Humor Random Comments Thread

[Artlav]

The realization that helped me the most in programming was to keep code simple within each level of abstraction.
In practice, that means making bits of code that do one thing only. IDCT bit does IDCT, huffman decoder does huffman decoding. JPG parser use both to do JPG parsing, image library use the latter to decode the data into image, file handlers turn files into the data, and so on. Image library don't need to know about files below it, and IDCT code don't need to know about JPEG encoding above it. This tends to cost efficiency, but it results in code which is flexible, testable, re-thinkable and return-to-able.

 

[Notebook]

Help! Brexit weather has arrived in the UK.
Several inces of snow, in some places.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47027762

 

[Urwumpe]

One more for the collection of exotic deaths:

Killed by short-wave radio.

http://www.bfu-web.de/DE/Publikatio...Bericht_97_3X455-0.pdf?__blob=publicationFile

A hydrogen gas balloon managed to fly too close to a 500 kW short wave antenna in about 15-30 m altitude and in <100m distance, had steel fibers woven into the hull net lines overheat and catch fire, resulting in a deadly plunge from 180 m altitude, after a rapid rise at 2 m/s when the hydrogen gas inside warmed up and expanded.

A coarse estimate of the field strength by the investigators resulted in 200 V/m, the balloon had spent 26 seconds inside the main lobe of the antenna. That is less than the field strength allowed around high voltage power lines - those are allowed to reach 5000 V/m near residential areas.

 

[jedidia]

Oh the fun if we ever start microwave-beaming power from orbit... :shifty:

 

[Urwumpe]

Oh the fun if we ever start microwave-beaming power from orbit... :shifty:

In a Battletech novel, they used microwave-beaming geothermal power stations on the surface of a planet (usually used for powering shipyards in orbit) for shooting down spacecraft.

In the same novel, a large space warship (Avalon cruiser class) got destroyed by being rammed with a tug-guided dropship wreck in a fine literary example of co-elliptic rendezvous...

And of course, it contains a classic "Not on my shift" line...

 

[jedidia]

The largest casino in our region is holding a valentines day event, and the advertisement poster shows a few dark red roses and two playing cards: The Queen of hearts, obviously, and the... Jack of hearts? Seriously, what happened to the King? What exactly are you implying here? :lol:

 

[MaverickSawyer]

...
Nope, not going out today. Nuh-uh.

 

[jedidia]

So I just saw a documentary about the potential applications of piss (yes, piss) in energy production. Quite interesting overall, but there was one guy that was cultivating bacteria that could turn urine into... hydrazine?

Great, now I have a new end of the world scenario to worry about. Flesh-eating bacteria getting out of a lab is soooo yesterday. Tomorrow, bacteria escaped from a lab will turn our sewers into chemical weapons of mass destruction. :shifty:

 

[MaverickSawyer]

What's the purpose of this thread..

For random (but non-political) comments and discussion. So, if you have something happen in your life that is humorous or ridiculous, this is the place to share it. Shower thoughts? Check. Found a good pun? Lay it on us.

 

[jedidia]

What's the purpose of this thread..

It's basically the Twitter of Orbiter Forum :lol:

 

[MaverickSawyer]

I thought that was the Chatbox. :lol:

 

[jedidia]

There's a chatbox? I didn't know we had a chatbox! :blink:

 

[Urwumpe]

20 hours without food and counting...

If I don't get a break here soon, I'll leave my workplace to hunt vermin.

 

[RisingFury]

There's a chatbox? I didn't know we had a chatbox! :blink:

You should join in. The pentaborane gives a whole new meaning to "flame wars"

 

[C3PO]

You should join in. The pentaborane gives a whole new meaning to "flame wars"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqCatb2oApU&feature=youtu.be&t=142

 

[MaverickSawyer]

You should join in. The pentaborane gives a whole new meaning to "flame wars"

Not to mention the antimatter lightbulb stash Artlav left us a few months back for when we really need to scour the place out. :lol:

:hmm: Speaking of which, time to order some more... we've only got three left.

 

[jedidia]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqCatb2oApU&feature=youtu.be&t=142

Huh... my first reaction would have been to shout "GREEN FLAME!!", but I'm not sure there's anybody on this board that's enough into D&D to get the reference... :shifty:

 

[steph]

I have a few days off. Was planning to go out biking, but, although the weather is fine, it's still quite cold. So I did what any responsible adult would do...stayed inside and played The Witcher 3. That game is incredibly thick. you can spend hours just for a few quests. And just following the main storyline doesn't really work because you soon find yourself outlevelled, so doing the small stuff really matters. For some reason it reminds me of Gothic (before the abomination called Arcania, which wasn't really Gothic anymore), expecially with the open-ended quests. But then again , Gothic had like three possible endings, this one has perhaps a dozen or more, depending on how you branch out your choices.
Though, to my excuse, the rear hub of the bike makes a weird vibration when freewheeling and I'm too lazy to check it out or change it.

 

[Linguofreak]

stupid.i:1:2: error: invalid preprocessing directive #!
 #!/usr/bin/gcc -o stupid
  ^

Drat! gcc rejects the hashbang as a preprocessing directive. This bit of useless silliness would have been so much funnier if it had worked.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

A friend of mine shared this with me, and I figured it'd be of interest to some folks here...
http://www.wearethemighty.com/news/classic-rock-legend-missile-expert?rebelltitem=5#rebelltitem5

Jeff "Skunk" Baxter has earned eight platinum records in a music career that started in the 1960s, and he has received numerous security clearances and contracting jobs since the 1980s as a self-taught expert on missile-defense and counterterrorism.
...
The big shift came in 1994.
Inspired by a friend's work on an op-ed about NATO, Baxter sat down and punched out a five-page paper on the Aegis ship-based antiaircraft missile system, arguing it could be converted to a missile-defense system.

So... this is the person who came up with the basic concept of Aegis Ashore.
Learn something new every day.