xkcd

Oho--I didn't think of the float-subtraction-check-absolute-value trick. That could definitely work--thanks! I'll have to set up a new equality operation or somesuch for that, but it should fix the problem very nicely. EDIT: Couldn't I set up a 'custom float class' in Python so that every time I tr...

I'm doing some basic coding work and I had a weird math question. I noticed when I did some of my float comparison operations (float1 == float2?), I got some unusual errors, so I looked it up and found out that float comparison is a tricky thing. My solution, then, was to round the floats I'm using...

It would help if you told us what platform this is for, and what programming languages you know. Edit: There are already lots of music players out there. Do you want to make a new one just for the experience, or is there some other reason? Your question is incredibly broad. Give us something to work...

You may be suffering from terminology confusion. Generally, the term Python uses is "module". To load a module, you use import . Pyhton looks for the module in the module search path (see http://docs.python.org/release/1.5.1p1/tut/searchPath.html ) As you can see, it looks in the same dire...

Yep, there is lots of library (and hardware) support for the 4x4 matrix method. But there is no fundamental reason why it couldn't have been library support for some other equivalent route. The matrix route, in a sense, exposes implementation details that make it harder for people to grasp what is ...

There is, of course, no reason this can't be done by using a matrix and vector pair in R 3 to represent an affine transformation. The effort is essentially the same. Well, it's a lot harder to build composite operations that way. In 3D graphics, it's quite common to want something like: rotate -> t...

I think only some Youtube videos have been converted to HTML5, such that it's a tossup whether what you want to see is HTML5 already. I'm pretty sure it's all available in HTML5 now, considering that the Youtube site works on iPhone (the actual site, not the Youtube app). I know Youtube has a huge ...

I think only some Youtube videos have been converted to HTML5, such that it's a tossup whether what you want to see is HTML5 already. I'm pretty sure it's all available in HTML5 now, considering that the Youtube site works on iPhone (the actual site, not the Youtube app). I know Youtube has a huge ...

This won't solve the ROH problem, but for Youtube, I'm pretty sure there's a way to switch it to HTML5 video (no Flash). I don't remember where I found the setting (it was quite some time ago), but I don't get Flash any more when I go to Youtube. Try using Chrome, and setting it for HTML5 video inst...

These do look like fun projects, and I'm particularly interested in this one. However, I noticed in the FB documentation, there doesn't seem to be an option for desktop applications. Do I just lie and say I'm writing for the web, or is there a specific reason for that? They don't have a specific de...

edit: just checked facebook and the friends lists are displayed within some horrible javascript thing so this will be harder than it should be. Facebook has an API that returns that information in JSON. Quite easy to use. Edit: They have a developer site with the details https://developers.facebook...

There's nothing built in, but you can make one: class mergelist: def __init__(self, *args): self.listlist=args def __getitem__(self,key): for list in self.listlist: if key < len(list): return list[key] key = key - len(list) raise IndexError def __setitem__(self,key,value): for list in self.listlist:...

Counting some regex patterns is easy. Its when we have the | operator that things get tricky, because we now need to find the common subsets between the two sides. Is there a way to count the number of common matches between regex patterns? What about: [ab]*[bc]* Or... [ab]*b*[bc]* My gut feeling i...

I'm by no means an expert on this, but it seems to me you would need to parse the regular expression and then execute it in a modified way that adds up possibilities at each location. It would depends on what kind of regular expression, and what kind of characters you're taking about. For example, i...

Also, help(thingy) is usually easier to use than print(thingy.__doc__) , at least IMO. (It gives you a searchable pager -- use / to search.) You could also give ipython a try; I haven't made the switch yet, but looking around it seems like it has some neat features and, if memory serves, one of the...

Just go to python.org (the official Python web site) and click Documentation in the left-hand sidebar. There's a section on the Python Standard Library. I suggest browsing it and being generally familiar with the stuff there. Tutorials will only get you so far. One of the things you'll find there is...

Very easy... found = 0 for line in file("foo.xml"): found += line.count("abcd") print(found) Edit: A slightly shorter way... sum([x.count("abcd") for x in file("foo.xml")]) Or, if you don't mind reading the whole file into memory: file("foo.xml").rea...

jokooon wrote:Ok I think we can move this thread to religious wars.

Well, it seems we're all sort of in agreement that "more options are better". But yeah, this is probably less of a computer-sciencey thing.

And now I kind of want to get a 2000dpi mouse and see how it handles

I also have an infinite number of mouse speeds available, by varying the speed of my hand. I don't see your point. Think of it speed-sensitive steering on a car, except backwards. When you're driving fast, you need to turn less, so having the steering wheel tighten up (i.e. give you finer-grained c...

What you're saying makes sense, unless the acceleration is progressive, if it's progressive, I can't predict where the pointer is going to land, because my brain cannot really measure speed to precisely predict where the pointer is going to land. Obviously you need a new brain. When's the last time...

The particular task the OP mentions could be easily automated, I think. I'm a Mac user, so in my case, I'd just use Automator to record the action once, then edit the resulting code to make it repeat for every file in the folder. I haven't used Windows in a long time, but as I recall under some rath...

As has been said already, having a marketable skill set is the key. Beyond that, networking is huge; it's much easier to get a job if you have connections (as opposed to being just a random name and resume). If you can't afford college or vocational school, you can still work to develop your skill s...

Someone already posted Korean, so instead, I give you the first verse of a song about rabbits: 산토끼 토끼야 어디를 가느냐 깡충깡충 뛰면서 어디를 가느냐 We had to learn this and sing it in Korean class. Actually, 산토끼 (san-to-kki) is a wild hare or jackrabbit (literally, "mountain rabbit"). Even when I understand s...

As an infant, I was exposed to lots of different languages (as in, being present in the room with native speakers of over twelve languages for extended periods of time during my first year after birth). I don't know whether that had an effect on my language learning ability or not. I'd say there are...

A lot of this depends how complex the map is. Are we talking about a handful of trails, or hundreds of trails? If you have only three trails, for example, you can probably do something really simple with straight-up HTML and CSS (and maybe a little Javascript/jQuery, but you could probably do it wit...

The Korean system you describe sounds like what we in America call eChecks. Basically, you give the company the routing number (which identifies the bank) and the account number. This is how I pay my monthly rent. This is also how PayPal usually works, though you can set PayPal to use your credit o...

In order of proficiency (descending) - Korean (4 years, but I'm reasonably fluent and use it more often than English on a daily basis; I need it for work, and necessity is a good teacher) - Japanese (10+ years off-and-on, but I've rarely used it practically, so it's kinda shit. I can have extended c...

Finally, the exact site I've been looking for(http://visual.merriam-webster.com/). It's nice, but I wish it were more complete. So many common terms are missing. For example, search for "desk" and it lists kinds of desks, but not terms for parts of desks (very few visual dictionaries seem...

I often have difficulty distinguishing between unvoiced-unaspirated consonants and unvoiced-aspirated consonants in the initial position in Korean words. For those who aren't familiar with it, Korean has characters such as ㅈ (usually transliterated as "j") that are voiced in the middle of ...

Limited can also mean "small", which I would assume is the intended meaning in "limited income". According to oxforddictionaries.com limited means:

restricted in size, amount, or extent; few, small, or short: