Casting pointers and the ternary?: operator. Have I reinvented the wheel?

Irrelevant. The standard mandates this behaviour. A really smart compiler behaves as observed.

I was not going to answer, but after posting the comment I thought, what the... it is an approach as any other.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.