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2004
Silence- Snowflakes
- Paranoia Pays
- Microsoft Help
- Polyglot 11: More C
- Polyglot 11: C
- Polyglot 10: Smalltalk
- Toronto Wisdom
- Exterminated
- The Last Straw
- BT Broadband Trap
- Polyglot 9: Moo
- Polyglot 8: SVG
- Polyglot 7: POV-Ray
- Polyglot 6: Python
- Polyglot 5: PHP
- Polyglot 4: Euphoria
- Polyglot 3: JavaScript
- Polyglot 2: Java
- Polyglot 1: VB
- POV-Ray
- Etch A Sketch
- Slashdotting
- Flashy Lies
- Scientific Illiteracy
- Creeping Featurism
- VidScope
- Saturn V
- Perspectives
- Slide Rule
- eBay Sale
- Iron Filings
- Gimble
- VBA Security
- Random Morsels
- Exact Change
- Easter Egg
- Diametral Pitch
- mod_deflete
- Ethical Spam?
- Deadlines
- CPU Power
- Fosdem 2004
- Academic Reversal
- Mars Memorial
- Culture Clash
- Watching the Users
- 2003
- 2002
Slide Rule
6 June 2004
"Anyone who can't use a slide rule is a cultural illiterate, and should not be allowed to vote." -- Robert A. Heinlein
With the European elections scheduled for Thursday, I don't want to miss out. So I used some of last week's bizarre eBay winnings to purchase a new slide rule.
![[Photograph of slide rule]](/news/2004/sliderule.jpg)
Facinating device. I was up most of the night cranking out multiplications and divisions, learning which scales to use for maximum resolution and how to avoid 'off scale' results. The best part is I now have something to thwack people with when they tease me about the 1972 HP-35 RPN calculator I have on my desk.
Update: A gentleman from Boeing contacted me to complain that my JavaScript HP-35 simulation had a bug. He was calculating the square of the speed of light, and got entirely the wrong answer. I tracked it down to JavaScript interpreting exponents "08" and "09" as being in octal format. The calculator has been corrected. Next time I see my bank manager I'm investing in Boeing stock (BA), their next plane sounds like it's going to be FAST.
