[e-gold-list] Re: basic e-gold site usage experience
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Of course you put a COMMA between groups of three numbers in big numbers. Good grief. Give us a break JPM. John Kenrick didn't just make it up. I was taught to use a space, and never a comma at school and have done so ever since. It is the correct way to represent numbers. Why make some cultural pecularity the only way? Yours in pedantry David Hillary --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: basic e-gold site usage experience
On Tuesday, November 18, 2003, at 03:46 AM, David Hillary wrote: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Of course you put a COMMA between groups of three numbers in big numbers. Good grief. Give us a break JPM. John Kenrick didn't just make it up. I was taught to use a space, and never a comma at school and have done so ever since. ... In a free-form web input field it would be easy to accommodate all standards with no ambiguity whatsoever. You could even accommodate mutant hybrids of standards if you wanted. 123 456 789 . 14159 265 123,456,789.14159,265 123.456.789,14159.265 123 456.789, 14159 265 123 456 789 123456789 123_456_789.141_592_65 Now you might not want to be THAT permissive, but the general rule is to interpret any UNIQUE separator character as the pivot between the integer and fraction portions of the number. Digits both to the left and right of the pivot can be broken up using any arbitrary choice of separators (space, comma, dot, or underscore) other than the pivot character itself. I think e-gold could easily implement a numeric entry rule like this that would accommodate the Americans, Europeans, and all the various fans and enemies of embedded white space. (Enemies would include programming language devotees with a natural aversion to white space in a numeric constant.) -- Patrick --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: basic e-gold site usage experience
--- Patrick Chkoreff [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Now you might not want to be THAT permissive, but the general rule is to interpret any UNIQUE separator character as the pivot between the integer and fraction portions of the number. Digits both to the left and right of the pivot can be broken up using any arbitrary choice of separators (space, comma, dot, or underscore) other than the pivot character itself. Agreed, but your very own examples demonstrate the problem. While these two are unambiguous: 123,456,789.14159,265 123.456.789,14159.265 This one has potentially two different pivots: 123 456.789, 14159 265 = -- David Beroff ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Founder/CEO, note.com LLC P.O. Box 234, Jenkintown, PA 19046-0234 (USA) http://LeadFactory.com Voice: +1 (215) 576-6800 Personal journal: http://David.Beroff.com I made $10,000 the first day I started reading this book! You can have it for free: http://note.com/success/rich.pl --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: basic e-gold site usage experience
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Of course you put a COMMA between groups of three numbers in big numbers. Good grief. Give us a break JPM. John Kenrick didn't just make it up. I was taught to use a space, and never a comma at school and have done so ever since. That's likely because you grew up in an era of politically correct multi-culti morally relative schooling. (Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if you think the metric system is a good idea.) It is the correct way to represent numbers. Regarding handwritten numbers, the reasons are trivially obvious why a comma is used instead of a space - it's a positive thing rather than a lack of a thing. (Don't even mention the three million, one hundred and twenty five thousand, three hundred and twenty three reasons it ties in with spelled-out writing.) Regarding blocks of typeset text (a large number used in a headline or body copy) using spaces would look horrific (ask any typographer) and your eye sees it as different words (Space is already used as a punctuation mark, it means break between words.) Regarding computer numbers, who cares? that much. Sure, they can have a space as a standard. Why make some cultural pecularity the only way? There's no need to, if one adopts a politically-correct multi-culti morally-relative stance (hell, there's no need to do anything, in that case!) Yours in pedantry David Hillary --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: basic e-gold site usage experience
JPM, (Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if you think the metric system is a good idea.) Even ANZ use the metric system, where one can simply move the decimal separator to transform units into subunits. There is another method to group the digits in a number, using ' as separator, as in 123'456'789.123'456'789 This method ensures nobody gets confused about what the comma is for, and there is no space or underscore that could be hidden by the base line. George Hara --- Xnet scaneaza automat toate mesajele impotriva virusilor folosind RAV AntiVirus. Xnet automatically scans all messages for viruses using RAV AntiVirus. Nota: RAV AntiVirus poate sa nu detecteze toti virusii noi sau toate variantele lor. Va rugam sa luati in considerare ca exista un risc de fiecare data cand deschideti fisiere atasate si ca MobiFon nu este responsabila pentru nici un prejudiciu cauzat de virusi. Disclaimer: RAV AntiVirus may not be able to detect all new viruses and variants. Please be aware that there is a risk involved whenever opening e-mail attachments to your computer and that MobiFon is not responsible for any damages caused by viruses. --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: basic e-gold site usage experience
On Tuesday, November 18, 2003, at 05:23 AM, David Beroff wrote: Agreed, but your very own examples demonstrate the problem. ... This one has potentially two different pivots: 123 456.789, 14159 265 Right, that's a problem, one that I missed at 4:00 AM. It is possible to refine the rule to recognize your example as an error by distinguishing the strong separators period and comma from the weak separators space, underscore, and accent (George's suggestion). But none of that matters because one is still faced with the fundamental question of how to interpret these simple entries: 123,456 123.456 I think it is clear that if those numbers are entered as amounts of grams, dollars, or euros they should be interpreted as (123 + 456 / 1000). It would be idiotic to assume the user intends to spend 123456 of those things. I guess if you want to spend some absurdly high amount of something like Turkish lira one could allow space as a separator: 123 456,78 E-gold could adopt the simple rule that they will allow either a single period or comma in a number to serve as a fractional pivot, and any other characters in the entry must be either digits or spaces. That's it. This sensible rule is in harmony with the ISO 31-0:1992 standard that John Kenrick noted on this list, and with the standard that David Hillary learned in school. -- Patrick http://fexl.com --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: basic e-gold site usage experience
--- Patrick Chkoreff [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think it is clear that if those numbers are entered as amounts of grams, dollars, or euros they should be interpreted as (123 + 456 / 1000). It would be idiotic to assume the user intends to spend 123456 of those things. I guess if you want to spend some absurdly high amount of something like Turkish lira one could allow space as a separator... Mrrrm... Something's just rubbing me the wrong way about contextual sensitivity in this particular case, especially since I'm not so sure that such numbers would be idiotic. I've done e-gold transactions with five figures of USD, so I don't see it as such a stretch to consider six. Similarly, e-gold is well suited for very tiny spends, as well. = -- David Beroff ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Founder/CEO, note.com LLC P.O. Box 234, Jenkintown, PA 19046-0234 (USA) http://LeadFactory.com Voice: +1 (215) 576-6800 Personal journal: http://David.Beroff.com I made $10,000 the first day I started reading this book! You can have it for free: http://note.com/success/rich.pl --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: basic e-gold site usage experience
I wrote: I think it is clear that if those numbers are entered as amounts of grams, dollars, or euros they should be interpreted as (123 + 456 / 1000). It would be idiotic to assume the user intends to spend 123456 of those things. David Beroff wrote: Mrrrm... Something's just rubbing me the wrong way about contextual sensitivity in this particular case, especially since I'm not so sure that such numbers would be idiotic. I've done e-gold transactions with five figures of USD, so I don't see it as such a stretch to consider six. Similarly, e-gold is well suited for very tiny spends, as well. I said the assumption would be idiotic, not the numbers. I'm talking probability here. But I'll say it without the loaded word idiotic. Assume for the sake of discussion that it is possible to spend dollars and euros to three decimal places. (I don't know if e-gold allows this, but I don't see why not.) I believe the following. If a randomly chosen e-gold user specifies an amount of 123,456 euros it is much more likely that he intends (123 + 456 / 1000) euros rather than 123456. In this case the user is likely to be non-American. If a randomly chosen e-gold user specifies an amount of 123,456 dollars it is much more likely that he intends (123 + 456 / 1000) dollars rather than 123456. In this case the user is likely to be non-American. If a randomly chosen e-gold user specifies an amount of 123,456 grams it is much more likely that he intends (123 + 456 / 1) grams rather than 123456. In this case the user is likely to be non-American. If a randomly chosen e-gold user specifies an amount of 123.456 euros it is much more likely that he intends (123 + 456 / 1000) euros rather than 123456. In this case the user is likely to be American. If a randomly chosen e-gold user specifies an amount of 123.456 dollars it is much more likely that he intends (123 + 456 / 1000) dollars rather than 123456. In this case the user is likely to be American. If a randomly chosen e-gold user specifies a spend of 123.456 grams it is much more likely that he intends (123 + 456 / 1000) grams rather than 123456. In this case the user is likely to be American. What I am proposing is to follow three principles simultaneously: (1) maximum simplicity, (2) maximal cultural accommodation and (3) follow the course of least potential harm. If some specifies a spend amount of 123,456 dollars, just assume it's a non-American who wishes to spend (123 + 456 / 1000) dollars. That is much more likely to be correct, and much less likely to cause harm, than assuming it's an American who wishes to spend 123456 dollars. A similar argument applies to the case of dollars and grams. You simply decree that there can be at most one comma or period in a number, and any number of digits or spaces. It would simply be an error to say 123,456.789. Instead, you'd have to say 123456.789 or 123456,789 or 123 456.789 etc. etc. I mean really, how often is it important to use a damn separator character in an e-gold spend amount? How many kilogram or microgram spends do people really do, and would it kill them to just run the numbers together or learn to use a space? The rule is simple, accommodative, and benign. -- Patrick --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: basic e-gold site usage experience
Unless I'm mistaken, separating out a monetary figure with periods is the standard in the non-US world, using commas is perculiar (like many things) to the US. That would explain why paypal complains when you do it, and e-gold embraces it. The international standard (ISO 31-0:1992) says (Section 3.3.1, page 11): To facilitate the reading of numbers with many digits, these may be separated into suitable groups, preferable of three, counting from the decimal sign toward the left and the right; the groups should be separated by a small space, and never by a comma or a point, nor by any other means. John --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: basic e-gold site usage experience
On Monday, November 17, 2003, at 03:08 PM, John Kenrick wrote: The international standard (ISO 31-0:1992) says (Section 3.3.1, page 11): To facilitate the reading of numbers with many digits, these may be separated into suitable groups, preferable of three, counting from the decimal sign toward the left and the right; the groups should be separated by a small space, and never by a comma or a point, nor by any other means. Great information, John. Of course, what the heck is a small space in the ASCII character set? When I was going to Georgia Tech in the 1980's there were some researchers developing a new programming language, and they allowed underscores '_' to delimit digit groups. This is directly in the spirit of ISO 31-0:1992 above, with '_' representing a small space. With that convention you can represent a decimal number using either the American '.' convention or the European ',' convention. You could even separate digits to the right of the point using '_' as well. 1_234_567_890.141_592_653_589_793_23 -- or -- 1_234_567_890,141_592_653_589_793_23 -- Patrick --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: basic e-gold site usage experience
--- Patrick Chkoreff [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Of course, what the heck is a "small space" in the ASCII character set? This is just a guess, but there are some languages like Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic that cannot be encoded in just one byte so they have double-byte characters. So as a result, in Japanese there are double-byte spaces, which are kind of long, and single-byte ones that are short. It may be that this is what ISO means, but again just a total guess. Jens Wilkinson --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: basic e-gold site usage experience
On Monday, November 17, 2003, at 09:48 PM, Wilkinson Jens wrote: --- Patrick Chkoreff [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Of course, what the heck is a small space in the ASCII character set? This is just a guess, but there are some languages like Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic that cannot be encoded in just one byte so they have double-byte characters. ... Right, it's Unicode, but I'm an old dog who learned ASCII as a teenager in 1974 so I'll probably use ASCII '_' to represent the Unicode small space in the next 12_570 emails I write. Also, I was already planning to allow '_' as a digit separator in my programming language Fexl. -- Patrick --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: basic e-gold site usage experience
The whole issue is an excellent example that the emergent quality of committees is idiocy. Of course you put a COMMA between groups of three numbers in big numbers. Good grief. --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: basic e-gold site usage experience
Dear David, I think you need to get all your e-gold customers into 1MDC and then use its feature-set to do the great stuff you want done. 1MDC grams are e-gold, circulated with a better software system. No storage or spend fees, last I looked. - The comment field is sometimes too short for a reasonable description of a more complex transaction. I'm not asking for hundreds of characters, but 80 would be better than whatever it is now. I think if you look at your e-gold account history you can get a pretty good idea of why the memo field length is the way it is set. E-mail is still the best way to convey long messages. - The interface rejected an embedded comma, e.g., 2,500, even though it doesn't quibble about having exactly two decimal points (as does PayPal). I've never encountered difficulty with any character in the memo field. You must mean some difficulty in the amount field. The amount field is not meant to have commas, so you can tell your spreadsheet program not to include them. The amount field takes up to six decimals I think, though there is a lower-limit on the size of a transaction, I seem to recall. - Despite the fine print stating a 20-minute auto-logout timeout, it seems *much* shorter than that, and this is when I'm concentrating on going through a specific sequence of payments. If the phone rings or something, then I can absolutely forget about retaining my session. I thought the auto-logout was 10 minutes of inactivity. - The Turing number is very hard to read. I've seen the mechanism implemented on other sites (Overture, Yahoo, SpamArrest) where the graphics still retain a good amount of complexity, but I can still read the word clearly. I find the Turing number hard to read, too. I can only guess that OCR programs find it nearly impossible. I do think Yahoo and NetSol have more sophisticated Turing challenges. Frankly, I don't even see the need for the Turing challenge on the *first* login attempt, but that's just me. The whole point, and I mean the *whole* point of putting the Turing challenge in was to reduce the number of auto-login attempts. Auto-login attempts were typically scammers trying to guess e-gold passwords. Make it possible for them to do even one log-in per hour, and they will be back at it again. - Ideally, I'd like some sort of spreadsheet interface to allow me to import a series of payments. This may already be available, but I haven't looked around lately. You can get bulk pay options with outfits like PayByGold, I think, and you can also undertake such multi-spends with 1MDC. Regards, Jim http://www.ezez.com/ --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: basic e-gold site usage experience
... I have returned ... or some other such pompous BS ;) - The interface rejected an embedded comma, e.g., 2,500, even though it doesn't quibble about having exactly two decimal points (as does PayPal). Unless I'm mistaken, separating out a monetary figure with periods is the standard in the non-US world, using commas is perculiar (like many things) to the US. That would explain why paypal complains when you do it, and e-gold embraces it. - Despite the fine print stating a 20-minute auto-logout timeout, it seems *much* shorter than that, and this is when I'm concentrating on going through a specific sequence of payments. If the phone rings or something, then I can absolutely forget about retaining my session. That 20 minute window also depends upon your system/setup/connection. If your using a dial-up (especially one of the major roviders - AOL, MSN, etc...), or any other connection type that frequently swaps your IP addr, then you will notice a vastly decreased window. This is because your IP is also used to identify a session - so somebody can't just steal your session cookie and impersonate you from another machine. Frankly, I don't even see the need for the Turing challenge on the *first* login attempt, but that's just me. To prevent cage-rattling attacks where a single simple passphrase is tested against the whole system - i.e. abc123 across all ~1 million accounts. You would be suprised how many idiots (er... excuse me, account holders) would be stung by this. Testing for a human on the first try also prevents a DOS attack from swamping the server with fake/machine-generated account-lookups. Viking Coder http://www.2cw.org/?VikingCoder --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
