(21-12-2023, 08:19 PM)RobGea Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hehe, totes off-topic but time for an appropriate xkcd link.
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I love computer jokes. A favorite is the title "Rm9sbG93ZXJz" of episode 7 of season 11 of The X-Files TV show. The episode is basically the machines versus Scully and Mulder and the dispute between them starts with Mulder getting bad service from a fully automated diner and he refused to tip for the service. The title is Base64 code for the word "followers". In the end, the machines leave Mulder no choice but than to finally give the minimum tip and the dispute ends with no one but a few machines hurt, though the machines do quip, "We learn from you." Periodically throughout the episode the Crosby Stills Nash & Young song
Teach Your Children is heard playing. Oh, and the tagline for the episode is "VGhlIFRydXRoIGlzIE91dCBUaGVyZQ==", which is Base64 for "The Truth Is Out There". While the episode was obviously railing against both the use of AI and human abuse of it (and a bit scary if you ask me), it was all very tongue-in-cheek too. I had to look up the Base64 references though.
I'm no good with programming languages and I had only heard of Base64 prior to this but that's still about all I know about it. I could say just about the same thing about most other programming languages, including everything everyone has mentioned here. My VM research so far has been mostly digging up sources and researching the plants and the historical aspects so I doubt I will ever get into the translation aspects (the rest of you seem to have that very well covered). But I am good with Excel and I use it every day, though not too often yet for VM research. Recently, I've had the opportunity, through VM research, to expand my familiarity with Google Sheets too. Don't be too shocked but I also do a lot with Microsoft Paint, including for VM research. I sometimes use Excel and Paint in tandem with Word and PowerPoint (there are just some things the first two can't do by themselves). But Google may be the tool I use the most with the VM and I have used Google Lens frequently with limited success. There are a lot of internet sites I use to aid my VM research as well, particularly Wikipedia, manuscript repositories and plant databases, but there are way too many to mention here (at least 50 so far). Not to mention the Folio Browser and Image Extractor here as well as the Jason Davies VM Voyager and I also cross-reference with the various VM and medieval blogs. (My system resources hate me.)
Does that count as an answer to the original question?
Speaking of Paint, I noticed most here work with the JPEG format and one person here mentioned BMP but I prefer the PNG format myself. It takes up more filespace than JPEG or GIF but a lot less then BMP or TIFF and is a better resolution than GIF and often better than JPEG, though not always.