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Yann's new Blog page for users is out...
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RT @Yann244026126
"Replying with Letter Quotes, have you tried it?"

A much nicer, enhanced version of this post is now at my new Blog. With added comments, links, formatting.

is for and

wordsmith.social/friends-near-
twitter.com/Yann244026126/stat

@ijurisic Yeah, me too -- as I think you might have noticed? LOL.

There are so many great Cat photos in Twitter, it's amazing. I bring here some of the best I see on my timeline there (which is now basically all cats, very prolific posters).

@zzAW Well said. 😄

I do go in phases as well, some more energetic, others more introspective.

RT @Yann244026126
Yann2

The Stamps Flower Whispers Volume 2 stamp set is Controversial.

Which stamp is visually a better Design ? Left or Right ?

RT @Yann244026126
* A Letter to L on a misty May evening *

Last night, as I wrote one of the replies, which I really enjoyed, I felt it would work well as a Blog post - and this morning I prepared it, and it's now Published.

The letter is at : wordsmith.social/friends-near-

@neerajmurali Hello, and welcome to Qoto.

Enjoy the network and all it has to offer. If you are new to using Mastodon, there's a good guide here: lifehacker.com/a-beginner-s-gu

We also have another new users guide, posted here : write.tedomum.net/rgx/suggesti

* A Letter to L on a misty May evening *

Last night I read and wrote replies to various letters; from my friends in different countries, all over the World, which I discovered and connected with via the Slowly app.

As I wrote one of the replies, which I really enjoyed, I felt it would work well as a Blog post - and this morning I prepared it, and it's now Published.

See it at "Friends Near and Afar, Letters we Share and Cherish" Blog.

The letter is at : wordsmith.social/friends-near-

#Slowly is for #Writers #penpals #Friendship #Culture #Interchange

@Kovaelin I am no expert on mobile devices, but they seem to be lower priced that Qualcomm and other large brands. Which make a finished device lower priced as well.

The Besten Me tablet I mentioned above was a great deal for the price, the display was very fine, the tablet responsive. It has 64 GB of storage, although not ideally partitioned - showing as an SD card if I recall well.

It had Android 5, and likely no upgrade, a minor brand, but I have seen similar with Android 7 from the factory.

@ijurisic I think it was a reaction to some political comment the user made.

Not that they are rabid or anything, it's primarily a Cat account with lots of nice photos. Surprising, when they let some vociferous and aggressive people do much much worse there.

@Kovaelin you are welcome. This same hardware was sold under a few different names, all Chinese minor branding. The specs on it are good, large storage and specially the sharp screen.

The Amazon Fire HD 10 is right at 200 price now too : amazon.ca/All-New-Fire-HD-10/d

@k11m1 Thank you, I enjoy writing a lot.

And this could be developed into a new Blog post easily, a thought that occurred to me as I wrote it too. Another motivation for going in length.

I have a couple of favourite Blog posts that started this way, as a Toot or a series of them, and were so interesting that a Blog page was next. :)

I am having many ideas for Blogging again, hope it does come; just got to clear my head, jot down notes and fire up the tools. Appreciate the comment, which means a lot. :)

@banna Thanks, Paul, opening it on a Tab for later reading, just starting the rounds for the day. Coffee is ready, juice is flowing. Cheers!!

@k11m1 I wrote a long reply, reminescing of my student times and learning this -- and posted it as reply to another post in the Local Feed, so it gets to be see more.

Link to it -- qoto.org/@design_RG/1041894186 -- and your user is in it too.

That could become a Blog post sometime soon, this is how some of mine started.

Thanks for the memories. 😃

@k11m1 Yeah, it was something that was needed when computing power was a precious resource, much less common, and we needed to conserve it.

Good things resulted from that - people created solutions to enable remote access, shared systems, one large machine that processed tasks from many people or departments; scheduling, so you could slot a job for some late hour when there were less people around.

Following the logic is a good thing, as you write line by line, it should make sense, and flow -- or else, why did you use that line, and the next?

There are pesky typos that break things, but other than those small input errors, the code should be understandable and make sense.

Someone else might have to work on it someday, and that will make their job easier and faster too.

Back in time programming languages were developed to cater to some specific need or group of users; making it easier to create the projects they needed.

We used Fortran, which is Formula Translation; it was created for Science and Engineering students and professionals.

I had a room mate who was in the Math department, we were both 1st year students, had the same Profs (from Math department), and the same assignments.

But his class used another language, called Algol - which was a better fit for Math people's needs.

We enjoyed comparing the finished results of our assignments; quite simply, we looked at the thickness of each other's stack of cards. Sometimes, Algol would win (win being a smaller deck, less processing time), other times Fortran got it. 😄

It was my first time ever seeing and working with a computer -- a mammoth Burroughs 5500 mainframe, and I loved every aspect of it.

Over time, I observed that I could tell right away when something was broken in a new project.

* When I had my source code written up, the next step was to hand it in, for a pool of secretaries who would prepare our cards, overnight. Or find a spare IBM punch machine somewhere (my preferred, faster route).

* Got the cards? Processing time! Go to the computing center, and get in line with other students with their own decks; we lined up outside, in front of a room that contained a card reader (input) and a large printer (output). This was a smaller room, wired to the computer next door which was all air conditioned to around 18 degrees C year around.

* The card reader had two doors, it's own Input and Output of student processing; in via one, hand in the deck, watch it be read, get a printout, out via the other door.

* As the deck was handed in and loaded into the card reader, we stood watching, hoping for a good run. Any result would produce a paper printout, those continuous paper forms. Many times, it was a report of an error at some point.

* processing took some seconds; and I noticed that sucess or failure was indicated by the card reader behaviour; a perfect program would pass thru the reader in linear fashio, smooth flow. I got excited, maybe this time it's all Good!!

* I also noticed that hesitations in the stack flow indicated errors; it would stop at some card, pause or a few seconds, Bad sign! 😔 Soon it would resume, a short report printed, and a more or less dejected student headed out door #2.

...to go back to his desk, his notes and code write up. Read the report (quite cryptic usually), and trace thru the programme to find what was wrong.

Getting a smooth card reader flow was an instant sign I might have made it - and at best happened at the 3rd try or so (worse sometimes, in harder jobs or if you weren't focused enough).

Some great work was done in developing whole languages to be used for teaching Programming, like Pascal -- good habits would carry on into a professional's work life, and be appreciated by anyone working with this person, or later maintaining their legacy code.

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