Ask something - We can help.

[Rincewind]

Appreciate the help, everybody, but no, as a Doors-fan I can say that it definitely wasn't "Riders on the Storm" it sampled, even though the lyrics are sort of similar. This sounded more like a cheesy lounge-singer-thingamabob rather than the Lizard King, if you get my drift. I'm pretty sure the lyrics were "[...]I see you riding on a storm[...]", and not "[...]Riders on the storm[...]", and the phrasing was different, too.

The overall mood of it was more that of a cheesy lounge act with a very subtle modern, electronic touch than a techno remix, if you get what I mean... It's really hard to describe it, especially since it was such a long time ago I heard it. Hah.

Haddas: Yeah, goddamnit, you're right! I think we're thinking of the same track, 'cos now that you mention it, I do think there were some cowboys in the video, too... Dancing cowboys, even? Damn, now I'm even more anxious to find this again...

[Stupot]

http://www.fullsongs.net/listen.php?name=Avalanche_-_Riding_On_A_Storm_(1989).mp3&source=wrzuta&url=t62XabuWw8ibk9-ql6_ThbuQemiZwsaVuqt1ppmovu6ohZ3Au7t_6lZtbMi5v3-foJmHu7q-aau5xJPo

[Rincewind]

Stupot: Hehe, no, sorry, wasn't that one either, even though the lyrics did match. It was nice to hear some late-80's production values and drum machines, though!

[InCreator]

I ask and answer:

Q: Does video card baking really work?
A: YES IT DOES

Stuffing your VRAM-faulty, artifact-ridden video card into baking oven at 200C for 10 minutes WILL repair it and make it work like new. (I baked my 8800GTX for 7 minutes, thinking it's all some kind of a joke/tech myth) but lo and behold, it really DID work.

Q: Does it work twice?
A: O F**K YEAH

[Crimson Wizard]

Um... does anyone know how sidewalks looked like in Europe of XIX century? Were they paved or already made from asphalt sometimes?
Also if anyone can link a good  mid-late XIX century photograph or painting of street with sidewalk clearly visible I'd be much grateful.

[Anian]

Um... does anyone know how sidewalks looked like in Europe of XIX century? Were they paved or already made from asphalt sometimes?
Also if anyone can link a good  mid-late XIX century photograph or painting of street with sidewalk clearly visible I'd be much grateful.

Search for daguerrotypes, it's the middle to late 19th century photography.
There is Paris http://z.about.com/d/inventors/1/0/u/3/1/Daguerreotype1839.jpg
And lots in N America http://www.zazzle.com/philadelphia_scene_daguerreotype_1842_poster-228230445527699125

Also try calotype, but since daguerrotype was the first process, they made lots of photos of 19th century cities and nature though they're veeery fragile so some photos might be low quality.
Additional info - late 18 century saw the invention of tyres so I guess paving started then, on the other hand I think streets in Paris were paved after the revolution so people can't pull out blocks and throw them.
Additional additional - movies like From hell, new Sherlock Holmes, Burton's Sleepy hollow etc.

[Stupot]

Is anyone here familiar with Pascal?
I'm using it for my Computational Linguistics course.  I'm okay with the stuff I've actually been taught and ned to know, but I'm trying to achieve something extra, just for neatness sake.

Basically the program asks the user to input a string of characters and then checks the string against a given 'language' and then accepts or rejects it accordingly.

I've achieved that pretty easily, but the trouble is you have to re-run the program every time you want to try it.  I want the program to keep going back to the beginning whenever the string is rejected, with a message saying 'please try again' or something, and then get the program to stop once the user inputs an acceptable string.

Basically I need the program to keep looping until the currentstate is 'A' (accept).

Sounds like it should be easy, but if tried with IF, WHILE and REPEAT statements, and can't seem to get it to work...

Any ideas?  Below is the 'Main Program' of the script.  I'm pretty sure the commands I need will be inserted here somewhere, but I'm obviously doing something wrong.

Code: ags

{ *** Main Program *** }

begin

  write ('Input a string consisting of the symbols a, b, c, d, and e: ');
  readstring (string, stringlength);
  process (currentsymbol, currentstate, string, stringlength);

  if currentstate = 'A' then
    writeln ('String Accepted :-)');

  else
    writeln ('String Rejected :-(');

end.

If you think it would help to see the whole code, I can provide it, but I'm guessing it's not necessary.

Cheers guys.

[Ryan Timothy B]

I believe I understand you correctly.  All you want is for it to repeat if currentstate != 'A'?

I don't remember exactly how the while statement is typed out, but wouldn't this work? (it's been years since I've worked with Pascal):

Code: ags

{ *** Main Program *** }

begin
  while (currentstate != 'A')
  begin
    write ('Input a string consisting of the symbols a, b, c, d, and e: ');
    readstring (string, stringlength);
    process (currentsymbol, currentstate, string, stringlength);

    if currentstate = 'A' then
      writeln ('String Accepted :-)');

    else
      writeln ('String Rejected :-(');
  end;
end.

[Stupot]

If != means 'not equal to' then that's exactly what I mean, but this version of Pascal doesn't seem to liek that, so I used <> instead.  Also it needed a 'do' to go with the 'while'.

Unfortunately, all I end up with is a reccurring loop of:

Input a string consisting of the symbols a, b, c, d, and e: String Rejected :-(
Input a string consisting of the symbols a, b, c, d, and e: String Rejected :-(
Input a string consisting of the symbols a, b, c, d, and e: String Rejected :-(
ad infinitum.

I think that might be because of an earlier element in the 'readstring' process...

Code: ags

{ *** ReadString Procedure *** }

procedure readstring (var string : stringtype;
                      var stringlength : integer);

var
  i : integer;

begin
  i := 1;  
  while (i <= 12) and (not eoln) do
  
    begin
      read (string [i]);
      i := i + 1;
    end;
  
  stringlength := i - 1;
end;

...which basically tells the program to give the user a chance to input the string before pressing 'enter'... but when we're telling it to go back to the beginning of the program, it's registering that 'enter' has now been pressed, so it is infinitely rejecting empty strings.

Perhaps I can solve this by putting (not eoln) as an initial state... but I don't know how to do that either.

[Questionable]

Appreciate the help, everybody, but no, as a Doors-fan I can say that it definitely wasn't "Riders on the Storm" it sampled, even though the lyrics are sort of similar. This sounded more like a cheesy lounge-singer-thingamabob rather than the Lizard King, if you get my drift. I'm pretty sure the lyrics were "[...]I see you riding on a storm[...]", and not "[...]Riders on the storm[...]", and the phrasing was different, too.

The overall mood of it was more that of a cheesy lounge act with a very subtle modern, electronic touch than a techno remix, if you get what I mean... It's really hard to describe it, especially since it was such a long time ago I heard it. Hah.

Haddas: Yeah, goddamnit, you're right! I think we're thinking of the same track, 'cos now that you mention it, I do think there were some cowboys in the video, too... Dancing cowboys, even? Damn, now I'm even more anxious to find this again...

For some reason i'm think of Goldfrapp - ride a white horse...  Though I SERIOUSLY doubt it, I thought i would throw my hat into the pot. Tell us a little bit more about where you heard it/who was singing it/etc-

[Ryan Timothy B]

See, it's been a while since I've used Pascal.  Truthfully it wasn't Pascal, it was Turbo Pascal.  But it looks the same.

So all that you're grabbing is a character?  Not a string of characters?

In Turbo Pascal I used to use (forgive me if I'm remembering this wrong) something like this:

Code: ags

var
c: Char;

begin
while (c<>'A' and c<>'B' and c<>'C' and c<>'D' and c<>'E') do
  begin
    c:=readkey; //this grabs the character
  end;
end.

I believe this will work.  Like I said, it's been several years, so I may be wrong.
Turbo Pascal was always my free hobby program that I made little graphical games with, then I found AGS and never looked back.

[Stupot]

Sorry Ryan, I've only confused matters by posting that second bit of code.  The currentstate 'A' is a totally different kind of value than the char 'a'.  Forget the last few posts and go back to my original Q. where I just displayed the main section of my program.

What I'm asking here is simply to be able to put the whole thing in a loop so that whenever the string is rejected it will go back to the start and give the user another chance to type his string without having to keep running the file each time.

[Andail]

A simple language question, one that I could probably look up elsewhere, but anyways; what's the english word or phrase for adding words to a text, in order to make it appear richer and longer, even though you don't really add more useful information? As in "this presentation is good, but you could [] the text a bit."

Edit:
ah, it sprang to mind now; to pad. Or are there better ways to say it?

[Stupot]

to pad out sounds more natural that just pad.

[Andail]

ok, thanks!

[Intense Degree]

Probably not that helpful but I think I would just say "improve". 

Pad out is probably the best bet.

[Babar]

"To pad out" would probably imply simply making it longer, not necessarily richer. I think it has negative connotations more than positive.

[Stupot]

That seems to me exactly what Andail was asking, Babs.

...make it appear richer and longer, even though you don't really add more useful information...

[Jared]

I get the feeling that I've asked this before but didn't find it in my posts and it's something that has been bugging me for ages... Yahtzee did a game that was called something like "Steve and Perry: Paranormal Investigators" that he only ever released a short demo of.

This may seem a weird thing to be bugging me for ages, but as the amount of writing about Yahtzee has increased over the years I've been amazed at seeing no reference to this game having ever existed, even on his own website. It's enough to make me question my sanity...

[Questionable]

to pad out sounds more natural that just pad.

Embellish?