|
|
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
|
veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526 |
You can still get new HPs that do RPN. My employer got me one last year that I've decimated. So they bought me a new one this year - a casio that doesn't do RPN.
RPN's nice for the programmer. In fact, when you've got an expression in infix notation (that's the normal, mathematical notation), it can be convenient to immediately convert it to postfix (rpn). You can very easily evaluate a postfix expression with two (or even one) stacks using maybe a few dozen lines of code. I always found it irritating as a user, but back in the day there weren't a lot of options.
I recall when I was in 8th grade my teacher (Mrs Rich) told us that when we went to college, we'd need to have $300 calculators. She couldn't have known that we would have much more powerful calculators at a fraction of the cost.
k
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear Adam and Fishonabike: How I wish there were some site where pronunication of Polish names and words could be found. I remember reading book by James Michener about Poland, and how the Polish aristocrats abused the peasants. In the beginning an estate named "Lancut" is mentioned. Only halfway through the book did Michener have the owner's wife tell a visitor that it was pronounced "Wine-sooth".
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 21
stranger
|
|
OP
stranger
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 21 |
Dear wwh, I am afraid that there is no such a site. Polish pronunciation is so complicated that it is impossible to write an engine that would pronounce words. What is more, polish internet is not very developed so... You know what I mean.
PS. I'll search something:)
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 688
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 688 |
adam, it is so very delightful to have you here and posting. I am not polish, but grew up in an old polish neighborhood and heard the words frequently. When I was a young married lady, I moved back to the old neighborhood and was again comforted by the words I had heard as a child. It's like a warm blanket wrapped around you! Thank you for giving me something warm today and for bringing a smile  to this face.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346 |
Polish pronunciation is so complicated that it is impossible to write an engine that would pronounce wordsYes, adam - the real problem for English speakers is that familiar-looking letters are used in very unfamiliar ways. Polish is written down using something between the (errm, correct me if I'm wrong here, someone) Cyrilic and (errm) standard Western alphabet. And quite apart from that, English speakers are hardly consistent within their own alphabet: http://magazine.englishclub.com/199909.htm(namaste to good ol' MaxQ for this one!) Fisk
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346 |
You can very easily evaluate a postfix expression with two (or even one) stacks using maybe a few dozen lines of codeYou're just a bit clever, aren't you FF? I notice you also talked about AI (Artificial Intelligence) programming elsewhere. Have you ever tried getting computers to handle Natural Language or basic perceptual processing? It's a bloody nightmare, and just fills you with awe as to the stuff that we human beings do without batting an eyelid. Can't beat being given a new appreciation of life, and an enhanced sense of wonder. I sometimes think that's the greatest gift anybody can be given. Fisk
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346 |
śliwowica - we call it "plum brandy" rather than vodka. Not sure why. I suppose brandy implies fruit rather than grain as the main ingredient. wiśniówka - yep, cherry vodka! Looove this stuff. Having said which śliwowica is better if you intend to stay up all night. Well, even if you don't intend to, actually  śledź - yep, herrings, which we would call rollmop herrings for some reason (I think because they tend to be rolled, though dunno where the "mop" bit comes from). Their taste is in the same area as strong blue cheese. wigilia - yep, Xmas Eve - when you eat śledź and fish exclusively! The beauty of Xmas to me as a child was that I got the whole Polish thing on wigilia (including opening presents "when you see the first star", meaning after dinner really) and the whole English thing the day after.  bułka - ah, here we differ, adam. You think "roll", and I think "cake/very light sponge". I can remember my Mum visiting other Polish friends, and whilst all the kids messed around upstairs they'd have a chat and Kenwood Chef (blender) in constant operation for going on an hour or so. The resulting mix would be baked, resulting in a fantastic buttery/eggy airy spongey bready concoction. Not quite cake, as you could spread it with butter without it being too rich. But a lot more tasty than the tastiest bread. I've never tasted anything else like it really, and suppose I'll always miss it. Mum tells me it takes lots of making  barszcz - yep, good ol' polski beetroot soup! Also partaken of at wigilia, occasionally with little pierogi (sp?) dropped in. gołąbki Yep yep - minced meat mixed with rice, wrapped in (outside) cabbage leaves and braised in meaty/tomatoey stock. It's vaguely like the Greek recipe stuffed vine leaves, but a lot nicer. I hated them as a child  but love them now kotlety Difference of meaning here, too, adam - my Mum calls Polish hamburgers (minced meat, egg, occasionally onion & garlic, occasionally breadcrumbs) kotlety. Hang on, do you mean "chop" as in the cut of meat, or "chop" as in the verb? Hmmm, overall I'm fairly impressed with how well I've been brought up knowing the important facets of Polish culture! Oh!  How could I forget to mention bigos ?? Fisk
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526 |
You're just a bit clever, aren't you FF?
Well, no. I'm sortuva one act play. I'm familiar with some things because of school, work, interest, or unplanned experience. Most things I'm pretty boneheaded about.
I notice you also talked about AI (Artificial Intelligence) programming elsewhere. Have you ever tried getting computers to handle Natural Language or basic perceptual processing?
Never done the NLP thing, though I have some interest and have done a very little reading. I'm not sure what you mean by "basic perceptual processing." My master's thesis was on neural nets and that was mildly interesting. I was interested in having evolving systems of neural nets (at the time, there weren't more than 1 or two papers on the subject...now there are hundreds). Unfortunately, my thesis director didn't think that was a very interesting subject and so I left off at a silly and very useless tool for experiments. I did do some experiments on my own with evolving systems of competing NNs, where I tried to see if I could observe certain naturally occurring equations (volterra's), but I had no luck in that (and a job offer that took me from away from that interest). I suppose it's just as well. AI doesn't seem to be making many advances. Still, I often look back and wonder how the heck I got to where I am from where I was.
One of my profs was talking a while back and noted that orginally we (computer scientists) thought logic was going to be very difficult to manage, while pattern recognition would be a snap. It's turned out exactly the opposite is true. Logic is very trivial (well, by comparison). It's the pattern matching that's complicated. (In my mind, logic is a special case of pattern matching, but I follow his argument.) I suspect it's mostly fortuitous that our brains can handle things like mathematics in general and logic in particular. (We don't like to think logically - we like to think analogically.) I agree with him that it's the distinguishing things we can eat from things that can eat us where the interesting stuff lies.
k
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346 |
sortuva one act play. I'm familiar with some things because of school, work, interest, or unplanned experience. Most things I'm pretty boneheaded aboutJoin the club, mate. Not many "Renaissance Men" around these days . Mind you, they'd just have so much more they'd have to be good at. it's the distinguishing things we can eat from things that can eat us where the interesting stuff liesLove this. Although I think it's also important distinguishing things we can drink and the types thereof Fisk
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 21
stranger
|
|
OP
stranger
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 21 |
Dear FishonaBike
I can't agree with you more, really!
Your comprehension of bułka just great. You describtion of bułka is excellent! My english isn't so advanced to explain things in a such researched way ( This week I am passing FCE)
But when we talk about kotlety, this word has very broad meaning. What you are describing is kotlet mielony . Generally saying kotlet is a meet prepaired in such a way that looks like a hamburger. It doesn't have to be minced, and it could be a fried chop ( cut of meet).
And, of course, BIGOS. This is too complicated for me to explain it to you, how to make it, but I imagine you know what it is.
Adam
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,328
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
719
guests, and
0
robots. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
