The Google etymology thing (I didn't even know it existed - just search for "stuff etymology" and you get a nice little graph) tells me that the word "stuff" came to English from Greek (stuphein) via Old French (estoffe). So maybe it is not correct to say it's not a French-derived word?
But it's also present in German- stoff means something like "material". Amusingly, there's a wikipedia article titled "List of stoffs". The elements have names like Wasserstoff = water stuff = hydrogen. In the attached essay (which claims to be written without German derivatives), it seems strange to prefer "waterstuff" to the very Greek "hydrogen"... ?
For some reason this discussion sent me off to try and find the origin of "loons" and "quines" - the terms for "boys" and "girls" in the dialect of Scots English I am familiar with.
"Quine" seems to be based on "quean" but "loon" seems a mystery!
NB Referring to someone as a "loonie" is not derogatory - but just means they are a young boy :-)
"Loon" and "Quine" aren't even Scots English, I suspect you'd get funny looks if you used either in Edinburgh or Glasgow. Each are very much "Doric" (the dialect of Aberdeen\shire) words.
edit: I recognise your name from another post and remember that you're from Scotland so you probaby know this already :)
I find the suggestion surprising myself, given how Germanic the German term sounds to me, but I decided to check in Kluge's Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Deutschen Sprache for the etymology of German "Stoff".
Kluge says that it came from Middle Dutch "stoffe", which got it from Old French "estoffe", which had a sense of 'cloth, mesh, fabric (especially of silk)'. He says the word's "economic background" is the importation of silkworms and silk weaving from Byzantium ("where Justinian had brought them in 552 from the Orient") via Sicily and North Italy to France and Flanders, and that the "assumed" etymology of the word in Greek στυφειν can thus be "supported on grounds of cultural history".
As a german I can say that "Stoff" has different meanings. It can be used like cloth, but in other contexts it is used like material. For example there is "Stoffkunde" which it the study (Kunde) of materials (Stoffe). "Lesestoff" is reading (lesen) material.
I thought this was interesting (both that the space shuttle still used core memory, and that the challenger memory was retrieved and its contents recovered):
> Core memory is non-volatile storage—it can retain its contents indefinitely without power. It is also relatively unaffected by EMP and radiation. ... For example, the Space Shuttle flight computers initially used core memory, which preserved the contents of memory even through the Challenger's disintegration and subsequent plunge into the sea in 1986.
My dad was a draftsman, and worked on everything from conveyer belt systems to satellite test rigs. This was in the years before CAD and he often brought A1 and A0 paper home from work for us kids to scribble on.
One time I can remember getting this sheet with this wonderful crossed-grid with rings pattern. I remember staring at it for a good ten minutes before turning it over and trying to draw spider-man ;-)
It was several year before I realised that I was looking at a drawing of core store.
One of my life regrets was that I didn't know to save it. I'd love to have it on the wall framed now ;)
Difference between core memory and rope core memory is that core memory has regular pattern and information is stored in magnetization of the cores, core rope memory on the other hand is read only and information is stored in it's pattern (it's essentially same thing as semiconductor-based ROM, only with little transformers instead of diodes).
I have a 1K x 8 core memory card framed and hanging on the wall with an 8x magnifying glass in front of it. People love to look at it. Then they learn their iPhone has the equivalent of 16 to 32 million of those. Mind-blowing, every time.
It always pains me to see the space program justified on the basis of its spin-offs. The main (civilian) problems that the space program solved were in getting to space, putting a man on the moon, developing a re-usable orbiter, and building the space station. Similarly, if we really want to solve problems of energy or hunger, why not create a dedicated alternative-energy or anti-poverty 'Apollo program'?
One of the greatest engines of technological development in the 20th century was WWII. Fortunately few people argue for new wars by citing the potential for spin-off technologies. But the logic would be about as good. (Arguably the space program itself was a product of the Cold War.)
Aside from that - the linked article doesn't say anything about spin-offs. It says that very prosaic, existing technology for daily life on Earth was adapted for use in the space program.
Not at all! I lived in Atlanta for a while just before the 1996 Olympics. I was paying somewhere in the $300-500 (~200-300 Euros) per month range for a 1 bedroom. It was one of the cheapest big cities in the states.
I moved to Chicago that summer and couldn't find a livable space for less than $800/mo. That was almost 20 years ago. Today I live in Los Angeles, and you could not find anything livable here for EUR 500 ($700US) per month. You could easily find something for $700US/week, though. I'm sure New York is as bad as San Fran and worse than Chicago, too. I'm not saying our rents aren't outrageous, just that it's not specific to some SF bubble. Just about any large city in the US is going to be costly to find decent living.
Do you really consider the iPhone 4/4S obsolete? To me this sounds like an unrealistic idea of real-world upgrade schedules. The iPhone 4S was released in October 2011. I would hope that a device of cost O($1000) would last more than 2.5 years.
In German, the word "Land" is used for both states (as in the federal states of Germany, Bundesländer) and countries.
Berlin is a City-State in Germany, entirely surrounded by the state of Brandenburg. Thus it's not too surprising that Berlin's big airport is "in another state."
Important details are really hidden on the webpage. For example, who are the mentors? Second: unlike the Hacker School, it's not free. Both of these items should be addressed under "The Essentials".
The article/link above makes the price clear, and also why we charge - we keep things simple and don't do the recruiting model.
The homepage doesn't mention price nor mentors; we wanted to keep it short. We'll likely add the price there.
Both the price and prior mentors (some are very likely to return) are clear on the offer landing page: http://hackerretreat.com/batch-next/ The exact lineup of mentors is TBD because we want to be sure to bring in people that participants want/need. You can judge from our past mentors, and our posts, what the caliber of mentors generally is.
But it's also present in German- stoff means something like "material". Amusingly, there's a wikipedia article titled "List of stoffs". The elements have names like Wasserstoff = water stuff = hydrogen. In the attached essay (which claims to be written without German derivatives), it seems strange to prefer "waterstuff" to the very Greek "hydrogen"... ?