XKCD: It's more than a comic

Pffft I don't think I could EVER forget that "AcID" stands for "Accession ID"

I try my best to comment any code I write as well as I can. Usually it's all royal-we stuff that reads like "Now we loop through all 5 stands" or "We set this variable here rather than further down because __". (The latter especially whenever I consider the cause or solution to a problem "weird").

My debug code, however, tends to be very unelaborate. If it's not "variable name = variable value", it'll always be stuff like "here" or my name followed by numbers counting from 1.

I've never once written an obscenity into my code, I think.

edited 26th Jan '17 9:03:57 PM by Brickman

Whenever possible I try to use a full-featured debugger built into my IDE (or browser, for Java Script), because it's so much easier to just step through code and inspect all the variables than try to figure out what needs to be printed at any time. When I do need to print I'll typically just put in the current step and a number.

Re comments - code should definitely be self-documenting, and comments are only necessary if you're doing something unusually tricky, hacky or as part of a domain that other programmers on the project might not know about - e.g. if you suddenly have to do image manipulation in a regular business logic server, explaining how you're doing that is a good idea.

You should be documenting the contract (with a very brief description) of all your public classes and methods though. That's just good sense.

Telescopes.

Well, you actually can see space vampires. They just turned into the C'Tan now. ;P

I would note that refracting telescopes are more rugged and less susceptible to misalignment than reflectors are. So they make better weapons. : )

edited 27th Jan '17 7:02:51 AM by DeMarquis

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the refracting telescope have one small mirror at the end? To reflect the image to the eyepiece? So you still wouldn't be able to see space vampires.

Not always. Many of them simply put the eyepiece at the end of the tube, so that you are literally looking straight up at the object in view.

The one depicted does, which I think is his point.

It almost comes to a point, which means that, with enough force, you can use it to stake space vampires.

Randal's missing the real point though. You need the refracting telescope to see the space vampires, and the reflecting telescope to confirm that they're vampires.

Bird/Plane/Superman, comparing and contrasting.

I've never heard of two planes having sex mid flight, but I guess that mid air 'refueling' maneuver was always a little suspicious looking.

It's not about the planes themselves, it's the Mile High Club.

Don't be silly, of course it's about the planes..

No really.

Mid-air refueling, dude

This is a family friendly website, get that smut out of here.

That's more like mid-air breastfeeding. That's something that neither birds nor Superman are capable of doing. Superwoman, on the other hand...

Breast feeding doesn't involve sticking a long shaft filled with potent fluids down into a hole on the receiving partner's backside though

It actually does involve sticking something into a hole of someting that is much smaller than you. There are potent fluids too. You can even refuel 2 planes in parallel.

I was also under the impression that plane toilets did lead to outside the plane.

Not in modern ones. It's stored in a tank that's emptied on landing. There have been anecdotes of plane toilets overflowing, leading to... adverse consequences. Regardless, it's not a thing planes "voluntarily" do, for whatever definition of that term you want to use.

Also, does Superman defecate or urinate? He's never been seen to do so in any works I've ever known about, and he does eat.

edited 30th Jan '17 12:44:12 PM by Fighteer

Nobody Poops. Or maybe Clark actually somehow uses all of the food and it gets turned into energy to fuel his powers. Somehow, he can just ignore those pesky laws of thermodynamics. Because the writers can.

Some people believe that blue, snow-like stuff that sometimes fall out of the sky around airports is some sort of processed waste from the plane's toilets. It's actually an anti-freezing product that's sprayed on the wings; a bit of it will sometimes fall off. It's probably toxic if you consume it, and perhaps it's harmful to the environment (I've absolutely no clue whether that's the case), but it's nothing to do with toilets.

EDIT: Or so I had read from somewhere. Wikipedia still says it's toilet material, though. (Look up "blue ice" if you must.)

edited 30th Jan '17 12:56:43 PM by BestOf

Cue joke about someone getting hit by said waste as it passes through a low temperature zone, leading to an icy B.M. strike.

The Mythbusters tested the Blue Ice myth, and spectacularly demonstrated that it really exists and how it happens, in a NASA wind tunnel no less, IIRC.