Viewing profile — Zickzack

> I wonder if the original German is equally ambiguous... The translation is good and authentic. Those who can read Low German[1] can compare the slightly different versions here[2…

> It showed an area totaling just 20 square kilometers, a tiny place. The map was divided into 400 individual grid squares, outlined in light blue — a single square kilometer each.…

I shall raise my glass to this fine gentleman.

Flavius Josephus writes in the History of the Jewish War against the Romans - an important source for the Roman army - that the first cohort of every legion was twice the size of o…

Let us assume there were no reasonable explanation for the origin of life. Yet, "there is no reasonable explanation of life, hence god exists" would still be a non sequitur. You ha…

> Personally I find it very sad that the agnostic approach of Pascal did not prevail. Let the programmer decide what they think fits the situation best and let the compiler deal wi…

> 1-based indexing causes you to have to throw in a bunch of +/-1 compensation factors to prevent you from double-counting or scaling past an edge. Way back then, I started with Al…

Silibinin [1] is an antidote to death cap. As far as I know, silibinin has reduced the mortality from 2/3 to 1/3. If the damage done to the liver is already too big, then silibinin…

>[] I'd say 90%+ Poles say "królowa" (literally queen). I thought "królowa" is reserved for Mary, Queen of Poles.

> William Fairbairn, was a portly pensioner with an unusual passion: he was the world’s leading expert in silent killing This reads like a sentence straight from a bad 70s action m…

Lactic acid fermentation [1] is the secret to many sausages. In the case of Mettwurst [2], made of raw meat, it is essential. Aged steak, hanged pheasants [3 - with a discussion of…

> Arguing continuity of national borders over centuries in the Balkans is a fools game anyway. Hear, hear. Yet, the knowledge of the so called historical regions will get you far i…

When I read this: > But everything ALGOL-68 did, PL/I did earlier and better. I just wanted to write "Not so". As much as I appreciate the OP in general, his knowledge of Algol 68 …

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_Conference That is exactly what you write. It was agreed on that Poland was moved to the west, and that any claims to reimbursements would hav…

Is the "Learning Algol 68 Genie 3.0" guide [1] of some help? [1] https://jmvdveer.home.xs4all.nl/en.download.learning-algol-6...

> Something that doesn't return a value shouldn't be called a "function", that's just a C-ism. Something that does not seem to return a value returns in fact a value of the type vo…

As always, the off topic invitation cannot be passed. The two-level grammar of Algol 68 gave the semantics of Algol 68 in a denotational language, the second level. As such, it is …

> https://www.evanmiller.org/how-not-to-sort-by-average-rating... phat = 1.0*pos/n There is something disturbing about that line. While my wish to believe the article was strong, i…

UN resolution 678 granted the liberation of Kuwait. That has been achieved in February 1991. It did not grant the invasion of Iraq as it has happened in 2003.

The Polish "wihajster" is a similar case. It comes from German "Wie heißt er? [What's his/its name?]" and refers to a nameless thing. https://de.pons.com/%C3%BCbersetzung/polnisch-…

The article refers only to the Politeia (republic). And most commentators do the same. It is pretty likely that they do so because they know little Plato. Popper, however, knew mor…

During Nazi rule, there were many books written which the authors later found to be embarassing. The common explanation was said to be: "I did not write that. They have forced me. …

Amundsen lost his life trying to help Umberto Nobile and Nobile's crew.

The Ukraine offers the Orlyk constitution from 1710. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Pylyp_Orlyk