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Mark_Wallace wrote: I am never less than perfectly serious and sober, you insulting ratbag!
Yeah, sure 
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Submit a new Article[^]
Pick 'Tip/Trick' at 'Post your:' and hit 'Start writing'...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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THE BIRTHDAY PARADOX
We probably all heard about it... And I'm not asking you to look the math up in Google, but I would like to have a good verbal explanation of it... Mostly about the paradox thing...
I'm specially interested in 23 - does it a special number in any way? Does it mean, that after passing the age 23, half of the people will celebrate their birthday on the same day I do?
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
modified 8-Mar-17 15:35pm.
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Because if the answer was 42 (the right answer), a year would be about 1270-some days, and that's WAAAY too long.
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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Exactly my problem... As the ultimate answer is 42, how that the maths say 23?! Something have to be wrong, but I can't find it... 
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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There's nothing special about 23, and it's certainly not a paradox; it's just the number where it is statistically 50-50 likely/unlikely.
40 is the point where it becomes statistically unlikely that there won't be* two people with the same birthday.
Probability calculation is easy; you'll pick it up in minutes. Try working the numbers yourself.
* It's better to work it out that way around, e.g. you could say that an intersection is an absolute certainty if there are 366 people, but that's not very useful -- you have to look into how unlikely it is that there would be only one intersection.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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The R channel of my circa 1981 Sony Walkman headphones[^] just died. 
I'm devastated.
/ravi
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I have a similar pair to those to go with my unused Walkman from about the same time. 
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I have a replacement somewhere... but you know the thing with supply and demand 
modified 19-Jan-21 21:04pm.
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Brand new model available on EBay[^] for $20. Too bad the seller won't ship to Canada. And it's not worth the hassle to have him ship to NY state and drive across the border. 
/ravi
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Still under warranty? 
Someone's therapist knows all about you!
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/ravi
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Just be grateful that they died before they installed a rootkit in your brain.
... Or did they?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Ravi Bhavnani wrote: 1981
Dude, you got your money's worth.
Jeremy Falcon
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: Dude, you got your money's worth.
Yes, I suppose so. Things tend to last with me.
One of my cars (driven daily) is a little over 25 years old (I bought her new in '91). My Black & Decker toaster oven is 26 years old and works perfectly, as does my circa '91 Casio watch[^]. Almost all my furniture (Scandinavian teak) is also more than 25 years and still looks good. I don't recall ever buying an extended warranty.
/ravi
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Clearly, you have the gift of longevity. 
Jeremy Falcon
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Yes, I think my brother and I were both brought up this way (preserve and protect).
/ravi
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My main email is via Live Mail on my desktop, using POP3 - so all emails are received and controlled by the one computer, though the various tablets can access new mail via IMAP so it isn't removed from the server.
And this has been working find for years. Suddenly, sometime today, I realized I wasn't getting emails, but I still do via IMAP. So I figured I reconfigure as IMAP and see if it's Live Mail that needs a kicking, or the hosting service POP3 server.
Stage one: back up the emails.
"By heck!" I thought. "That was quick!"
So I check, and it's backed up nothing at all.
When you highlight a folder in Live Mail it doesn't assume you want subfolders as well... 
Now it's still running - halfway through the inbox and 5 minutes in!
Damn glad I checked!
[edit]
Yep: It was Live Mail. deleted account, recreate it and it's working...
[/edit]
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
modified 8-Mar-17 12:44pm.
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So your live mail was only sort-of dead.
Zombie mail! Quick! Grab a bicycle!*
* There are plenty to grab, because none of the idiots in zombie movies ever use them
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Starting a UI refresh project on your website with your CSS files stripped down to practically nothing and every browser, including Edge of all things, correctly figures out what "text-align: left;" means, except IE.
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I am fairly certain that a thousand years from now we will still be damning the creation of IE. I wonder if the word "Bing" translates to IE in some foreign and/or space alien language.
IE --> Bing --> Rubbish --> Disease
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Bloody conservative* developers!
* Leftpond: "republican"
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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[START_RANT]
Dear Bing
I was recently persuaded to switch to you from your arch-rival and nemesis, Google. I did it because, frankly, I thought it was time for a change. I was bored with the anodyne nothing that Google had become and thought I needed to see pretty pictures to liven up my searching experience.
It all started out so well... there you were in all your graphic glory... a neat little menu bar at the top and some rather annoying images at the bottom. Apparently, this is "my news and interests". Trouble is they don't actually match anything I'd be interested in. I'm here to search for something. That's all. You're not my friend or my confidant. If I want news, I'll go to a news channel. If I want information about my hobbies, I'll go to an appropriate web site.
And then I see that I can switch you off in settings. Job done, easy-peasy.
But, of course, it wasn't. Open the browser later and back you come. Hmm. Ok, must be a cookie issue so I specifically enable IE to allow your cookies and all is well with the world; no more useless fluff on the page.
Until the next day when it's back again. 
How elephanting hard can it be to allow me to persist my choices for more than a day? I've signed in to my MS account, why not store my preferences there? Oh no, we're Microsoft and we know better than everyone else.
Well, elephant you, MS, I'm off back to Google; they may be anodyne but maybe that's part of their charm. They invite me to search without bombarding me with useless, distracting cruft that I have no interest in.
So bye-bye Bing - you had your chance and you blew it. I'm sure, in the scheme of things, MS won't give a damn about losing one disgruntled customer; fine, but you've made me a Googler for life.
[END_RANT]
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