Rutabaga

The hack part is using this to allow a function to be defined and called at the same time by typing in only one additional character. R

Me again. I did a little research and discovered that the exclamation point in front of the term 'function' is a Javascript hack that lets the programmer create a function and call it at the same time. The I (negation) turns it into a Boolean expression. Since without the I the function definition would return either undefined or Syntax Error, with the ! negation the Boolean will return true because that is the opposite of undefined. No one actually cares what this function returns. You can't use this hack if you actually want the function to return something useful. I think this hack must be a relatively recent discovery, because no one talked about it back when I was dabbling with Javascript. Hence my initial puzzlement. Meanwhile, I cannot account for the display issue on Colin's browsers. R

I'm puzzled by the exclamation point in front of 'function' R

At least they didn't send either one off to a reprogramming camp. That's progress. R

I'm on Firefox 45.0.2. It might be that if you clear your browser cache you'll get the blue Twitter box back. R

My Windows 7 PC running FIrefox shows the Twitter button as a blue box as shown above. R

Word is not trustworthy to truly clean away all the crud in text. Notepad inherently does so flawlessly because it's incapable of allowing anything beyond the most basic ASCII stuff to exist in a file. It's bulletproof. R

OK well then I'll just say I don't trust Armando either. But Jeremy seems to have a good head on his shoulders. I had to laugh out loud at some of the outrageous stuff in this chapter. R P.S. -- Give me discrete mathematics over calculus any day.

Dare we speculate about whether we've heard the last of the ATF? R

Still doesn't make sense to me. Calculus is the epitome of a discipline involving continuous sets and functions. Discrete mathematics is the exact opposite. See http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/191/S09/whatisdiscmath.html. So I would assert that knowing calculus is not necessary to address discrete math branches per se. The only thing I can figure is that the school wants students who have had a certain level and sophistication of math study in general, and they use Calculus as a proxy for that. R

Rarely has a title so aptly fit a story's events. I'm surprised that Discrete Mathematics would require Calculus. If anything I would have expected that Probability and Statistics would require it. R

Somewhere there are font substitution and background settings that could be tweaked. Mobile devices work best if forum posts are made with the default settings and no styling or color changing of text. R

This forum software does strange things when it detects a mobile browser. I posted about it a long time ago but apparently it's a booger to try to modify. I see the same things on my iPhone. R

I like to acknowledge Picks from the Past when they appear, and occasionally mention other stories as well. I am indifferent to the political posts in general -- much more interested in story discussions. But the spoiler issue is a constraint. I don't think it's an insurmountable one. There are certain stories I will not comment on due to behind-the-scenes issues that have nothing to do with the author. R

Had to read this again. R

Cole is correct -- I was lamenting the fact that the credits were rolling and the theater lights were coming up before I was ready to say goodbye to those characters. I understand his position but that doesn't mean I can't kvetch about it. And for what it's worth, I really liked having background in the Sebastian stories (kind of like already knowing about Polyjuice Potion from the second Harry Potter book when it comes up again in the later books). As for a follow-on to "First Year," I would envision Luke returning to that school in his retirement years, after a brilliant legal or political career, and acting as a mentor to a new crop of young men. R

Seems like retribution for arrogant and abusive teachers is a recurring theme. Not that I'm complaining -- I like it when the good guys win. I also like it when the main character shows pluck and resourcefulness, especially when it requires a stretch out of his comfort zone. So this is but the first of a bunch of stories where we're dying to know what happens next, after the story ends. A pox on the no-sequel rule! R

Another worthy Pick from the Past. I didn't recognize the story at first, but by the third or fourth chapter I realized that I had indeed read it before. We could all use some Mapotus in our lives! R

I searched for "Memories" in Readers Rule. The first page of results was fine. But when I clicked on the "2" for the next page of results, all the error messages appeared. R

I get error messages like this with simple searches. This was on a search for the word "memories." I had a similar experience with "Douglas." This has happened both on a Windows 7 laptop and on an iPhone 6. Typical messages: Warning: Illegal string offset 'member_id' in /home/masterdude1943/public_html/forums/admin/sources/base/ipsMember.php on line 2961 Warning: Illegal string offset 'member_group_id' in /home/masterdude1943/public_html/forums/admin/sources/base/ipsMember.php on line 2982 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/masterdude1943/public_html/forums/admin/sources/base/ipsMember.php:2961) in /home/masterdude1943/public_html/forums/admin/sources/classes/output/formats/html/htmlOutput.php on line 114 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/masterdude1943/public_html/forums/admin/sources/base/ipsMember.php:2961) in /home/masterdude1943/public_html/forums/admin/sources/classes/output/formats/html/htmlOutput.php on line 127 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/masterdude1943/public_html/forums/admin/sources/base/ipsMember.php:2961) in /home/masterdude1943/public_html/forums/admin/sources/classes/output/formats/html/htmlOutput.php on line 136 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/masterdude1943/public_html/forums/admin/sources/base/ipsMember.php:2961) in /home/masterdude1943/public_html/forums/admin/sources/classes/output/formats/html/htmlOutput.php on line 137 Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/masterdude1943/public_html/forums/admin/sources/base/ipsMember.php:2961) in /home/masterdude1943/public_html/forums/admin/sources/classes/output/formats/html/htmlOutput.php on line 141

I could not find a thread for this, although some of my search attempts generated long pages of syntax errors and other gobbledegook. (This was when searching on the term "Douglas.") Anyway, although I'm not generally a fan of dystopic fiction, this was fairly interesting. http://awesomedude.com/douglas/please_come_with_me.htm R

That weird little bird that walked around in the jungle walked to "The Hebrides" by Mendelssohn. Stalling also gave us a number of "music memes" in the Warner Brothers cartoons, such as always playing "We're In the Money" when money was involved, "How Dry I Am" whenever a character was inebriated, "California Here I Come" whenever a character was headed somewhere, "The Lady in Red" when a classy female entered the scene, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Stalling R

Carl Stallng -- who did the music for Bugs Bunny and the other Merrie Melodies/Looney Tunes theatrical cartoons -- had classical training and worked as a theater organist in the Midwest before coming to Los Angeles. At Warner Brothers he has access to that company's massive music catalog, as well as the classical pieces that were in the public domain. G

Hooray that this lovely and heartwarming story is back as a Pick from the Past. My extended comments are above. Don't miss it. R

I agree. And there's a nice lineup of Picks from the Past that just appeared. R