Posts by Nier

Re: calculations for which can be done on a pocket calculator

I remember an Arthur C Clarke story about a spaceship or maybe starship that lost all its computing ability. A crew member of Chinese ancestry made a bunch of abacuses and taught everyone to use them. They broke the celestial navigation equations into tiny chunks and successfully navigated their way home.

An "opposed-piston valveless, supercharged uniflow scavenged, two-stroke Diesel engine" Rather fun that.

I remember seeing them on RN minesweepers in Borneo waters back in 1965

Re: AI

Quite true. Here's a WW2 era poem for proof.

"The lament of the artificially inseminated cow"

I've just given birth to a calf, Sir

And with motherly pride I am full

But please do not laugh and pray do not chaff

When I tell you I've not had a bull

The farmyard's the dreariest place, Sir

The meadow no longer so gay

Since the one spot of fun in the year's dismal run

Has by science been taken away

No bull has embraced me with passion

I've not had the ghost of a binge

I've never been loved but ruthlessly shoved

With a dirty great brass bound syringe

You may say that's all very well, Sir

There are some things a cow cannot say

But those Land Army tarts who have done with our parts

Still get it the old fashioned way

I saw it written on a sheet of paper about 60 years ago. By Michael Barsley, I think.

Linux okay?