The King of Pointland

The Fruits of Complaint

Longtime King of Pointland reader Teju reads the Sunday Washington Post too thoroughly. She noticed that, buried deep inside the Book World section, my complaint regarding the new layout was published.

In other news, the design remains unchanged. Whee.

half-caH Caught in a Gale-Force Wind

Funny, Sad, or Both?

You need to create an account on Novell's website to see this, but I assure you that I am not making this up:

Novell Client for Windows Vista - Technology Preview - Public Beta

Welcome to the Technology Preview of the Novell Client for Windows Vista.

Please do not be misled by the title on this Web page that indicates you have accessed a Public Beta. In order to ensure adequate bandwidth for downloads and to allow your Novell eLogin ID to work, we decided to reuse our existing beta program Website to host the Technology Preview. The system automatically appends "Public Beta" to the title.

The code you now have access to is NOT a beta, and, as such, is incomplete. Novell will NOT be soliciting feedback for the Technology Preview, and any feedback given will NOT be responded to.

...

Fie Upon It (Nullity)

Remember that story from December about James Anderson, the computer scientist who finally solved the "1200-year-old problem" of dividing by zero? I stumbled upon a good, concise description of the problem with Dr. Anderson's proposed solution:

Dr Anderson's solution is that a computer should be allowed to divide by zero and instead of having an exception, or crashing, etc. you'll get the result Φ. In the BBC article he says:

"Imagine you're landing on an aeroplane and the automatic pilot's working," he suggests. "If it divides by zero and the computer stops working - you're in big trouble. If your heart pacemaker divides by zero, you're dead."

OK, Dr A. so how does Φ solve this?

I can give you the answer right here: it doesn't. And that's because Dr. A's Φ is cancerous. As soon as variable becomes Φ everything it touches becomes Φ. It's the number equivalent of King Midas: everything it touches turns to Φ.

That's because of two axioms in the first paper: Φ + a = Φ and Φ × a = Φ.

So, basically instead of getting an exception, or error, Dr. Anderson's arithmetic gets rid of the problem and replaces it with Φ. From a programming perspective it's irrelevant, if your auto-pilot suddenly computes that required speed is Φ or your pacemaker wants Φ beats per minute it's useless.

The answer is simple: don't divide by zero. It's undefined!

A more detailed, technical critique is cited, too.

Number One in the Hoodwinked

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino . . .