IS, but I was on Bulletin Boards and the internet while Louie was still a child. So, grow up and offer constructive criticism.

Granf on Feb 17, 2008

25 years of what? you actually compute things? the CPU does that. you just feed it input.

sorry if you consider this rude too, but incorrect use of electrically oriented terminology annoys me immensely.

tmharter on Feb 18, 2008

So.. I'm a little hot and my grammar is leaving something left to be desired. But I am still not hearing anything constructive.

louiemctool on Feb 18, 2008

k. i will now officially delete my comments, so as to not detract from the awesomeness of this thread.

:)

Baldwin on Feb 18, 2008

LOL Granf, that was mighty harsh.
I'm a computer engineer and I understood that "computing" meant "using computers" - it is the standard usage these days, y'know.

PS. Dunno if I've said this before, but I like your Conway's life avatar.

Re. original topic - most people have refil dates in their profiles, I think having a tag for it would just encourage spam on your refil day because it would be really easy for the spammers to pick their targets...

Granf on Feb 18, 2008

But that doesn't make any sense:

the infinitive verb "to compute" means to take numerical input and derive some intended outcome from it, using whatever standardized algorithm. This is something done by the microprocessor, not the user.

tmharter on Feb 18, 2008

Regarding Granf, you are correct. Also, my grammar is atrocious. Even though I try to at least be meticulous with my spelling, I have never truly mastered the art of sentence structure and grammar. Either it is a mental block, some type of genetic deficit, the result of my first 7 years of education being in the public school system and the next 6 in Catholic Schools, or I am just plain lazy. Hah, I do not even think I used the either/or pair correctly in the above sentence. As an aside and meant to be funny, if you want to be picky about such things, the majority of posts would not be allowed. Maybe I can add a "grammar illiterate" disclosure as a posting signature.

Baldwin, thank you, constructive criticism is wanted and essential to communication.

Louismctool, actually I understood your comment to be a wry attempt at constructive criticism. However, once I reacted to the next comment (newb), I overreacted to your comment.

The main point I was originally trying to make is that it is not necessary to reply with derogatory comments to a well meant suggestion. It's odd, but the term newb can be taken in different ways. It can be used as a badge to say, "look, I'm new around here, help me out". It can also be used as a means of saying "hey, that person knows nothing and shouldn't be allowed to participate". This is a paradox of course, because without at some point being a participating newb, one can not move out of the class of users/people being labeled as newb. Too many times have I seen a new user chastised for the use of all capitals in a way that totally embarrasses them when all it would take is a constructive note to inform them of the meaning of using all caps.

Next, in mentioning 25 years of "computing", I was trying to say that I know a few things. Everything, no. It is not what a studied in college, other than a little Wat5 Fortran using Keypunch cards, some machine language and some fundamentals learning hex code, adding, etc, I am mostly self taught. Meaning, I can figure out a lot, but there are a lot of holes in my knowledge. It might take me two days to figure out something, but I have been playing around for so long and struggled through so many scenarios that many things are 5 minutes or an hour instead. So, the comment about computing was an attempt to say I am not a newb, nor am I an expert or professional. I may make a suggestion that some don't like, or maybe even no one likes, but that should not earn me snide remarks. Wry ones are okay. This of course leads to the whole topic of the ineffectualness of email and posting. However, I will stop here and wish everyone a g'day or g'evening, whichever the case may be.

tmharter on Feb 18, 2008

Ooh... that was a little long.... I apologize, somewhat.

anti on Feb 18, 2008

I think I was calling louie a newb. I deleted my comment too. Sorry.

misterhaan on Feb 18, 2008

by “hex code,” do you mean the hexadecimal number system or some sort of code that’s often viewed in hex? i assume the former but some people use that term to refer to values of characters in a certain character set or color values the way they can be specified in html or css.

i’ve had nearly 25 years of using computers myself (also mostly self-taught), so i liked reading about your experience.

tmharter on Feb 18, 2008

It's been a while, but hexadecimal number system, learning how to add in this system and binary, learning how a machine actually uses addition to perform a subtraction operation. It's been too many years to remember the proper "language". I don't actually program, but I learned the basics, and could learn to do it if I needed to. I learned a lot in PC Magazine back when it used to publish a lot of coding and batch files etc. I guess it is not necessary to have an understanding of these to actually run a computer, but I just like to know. I don't know as much about current processors and such, but the basic way they work is still the same. 1's and 0's.

misterhaan on Feb 18, 2008

mostly there are a lot more 1s and 0s when the current processors do something like add two numbers.

i’ve found there’s much less a correlation than i expected between the ability to program a computer well and the ability to use a computer well.

my first code examples were from 321 contact magazine — i would type them into my dad’s ti99/4a and often needed to convert the code from the tandy version of basic to the ti version. then the programs i liked i’d save to tape. good times.