[tor dot com] Five Doomed Attempts at Planetary Colonization

[jdni...@panix.com]

Five Doomed Attempts at Planetary Colonization
https://www.tor.com/2021/09/14/five-doomed-attempts-at-planetary-colonization/

[Lynn McGuire]

On 9/14/2021 12:26 PM, jdni...@panix.com wrote:
> Five Doomed Attempts at Planetary Colonization
> https://www.tor.com/2021/09/14/five-doomed-attempts-at-planetary-colonization/

And I have read two of the five, the awesome "Methuselah’s Children" by
Robert A. Heinlein (1958) and "Four-Day Planet" by H. Beam Piper (1961).

I might add "Starman Jones" by Robert Heinlein to this list. Or is it
"Time For The Stars" by Heinlein ?

And "The Legacy of Heorot" by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven
Barnes is definitely a failed colonization.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1982124377

Lynn

[William Hyde]

On Tuesday, September 14, 2021 at 2:03:33 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> On 9/14/2021 12:26 PM, jdni...@panix.com wrote:
> > Five Doomed Attempts at Planetary Colonization
> > https://www.tor.com/2021/09/14/five-doomed-attempts-at-planetary-colonization/
> And I have read two of the five, the awesome "Methuselah’s Children" by
> Robert A. Heinlein (1958) and "Four-Day Planet" by H. Beam Piper (1961).
>
> I might add "Starman Jones" by Robert Heinlein to this list. Or is it
> "Time For The Stars" by Heinlein ?

In the former they're stranded accidentally, are they not? I don't recall it as a planned colonization. In the latter they are exploring, not colonizing. Some of the places they find look like great sites for a later failed colonization. Unfortunately Heinlein didn't write the sequels.

We see a colonization effort almost fail in "Farmer in the Sky". A prelude to it's inevitable total failure, no doubt.

William Hyde

[Lynn McGuire]

I cannot remember if "Starman Jones" or "Time For The Stars" got lost
and considered colonizing.

"Farmer In The Sky" was definitely close to a failure.

Lynn

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <0a64c2e0-08ac-4dcf...@googlegroups.com>,

In SJ they are stranded until Jones can do his thing. The planet seems
nice enough iirc, but they're not looking to settle.

In FITS, they end up with some neato alien-tech that may help matters.
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[William Hyde]

Definitely the former. One of their key navigators dies, the aged captain makes a navigation error, the suckup navigator agrees with it ("I check you, Sir"), and they wind up in an unknown but deadly location. The captain dies, the suckup is killed, Max (?) gets the girl and the command, and he manages to reverse the navigation error which got them lost in the first place.

First book which ever gave me pi to more than 3.14159 - Max has a perfect memory for numbers.

In the latter the last planet they visited was quite deadly and killed off much of the crew. But they had a functioning starship all through the book. And presumably at least two competent navigators.

William Hyde

[William Hyde]

I thought they had problems on the planet, but may be confusing it with another book.

>
> In FITS, they end up with some neato alien-tech that may help matters.

I'd forgotten that. Magic alien tech, is there nothing it cannot do?

Except, apparently, curing the insanity of those who want to farm on Ganymede.

William Hyde

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <6489fadb-dbaf-414f...@googlegroups.com>,

William Hyde <wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Tuesday, September 14, 2021 at 5:59:43 PM UTC-4, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>> In article <0a64c2e0-08ac-4dcf...@googlegroups.com>,
>> William Hyde <wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >On Tuesday, September 14, 2021 at 2:03:33 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> >> On 9/14/2021 12:26 PM, jdni...@panix.com wrote:
>> >> > Five Doomed Attempts at Planetary Colonization
>> >> >
>>
>>https://www.tor.com/2021/09/14/five-doomed-attempts-at-planetary-colonization/
>
>> >> And I have read two of the five, the awesome "Methuselah’s Children" by
>> >> Robert A. Heinlein (1958) and "Four-Day Planet" by H. Beam Piper (1961).
>> >>
>> >> I might add "Starman Jones" by Robert Heinlein to this list. Or is it
>> >> "Time For The Stars" by Heinlein ?
>> >
>> >In the former they're stranded accidentally, are they not? I don't
>> >recall it as a planned colonization. In the latter they are exploring,
>> >not colonizing. Some of the places they find look like great sites for
>> >a later failed colonization. Unfortunately Heinlein didn't write the
>> >sequels.
>> >
>> >We see a colonization effort almost fail in "Farmer in the Sky". A
>> >prelude to it's inevitable total failure, no doubt.
>> >
>> >William Hyde
>> >
>> In SJ they are stranded until Jones can do his thing. The planet seems
>> nice enough iirc, but they're not looking to settle.
>
>I thought they had problems on the planet, but may be confusing it with
>another book.

Glancing at the text it appears you are right. The place looked good
at first but had hidden problems.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <0a64c2e0-08ac-4dcf...@googlegroups.com>,
William Hyde <wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote:

With what we now know about Ganymede, barring un-heard-of
advances is technology, no one in their right mind would attempt
to colonize it in the first place.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

[Lynn McGuire]

I memorized π in trig at Rice University in the summer of 1976 to 10
places. 3.141592654. Never went beyond that but I had a nerd buddy at
TAMU who memorized it to 100 places.

Lynn

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <shr8gd$ut8$1...@dont-email.me>,

Whatever floats your boat.

When a bunch of fans (and pros) were writing _HMS Trek-a-Star,_
back in the 1960s, we settled for four places:

"Give one point one four one six cheers
For the Science Officer with pointed ears!"

Spock: "Though I appreciate your sentiments, I find their
expression irrational."

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <6489fadb-dbaf-414f...@googlegroups.com>,

Meh. Heinlein was postulating (a) a mostly rock surface with
some ice, rather than a global ocean with lots of ice; (b) a
"heat trap" that was some sort of force-field whose generators
could get knocked out by an earthquake.

(a) can be forgiven, since we knew damn-all about Ganymede in 1950;
(b) was handwavium.

[J. Clarke]

>>I memorized ? in trig at Rice University in the summer of 1976 to 10

>>places. 3.141592654. Never went beyond that but I had a nerd buddy at
>>TAMU who memorized it to 100 places.
>
>Whatever floats your boat.
>
>When a bunch of fans (and pros) were writing _HMS Trek-a-Star,_
>back in the 1960s, we settled for four places:
>
>"Give one point one four one six cheers
>For the Science Officer with pointed ears!"
>
>Spock: "Though I appreciate your sentiments, I find their
>expression irrational."

Why am I thinking PI CADENCE DELAYED CADENCE COUNT CADENCE COUNT 3 - -
- POINT - - - 1 - - - 4 - 3 - POINT - 1 - 4 - 3 POINT 1 4 3 POINT 1 4
GO PI!

[Lynn McGuire]

Was it SJ with the centaurs with the live lasso creatures and the
humanoids used for cattle ?

Lynn

[Default User]

In Roger MacBride Allen's Chronicles of Solace triolgy, humans had
terraformed several worlds and colonized them. Now the terraforming is
coming undone.


Brian

[William Hyde]

Yes indeed.
> (b) was handwavium.

(c) The solar constant at Ganymede is about 54 Watts per square meter. As opposed to 1360 in Earth's orbit, 590 for Mars. Even Ceres should be 150.

I forget the reasons for choosing Ganymede as opposed to Mars or Ceres - or the moon. Didn't really buy them as a ten year old. For me this was the second or third worst of the juveniles (which isn't all that bad, the man could tell stories) But "Red Planet" and "The Star Beast", which I read first, gave me high expectations.

William Hyde

[peterw...@hotmail.com]

You are correct.

Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist

[Lynn McGuire]

As a 10 ??? year old, that simultaneously creeped me out and made me
want to see them in person. From a distance.

Lynn

[Lynn McGuire]

It is hard to stop the terraforming once you start ? Or the
terraforming is rewinding ?

Lynn

[J. Clarke]

Terraforming Mars won't undo the factors that make it Mars. It will
still have low gravity, no plate tectonics, and no magnetic field. So
without maintenance it should revert to being Mars.

A successful terraforming of Venus might be a different story.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <512d05d0-60c1-4b0c...@googlegroups.com>,

_The Star Beast_ is one of my all-time favorites.

What bugs me about _Farmer in the Sky_ is the teen's father's
reasons for emigrating and leaving his son behind. He *says*
it's so he can go to a good university and become an engineer.

But what he *really* wants, having fallen in love with his
draftswoman and gotten engaged to her, is to get away to an
entirely new planet where nobody knows them and nobody will call
the former draftswoman "the secretary who plotted and schemed to
marry the boss."

And when he changes his mind and tells the kid he can come after
all (I suspect Dad's fiancee gave him a talking-to), the kid
never catches on, bright though he is supposed to be.

[Robert Carnegie]

Consulting a review... you think that George, the father, is
worried about Bill, the son, conveying this point of view to the
community on Ganymede? Bill's mother died, recently I gather,
but George could have been playing away with Molly Kenyon
before that?

Does George just not want Bill around playing Hamlet?

...bearing in mind that the story appeared as "a condensed
version" (Wikipedia) for the Boy Scouts magazine in the
first place.

<https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/FarmerInTheSky>:
"When Bill's father brings home a woman and explains that
she's going to be Bill's stepmother, Bill assumes they're only
doing it because the company funding the colonization
prefers married couples. He is surprised and not a little upset
when his father explains that he's marrying her because he
loves her."

I wonder how bright Bill /is/ supposed to be.

<https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50851.Farmer_in_the_Sky>
says "Bill wanted to go along. But his father would not hear of
it - far too dangerous a mission! Bill finally talked his way
aboard the colony ship Mayflower -- and discovered his father
was right!" (Given the number still alive when the book ends...)
(This appears to be from the book cover - sounds like it, anyway?)

Molly has a daughter, Peggy, and is single. And it's 1950 so
it probably doesn't just happen.

This material doesn't mention whether Peggy is supposed
to be left behind or whether she can keep her mouth shut
about Bill and Molly.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <7907bb3d-a484-402a...@googlegroups.com>,

Peggy goes along; Bill does too. Whether Peggy keeps quiet about
her parents' recent marriage is not recorded; she is some years
younger than Bill and he thinks of her as a young brat.
Remember that, like all the early Heinlein juveniles, _FitS_ was
serialized in _Boy's Life_ and was tailored to the (assumed)
prejudices of prepubescent boys.

[Paul S Person]

>I memorized ? in trig at Rice University in the summer of 1976 to 10

>places. 3.141592654. Never went beyond that but I had a nerd buddy at
>TAMU who memorized it to 100 places.

<pendantry>
I would think that
3. 141 592 654
was Pi to /nine/ (decimal) places.

But perhaps you meant what I would call "ten digits".
</pendantry>

--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

[Paul S Person]

As such, yes.

And yet a blanket can act as a "heat trap" -- and, if one keeps in
mind that it is actually just condensed energy, as a force-field.

And an /electric/ blanket could be said to depend on a generator.

[Paul S Person]

Not to mention the occasionally-strongly-expressed prejudices of their
parents.

Who would, no doubt, be shocked! -- shocked! I tell you -- if they
became aware of your interpretatiion of the events.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <3c64kglnrg4m44ioi...@4ax.com>,

Yes; but first, catch your force-field. I don't *think* we have
any force-field technology that could trap heat over the surface
of an iceworld; but I am neither a physicist nor an engineer and
I don't keep up with the news in those fields.

>And an /electric/ blanket could be said to depend on a generator.

Though that's not all it depends on. My electric blanket has
bitten the dust because of excessive clawing by my cats. It's
not that much of a problem at present because the Bay Area is
hotter than hell in the fall; I plan to replace it when the
temperature drops, and cover it with another blanket to protect
it from the wild beasts.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <fi64kghtcrjm1ppmp...@4ax.com>,

Paul S Person <pspe...@ix.netcom.invalid> wrote:

Well, they are fictional and have nothing we could call awareness
of what I think. And Heinlein has long since gone to (I hope) a
better place.

[pete...@gmail.com]

I know it out to 9 decimal places organically, but have a
mnemonic that lets me get to 20 when 1 part in 10,000,000,000
accuracy just isn't enough.

pt

[William Hyde]

If memory serves there is a Dan Simmons novel in which the terraforming of Mars is not being kept up. The newly enhanced atmosphere is being lost, albeit slowly. In the lowlands it is still possible to go outside without an oxygen supply, but it won't be in a century or so.

I have no idea how fast Mars would lose half its atmosphere, if we magically gave it one bar of O2/N2. I'd be surprised if it was less than 10k years, though.

William Hyde

[Default User]

It falls apart. As I recall, not exactly back to original but species
mutate and get out of hand and start to destroy the ecosystem. It's
been quite a while since I read it.


Brian

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <shtqqo$1ga$1...@dont-email.me>,

But I don't know why she swallowed that fly..

[Lynn McGuire]

Oh well, not a word smith. I are a programmer !

Lynn

[Robert Woodward]

In article <72e3fb49-9a64-468c...@googlegroups.com>,

Well, it once had enough atmosphere to support liquid water. What are
the estimates on how long the oceans lasted?

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
—-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robe...@drizzle.com

[Gary R. Schmidt]

Who can't count!! ;-)

Cheers,
Gary B-)

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <pg6b1i-...@paranoia.mcleod-schmidt.id.au>,

But he can get the computer to do that for him.

ObSF: Asimov, "The Feeling of Power."

[Quadibloc]

On Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 10:50:25 PM UTC-6, Robert Woodward wrote:

> Well, it once had enough atmosphere to support liquid water. What are
> the estimates on how long the oceans lasted?

I'm not sure we've gotten that far yet in our knowledge of Mars to have a
good answer to that question.

In any case, it's so much trouble to terraform Mars that, since given its
lower gravity, doing so would not last, it is highly unclear to me why anyone
would want to do so. Underground colonies, on the other hand, seem
entirely reasonable to me.

John Savard

[pete...@gmail.com]

Who wants to live in an underground colony? We're not all Isaac Asimov.

The numbers I'm seeing for the loss of the Martian atmosphere and oceans
involve 100's of millions of years.

For human purposes, that's effectively permanent. Even 100x faster would
be acceptable.

pt

[Gary R. Schmidt]

Yes, but what format will it output it in?!?!?

> ObSF: Asimov, "The Feeling of Power."
>

Hehehe! :-)

Cheers,
Gary B-)

[Paul S Person]

Wasn't there once an Intel chip that turned out ... not to count to
well?

Well, not /count/, perhaps, but perform certain math functions?

There was also an Israeli experience where they left an antimissile
control computer on for a week and the accumulated error caused it to
start missing. Have to reboot those suckers periodically!

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <iqp6kglo337tk5g4u...@4ax.com>,

Paul S Person <pspe...@ix.netcom.invalid> wrote:

I repeat... "So why weren't you watching the automatice stop,
huh?"

[Michael F. Stemper]

I believe that "off by one" errors are a tradition.


--
Michael F. Stemper
A preposition is something you should never end a sentence with.

[Lynn McGuire]

I am famous for off by one errors. My programmers usually check my code
check ins.

Lynn

[Lynn McGuire]

On 9/16/2021 10:50 AM, Paul S Person wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Sep 2021 13:01:43 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
> Heydt) wrote:
>
>> In article <pg6b1i-...@paranoia.mcleod-schmidt.id.au>,
>> Gary R. Schmidt <grsc...@acm.org> wrote:
>>> On 16/09/2021 09:15, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>>>> On 9/15/2021 11:02 AM, Paul S Person wrote:
>>>>> On Tue, 14 Sep 2021 17:42:14 -0500, Lynn McGuire
>>>>> <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 9/14/2021 5:08 PM, William Hyde wrote:
>>>>>>> On Tuesday, September 14, 2021 at 5:16:19 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 9/14/2021 3:11 PM, William Hyde wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On Tuesday, September 14, 2021 at 2:03:33 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire
>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On 9/14/2021 12:26 PM, jdni...@panix.com wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> Five Doomed Attempts at Planetary Colonization
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>> https://www.tor.com/2021/09/14/five-doomed-attempts-at-planetary-colonization/
>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>> And I have read two of the five, the awesome "Methuselah’s

>>>>>>>>>> Children" by
>>>>>>>>>> Robert A. Heinlein (1958) and "Four-Day Planet" by H. Beam Piper
>>>>>>>>>> (1961).
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I might add "Starman Jones" by Robert Heinlein to this list. Or
>>>>>>>>>> is it
>>>>>>>>>> "Time For The Stars" by Heinlein ?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> In the former they're stranded accidentally, are they not? I don't
>>>>>>>>> recall it as a planned colonization. In the latter they are
>>>>>>>>> exploring, not colonizing. Some of the places they find look like
>>>>>>>>> great sites for a later failed colonization. Unfortunately
>>>>>>>>> Heinlein didn't write the sequels.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> We see a colonization effort almost fail in "Farmer in the Sky". A
>>>>>>>>> prelude to it's inevitable total failure, no doubt.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> William Hyde
>>>>>>>> I cannot remember if "Starman Jones" or "Time For The Stars" got lost
>>>>>>>> and considered colonizing.
>>>>>>>

>>>>>>> Definitely the former.  One of their key navigators dies, the aged

>>>>>>> captain makes a navigation error, the suckup navigator agrees with
>>>>>>> it ("I check you, Sir"), and they wind up in an unknown but deadly

>>>>>>> location.  The captain dies, the suckup is killed, Max (?) gets the

>>>>>>> girl and the command, and he manages to reverse the navigation error
>>>>>>> which got them lost in the first place.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> First book which ever gave me pi to more than 3.14159 - Max has a
>>>>>>> perfect memory for numbers.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In the latter the last planet they visited was quite deadly and

>>>>>>> killed off much of the crew.  But they had a functioning starship
>>>>>>> all through the book.  And presumably at least two competent

>>>>>>> navigators.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> William Hyde
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I memorized ? in trig at Rice University in the summer of 1976 to 10

>>>>>> places.  3.141592654.  Never went beyond that but I had a nerd buddy at

>>>>>> TAMU who memorized it to 100 places.
>>>>>
>>>>> <pendantry>
>>>>> I would think that
>>>>> 3. 141 592 654
>>>>> was Pi to /nine/ (decimal) places.
>>>>>
>>>>> But perhaps you meant what I would call "ten digits".
>>>>> </pendantry>
>>>>

>>>> Oh well, not a word smith.  I are a programmer !

>>>>
>>> Who can't count!! ;-)
>>
>> But he can get the computer to do that for him.
>>
>> ObSF: Asimov, "The Feeling of Power."
>
> Wasn't there once an Intel chip that turned out ... not to count to
> well?
>
> Well, not /count/, perhaps, but perform certain math functions?
>
> There was also an Israeli experience where they left an antimissile
> control computer on for a week and the accumulated error caused it to
> start missing. Have to reboot those suckers periodically!

That Intel chip caused us a lot of problems. I had to put a check in
our software for it as it would cause recycle flowsheets to fail and
then we would get an angry phone call. In fact, it is still there.

double precision chptst
double precision divtwo
double precision top
double precision bottom

C data for bad pentium test
data top / 4195835.0D0 /
data bottom / 3145727.0D0 /

C check for bad pentium math coprocessor
C
DIVTWO = top / bottom
CHPTST = (DIVTWO * bottom) - top
IF (CHPTST .gt. 1.0e-8) THEN
call scrwri (' ')
call scrwri ('WARNING: Your Intel Pentium CPU apparently ' //
* 'has a bad math coprocessor or some other')
call scrwri ('WARNING: application has changed the floating '//
* 'point roundoff. Your simulation results')
call scrwri ('WARNING: may be adversely affected. Please ' //
* 'contact Intel and replace your FPU. Please')
call scrwri ('WARNING: note that this test is sometimes ' //
* 'falsely activated by Virtual Machine servers.')
write (screenbuffer, 10234) chptst
10234 format ('WARNING: The actual floating point test error was ',
* g14.7, ' (should be 0.0). (runchk)')
call scrwri (screenbuffer)
call scrwri (' ')
END IF

Lynn

[William Hyde]

On Thursday, September 16, 2021 at 12:50:25 AM UTC-4, Robert Woodward wrote:
> In article <72e3fb49-9a64-468c...@googlegroups.com>,
> William Hyde <wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Tuesday, September 14, 2021 at 10:34:20 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> > > On 9/14/2021 8:40 PM, Default User wrote:
> > > > In Roger MacBride Allen's Chronicles of Solace triolgy, humans had
> > > > terraformed several worlds and colonized them. Now the terraforming is
> > > > coming undone.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Brian
> > > It is hard to stop the terraforming once you start ? Or the
> > > terraforming is rewinding ?
> >
> >
> > If memory serves there is a Dan Simmons novel in which the terraforming of
> > Mars is not being kept up. The newly enhanced atmosphere is being lost,
> > albeit slowly. In the lowlands it is still possible to go outside without an
> > oxygen supply, but it won't be in a century or so.
> >
> > I have no idea how fast Mars would lose half its atmosphere, if we magically
> > gave it one bar of O2/N2. I'd be surprised if it was less than 10k years,
> > though.
> >
> Well, it once had enough atmosphere to support liquid water. What are
> the estimates on how long the oceans lasted?

I don't know, but the sun was very different then, with about 25% less output and a different spectral pattern, so the comparison may not be apt.

When I say surprised, by the way, I mean really shocked. I am sure it would last far longer than any human civilization.

Those Leigh Brackett novels set on a planet with a dying sun could be recast here. It takes their suns a long time to die, a slowly escaping atmosphere would give a similar ambiance, including the gradual growth of polar areas.

William Hyde

[Dimensional Traveler]

On 9/16/2021 10:28 AM, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
> On 16/09/2021 01.58, Gary R. Schmidt wrote:
>> On 16/09/2021 09:15, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>>> On 9/15/2021 11:02 AM, Paul S Person wrote:
>>>> On Tue, 14 Sep 2021 17:42:14 -0500, Lynn McGuire
>>>> <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>>> I memorized ? in trig at Rice University in the summer of 1976 to 10
>>>>> places.  3.141592654.  Never went beyond that but I had a nerd
>>>>> buddy at
>>>>> TAMU who memorized it to 100 places.
>>>>
>>>> <pendantry>
>>>> I would think that
>>>> 3. 141 592 654
>>>> was Pi to /nine/ (decimal) places.
>>>>
>>>> But perhaps you meant what I would call "ten digits".
>>>> </pendantry>
>>>
>>> Oh well, not a word smith.  I are a programmer !
>>>
>> Who can't count!!  ;-)
>
> I believe that "off by one" errors are a tradition.
>

"They" have a whole language to fix that. C++


--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

[Lynn McGuire]

That is terrible ! And I have been off by one in several computer
languages, I have shipped product in ten of them.

And Scott Lurndal says that my C++ looks like Fortran. He is probably
right.

Lynn

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <si0vsc$1ju$2...@dont-email.me>,

We used to have a refrigerator magnet that said, "REAL programers
cam write a FORTRAN program in any language."

[Gary R. Schmidt]

Well, if by "fix" you mean, "Spray them throughout the entire suite of
programs where previously they were restricted to a single module".

Cheers,
Gary B-)

[Martin]

I once had a button that said "C combines the power of assembly language with the flexibility of assembly language".

[Paul S Person]

Yeah ... but its been "developed" to the point that I don't even
/pretend/ to understand it.

I used to use it but, it turns out, "C with Classes" (and maybe a few
more things) would have done just as well for what I wanted to do.

Note: what I mostly wanted to do was play around with it; strictly an
amateur production, as it were.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <b9d9kgh0qes0qnpfa...@4ax.com>,

Paul S Person <pspe...@ix.netcom.invalid> wrote:

C++ is a mustache drawn on Dennis Ritchie's "Mona Lisa".

[Quadibloc]

On Thursday, September 16, 2021 at 9:50:38 AM UTC-6, Paul S Person wrote:

> Wasn't there once an Intel chip that turned out ... not to count to
> well?
>
> Well, not /count/, perhaps, but perform certain math functions?

Perhaps you're thinking of the earliest Pentium chips.

These used SRT division, and there was an error in a ROM table
it used because of a problem with mask registration, thus for
certain values, division returned an erroneous result.

John Savard

[Lynn McGuire]

Nope, Paul has it correct. But those were two separate hardware
systems. One was Intel math coprocessor error, the other was a custom
??? chip in the Patriot missile system. Oh wow, the Patriot missile
system had a 24 bit cpu, strange.
https://www-users.cse.umn.edu/~arnold/disasters/patriot.html

Lynn

[Lynn McGuire]

Our software is 450,000 lines of C++ code with 850,000 lines of Fortran
code. Not for the faint of heart.

And you can use C++ as C with Classes. That is what we mostly do. We
are around 700 classes (hard to tell with all the glue code).

Lynn

[Dimensional Traveler]

FORTRAN was the first language I learned.

[Paul S Person]

Yes.

I was responding to this long-lost exchange by two people whose
identities are hard to recover:

>>Who can't count!! ;-)
>
>But he can get the computer to do that for him.

and my point was: not always.

[Paul S Person]

On Fri, 17 Sep 2021 17:09:24 -0500, Lynn McGuire

Indeed you can. But you are then accused of not using it correctly,
that is, as an Object-Oriented Language.

One of the most useful "other things" was treating each enum as a
separate type, so that you could use the same tag /with different
values/ in different enums.

In C, the best I've come up with is to use prefixes so each tag is
unique. Of course, then you must, when producing a new enum, check to
be sure the /prefix/ is unique.

[Joy Beeson]

On Wed, 15 Sep 2021 16:25:34 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
Heydt) wrote:

> Though that's not all it depends on. My electric blanket has
> bitten the dust because of excessive clawing by my cats. It's
> not that much of a problem at present because the Bay Area is
> hotter than hell in the fall; I plan to replace it when the
> temperature drops, and cover it with another blanket to protect
> it from the wild beasts.

When I had an electric blanket, I would turn it on about an hour
before bedtime to dry out the bed, and then I'd turn it off so it
wouldn't dry out me.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at centurylink dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <er7dkgtg9l8713esi...@4ax.com>,

Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>On Wed, 15 Sep 2021 16:25:34 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>Heydt) wrote:
>
>> Though that's not all it depends on. My electric blanket has
>> bitten the dust because of excessive clawing by my cats. It's
>> not that much of a problem at present because the Bay Area is
>> hotter than hell in the fall; I plan to replace it when the
>> temperature drops, and cover it with another blanket to protect
>> it from the wild beasts.
>
>When I had an electric blanket, I would turn it on about an hour
>before bedtime to dry out the bed, and then I'd turn it off so it
>wouldn't dry out me.
>

Whatever floated your boat in that time and place.

I have a husband whom I love dearly, but he is a polar bear. His
normal body temperature is about a degree lower than mine, and he
has more padding under his skin. So he sits by a window all day
with a fan blowing the outside air onto him, and past him onto
me. Sometimes this is a good thing; sometimes I turn an
additional fan on that blows onto me. But today the outside
temperature was 61 Fahrenheit, and I got into my old Vermont
Country Store flannel PJs and turned on the heating pad that
lives under my feet.

[Gary R. Schmidt]

That's what "find . -type f -exec grep -i abc_ /dev/null {} +" is for[1].

Cheers,
Gary B-)

1 - If I had the proverbial sixpence for every time I've issued that
command, or a variation, I'd be well weighty!! :-)

[Scott Lurndal]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
>In article <er7dkgtg9l8713esi...@4ax.com>,
>Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>>On Wed, 15 Sep 2021 16:25:34 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>>Heydt) wrote:
>>
>>> Though that's not all it depends on. My electric blanket has
>>> bitten the dust because of excessive clawing by my cats. It's
>>> not that much of a problem at present because the Bay Area is
>>> hotter than hell in the fall; I plan to replace it when the
>>> temperature drops, and cover it with another blanket to protect
>>> it from the wild beasts.
>>
>>When I had an electric blanket, I would turn it on about an hour
>>before bedtime to dry out the bed, and then I'd turn it off so it
>>wouldn't dry out me.
>>
>Whatever floated your boat in that time and place.

Speaking of floating - a heated waterbed beats an electric blanket
anyday. The only problem is, as you point out below, cases
where the partners need radically different water temperatures.

As I understand it, some of the more expensive modern beds
can adjust both temperature and pressure on each side of
the bed individually.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Wednesday, 15 September 2021 at 17:35:03 UTC+1, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <3c64kglnrg4m44ioi...@4ax.com>,
> Paul S Person <pspe...@ix.netcom.invalid> wrote:
> >On Tue, 14 Sep 2021 23:15:49 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
> >Heydt) wrote:
> >>[_Farmer in the Sky_ by Robert A. Heinlein]
> >>[...]Heinlein was postulating (a) a mostly rock surface with
> >>some ice, rather than a global ocean with lots of ice; (b) a
> >>"heat trap" that was some sort of force-field whose generators
> >>could get knocked out by an earthquake.
> >>
> >>(a) can be forgiven, since we knew damn-all about Ganymede in 1950;
> >>(b) was handwavium.
> >
> >As such, yes.
> >
> >And yet a blanket can act as a "heat trap" -- and, if one keeps in
> >mind that it is actually just condensed energy, as a force-field.
>
> Yes; but first, catch your force-field. I don't *think* we have
> any force-field technology that could trap heat over the surface
> of an iceworld; but I am neither a physicist nor an engineer and
> I don't keep up with the news in those fields.

That leaves Saran wrap. :-) Oh, but they changed
the formula and it's oxygen permeable!
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saran_(plastic)>

> >And an /electric/ blanket could be said to depend on a generator.

>
> Though that's not all it depends on. My electric blanket has
> bitten the dust because of excessive clawing by my cats. It's
> not that much of a problem at present because the Bay Area is
> hotter than hell in the fall; I plan to replace it when the
> temperature drops, and cover it with another blanket to protect
> it from the wild beasts.

Maybe it was explained to me before that being
anxious about a blanket that is full of electricity
is foolish but... cats aside, what happens if you
spill your coffee? I feel I would rather have
something in the bed that just conducts the heat
which is produced elsewhere.

[Paul S Person]

Thanks.

I'll stick with Source Navigator -- which provides a "Grep" screen I
can just type the proposed prefix into to see if it is currently in
use.

Source Navigator, of course, has other uses as well.

Note: as always, Source Navigator is simply the first program of its
class that I happened upon. No claim as to whether it is best, worst,
or somewhere in between is intended.

>1 - If I had the proverbial sixpence for every time I've issued that
>command, or a variation, I'd be well weighty!! :-)

[Jack Bohn]

Scott Lurndal wrote:
> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
> >In article <er7dkgtg9l8713esi...@4ax.com>,
> >Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
> >>
> >>When I had an electric blanket, I would turn it on about an hour
> >>before bedtime to dry out the bed, and then I'd turn it off so it
> >>wouldn't dry out me.
> >>
> >Whatever floated your boat in that time and place.
> Speaking of floating - a heated waterbed beats an electric blanket
> anyday. The only problem is, as you point out below, cases
> where the partners need radically different water temperatures.

There's a joke there...
"Honey, can you help me with the settings? I've got the temperature where I want it, but I can't change the firmness."
"Ice only has the one firmness setting, dear."

--
-Jack

[Lafe]

Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote in
news:4b32c93d-214e-4045...@googlegroups.com:

> Scott Lurndal wrote:
<snip>

>> >Whatever floated your boat in that time and place.
>> Speaking of floating - a heated waterbed beats an electric blanket
>> anyday. The only problem is, as you point out below, cases
>> where the partners need radically different water temperatures.
>
> There's a joke there...
> "Honey, can you help me with the settings? I've got the temperature
> where I want it, but I can't change the firmness." "Ice only has the one
> firmness setting, dear."

This made me laugh out loud. Thanks for that!

But it is a truism, whatever you have set the waterbed temperature at is the
temperature at which you will wake up. It is inevitable.

Lafe

[Jack Bohn]

In addition to the idea of putting heat where you are instead of the whole house, a waterbed is also a thermal mass. (How much? if 2m by 2m, even at a quarter meter thick, that's a ton of water!) And should help in house temperature control. Alas, the converse, of cooling doesn't seem to work, even a "cool" waterbed is probably just below body temperature, way above any room temperature that it would be worth installing an air conditioner to achieve.

--
-Jack

[Lynn McGuire]

The best answer is that my graphical process IDE (interactive
development environment) for Chemical Engineers just works. Wow, those
screen shots are old, I need to update them.
https://www.winsim.com/screenshots.html

We started writing our diagrammatic front end for Windows in 1985 using
Windows 1.0. I joined the project in 1993 (I think, not sure). It has
been a long strange journey since then.

Lynn

[The Horny Goat]

Wow - I got a pirated copy of Windows 1.0 on a single 5.25" floppy way
back when. (Which I never installed as I was then on a later version
of Windows 3)

Got rid of it about 3 years ago when I ditched the last of my 5.25"
floppies.

I remember back in 1979 when I got my Apple II that I paid $ 72.00 for
a box of 10 of those.....

I work in a family business and remember when my father moaned that I
'never took work home anymore'. I patted my laptop and said I could
either take this home or THIS home (waving a USB stick about) saying
"I've got the software I need at home to do this - I just need the
data file and THIS contains it!". Dear old dad just didn't get
it...this would have been roughly 2002-2004.

[Lynn McGuire]

I still have about a thousand 5.25" and 3.5" floppies in my office.
Since most are licensed software that we redistributed to our customers
over the decades, I hate to get rid of them.

Lynn

[Titus G]

On 15/09/21 2:58 pm, J. Clarke wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Sep 2021 21:34:11 -0500, Lynn McGuire
> <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 9/14/2021 8:40 PM, Default User wrote:
>>> In Roger MacBride Allen's Chronicles of Solace triolgy, humans had
>>> terraformed several worlds and colonized them. Now the terraforming is
>>> coming undone.
>>>
>>>
>>> Brian
>>
>> It is hard to stop the terraforming once you start ? Or the
>> terraforming is rewinding ?
>
> Terraforming Mars won't undo the factors that make it Mars. It will
> still have low gravity, no plate tectonics, and no magnetic field. So
> without maintenance it should revert to being Mars.
>
> A successful terraforming of Venus might be a different story.
>

In Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley the moons of Jupiter onwards
through to Pluto are colonised through artificial shelters many larger
than city size so not terraformed though the land/ground in the shelter is.

[Michael F. Stemper]

On 20/09/2021 12.16, Jack Bohn wrote:

> Lafe wrote:

>> But it is a truism, whatever you have set the waterbed temperature at is the
>> temperature at which you will wake up. It is inevitable.
>
> In addition to the idea of putting heat where you are instead of the whole house, a waterbed is also a thermal mass. (How much? if 2m by 2m, even at a quarter meter thick, that's a ton of water!)

When I bought my waterbed (1976), that is what they said: roughly
a ton.

> And should help in house temperature control. Alas, the converse, of cooling doesn't seem to work, even a "cool" waterbed is probably just below body temperature,

Assuming that you unplug the heater for the summer, the bed is probably
going to be at the average (over the last day or so) of room
temperature. Highly likely to be several degrees lower than body
temperature.

However, there is one big difference between air at that temperature
and a ton of water at that temperature. Air cools by convection, and
a layer of air adjacent to the skin is going to be warmer than the
ambient by several degrees. Water, on the other hand, cools by
conduction. If your body spends the night trying to heat a ton of
water from 80 F to 90 F, it's going to be pumping a lot of calories
into that water. (If you are in Europe, it will be pumping a lot of
Joules into the water. The effect is the same.)

--
Michael F. Stemper
Psalm 82:3-4

[Scott Lurndal]

I keep mine at 80F year round. Keeps me cool on 100+ F
summer days, and warm on 32 F winter nights.

[Chris Buckley]

We keep ours at 80F also (both halves of a dual control bed). The
temperature needed to be set considerably higher for our earlier
waterbed frame which didn't have a thicker pillow-top covering. (This
is our second frame, third set of bladders for the past 40 years).

Chris

[Joy Beeson]

On Mon, 20 Sep 2021 10:16:00 -0700 (PDT), Jack Bohn
<jack....@gmail.com> wrote:

> In addition to the idea of putting heat where you are instead of the whole house, a waterbed is also a thermal mass. (How much? if 2m by 2m, even at a quarter meter thick, that's a ton of water!) And should help in house temperature control. Alas, the converse, of cooling doesn't seem to work, even a "cool" waterbed is probably just below body temperature, way above any room temperature that it would be worth installing an air conditioner to achieve.

And that ton of water will drive your body temperature to match its
body temperature. Despite a wool mattress pad, I had to sleep draped
over pillows.

And then there's awakening at three A.M. to the need to siphon a ton
of water out through a second-floor window.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <ngfqkgtuqhabqg7j8...@4ax.com>,

Ah, the joys of middle age!

[J. Clarke]

On Thu, 23 Sep 2021 22:55:57 -0400, Joy Beeson
<jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:

>On Mon, 20 Sep 2021 10:16:00 -0700 (PDT), Jack Bohn
><jack....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> In addition to the idea of putting heat where you are instead of the whole house, a waterbed is also a thermal mass. (How much? if 2m by 2m, even at a quarter meter thick, that's a ton of water!) And should help in house temperature control. Alas, the converse, of cooling doesn't seem to work, even a "cool" waterbed is probably just below body temperature, way above any room temperature that it would be worth installing an air conditioner to achieve.
>
>And that ton of water will drive your body temperature to match its
>body temperature. Despite a wool mattress pad, I had to sleep draped
>over pillows.

Needed a better heater. Mine could make me uncomfortably warm.