On Mon, 21 Dec 2015 11:52:15 -0800 (PST), DerbyDad03
wrote:

On Sunday, December 20, 2015 at 10:15:50 PM UTC-5, Micky wrote:


I didn't know there was such a thing as a west coast stove, since I
didnt' think there was any heavy industry west of Minnesota. I wonder
if the Beach Boys have a song about them.

The closest relationship that I can find between stoves and The Beach Boys
is this:

The Beach Boys have an album named "All Summer Long"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmuj6LEZaIo

Ashley Stove has an album named "All Summer Long"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2Wr...ZmOgx-pfYMuraX

Ashley is the brand name of a line of wood/coal burning stoves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCabj1kBW-M

Ashley is now part of The United States Stove Company

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheUSStove

The Beach Boys performed a song named Surfin' USA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNypbmPPDco

What goes around, comes around.

Wow. So the Beach Boys are part of the Stove-Industrial Complex.

On Mon, 21 Dec 2015 13:05:23 -0600, Muggles wrote:

On 12/20/2015 12:54 AM, rbowman wrote:
On 12/19/2015 09:22 PM, Micky wrote:
I AM a touch typist and pretty good too**, but I see this Dell
keyboard doesn't have the inverted dimples on keys G and H, likek it's
supposed to.

**6 errors per minute.

I get about six errors a minute. Unfortunately I also only type about
six words per minute.

When I was in high school only the business kids took typing. Nobody
ever thought engineers would have anything to do with a typewriter;
that's what the secretaries are for. My brother was older enough that it
worked in his career, but it didn't in mine.


My top typing speed was around 78wpm with the average errors any normal
typist would make. I hated manual typewriters because if you had to
make copies you had to use that blue/black carbon paper between papers
and type 2 to 3 copies at a time. If you made a mistake you had to
correct it on multiple copies. When word processors and pc text
applications (word) came out I was in heaven because an error only meant
you had to backspace/delete/edit and keep going, which, got very easy to
do and didn't lower typing speed all that much. The only thing that
would slow me down was typing numbers because they are on the top row of
the keyboard and I had short fingers, so I couldn't reach the numbers
accurately with any sort of speed. Usually, I ended up slowing down
enough to look at what I was typing and verify I hit the correct numbers.

When I started out typing I only got up to about 35wpm because manual
typewriters were just difficult to press the keys, even the electric
ones slowed me down. When chat rooms and internet typing came along my
speed doubled!

When computers came along, my error rate doubled.

On 12/21/2015 3:35 PM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 12/21/2015 3:53 PM, Muggles wrote:
On 12/20/2015 7:22 PM, rbowman wrote:
Of all the programmers in my group I think there are a couple who can
actually type by any accepted definition of typing.

Do you think programming is a mans world job?


You're both pretty quick on that thread drift.


Can you hummmm a few notes of that tune? I don't recognize it.

--
Maggie

On 12/21/2015 4:27 PM, Micky wrote:
On Mon, 21 Dec 2015 13:05:23 -0600, Muggles wrote:

On 12/20/2015 12:54 AM, rbowman wrote:
On 12/19/2015 09:22 PM, Micky wrote:
I AM a touch typist and pretty good too**, but I see this Dell
keyboard doesn't have the inverted dimples on keys G and H, likek it's
supposed to.

**6 errors per minute.

I get about six errors a minute. Unfortunately I also only type about
six words per minute.

When I was in high school only the business kids took typing. Nobody
ever thought engineers would have anything to do with a typewriter;
that's what the secretaries are for. My brother was older enough that it
worked in his career, but it didn't in mine.

My top typing speed was around 78wpm with the average errors any normal
typist would make. I hated manual typewriters because if you had to
make copies you had to use that blue/black carbon paper between papers
and type 2 to 3 copies at a time. If you made a mistake you had to
correct it on multiple copies. When word processors and pc text
applications (word) came out I was in heaven because an error only meant
you had to backspace/delete/edit and keep going, which, got very easy to
do and didn't lower typing speed all that much. The only thing that
would slow me down was typing numbers because they are on the top row of
the keyboard and I had short fingers, so I couldn't reach the numbers
accurately with any sort of speed. Usually, I ended up slowing down
enough to look at what I was typing and verify I hit the correct numbers.

When I started out typing I only got up to about 35wpm because manual
typewriters were just difficult to press the keys, even the electric
ones slowed me down. When chat rooms and internet typing came along my
speed doubled!

When computers came along, my error rate doubled.

The older I get the higher my error rate gets.

--
Maggie

On 12/21/2015 4:27 PM, Micky wrote:
On Mon, 21 Dec 2015 13:05:23 -0600, Muggles wrote:

On 12/20/2015 12:54 AM, rbowman wrote:


[snip]

t the correct numbers.

When I started out typing I only got up to about 35wpm because manual
typewriters were just difficult to press the keys, even the electric
ones slowed me down. When chat rooms and internet typing came along my
speed doubled!

When computers came along, my error rate doubled.


Anyone can make a mistake. To really foul things up requires a computerg

On 12/21/2015 05:45 AM, Micky wrote:
Yeah, they definitely must have a finger displacement filter!

It's not that far fetched. Soundex was originally used by the census
department to try to match surnames. The algorithm encoded the
characters into a letter and four digits. The problem was surnames often
change spellings like Snyder, Snider, and Schneider, and it was an
attempt to group possible matches.

It worked fairly well when they were dealing with northern European
surnames but broke down badly with other areas.

There have been a number of attempts to improve the matching algorithms
over the years and one is to determine how many edits it takes to get
from A to B like those puzzles where you change one letter at a time.

Common typing mistakes should be easy to identify. teh and yuo come to
mind.

On 12/21/2015 2:24 PM, Phil Kangas wrote:


I find it totally ridiculous that the qwerty keyboard still exists! The
dovorak
layout is so much better and easier to use it is a quantum leap forward.
And
to change to a dovorak is an adventure in itself to find it on most
operating
systems.


If I tried it years ago I may have converted. After 55 years of typing
I'm not so interested in change. My guess is too many die hards not
willing to learn and teach it.

Long term it may be the best, but short term it could be a nightmare
doing the changeover in a company with hundreds of keyboards.

On Mon, 21 Dec 2015 18:42:44 -0700, rbowman
wrote:

On 12/21/2015 05:45 AM, Micky wrote:
Yeah, they definitely must have a finger displacement filter!

It's not that far fetched.

I was agreeing with you. That 's why I said definitely. It's the
most likely way to have done that, for that word.

Soundex was originally used by the census
department to try to match surnames. The algorithm encoded the
characters into a letter and four digits. The problem was surnames often
change spellings like Snyder, Snider, and Schneider, and it was an
attempt to group possible matches.

The summer after my first year in college, I worked at the US Army
Finance Center** in Indianapolis. This is not what wikip or google
says but what they told me there was that Soundex was invented by a
guy who worked there. Since he invented it partly, largely, entirely
on government time, or in accordance with his employment contract, he
offered it to the army but they didnt' want it. I'm not sure if they
gave up their rights for no money or what. But then he pursued it
and ended up selling it back to the army for mucho money, enough that
he was rich.

It worked fairly well when they were dealing with northern European
surnames but broke down badly with other areas.

Maybe that's why the army didnt' want it at first, but it's what they
used when I was there in 1965. I saw personel records. Not details,
but enough to see the name and the Soundex code, and one of the guys
explained to me the relationship, the system.

There have been a number of attempts to improve the matching algorithms

I'm working on one myself. No kidding. I'm pretty far along and if
I'd get off my butt, I'd be out there in 2016 trying to sell it.

over the years and one is to determine how many edits it takes to get
from A to B like those puzzles where you change one letter at a time.

Common typing mistakes should be easy to identify. teh and yuo come to
mind.

**I might have been called a math trainee, but I didn't do any math. I
was an errand boy, but they did give me time to read the manuals that
went with two early business machines. I forget the second one but
one was the card sorter, the one you saw on the $64,000 Question. It's
manual is really less than 2 pages but one paragraph is not
obvious,and it relates to another story from 13 years later when I was
working at the Office of Workers Comp.

On Mon, 21 Dec 2015 22:40:15 -0500, Micky
wrote:


**I might have been called a math trainee, but I didn't do any math. I
was an errand boy, but they did give me time to read the manuals that
went with two early business machines. I forget the second one but
one was the card sorter, the one you saw on the $64,000 Question. It's
manual is really less than 2 pages but one paragraph is not
obvious,and it relates to another story from 13 years later when I was
working at the Office of Workers Comp.

I'll tell you the story here. As I said in another thread, I was a
claims examiner for the federal Office of Workers Compensation, at
45th and Broadway in NYC. Claims examiner sounds a lot better than it
is. At training they said we'd make decisions involving hundreds of
thousands of dollars (for permanent disability cases) but in fact,
they're never going to let someone in the first couple/few years make
a decision like that. we were basically pencil pushers.

To show how we were regarded, at one time there were stacks of
something that had to be put in numerical order. I didnt' want to
create 100 piles, but 11 years earlier I had read the manual for the
card sorter, and it gave a better way. First sort on the 1's column,
then on the 10's, then on the 100's, and so forth. This way you
only need to make 10 piles. It's counter intuitive to start with the
right hand columns, but it works that way and not the other way.

After the first step, the 221s, 131s, 541s are all together. After
you sort on the 10's column, the 721s, 221s, 521s are all together.
After the 100's column, if the numbers are no more than 1000, they are
all in the right order.

Four or five of us were on loan to a guy in an office 50 feet away,
and he came by and saw what I was doing, and he was nice enough, asked
me about it. I assured him it would work, but he didnt' believe me
and told me to do it the obvious, harder way. So I did. I think we
only spent 2 more hours on this job, but it's an example of how
arduous it has to be to be smart and work in a lowly job. It's
clear from reading biographies that some smart guys either go out on
their own or are in business where they can get promoted, but this
entry level job wasn't one of those afaik. I was only there for about
3 months.

On Mon, 21 Dec 2015 18:20:45 -0600, Unquestionably Confused
wrote:

On 12/21/2015 4:27 PM, Micky wrote:
On Mon, 21 Dec 2015 13:05:23 -0600, Muggles wrote:

On 12/20/2015 12:54 AM, rbowman wrote:


[snip]

t the correct numbers.

When I started out typing I only got up to about 35wpm because manual
typewriters were just difficult to press the keys, even the electric
ones slowed me down. When chat rooms and internet typing came along my
speed doubled!

When computers came along, my error rate doubled.


Anyone can make a mistake. To really foul things up requires a computerg

When I worked on mainframes, one time I printed a new page for every
line.

It was hard to save paper after that first year, when I realized I
could waste more paper in one day than I could save in my lifetime.

On 12/21/2015 08:40 PM, Micky wrote:
The summer after my first year in college, I worked at the US Army
Finance Center** in Indianapolis. This is not what wikip or google
says but what they told me there was that Soundex was invented by a
guy who worked there. Since he invented it partly, largely, entirely
on government time, or in accordance with his employment contract, he
offered it to the army but they didnt' want it. I'm not sure if they
gave up their rights for no money or what. But then he pursued it
and ended up selling it back to the army for mucho money, enough that
he was rich.

It's been around a long time but there have been a lot of new improved
versions. I've used it for address validation and it works fairly well
for police dispatchers who can't spell. It can get weird though. BEACH,
BEECH, BIRCH are okay but sometimes the encoding gives you unexpected
candidates. Explainable, but still unexpected.

On 12/21/2015 09:30 PM, Micky wrote:
When I worked on mainframes, one time I printed a new page for every
line.

You haven't lived until you've fed a PostScript document to a
non-PostScript printer. PostScript is actually a reverse Polish
programming language so what you wind up with is a program listing with
bits and pieces of the actual text embedded in it.

Don Lancaster pushed PostScript about as far as it could go. iirc he was
using it to drive an x/y table.

On Mon, 21 Dec 2015 23:32:56 -0700, rbowman
wrote:

On 12/21/2015 08:40 PM, Micky wrote:
The summer after my first year in college, I worked at the US Army
Finance Center** in Indianapolis. This is not what wikip or google
says but what they told me there was that Soundex was invented by a
guy who worked there. Since he invented it partly, largely, entirely
on government time, or in accordance with his employment contract, he
offered it to the army but they didnt' want it. I'm not sure if they
gave up their rights for no money or what. But then he pursued it
and ended up selling it back to the army for mucho money, enough that
he was rich.

It's been around a long time but there have been a lot of new improved
versions. I've used it for address validation and it works fairly well
for police dispatchers who can't spell. It can get weird though. BEACH,
BEECH, BIRCH are okay but sometimes the encoding gives you unexpected
candidates. Explainable, but still unexpected.

[More detail than necessary because I'm emailing this to someone]

Having more names than expected for the same code is not a real
problem. The goal is to cure the "opposite" problem. The goal is to
be able to find multiple names with multiple spellings and
misspellings and multiple correct, slurred, or mis pronunciations for
each of them..

Wikip doesn't make this clear, when it says " so that they can be
matched despite minor differences in spelling" It's far broader than
that, because vowels aren't considered at all, and, as you know,
consonants are grouped together so that any that can be mistaken
aurally for another get the same numeric code. So what most people
would consider major differences in spelling get the same code.

The goal is to prevent misfiling and to be able to find whatever has
been filed, even if one doesn't know how to spell or clearly pronounce
the name.

For example, in Latin American Spanish, b and v sound so close to each
other that they have to name them b-burro and v-vaca. (In print they
look different but in speech the b and v can be indistinguishable,
even to a Latino, unless maybe he knows how the word or name is
normally spelled and it's spelled normally. But a Latino or an Anglo
using Soundex doesn't have to know whether it's a b or a v because
they both get the same code. They don't have to know when filing, or
when retrieving. Not that Spanish was the driving force. Even in
English the sounds are similar. You and I might not notice, but
people who get names to spell all day long do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundex

Although putting s and z with c, g, j, k, q, and x might be a
counter-plan, because it seems to me the first two couldn't be
confused with the other 6.