Back in my day we programmed with a stick and clay, and liked it

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kriesel

And the cartoon of Florida as Uncle Sam's electile dysfunction.

Thanks for posting that link.

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by PhilF

Man. We *really are* just a bunch of old farts, aren't we?

+1

[Nick]

Originally Posted by PhilF

But when I handed it in the teacher rejected it. He said it was "cheating".

First year mathematics students in Leiden get taught Linear Algebra and C++ (among other things).
One way we motivate them to learn \(\LaTeX\) is to point out that they can then write programs that not
only do their Linear Algebra homework automatically but also write it up!

[xilman]

Originally Posted by kriesel

And the cartoon of Florida as Uncle Sam's electile dysfunction.

This one you mean?

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by xilman

This one you mean?

That cartoon was reprinted in a lot of places.

My mind still boggles at how badly that one ballot was designed. The fact that it was a punch card was just one aspect of that badness.

Back when "Hollerith cards" (punch cards) were still commonly used to store data, they were sometimes included in billing statements. My dad told me about one time there was a problem with one of his bills. He looked at the punch card that had come with the bill, and spotted an error. (He wrote computer programs for his job, so was familiar with punch cards, and knew all the character codes.) He called the company and explained what he had found. They thanked him and fixed the error.

[S485122]

I have seen a VAT rate reprogrammed with a soldering iron (replacing a resistor.)