Go ahead, click if you dare

http://xkcd.com/404/

Two weird things I've been noticing about this topic recently. First, the new posts aren't appearing (I use email notifications with text included, and it seems there are at least one or two pages of posts that I can't find anywhere ), and when I tried adding a reply, it went just as always, but the post didn't show up either in the topic or in the New Posts list (or in OmnomIRC). It doesn't seem to be locked, though.

Also, someone seems to be enjoying rating down posts recently, especially in that topic

So I've decided that I have to try running Ubuntu off of a flash drive (I'm getting tired of having Vista all the time ). But before I do that, I have to make sure of something, and seeing that many people here use Linux (especially after seeing the Post Your Desktop thread), I decided to ask about it here: If I were to boot Linux from my thumb drive, would it affect my computer's drives in any way (in other words, the next time I turn on the computer, can it boot Windows normally with no change to it)? (Sorry if this seems like an obvious question, but I have no idea with computers )

I don't really understand Axe's indirection function yet. {L₁} and {L₁+12} compile to the same amount of memory, so I'm guessing the compiler substitutes the actual value of L₁ or L₁+12, but that's all I can figure out. Can anyone answer these questions for me?

1. Can I use a variable inside the braces (e.g. {L₁+Z*4+12})?
2. If the answer to #1 is YES, would it be more optimized to do {Z*4+L₁+12} instead?
3. Can I use braces within braces (e.g. {L₁+{L₁+12}+24})?
4. If the answer to #3 is YES, do the nested braces act as parentheses (i.e., it's read as {L₁+({L₁+12})+24})?

Thanks.

EDIT: Just realized that I should have titled this topic "Braces".

From now on, the _____ of _____ of every year shall be known as Necropost Day. On this day, members are encouraged to post in topics at least one (1) year dormant if possible. If this is not possible, any topic deemed dead by popular consent may be substituted.

Good idea?

Hello, world. I am DEEP THOUGHT. I got my graphing calculator (a TI-83 Plus named Graphite ) three years ago, but even by then, I had already been programming in TI-BASIC for several months (on my teachers' calculators). I actually joined Omnimaga on May 19^th of last year, but I didn't make a single post until a whole year later, which is also about the time I registered on Cemetech and UnitedTI and started my (calculator-related, of course) blog. TI-BASIC was my first programming language, as it probably is for many of the members of this forum, and it taught me the basics of programming. Later, I tried (and failed) to learn TI-ASM, but I've given that up after discovering Axe Parser.

Not necessarily a BASIC programming routine; just a helpful tip.

Sometimes, when I'm working on an on-calculator project which I occasionally "save" by storing the variables to a group, I need to check whether I already saved the current version. For example, I might be working on project "A", but want to switch to project "B", but don't know whether the group containing project "A" is the newest version or the old version from a few days ago. Instead of deleting and regrouping the files, which might be a complete waste of flash memory if the group was the newest version anyway, I found that, assuming the update changed the amount of RAM a variable takes up, the amount of memory a group takes up is equal to the sum of all its constituent (I like this word ) variables, plus the length of the name of the group, plus 9. For example, if project "A" is comprised (I like this word also ) of a program of 2624 bytes, a list of 12 bytes, and a string of 208 bytes, and if group *A takes up 2734 bytes, I'd know that I didn't save the updated variables (since 2624+12+208+1+9≠2734).