2025-10-13 02:21:03 <KipIngram   > tpnix:  What'd you think?
2025-10-13 02:36:24 <tpnix       > KipIngram, excellent, I was so looking forward to the main battle
2025-10-13 02:45:26 <KipIngram   > I know.  :-(
2025-10-13 02:46:09 <KipIngram   > Neat to get to see Garth as he was instead of as a psycho villain.
2025-10-13 02:55:46 <KipIngram   > I wondered if maybe the "twist" of the movie would be that the Federation introduced the Constitution class heavy cruiser just in the nick of time to counter the D9.
2025-10-13 02:56:01 <KipIngram   > Since the Constitution class is near and dear to all of our hearts.
2025-10-13 02:56:12 <tpnix       > KipIngram, sadly, we will probably never know
2025-10-13 02:56:44 <KipIngram   > Maybe even the Enterprise herself.  :-)
2025-10-13 02:57:17 <tpnix       > that would make a great film but hollywood is mostly dead now
2025-10-13 02:58:23 <tpnix       > few people want any more reruns of films and the same old series, originality died in hollywood decades ago, apart from the odd film
2025-10-13 02:59:01 <KipIngram   > I watch mostly old stuff anyway.  Movies and TV.  The new stuff really just doesn't measure up.
2025-10-13 02:59:09 <KipIngram   > Or maybe I'm just getting old.
2025-10-13 02:59:46 <tpnix       > no, the new stuff doesnt measure up
2025-10-13 03:00:29 <tpnix       > it's all formulaic, they wont take any risks any more
2025-10-13 03:01:12 <tpnix       > and it was films that took big risks that were wildly successful, ie 'pulp fiction'
2025-10-13 03:02:13 <tpnix       > I rewatched 'forbidden planet' recently and enjoyed it, that film is beyond acient
2025-10-13 03:31:33 <KipIngram   > I like that one too.
2025-10-13 10:36:52 <veltas      > Can use eval to create indexed variables in POSIX bourne shell
2025-10-13 18:58:22 <lmt         > how do people here feel about SwissMicros calculators?
2025-10-13 19:11:14 <KipIngram   > I own a pair of them.  The HP-41C emulation unit (for nostalgia - I used the HP in college) and for "go to use" a DM42.  Great calculator.
2025-10-13 19:12:00 <lmt         > i was surprised to learn they and the hp calcs they are based on have a stack of only 4 values
2025-10-13 19:12:01 <KipIngram   > I wouldn't recommend the emulated HP-41, unless you just have a soft spot in your heart for it like I do.  But the DM42 is up to any job you want to throw at it.
2025-10-13 19:12:32 <KipIngram   > That's historically what the HP units had - you can do a surprisingly large amount of stuff with it if you think your problem through carefully.
2025-10-13 19:12:48 <KipIngram   > That college calculator was the first thing I ever programmed, and I programmed the phooey out of it.
2025-10-13 19:13:10 <KipIngram   > But the DM42 will let you mode switch that - you can have an "infinitely" deep stack if you prefer.
2025-10-13 19:13:52 <KipIngram   > A really nice thing about the DM42 is that it uses 128-bit floating point throughout; you get 34 digits of precision on everything.
2025-10-13 19:14:26 <KipIngram   > The HP-41 emulator has much less precision - it just matches what the original HP had.
2025-10-13 19:16:34 <KipIngram   > I was initially drawn to Forth in the first place because it was RPN "like my calculator."  Later on I found many other things to love about it (even more, actually), but that was the first attraction.
2025-10-13 19:37:21 <KipIngram   > By the way - there is a new model now.  DM42n I think.  Faster.
2025-10-13 19:48:25 <lmt         > faster only while connected to usb power
2025-10-13 20:22:24 <KipIngram   > The DM42 older version is like that too - runs slower on batteries.
2025-10-13 20:22:36 <KipIngram   > Battery lasts a really long time, though.
2025-10-13 20:24:58 <KipIngram   > I'm in the process of calibrating the realtime clock in mine now.  I set it as precisely as I could back on October 1.  Currently it's about fie seconds fast.  I'm going to wait longer, at least a month and maybe two or three, check the delta, and adjust the correction factor the thing supports.
2025-10-13 20:25:43 <X-Scale     > How do you adjust it?
2025-10-13 20:26:18 <KipIngram   > When you connect it to a PC you can have it present as a storage device.  You just put a properly named file with the correction factor in the root of that storage device.  Just a text file.
2025-10-13 20:28:12 <KipIngram   > One of the  little things on my project list is a suite of astronomy programs for it.  One of the early books I learned on, back in the day, was a book by a guy named Ball - Algorithms for RPN Calculators, and a bunch of them were astronomy related.