Whitey Grandad

The problems come when you try to write a mathematical expression using a computer keyboard, although there would still be ambiguity if you were to write 1/4x, hence I always think it is better to be precise and either explicitly state the convention or use brackets. As they say in 'Under Siege 2', assumption is the mother of all f'ups. I found FORTRAN very useful in its time and even wrote a few cross-assemblers in it. It is ideal for Fast-Fourier transforms, and handles complex numbers well. ALGOL could get very esoteric and if you put a bracket in the wrong place it would change the whole operation.

Is nobody watching 'Britain's Trillion Pound Horror Story' on Channel Four? An interesting alternative view to the pamphlet to which we were referred earlier.

A few years ago we would see a few others standing quietly outside, but this year it seemed exceptionally quiet. I go outside to avoid the telephone. We are next to the BP storage terminal at Hamble and they sound a siren to mark the start and end of the silence. There were no delivery vans either so it may just be that they were also stopped. Each to their own. My colleagues in France have a national 'holiday' today so that they can attend the memorial services, but Britain abandoned the silence on the 11th many years ago. Personally I think it has more significance if we stop what we are doing wherever we are and spend a few moments in quiet contemplation of all those to whom we owe so much. Bless 'em all.

I refer you to the third verse of the Book of Genesis. Not that I am religious or anything, but God did like a big bang once in a while.

Don't forget that there's nearly always engineering works on Sundays.

I seem to remember it was defined as 26th December in the 'Bank Holiday Act 1871' when we discussed this last year. Do we have to go through this every year? It's bad enough with the Christmas jingles on the tele ads but nowadays the Boxing Day debates start earlier and earlier. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/good-questions-boxing-clever-over-christmas-daze-1468545.html

Don't forget that Air Passenger Duty has just gone up by 55% so you may get cheaper by going via Paris or Schipol.

BODMAS/BIMDAS is just a particular convenient convention, not a universal Law of Mathematics and should not be automatically assumed if it is not specified. I had done powers but my teacher hadn't. Reverse Polish convention assumes a different priority and anyone who has progammed in FORTH will know all about that.

That is a few decades out of date, Even the government defines Boxing Day as the 26th December. If this is a Saturday or Sunday then the delayed Bank Holiday is a 'substitute day'. A couple of other oddities: Not in Eastleigh: http://licensing.eastleigh.gov.uk/ebc2910/ http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23819326-couple-beat-london-council-which-said-boxing-day-was-on-the-28th.do

Not if there was nothing there to start with.

I prefer preciseness. Some computer algorithms will parse from left to right, others not, but brackets will always make sure. BODMAS was what they taught me in infant school in the 50s but that was superseded many years ago. I never did find out what the O stood for.

We knew this as the Clausius Inequality, or the second law of thermodynamics. The first law says you can't win. The second law says you can't break even. The third law says you can't stay out of the game. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clausius_theorem

I would reply with the traditional response but this is The Lounge, after all.

But that would mark you out as an engineer, and hence the lowest member of society.

How about a benevolent dictatorship? I'll toss you for it.

You might have used one without knowing it.

So, what would you rather have instead? We can't posiibly survive another like the last one.

The universe is everything that we can observe or experience, so if we can imagine anything outside of it that also becomes part of our universe.

The majority usually vote against the status quo.

Indeed. I've just gone and stood outside for the 2 minutes silence. My colleague and I were the only people that I saw. Here's to my great uncle at Arras, my dad's cousin at Alamein and all the others who gave us what we have today. I salute you all.

The equation is ambiguous as written. It could be (4x)^-1 or 4(x^-1)

You're at it again. ;-). The employers are not subsidised by giving 'benefits' to some people.

Then all we need is to find some left little tits, then some right big tits, ....

Steady state. Mathematically it's the same as continual expansion but the light slows down over long distances so from our viewpoint you can't tell the difference.

That's very interesting. From the illustration it looks like they are an inherent part of the structure of the galaxy. I wonder if othe galaxies have them?