April 2010 Meeting Notes

Compiled by Dave Jaffe

Contributions from Kevin Appert and others


09:50

Coffee and a Chat

10:15

Programmer's Challange - CH Ting
"We haven't done a programmer's challenge for a long time. How about tackling this one for the morning session in our April meeting?"

Programmer's Challenge: When did Jesus actually die?
    Clues:
  1. He died on a Friday.
  2. The Thursday before his death was Passover, which is the 14th day of 1st month on Jewish calender.
  3. Passover occurs on the first full moon after the Spring equinox.
  4. This year Passover was Monday 3/29/2010.
  5. This year the Spring equinox was Sunday 3/21/2010.
  6. A year has 365.256363 days.
  7. A month has 29.530689 days.

"Which year around 30 AD had Passover on a Thursday?"

"Both integer and floating point math are acceptable, but you will need six decimal digit precision."

"Go figure. Let's compare notes in the morning session. Bring and show your code."

Brad Nelson's code

11:48

Lunch
We will walk to The Treehouse by Tresidder Union. Here is the menu.

13:00

Introductions, Announcements, Discussions, and Gossip - All Assembled
We discussed the Maker Faire, the Embedded Systems Conference, and other things.

13:30

Quantum Computing Overview - Jack J. Woehr
Quantum computing (QC) promises a path to solving in polynomial time computations which execute in exponential time on digital binary computers. But can QC be made practical, efficient, and affordable? Jack presented this talk via Skype.

Slides - 48 Kb pdf file

14:30

Break

14:45

A (hopefully not) Continuous Job Hunt - Dennis A. Ruffer
Landing four jobs in the last four years has given Dennis some experiences that he can pass on. Here are some topics he discussed:

  • State of the job market for Forth practitioners?
  • Relocating - how is the job climate elsewhere?
  • Marketing firms
  • Resumes - (how many pages is sufficient?)
  • Job shops
Here is the search term he used on Indeed: forth -"so forth" -"forth worth" -"forth smith" -"set forth" -"sets forth" -"setting forth" -"put forth" -"putting forth" -"bring forth" -"back and forth" -"forth coming" -"brings forth" -"puts forth" -"forth core" -"forth consecutive" -"drive forth" -"bringing forth" -"every forth" -"Forth Group" -"brought forth" -"brining forth" -"bursts forth" -"burst forth" -"venturing forth" -"asset forth" -"lay forth" -"Forth Wroth" -"forth doctor" -"carrying forth" -"going forth" -"go forth" -"our forth" -"orth year" -"calling forth" -"carries forth" -"Ft. Forth" -"Forth Worth" -"Forth Wayne" -"Forth & Towne" -"carries forth" -"carry forth" -"back & forth" -"call forth" -"calls forth" -"set forth" -"step forth" -"forth level" -"forth right" -"comes forth" -"carried forth" -"moving forth"

16:00

Adjourn


Other items:

Forth
Forth material from UK including FIG UK Resource CD
The A-Z of Programming Languages - Forth
Software
Hardware
Books
Other

Meeting Announcement

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