Recent content by pbuk

But any problems with that can be solved by storing values as cents and using integer arithmetic. This is what is done in practice in all the financial software with which I am familiar (with adaptations for other currencies to cater for example for denominations of 0.5 cent where these exist)...

I don't think that is true any more, at least not in the UK or Europe, but I'd be interested in any reference.

You can read what MS chose to make public about this series of attacks at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2021/12/15/a-report-on-nobeliums-unprecedented-nation-state-attack/

My opinion is not printable within forum rules. Whoever has published this should have their funding withdrawn.

As luck would have it, MS have screwed up the latest VS code Windows release yesterday (auto-updated for most people): the 'Open with code' option is removed from the Explorer 'right click' context menu - see this issue. To fix this, download and install the previous, June 2025, version 102...

Yes, I am and so are 75% of the rest of the developer community. In 2025 learning either Vim or EMACS (or Eclipse for that matter) is a waste of time and effort for someone starting out in development: there are MUCH more important challenges to cope with. Use VS Code with the appropriate...

So here is the examiners' report for this question: "It was good to see a number of students having some understanding of similar shapes and awarding 2 marks for a value of x =2 correctly found wasn’t uncommon. Almost no students were then able to deduce the second assumption that could be made...

Link: https://www.3blue1brown.com/lessons/zeta

No, far from being a 'tried and true technique', undermining a pupil's confidence by setting trick questions is bad practice. From the OP's posts in this thread we can see that this poor question has taught nothing, and has destroyed any confidence they had in their knowledge of similar...

Edit: I have just realised that this is Q.22 from Edexcel Maths Paper 1 November 2017. I'm off to read the examiner's report. They almost certainly will not. GCSE and A-Level exams have been developed over many years to test the ability to apply knowledge, not the ability to spot trick...

Bump for @Greg Bernhardt: are these overlapping icons intentional?

You haven't got yourself in a muddle, it is a trick question and you are in a muddle because you haven't spotted the trick. I'm not sure revisiting the basics will help, the only thing that will help is spotting the trick. The first thing to notice is that the line segment DE that is 3 cm long...

According to p.50 of Brent's original publication (it is available on archive.org): "practical tests show that this [would slow down] convergence for well-behaved functions by performing unnecessary bisections". Like many practical algorithms this is a compromise between optimizing performance...

This makes no sense: the year is not 360 days long*. The best way to convert a cost per day to a cost per month is usually to multiply by ## \frac{365.25}{12} = 30.4375 ##: this minimizes the error due to different month lengths and leap years over the long term. Alternatively you can use a...

The VRT350 is more than a simple thermostat and can be installed in many different system configurations. In order to install a Tado (or any other) smart thermostat you will need to work out which configuration you have and what other elements of the system need to be replaced by...