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French revolt against Prime Meridian-Sort Of
Well, this amused Rob and I so much that we just had to post it. Rather then continue to use the World-accepted Prime Meridian (Yeah, who needs standards?), the French Government has decided that the world' prime meridian runs through Paris. To celebrate, they're building groves of trees all the way down through France, which will be viewable from space. I should be clear: This is the Government, not a popular action by the people. And I think this is only 1/2 as stupid as US Crypto laws. I've been told that this is actually one of those many Millenium Celebration things, and not actually a revolt-thanks to those who write me.
The metric system isn't as divisible as the English system, therefore it's inferior. Octal, Base 12 and Hexadecimal rule! Down with base 10.
If we'd followed to the letter the actions that established the Metric System, we would have also renumbered years, starting a new era with the year one (which was done on French coins for about the first decade after the French Revolution). We would also have gone to the metric year of ten months.
Of course, basing the whole system of units of measure on the arbitrary fact that we have ten fingers and ten toes is about as lame as any other scheme.
Let's use Hexadecimal. Why adopt half-baked solutions based on obsolete notions like base ten?
Or, of course, we could base units of measure on human-based scales and ratios.
But to prevent the degeneration into a Metric system squabble:
It's all great. I'm glad we're on the brink of adopting the Metric system, or whatever. I'll still feed those cats I own about a cup a day of kibbles. They don't care if I call it a watermelon. Just that it's in the dish in the morning.
My 13/37" wrench comes in handy all the time.
But I prefer to use a 21/43" if one is handy.
>>Why would he buy France when he can own
>>the US government?
Ummm....because he too thinks Jerry Lewis is a comic genius?
Because he gets all pissy when you use a language other than his? (Although French has better exception handling than VBScript...)
Because he too is convinced of his own superiority even in the face of evidence to the contrary?
Because he wants a World Cup? (Allez Les Bleus!)
Because his company's products are only allowed to use the security features his company develops?
Because he likes pommes frites?
Nononono... it's not like that.
We, humans, measure time in days.
A day is divided in 24 hours of 60 seconds.
Noon, GMT is defined as the time the Sun is directly above the horizon.
What happens is that the duration of the day varies, and therefore the GMT second is of variable length -- not good for scientific measurement.
Thus, they arbitrarily defined the UTC second, to closely match the GMT one. But if we were not to add leap seconds, then noon would drift (slowly but it would) and it time as we know it wouldn't be the same -- therefore it's a Good Thing.
On the other hand, one could argue that it would't make much of a difference. It would take a LONG time for the difference to reach 1 hour, and we don't seem to bother much when we switch to daylight saving time.
Establishing an accurate measuring unit of time for scientific purposes that also serves as a unit of time for day-to-day purposes without forcing us to 'forget' all those assumptions that are inherent in the human culture about time is almost impossible.
Which is a shame really.
Because German soldiers like to march in the shade!
What are French military exercises like?
Actually, let's get our fact a bit straight here...:
1) It is known as the "Meridien de Paris" or Paris' Meridian.
2) It is meant to be a celebration of the end of the millenium
3) It will consits of school kids holding hands for a few minutes so that there will be an uninterrupted line of people near the west-east center of France passing through Paris.
4) Trees are/will be planted along that lines every few 100's meters so that a line of tress will be visible from the air
Bashing the French might be fun and a national bobby, but you should at least get your facts straight! Yes, France does strange things and this is another example of the weird artistic taste (like the Louvre Pyramids) but at least they are trying to do things that are nice just because they can be done...
This still is inconsistent though. We should really be measuring time in meters.
thats weird, i can understand this, and i dropped french about 8 years ago, to concentrate on italian.
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
I think what he meant was learning english orthography, as opposed to other languages. Hey, far more frequently than on would like, an english word pops up whose spelling has nothing to do with the way it's pronounced.
In this regard, French is easier to learn. And Spanish has them both beat ;-).
---
Language planning is something many countries do. I'm not acquainted with the French Academy, but I do know about the Spanish Academy of Language, the counterpart for the Spanish language.
This kind of stuff is important to with international languages. Spanish, for example, is spoken in 20 countries, each with its own culture, national press, etc. It happens that sometimes people in one country spontaneously adopt some word from another language, say, English, but people in other countries do not, import a different word, or import the same word, but in a different form. For example, in Mexico people use the word troca (from the English "truck"); in Puerto Rico, people say troc. In some countries, there are even syntactical forms that don't exist in others!
The point is that there is a need for some organization to review the data on the language as its used in different places, and decide on general forms to be used by everyone when one needs to be sure to be understood everywhere. That is, there needs to be a general dictionary, which collects words that you can expect to be usable in all places, and a general grammar.
English speaking countries (well, at least Britain and the USA) also have this--- only that they are to be found in the form of the better known dictionaries (like the Oxford Dictionary) or grammar and composition guides.
---
---
And don't forget daylight savings, the idea from hell.
Umm... Excuse me, but doesn't the entire world other than (not so) Great Britian and it's (ex-) colonies agree with us on the whole which side of the road issue?
Two words: "OSI Model"
(Acutally, and acronym and a word, but who's counting?)
IIRC, all local times were based on the city sundial, which may or may have not been correctly aimed.
Note they never said, "with the naked eye", but, IIRC the great wall of china can be seen from space with the naked eye, and I think that's a little thinner than New Zealand.
I coulda sworn it was Lucky Stripes...
Hey, I like compound words... gets rid of so many messy adjectives.
This is probobly a little off topic, but My US passport is written in English and French. I just thought that was odd.
Why not?
In the case of "standard" vs /metric its lazyness not arrogance on the part of the US citizenry. I think the French are more steamed about minitel vs the internet and this is just one way of acting out their frustration.
American car you need 7/16 1/2 9/16 and thats it. Maybe a 5/8's if you doing suspension work.
Ebonics isn't US english
I guess if you laugh at Jerry Lewis you'll laugh at anything
They better be accurate where they plant those trees or they're really gonna get laughed at
Lobster Thermostat? I didn't get where I am today by saying "I didn't get where I am today..."
There was an attempt following the French Revolution (approximately) during the Reign of Terror. They wanted to rid themselves of the ancien regime as much as possible, including that obviously corrupt time system. My freshman humanities class learned about it from a reader on the French Revolution. If I recall correctly, the plan was 12 months per year 3 weeks per month 10 days per week 10 hours per day 100 minutes per house 100 seconds per minute The leftover days each year were intended as holidays for celebrating the revolution. I don't remember about leap years. This plan never got far although I have seen a photograph of a metric clock built during this period.
That is because all GPS systems (even those not American) uses a spheroid called WGS-1984, which is an *American* DoD spheroid...
Uh, I have two different Garmin GPS units. The old one has 23 different "spheroids" (called 'datums'), and the new one (12xl) has close to 100, including one for Britain (Ord. Survey) and two for Europe.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Posted by Largo_3:
Just because the english came up with it first the French must somehow either outdo the English, or ignore then steal their standards claiming it their own. I am all for nationalistic pride, I have no problem with the French or any nation celebrating their own achievements, but 're-mapping' the prime meridian simply b/c the english did it first and your nation resents them is absurd.
Posted by The Future Sound of London:
I'm sick and tired of the French and their proprietary systems! They're like a chain-smoking, closed-source Asylum.
Let's face it, who wants to set their watches to PMT?
Contradicting an earlier response to this question, I can confirm that the GPS service available to civilians is deliberately kept to a precision of no better than around 100 yards. This is called "selective availability" (SA) and is implemented with a simulated clock error on each of the satellites: it is by far the largest source of imprecision in GPS measurements.
Military GPS users have access to a second, encrypted channel which allows them to circumvent SA and also gain accurage measurements of ionospheric delay error, since you can get a good guess at the absolute signal delay by measuring the difference between delays of signals at different frequencies.
Civilian GPS users can get around SA with a system called "differential GPS" (DGPS), in which a ground station at a precisely known position near to the roving receiver broadcasts the error term in the signal it receives, allowing the roving receiver to compensate. DGPS allows position measurement to within 2-3 metres.
For measuring small relative displacements, there's also RGPS which can measure down to the centimetre level.
None of this is secret or denied or anything, it's all part of the publically released GPS specs. I had to learn all this stuff when I used to work for a navigation company that handled deep-sea surveys.
--
Employ me! Unix,Linux,crypto/security,Perl,C/C++,distance work. Edinburgh UK.
Xenu loves you!
"Will you ask your master if he cares to join us on our quest for the Holy Prime Meridian?"
"Well I'll ask him, but I don't think he'll be very keen... 'e's already got one, you see."
"Already got one?"
"Yes, it's a-very nice."
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Obviously this is so the next foreign leader who plans their domination of the world from an orbital space platform will know exactly when they should tell the French leaders to lie down and play dead, or at least put up the glorious Twenty Minute Struggle.
How like the French, they think they invented the "Not Invented Here" Syndrome.
In the meantime, I'd like to declare that the new international date line runs right through Raleigh, NC. Therefore, if I need an extra day to work on something, I can just say I was downtown. That's a good reason, right?
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
spelling?
whatever, I don't care. What the Nazi's were doing justified that. The fact that we were in war justified it. When the gov't purposely targets civilians, that's wrong. When they bomb a city, my feeling is that it's too bad but that's why wars suck. I wish all these people whining about a couple dozen Serbs getting killed when we bomb would look at those mass graves and shut the fuck up.
Actually the French did help save our asses in the Revolutionary War. In more ways than one, in fact. IIRC, England didn't feel like being all tied up here when they were fightin France in Europe or thought they would be soon. That, in addition to the fact that the French sent over military aid, helped us win.
We did this in '68 (or was it '69?) in Iceland, just decided to switch from left to right overnight. (Actually, I think it was at noon or something). Weird thing though, the accident rate fell after the change...
Jón
Well, outside of Europe the only countries where french is spoken in daily life are former - or current - colonies, where the language has been imposed on the people some time or another. In the rest of the world, where french is neither the mother-tongue nor by tradition the language of political administration, people tend to choose to use other languages and that is what counts in the end.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
3 degrees to the west. That would be enough..
they have this kind of competition in the United States as well. They probably have it in other countries (Germany maybe? :)
If I remember my history correctly, there was a great debate as to where the prime meridian was supposed to be at first. It obviously came down to France and England, and it's rather obvious who 'won'. Now, I'm not looking to play the blame game but England and the United States are not ones to speak when it comes to avoiding world-accepted standards (inches vs. meters, driving left vs. driving right, etc). So please, before you insult the whole French population, think of your own country and how it stands out from the others in terms of standards. Also, one of the posts was saying that the French are arrogant, and although I'm not saying they aren't, you can't deny that there is no country more arrogant than the USA. And yes, for the last time, I think this is a dumb idea.
Let the flaming begin! (right KrON?)
And according to one of my German friends, Indonesian is incrdibly similar to German. (Or at least the pronunciation, etc.)
What's even better is when you are working on your American car and some of the bolts are metric and others are english. That's just great fun!
2. Microsoft will purchase the road, trees, and French national archive.
3. Bill Gates will be revealed as having invented the Meridian, before the French -or- British, and the (updated and re-released) French archives will "confirm" this.
4. The Microsoft Meridian will be announced, as running through Redmond. All versions of Windows will be updated to use the Microsoft Meridian.
5. The Grenwich Observatory will be purchased by Microsoft, to prevent competition, sorry, reduce incompatiabilities.
6. World Governments will shift to the Microsoft Meridian, as none of their computers will work with anything else.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
This is an example of what the Academie Française can get up to. This is an extract of a mail that I received from a Frenchman, needless to say that none of the terms propsoed are in current usage. The French in general find the Academie rather strange too, however it is _their_ institution.
...
(I won't try to translate - it would rather spoil the idea!)
"
A ma gauche, les termes anglais, utilisés par tout le monde. A ma droite, les termes de l'Academie Francaise ou du Journal Officiel correspondant.
Firewall - Ecluse
Shareware - Partagiciel
Plugin - Plugiciel
Freeware - Graticiel
Hacker - Finaud
Browser - Brouteur, butineur
E-mail - Mel
CD-ROM - cederom
Chat - Babillard
Chat mode - Babillardage
Swap - Permutation
Polling - Scrutation
Debugger - Epépineur
Encapsulation - Emmaillotage
Flame (to) - Attaquer au lance-flammes
HTML - Langage Hyper Descriptatif a Ferrets
patch (to) - Rustiner
Smiley - Souriard, Mimique, Emoticon, Rictus, Facies, Binette, Souriant
Thread - Enfilade
Virus - Fragment infectieux de code necessitant un programme hote
WWW - Hypertoile
WYSIWYG - VISualisation Imitant Virtuellement une Impression Graphique
Par exemple :
J'ai lancé le brouteur de Rose qui a refusé de demarrer. Je pense qu'il est infecté par une Fragment infectieux de code nécessitant un programme hôte. Avec l'épépineur je n'ai rien vu. Il faut dire qu'avec l'emmaillotage de axmth on ne peut pas savoir si le programme a été rustiné ou pas. J'ai essayé d'envoyer un mel au support mais il y a un probleme d'ecluse. L'Hypertoile est inaccessible. J'en ai marre de ces graticiels, ils ne sont meme pas multi-enfilade ! Je vais demander à un de mes finaud de me trouver un meilleur partagiciel
La France avance...
"
Excusé-moi - peut-être j'ai tort! Je travaille en France (Sophia-Antipolis - 06) et je n'ai jamais entendu la plupart des mots ci-dessus.
...
Pire que ça - j'ai traduit quelques termes en français (de anglais) et j'ai complètement confondu mes collegues. Ex l'interface 'E1' pour ISDN (je n'ai jamais entendu RNIS) est prononcé "eee one" et pas "uuu un"
David K-M (dckm88@zepler.org)
"He's on a roll."
If the French want to believe Napoleon won at Waterloo, we 'Merkins are in no position to complain. We picked Napoleon's side in that war and it's not as if our high school textbooks tell us that we lost.*
*unless they've changed a lot in the last 30 years.
Boston is the Hub of the Universe, not merely the center.
The Prime Meridian is a global standard - its position affects everyone on the planet. That's completely different than the Americans using the English measurement system: no one outside the US is affected if the speed limits in the US are in miles/hour instead of km/hour.
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
"Mankind in general occupies the position between the angels and the French." -Mark Twain
But then, we 'mericans can't say much since we can't comprehend the metric system.
--
The Future: Some assembly required; batteries not included.
Crap, it'd be nice if France got over itself. The empire is long dead, guys. The British seem to have gotten over the loss of their empire. The Italians are doing okay. So the current Western empire is American... I do hope we'll have the good grace to let it go when our empire dies. Else we'll end up doing the same ludicrous things the French do.
Way back when I was a U.S. soldier in Germany, I remember that the French would unofficially send elements of the French army to tag along when we Americans and the Germans went on field exercises. It was pretty clear that if the "shit hit the fan" French troops were going to be there shoulder to shoulder with the US Army and the German Bundeswehr. By and large the French were good guys, modest and intelligent.
Of course, that didn't stop French officials, then or now, from making silly statements. C'est la vie.
It's cool that this was decided by consensus to meet the need of a diverse group and not due to political pressures. Kinda like this linux thing.
Brian Seppanen
Minister of Information and Propaganda
Area 54 The Secret Government Disco Labs Provo
Don't quote me on this, but I believe that the French had their hand in the imperial system as well. It depends on what you're measuring. The Farenheit scale (one of the greatest scientific bloopers of all time, due to the fact that 0 is where seawater freezes and 100 is supposed to be human body temperature but the test subject had a fever that day) is German, I believe (or was it Austrian?) The standard for time goes waaaaaaay back, to ancient Persia if I'm not mistaken (and even the French don't dispute that standard; people wouldn't stand for that one). The weights are mostly English, I think. However, distances and areas come from all over the place (the acre is from ancient Mesopotamia, of all places), and I believe several of them come from France (I'm pretty sure the yard does).
Interesting, since the French are also credited with the metric system (and adopted it during the French Revolution not so much for its scientific value as for its ability to piss off the aristocracy by removing the lengths of their various body parts from the standard of measure; this is why they also completely rewrote the calendar).
Regardless, it appears Bill Gates has infiltrated the French government, since they're trying to Embrace and Extend the standard for cartography and time zone measurement.
And the hell of it is, they got it wrong. The measure isn't completely accurate. I suppose that puts it up near the Farenheit scale in the Greatest Scientific Bloopers of All Time list.
The government offered special deals for a couple of years previously to tempt people to buy right hand drive cars, and then when the majority of cars were righthand drive they basically made a colossal changeover overnight from one side to the other
Granted this was early in the century when im sure the amount of cars on the road was pitiful in comparison to the modern amount, and the cars would hardly have been zooming around at any great speed. But still a very impressive achievement, I wish we could pull off a trick like this at the current late stage.
Make our cars a bit cheaper i suppose, and we could do away with the lines of messages at the airports saying to drive on the left, and the occasional crushed continental car that shows up everynow and then when someone forgets.
I wouldn't mind finding out if my half overheard and forgotten version of the swedish events were correct. Anyone know ?
C.
I sometimes write stuff
Prime Meridian
w &VdkVgwKey=%2Fextra4%2Fwww_echo%2Foii%2F en%2Fgis.html&QueryZip=prime+meridian%0D%0A ISO/IEC JTC1/SC32
ISO/IEC 6709:1983 Standard representation of latitude, longitude and altitude for geographic point locations Characteristics/description Latitude is measured positively north of the equator and negatively south. Longitude is measured postively east of Greenwich and negatively west. The Prime meridian is indicated using a plus sign while the 180th meridian is preceded by a minus. Both longitude and latitude may be expressed in degrees and decimal degress, degrees, minutes and decimal minutes or degrees, minutes, seconds and decimal seconds. Number less than 10 must have a leading 0.
Optionally an altitude can be specified as a number of metres and decimal fractions thereof above or below the geodetic reference datum level.
Locations are entered by entering two or three numbers identifying the latitude, longitude and, optionally, altitude, each number preceded by either a plus or minus sign and with no spaces separting the numbers. The end of the locator is identified by a solidus (slash) giving a completed entry of the form +24.45-00.11+800.35/.
Usage (Market segment and penetration) Standard scientific notation for global positioning.
Further details available from: ISO or local national standards bodies
Assignment of ISO 6709 to TC211 (NB. By March 1998 this decision appears to have be rescinded!) OII Multimedia and Hypermedia Standards Activity Report, May 1997
http://www.echo.lu/search97cgi/s97_cgi?Action=Vie
other facts
ITRF92 (International Terrestrial Reference Frame ) WGS84
International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), whereas WGS84 was developed by the US Department of Defence over ten years ago
WGS84 system was developed it was based on the GRS80 ellipsoid, but computational techniques resulted in a small difference in the flattening.
When used to express earth-centred Cartesian positions (X, Y, Z) as latitude, longitude and ellipsoidal height, these two ellipsoids result in a difference of less than 1 millimetre. WGS84 GRS80
Semi major axis (a) 6378137 m 6378137 m
flattening (1/f) 298.257223563 298.257222101
from australian cartographic viewpoint new and improved coordinate system for Australia which is compatible with modern positioning techniques such as the Global Positioning System (GPS).
http://www.anzlic.org.au/icsm/gda/faq-f.htm
Q. Will zero degrees longitude still pass through Greenwich?
A. Yes, zero degrees longitude will still pass through Greenwich because this is part of the definition of the coordinate system used by GDA.
Q. Will GDA be the same as the WGS84 coordinates used by GPS?
A. GDA and WGS84 are compatible at better than a metre. In fact in early 1994, the WGS84 system was modified to align it even more closely with the ITRF system on which GDA is based.
Q. Why is the ITRF92 used for GDA, instead of the WGS84?
A.The International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF) has been adopted in favour of WGS84 because it is more recent and is supported by the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), whereas WGS84 was developed by the US Department of Defence over ten years ago. This decision was affirmed in early 1994, when WGS84 was modified to align it more closely with ITRF.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
ahh i see we have an upper class twit. Here's a bit of tongue in cheek, the brit's have the worlds best cricket team.....
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
Erm, I thought the reason we Brits drove on the left was that horse carriage hand brakes are located on the side of the vehicle, and therefore the driver had to have his strong hand (usually his right hand) within easy access of the hand brake.
This would mean the driver was seated on the right.
In order to have a seating position central to the road (to give better visibility), the driver therefore rode on the left of the road.
--
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
They're just planting trees to stop me from making a giant parking-lot/haute-cuisine-drive-thru out of France.
;)
You're not fooling me, you french guys.
Oh well, maybe I just didnt like my french lessons back then...
*not* funny...
fetchez la vache !
Greenwich Mean Time: GMT
Paris Mean Time: PMT?
Someone's having a laugh!
--
Barry de la Rosa,
Senior Reporter, PC Week (UK)
Work: barry_delarosa[at]vnu.co.uk,
tel. +44 (0)171 316 9364
-- /. ID is lower than Bruce Perens'!
Barry de la Rosa,
public[at]bpdlr.org
My
Each rotation of the earth contains (a) an infinite number of days and (b) and infinite number of seasons. That is, if you can be at an infinite number of places at once!
Makes perfect sense to me...
(my monkeys have just finished Hamlet and are starting on Romeo and Juliet)
--> Any fool can criticize - and many do --
True, being from Bordeaux I'd rather keep Greenwich Meridian (0 deg 44 min west... It's almost Bordeaux Meridian, as you can see on the map ;) )
More seriously, this looks like history; Never heard anyone complaining of Greenwich Meridian in my life...
No! Americans developed a weird, nonstandard system of weights and measurements with little internal consistency. It's only natural that it would be named after someone else. You expect it to make sense?
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Well to be quite accurate, the Center of the Universe is located in Boston. Right at Downtown Crossing. There's a little plaque set into the ground, marking the point around which all else revolves.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
| i dropped french about 8 years ago, to
| concentrate on italian.
Do you also understand Thousand Island, Honey Mustard, and Ranch?
-- Rick
Ok here goes..
90 % of the population is right-handed, and in days of yore, people drove in the middle of the road. When they passed someone coming in the other direction, 90% of peopl pulled in to the left to present their "sword hand" to the on-coming vehicle in case the occupants were enemies.
It was usually middle- and upper-class people who could afford coaches/horses etc in those days, so the French revolution changed things.
After and during the revolution, people drove and rode on the opposite side of the road (the right) to show their contempt for the middle and upper classes.
This practice was adopted throughout republican Europe, and spread to the New World.
Us Brits and other eccentrics stuck to driving on the left.
Hope that clears up a few things.
Lots of love,
Morbid
xxx
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
Actually, it's _July_ 1st..
I'm not sure where Rob and Jeff got their information, but there is no revolt against the prime meridian in Greenwich going on.
What's really happening is that the French government, in a celebration of the year 2000, thought it would be nifty to plant trees along the old French meridian (which runs through Paris) so as to get as many people in France involved in the celebration. People are being encouraged to buy a tree and plant it along the line, and on New Years eve, go and have a picnic lunch by the line.
There is no revolt going on. The people of France (or the Government) have no intention of trying to reinstate the French Meridian, which, Sorry, folks, is simply not going to happen.
-- Void_Ptr
"It's a sort of threat, you see. I've never been very good at them myself, but I'm told they can be quite effective."
Friends help you move
Good friends help you move Bodies
I think you got that a little backwards -- "Beef" and "Pork" are from Norman French (the language of the the invaders who became the ruling class of England), and "cow" and "pig" are from Anglo-Saxon (the language of the native peasants).
To paraphrase:
"It's symbolic of their struggle against reality"
Krakken
We saved the French from the Germans in WW2 for the same reason the Germans conquered Belgium in WW1 -- they were along the way.
=)
Christopher A. Bohn
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
The reason the Prime Meridian is where it is is because of the Greenwich Observatory, considered at the time to be the astronomical observatory. It wasn't because England wanted to be the world's center of culture, it was so that when an astronomer anywhere in the world noted the time of an event, it could easily be converted to the precise (as in not-off-by-even-one-second) time at a major observatory.
Christopher A. Bohn
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
Hey, they're easier to spot from space than a bunch of stinkin' olive trees...
-----
".sig,
Eywwww!
Sounds like a good alternative should the Pentagon run out of napalm.. 8-)
-----
".sig,
There was, during the French revolution (of the 1780s-90s, not the 2nd one w/ Napoleon).
Mind you, this is the same revolution that had the Reign of Terror. The one where those who disagreed with the Jacobins (who more or less wanted to turn France communist IIRC) got their heads cut off. And these killings, done in the name of liberty, equality, and brotherhood, were performed on a disproportionately high number of peasants.
I guess this is the best way for Yanks to know where the Prime Meridian is.
There they go again!! People just don't get it,
do they ?!... STANDARDS!!! why don't people just stick to them... whats this about ? racial
superiority ?!! Couldn't give a rats ass for that.
What are they trying to imply ?! that the rest of
the world is stupid and that they are too good
to stick to standards ?!
Read it, y'all. Even back when measuring longitude was still a challenge worth a king's ransom, England and France were haggling over the placement of the prime meridian.
And it's a biography of a cool 18th century hacker.
Indeed, IIRC, the original definition of metre was one ten-millionth of the distance from the north pole, through Paris, to the equator.
"That's the great thing about kill-bots, you can always make more."
He means official in the sense of having it mandated by law instead of being their primary language. The United States, for example, doesn't have an official language... but everyone knows that we all (or should) speak English.
Explain this to me, since the state of California has a higher population than France?
MooooOOOOOOOO! *SPLAT*
Well, in honor of France's attempt at changing time, I hereby dub them Honorary Americans. Not since we invented the english system of weights and measurements has another scheme been so stupid as to evoke hysterical laughter from every other country on the globe.
And not a moment too soon.. David Letterman was running out of material.
--
Oh yeah? We have Monty Python.
"I fart in your general direction!"
--
Why couldn't Congress have the guts to join the rest of the world with standards of meaurements?
Under Article I, section 8, the Congress has the authority to "fix the Standard of Weights and Measures." In 1866 the U.S. Congress passed a law establishing the metric system in the United States. (No other system of measurements has been established by the Congress.) We were one of the original 17 signatories to the Treaty of the Meter in 1875. In 1893, the metric measurement standards were adopted as the fundamental standards for length and mass in the United States. Congress passed the Metric Coversion Act in 1975. The Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act Of 1988 designated the metric system as the "preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce," and required that all federal agencies use the metric system by 1992.
Accordingly, your question would be properly phrased as, "Why couldn't Congress have the guts to punish people for using non-metric measurements?"
Therefore, I ask you -- what should be the punishment for using a non-metric system in the U.S.? Six months in jail? $100 fine per incident? Life imprisonment without parole?
We are metric by law. The people, not Congress, are responsible for our current state.
Let them have it! :o)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
The French make me laugh.
Ha. Ha.
Ha.
Haiti; Tahiti and the rest of the French Polynesian Islands; much of Africa (Algeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mali and all the other areas that were once called French Equatorial Africa and French Central Africa.)
Not to mention all the "World Series" and "World Champions" in domestic US sport - the Champ cars,
the baseball, the NBA . . .
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
...historically the french used the Paris meridian for a long time before switching to the std one. :)
So people don't get confused here, the french are in no way going to use the Paris meridian again, they're just celebrating it
(And btw even though I live in france I haven't heard about this story at all)
SLASHDOT - In a stunning turn of events, Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) responded to France's actions, declaring that the equator runs directly through Redmond, Washington. Microsoft Corporation will place millions of DOS floppies end to end, forming a straight line that can be seen from space.
We've had enough trouble with the Quebec French in Canada. Things like laws that prohibit non-French signs, speaking English publically, things like that. Anyone ever heard of "Dunkirk"? It was a major battle during WWII. But the French call it Dunkirque. Well, it's actually Dunkirk, because the people there don't speak French as their native language. Or didn't. Now they do, as they are being forced into French schools.
"The United States of America was America before your country even existed."
Brazil exists by this name since 1500. And, as far as I remember my maps, NORTH America has 3 countries.
"You think anyone but Nazi war criminals would immigrate to your pathetic country?"
And even then, only those your space program didn't want, right? But, seriously, the answer is yes again. As Brazil is far less racist that USA, lots of asians and africans prefer to come live here. Brazil has the largest Japanese population outside Japan.
American lack of historical information never ceases to amaze me.
Point is, the - well let's be honest, US - Brits
regard the Americans as our friends, not our
fellow Europeans. That's why we are so disloyal
to the European ideal.
And does a good European citizen blow up
GreenPeace boats? Probably.
Toby
That's a lot of pubic hair; a whole wig's worth... I'm not sure if tha's insulting or not, however. Seems that a collection of such magnitude would be quite an achievement. :)
* http & web techs were built by swiss & french people, not so bad ;-)
Err, no. Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web, is British.
Dodger, who is Irish.
You're under a slight misapprehension, my friend - the Brits give the Yanks _land_ to operate listening posts (e.g. "RAF" Menwith Hill) on, but GCHQ (the British equivalent of the NSA) gets copied all of the intelligence developed from those sites.
:)
In the early days of the UKUSA agreement, GCHQ received so much raw SIGINT that they could barely process all of it.
Dodger,
with his Intelligence and Security Expert's hat on.
But today's french dishonor their past. Not that I have much moral authority as an American, but what the French have done is truly pathetic. This is only the latest, and perhaps the most laughable, series of sad events, from their ungrateful rejection of NATO to their nuclear testing. The french should take a long hard look at themselves.
Um... you're generalising the French based on some decisions by their government. It's like saying, "All Americans either cheat on their spouses or hire special prosecutors to search out those who do."
For example, I know many French people who think that the nuclear testing in the Pacific was a bad idea, just like many Americans don't ever want to hear another word come out of Ken Starr's mouth.
"I'm beginning to think you haven't had a-- my dear child, don't be so gleeful when you talk about hacking at people with swords-- safe moment in your life."
- Queen Teleria to Eilonwy
The first translation made more sense than that!
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Is there someone else up there we could talk to?
--
Brent J. Nordquist N0BJN
In a lot of ways the US's refusal to adopt the metric system is more of a problem, because anyone who wants to understand your measurements has to know how many inches, quarts, or pounds there are in the real unit. If my clock is only 2 minutes off, I don't even bother to change it.
There are times when it is necessary to speak.
Bite the hand.
For those that haven't seen the movie about one thousand times... listen close next time:
Leader yells: "Fetchez la vache!"
Underling whispers: "What?"
Leader annoyingly whispers: "Get the cow!"
The movie works on so many levels. And to think, I actually thought I had found every joke in there up to that point. Never again will I assume...
Edu. sig-line: Choose rhymes with lose. Chose rhymes with goes. Loose rhymes with goose.
Comparing? THEN use THAN.
BUFFAAWAHAHAHAHAHahahahhah!!!!!!
...h hahahahahah...
whhoooooo hahahhahahaah!!!
Not baD!
I, a student of military history, got a real kick out of that one.
----- if ($anyone_cares) {print "Just Another Perl Newbie"}
warn "Just Another Perl User" if $anyone_cares;
Amazing how people think its only Americans or French who are arrogant. Anyone remember Hitler and his Arians(sp)? Anyone remember "The Sun never sets on the British Empire, Brittannia (sp) rules the waves?"
How about Iraqi's? Russians? Albanians? Don't forget Canadians. The point is, every people on the earth think their nation (in general) is the best, and most all other national peoples are:
arrogant
make bad cars
don't have enough alcohol in their beer
are lousy tourists
should be molested on site
This... is why we still have racist jokes, wars, AND flame wars on anonymous sites such as this. Ta-ta!
(ps. This public service announcement has been brought to you by an ignorant, arrogant, intolerant, judgemental, bible-thumping, knuckle-dragging yank... oh wait that's a stereotype...)
----- if ($anyone_cares) {print "Just Another Perl Newbie"}
warn "Just Another Perl User" if $anyone_cares;
Actually, this didn't surprise me the least. The French are always like this, they won't be like everyone else, if so just for the sake of them having inventeded the system they are using. Just take Citroën as an example. And who doesn't remember the ban of English language in national television. BTW, is that still on? Any French out here who can enlighten me?
Since UTC is referred to as 'zulu time' by US military and others, I propose that the PMT be referred to as 'Jerry Lewis' time.
Example:
It is now 19:12:00 EDT, 16:12:00 PDT, 23:12:00 Zulu, and 23:21:22 Jerry Lewis.
-- hgc
-- hgc
Linux: There is no infringing code.
First, let me say that I have not heard about this story outside slashdot. And I live in France.
Second, nobody ever "invented" the english weight and measurement system. Actually two hundred years ago every country had its own system, that was made arbitrarily by the local kings. French navigators were using Paris as the meridian origin, English navigators were using Greenwitch. The French were using pounds and inches that were slightly different from English pounds and inches (today there is still a English oz and an American oz, and a difference between nautical miles and miles). Actually the definition of these units was, for example in a business discussion, a matter of who had the power to impose its point of view. The French revolution wanted to introduce a weight and measures system that was independent of any localization or balance of power, that would be designed to do science and that would have a rational basis. Hence the metric system, which later evolved into the SI units system for physicists.
In the indispensable globalization of standards that followed, the Greenwitch meridian prevailed, and the metric system prevailed.
Canadian culture is largely of Scottish, British, and French origins. These days, its becoming more of a melting pot as Indians come in for technical jobs, and Asians fleeing from Hong Kong, or immigrating from wherever else (Vietnam, Laos, Taiwan, etc). Vancouver, BC has a huge Asian population now, for one example.
As for "American" culture, I don't think there's anything that's so "American" and not from anywhere else, that you can claim its only found in "America"... unless you're talking about Hollywood, and I think I'd have to say that they're more biting other countries' cultures than anyone in the States.
Anyway, back to the topic, the French are always damn strange. Next you'll see the damn Quebeqois trying to pull something equally strange. You know, they demanded that all the Stop signs (an otherwise universal word for traffic signs) be changed to the French translation? Yeesh.
It all stems from the fear that they will be assimilated into something larger and their cultural and global identities will be forgotten.
The new world order needs more loose cannons rolling around on the deck.
Anyone remember back when the only private company selling sattelite surveillance photos was the Spot Image Corporation?
Would anyone else be in this business, if it hadn't been for Spot Image breaking the monopoly of government intelligence agencies?
Viva le'Arrogant. Or whatever.
Looks like the French aren't only trying to change the time but the calendar as well. According to my calendar today is July 1st, guess the French have managed to change yours to June while you weren't looking.
---
I always thought that there was 2 continents there (north AND south america and maybe even central.) Its bad enough for a cocky country to pretend that it is an entire continent (australia anyone?) but to presume that you are 2 (or 3) continents is beyond reproach :)
"The French are an annoying race."
-- Some Limey
To be truly different, and even more annoying, why don't the French designate Paris as being astride the "prime latitude" (le latitude prime)...
Sure, this would mean that there are more degrees of latitude from the s. pole to Paris than from Paris to the N. pole, bit what the hell, nobody important gives a shit anyway. And it sure would annoy the Brits, what with their long-standing distaste for all things french ("The wogs begin at Calais").
"...they may harpoon us, but they ain't gonna pick us up on no radar screen!"
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that there never was a serious proposal for a "metric time" different from standard time.
Come on, get a clue about language. There's absolutely NO correlation between the degree to which a language incorporates words from other languages and 'language study' as you put it.
Language change is as inevitable as the seasons and the ability to absorb words into the language allows more subtle distinctions, i.e.:
legal - loyal
regal - royal
beef - cow
pork - pig - swine
etc.
There's a word for languages which don't evolve:
'extinct'
chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
My cookie didn't fly or something...
chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
...about the U.S.
U.S. doesn't have an 'official language'. English is the 'administrative' language. Every attempt (always by conservatives) to have English declared as the official language has failed.
chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
>>The rich folks (being inbread and not too bright)
That's 'inbred' -> (breed, bred, bred)
>>thought that "beef" meant "dead cow that's been cooked" while the servants where just saying their word for "cow".
As pointed out above: backwards. And it wasn't a matter of misconceptions. Like I said, that's not how it works. The nobles called what was on their plate 'boeuf' (approx.) and the peasants called it something like 'kuh' and all of their common descendants incorporated it all together!
>>If my English teacher was right, then the Brits messed up those words long before they got to the US. We've messed up many, many other things (see: Velveeta) but not those words.
If your English teacher calls that messed-up then he or she is teaching the wrong language, otherwise I have to assume that you are applying that term, in which case see my message above regarding a clue and what to do with one.
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
* for a country that built up a e-commerce in 1980 when you did not know it could be possible, that is not bad ;-) (i am talking about the Minitel, ok that was 1200 bd down and 75 bd up, that was character mode only but what did you have that was nationally used in 80s ?) ;-)
;-)
;-)
:-) and french bread is far better ;-p
* for a country that built up ATM (the CERN) its not so bad
* http & web techs were built by swiss & french people, not so bad
* well, i do not say french are better that us, that false (because incomparable since us are 300M people and french are 60M people). But france is not that silly backward country that you may think it is
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
yes french revolution changed everything (metric, calendar) system, but that was mainly to have something totally different from the monarchal system ;-) ;-p
metric system design was based upon the rim of earth or something like that and it was decimal because people count in decimal... and it's easier to have only one counting system. even britts changed their complicated monetary system to simplification some tenth years ago (sheelings(?) went out)
on the other side, the calendar changement did not last because it was not pratical.
as for weight and volumes, it integrates very nicelly with the length system : you only have one logic, you do not have different rules depending on the measure you take
so what ? you prefer illogical and complicated system ? that's ok since for you its easier because you are now used to it, but it is not better for that reason
BTW metric system is not oxolete, it is younger that gallons and miles and other measures... so its more hightech
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
Hey, so the conversion is actually easy: combine this law with the "Three strikes - out" rule, and everyone will be in line in no time!
Hurricane Application Group, Dept of Meteorology Control, Ministry of Proactive Defense
Just like Octal said, it gets rid of messy adjectives: the premier German example of a compound word is
Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän,
which translates in English to
Danube Steam Ship Cruise Company captain
(see? same thing, just with spaces), and in French (probably - my Italian is better) to
capitan de la Compagnie de navigation autrichienne sur le Danube
(translations from EuroDictAutom).
Just to prove the point...
Hurricane Application Group, Dept of Meteorology Control, Ministry of Proactive Defense
Most Americans fear and despise everything that they have no knowledge of, and this usually includes all foreign countries.
...
It's silly to make blanket generalizations about the attitudes of whole countries.
Contradictory? Thanks for painting my entire country with a wide brush.
I'll go back to being my good ol' hatred filled self now. Thanks for showing me my true self.
-[Blaine]- "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."
A micro-computer is a "micro ordinateur", certainly no worse than calling my hard drive a "Festplatte".
The national dictation contest is kind of amusing, French has so many homonyms and subleties that the winner often has an error or two. The competitors are university professors and the like...
My mother tounge is English, but I can happily butcher several others!
Think about it. Flying at 40,000 ft. in your B-2 bomber...
"What're we supposed to drop these on again?"
"Just aim for that line of trees down there!"
Blech. Signatures.
Who are the *real* fuckin Americans?? People of European origin?? This country was not completely built by people of European ancestry and is absolutely ludicrous to think otherwise. You must be one of those insecure racists bastards who's pissed off because of some immigrant taking your job :-) So shut the fuck up!!! Remember we are all fuckin guests in this country (except for the Native Americans).
|:-P
miNDrive
"Imagination is more important than knowledge." --Albert Einstein
This page was generated by a committee of revolting frogs for SissyLaLa (17392).
Hail to the Sun God! He is the Fun God! Ra! Ra! Ra!
Yep... And in Belgium over 60% of the people speak Dutch ! So don't let anybody tell you Belgium is a fully French speaking country ! There is even a 1% German speaking part (a few villages we 'assimilated' after WWI).
superblog.org: all your favourite blogs on o
Excuse me??? Not all Americans are immature and ignorant, and unlike you I am man enough to post as a user, not an anonymous coward. Whether or not I believed the story of not is irrelevant, it was funny, and seems to follow of trend of stupid things the french have done lately. Jason
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
But where can I buy some French time?
... because I live in Bordeaux and the Greenwich meridian is much closer.
...).
We can't EVEN get rid of that stupid summer time (ici on TROUVE midi [solaire] a 14 heures [legales]) (there is a 2-hours offset on the solar time, not too good for cancers and pollution) because of european regulations.
Rather than chosing le meridien de Paris we should use le meridien de `replace by the name of the french village where the Greenwich Meridian is crossing 45 deg latitude' - and make 1 day made of 10 hours, 1 hour made of 1000 seconds, and 1 year made of 10 month (there was an attempt to make weeks 10 days in 1789
For a country that brought us the split baud rate Videotex terminal (75 baud TX/1200 baud RX), this doesn't surprise me. Ever wonder why various comm api's require us to specify a transmit and a receive baud rate? This is why...
India, Australia, Japan, and pretty much the whole of Asia (excepting, I think, China) drives on the left. I think worldwide more people drive on the left than on the right...
- Read fiction at www.espressostories.com
If it isn't their snooty attitude, or their pathetic attempts at war, or their prissy language, it's their damn socialist society... Damn.. what a sesspool.
Corndog
"wire of a prostitute. prostitute of stunned ass kiss you! kiss! shit!"
er.. um.. ok
my other penis is a vagina
It doesn't matter. No one cares about ANY of them. They are irrelevant, because WE GOT THE BOMBS!
;-)
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
No, not really. I was actually just starting a flame thread.
On the whole, the French I've met (and I *have* met some French people) have been rude and arrogant. Is this a cultural norm? I don't know, but they've not left a good impression on me, and I'm the only one that counts, the way I see things.
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
After having lived and worked with the French for the past several years I must say that they are an amusingly eccentric nationality. They have a lot going for them - a very strong educational system, a healthy respect for engineers (they are one of the few countries that numbers several engineers amoung their national heros, including having Gustav Eiffel's portrait on some of their money). The top schools in the country are engineering schools, and they recieve a very healthy dose of math in their education. They have a very worthwhile culture, too - a lot of important contributions to the western way of life, and Paris really is a very beautiful city. Like most of the world they find themselves awash in a sea of American culture - which is of course decended from British culture, the long time enemies and rivals of the French.
The French have a very sensible way of living, with a good balance between cultural and economic activities - they are refreshingly not as materialistic as Americans, much to their credit. All in all I think that they provide a valuable counterpoint to the American way of thought, and I am glad that they try to preserve their culture. The thing we need in this world most of all are new and different ideas.
BUT they seem to be a little too backwards looking to my tastes - too much looking back to the glorious days when France ruled the Europe, when Napolean defeated the Brits at Waterloo and all that rather than trying to move forward and become a real player in the global economy. This bit about the prime meridian is a perfect example of the French way of holding on to the past - the meridian was established 100 years ago and was not French. Rather than realizing that you aren't going to change this, and move on to something else, they keep hanging on to something that is really over and done with. The French need to move forward onto something else rather than try to cling to some faded glory. The French also need to be a bit more open to other ways and cultures than they are - working with them is hell as they are not open at all to toleration of other ways of doing things. They are very autocratic (the French are traditionally and still emotionally a monarchy) and beauracratic (a French word devised during Napolean's time) which hinders their ability to get along with other cultures.
Bullshit. There are only 122 million people in the world that speak French as a native language. Twice that many speak English in the US alone.
/ powerpoint/aipnb/tsld007.html
French is ranked 9th in the world as a native language.
Reference:
http://www.cidif.org/publications/presentations
Isn't Bill Gates' personal worth about to equal the GDP for France? I seem to remember something like that... so, for at least a year, Billy could own France, I suppose.
this
Just exactly how many countries speak English that weren't once an English colony? Or how about Spanish? People don't necessarily choose a language because it is superior, they choose it because that is what the majority of the population already knows. BTW, how many countries have chosen Swedish as a language?
This really looks like a studid move by the french gov (who are all members of the College of Pataphysics, so that figures). .*bsd, aix, vms, NT, os/9, etc. are around. And yes, I write this on a Mac.
But right now, in this world, what we NEED is chaotic thinking. I picture the New Economics-Wired-power-branded cum web site and screen saver IPOed future world, and anybody who says "Merde" to that is welcome.
Or to make it clear to you, as much as I like Linux, I cherish the idea that freebsd, openbsd,
Think like geneticians. We need diversity.
And we need the French to go on doing their thing. They're a pain in the neck, but what would we do without them?
Foucault, Sartre, l'École des Annales, Deconstructivism, Camus, Surrealism, etc. may seem like fringe to you. But THEY are the mortar of our bits and bytes universe.
On our side of the ocean, isolationism is still rampant. We need to get over it. And we need to get over the idea that we have of the french ("Don't shoot me, I'm a collaborator"). What happened in the 30's and 40's there is not unlike what happened in the 1860's in America: a nation willing to self-amputate rather than allow practices against their ideals (communism and front populaire vs slavery). So, since the 4th and the 14th of july are coming, I'll raise my glase of californian pinot noir and say "Merde" to all of you. From Canada.
---------- ovidius naso
A. Every language is a kludge, and the perceived "difficulty" of learning a language is a relative standard that differs from person to person.
;o)
;o)
B. I have no idea. Do they derive the same amusement from the Academy as non-French speakers? But don't worry, we here in the States have our own self-appointed watchdogs for the language, as well as a bunch of misguided "English-only" activists.
C. English speakers are just trying to get revenge for the "corruption" of English after the Norman Conquest.
Conclusion: I think he was mostly joking, but one never knows.
Translation: there are idiots, and there are IDIOTS.
There are more human beings on the planet who call French their native language than there are English. I suppose that by your definition, that's dead.
Just because the "United States" is abbreviated U.S. doesn't mean every other country is T.H.E.M.
Get a clue, or an education. Which ever comes first.
--- Tao
Hello?? The USA is an old British colony. So is Australia, so is most of Canada, so is New Zealand, so are MOST of the countries, other than England where English is spoken!
Strictly speaking, if you excluse colonies, you still come out even.
--- Tao
Is this cultural elitism? Yes, but not in the France vs. The World way that many of the posts here imply.
Keep in mind that the prime meridian already goes through France. The "problem" is that it doesn't go through Paris. Who views this as a problem? The Parisians, most likely! How dare the origin of longitudes pass through western France? Those rural yokels will never really understand Camus the way *we* do...
I suspect this is much like those (not all) New Yorkers who callously regard Manhattan as "The Capital of the World." Luckily the U.S. founders had enough sense not to put the nation's capital in the nation's biggest city. (Even if they did have to resort to building a city on a swamp.) If they had put the capital there, we'd probably be plowing over upstate New York to build giant space-visible concrete arrows pointing at NYC.
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
Easy way out of that one just put on a really crappy accent (french or english I am pretty good at either) no one will suspect a thing. Actually I think Iran or Afghanistan are some of the worst places for Americans to go.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
BullSoft accompanies and supports the creation of LinuxMaster Group, initiative made up to support the development of
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we will continue with our partners the development of new functions of OpenMaster administration on Linux, and will
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===============================================
What does this have to do with the issue at hand and why is it in French?
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
I am Belgian, and bashing the french people is definitely a hobby we take VERY seriously. We're quite good at it too. And you can't say that it's not fair, because the french do spend an awful lot of energy at bashing belgians :) we kid because we love...
:)
That being said: The article from the BBC is a bit misleading it seems. are we surprised? Can't blame the british for being a bit defensive. open your history book: french vs. england is not exactly new.
It seems that they have no intention or pretention to replace GMT as a world (or even national) standard. They are merely reviving an old concept ("Meridien de Paris") and make an end of the millenium ceremony out of it. It actually sounds like a great idea! It's both a look back to the past, and a look ahead to the future. And a great way to involve a lot of french people (not just from paris) into a peaceful demonstration. The more i think about it, the more i like it! While americans obsess about the bad things that may happen (Y2K "bug" is a bit over-rated. My honest opinion as a software engineer), the french will be having fun
And by the way, to all the americans that seem to believe that the french people are some of the most hated people on the planet: not even close! Americans are definetely it! (in some countries, they actually want to kill them pretty badly, last time i checked nobosy felt that strongly about the french). Now before you start flaming me, i want to point out that i live in the US and do not dislike americans. just pointing out a fact that most americans may not realize...
-Ralph Wiggam
How do you think 56K modems work?
56K RX, 33K TX.
not such a silly idea.
Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of eldeberries (sp?). Noooowwwww... GO! or I shall be forced to taunt you a second time. PPPTTTHHHHHH :P
"It compiles, SHIP IT!" -Overheard at Microsoft's development lab
How apropriate for this to happen on the international standards day - 1 July, except for in France where it is on 25 February, England 5 May and U.S.A 17 October.
Remember?
Pretend there is some witty statement here.
When Hank Scorpio is deciding what country to blow up first
Hank: Homer what's your least favorite country? Italy or France?
Homer: Umm.. France
Hank: Nobody ever says Italy
The sole purpose of the Internet is to get porn and bomb making plans into the hands of children.
D'autant plus que cela mene la plupart des etrangers a confondre les Francais avec les Parisiens, qui sont souvent vus comme ventards et pretentieux (ce qui n'est pas le cas de tous les pParisiens non plus heureusement) par les Francais de la province.
He les Americains, vous voulez qu'on vous compare tous aux habitants de New York/Washington/LA/...? Non! Il y a de grandes differences entre la cote est et la cote ouest n'est-ce pas? En France aussi.
Translation:
And this also lead strangers to assimilate French with Parisians, which are often viewed like having big egos and pretentious (but this isnot the case of all Parisians hopefully) by French not living in Paris.
Hey, you Americans, do you want to be all compared to New York/Washington/LA/... inhabitants? No! there are big differences between the East coast and the West coast isn't it? In France this is the case too.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
"All REAL Americans are": Are you an Amerindian? No??? Then you are not a real American, you are just an invader that stole a country to its inhabitants.
Furthermore, the non white American people were generally not guest, have you forgotten the history about slavery (ok, france didn't do things better). They were not guest I think.
/flame on
Oh you may talk about all the immigration maybe?? You can say thanks to the stupidity of foreign country (France included) that train people in their school but don't know what to do with them, which lead them to go in America. Without them you probably wouldn't be the economical power you are.
/flame off
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
I'll always be ok to make fun of ANY country/people/community as long as it is done for the fun and not to hurt people (in their mind). It's even ok to make fun of French (I'm one), but don't forget that we may also make fun of you (I'm assuming you're American here).
;-)
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
/flame on
USA is in NORTH America cretin (if you don't know this word take a good French->Englich dictionnary). But Canada is in north America too. We usually refer to US residents as Americans because they choose a silly name for they country. Do you want us to call you "united statians", this would be more accurate than American (name that is deserved to every person from the NORTH SOUTH or CENTRAL America).
"You think anyone but Nazi war criminals would immigrate to your pathetic country? When people came to America they came to the good ol' USA baby."
Do you forget about the bunch of scientists that made the V2 for Hitler? Didn't they help you to improve you space technology? Weren't they Nazi scientists?
I think that Cokes bubble have severly damaged your brain
/flame off
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Do you remember when everybody said that Clinton was attacking Saddam Hussein because of the problems he had with Miss Lewinsky?
In fact the daylight saving was imagined by Valerie Giscard Destaing (the French president at the time) to deturn the public from others things (don't remember what it was). It's like when you say "Oh look, there is
that was clever to talk about it, what was totally and utterly dumb was to DO it. He should have stop before doing it.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
I agree that calling a CD-ROM Cederom (with the accent that i don't have on this qwerty keyboard) is totally moronic but you English-speaking people don't do better and transform a lot of words to your own use. What is a mutton (mouton), it's a sheep that is cooked, a beef (boeuf)? A bull htat have been castrated (at least that is the definition of boeuf). Where does to flirt come from? You got it: fleurter (that is to have relation with a girl but conserving is "fleur"(virginity)). And don't mix a population with it's government, i can't bear Saddam Hussein but I have nothing against Irakians, Hitler was a motherfucker but I met a lot of cool Germans....
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
What?? You don't want to blame the German (in fact the Nazis) to try to achieve world domination (or at least Europe domination) and invading other countrey (first austria, then Tchequie, then Poland...) but you want to laugh at those that tried to fight it (ok, there was also those fucking collabos)? You really are an asshole.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Hahaha, sorry but Americans didn't do it because of Auchwitz, they weren't even able to imagine that human being could do such horror, you disocvered it after coming in Germany so don't try to use it as an excuse (BTW the bombing were justified I think, but NOT by what they did at Auchwitz because this wasn't known).
The Americans were so unable to imagine Auchwitz that they censored the excellent Charlie Chaplin movie "The dictator". Charlot got it right YEARS before the war and you told him tpo shut up.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
They may control what is said in ACADEMIC French but not what is used in day to day French. Day-to-day French is as Open Source as English...but we can accumulate the advantages of both development models
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
We are the champions, we are the champions, we are the champions of the world.
Sorry, couldn't resist
i'm not fond of football (soccer for those stupid americans that play FOOTball with their hands) but i'm in the UK and I like to tease English with this
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Well, the way Austria was annexed looks like the way Hitler had the power. Do you believe he was elected by the german people? Nope, he never was elected president of Germany.
This is not because other country didn't react at the Munich coonference that the German invasion isn't one any more. Czech wasn't their property and they had no power to give it. This is like, if we were in a parralel world were the DesertStrom operation never happened ion 1990 and we let Hussein have th eKoweit, this is like to say that Hussein didn't invade the Koweit because we give it to him. Bullshit. You can say what you want but Hitler definitely invaded the Czech republic.
What we European did at the Munich conference was to lick Hitler's butt. i'm not proud of it but I hope we won't forget it when some people try to do the same thing (Milosevic anyone?).
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
...or more interressant than the latter ;)
;)
Ok, this is just kidding. in love to read books in English and see movies in English, but I love being French for all the stuff we have got too (this would probably be valid for quite any other country). Have you ever heard about "Le diner de con". It's a French movie that will have an Amreican remake called the dinner's game, and this is a GREAT movie. Unfortunately the American have not the background (or the wit?) to understand this kind of humor. You're missing something but we WE have the better American culture, so we win on both levels
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
God save the
Queen. Just use an E at the end of God (Gode) and you have the French version of Dildo:
"Dildo save the Queen" HAHAHAHA
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Due to a reaction to the monopoly of right-handed people more and more poeple are being converted to the fat, slow and unstable right-handed system to the fast little left-handed system.
Given a study made by IDC the left-handed market should go more rapidly than any other handed community combined for the next three years.
;)
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Why the hell want you to give back France to Romans? They were invaders. give it back to Gaulois (don't know how you call that)...oups their descendant already own France (with a lot of mixing from other populations).
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Then what it is doing is a conversion.
GPS signals use the WGS-1984 spheroid, and I think coordinates are sent in MGRS. It isn't too hard to convert to another spheroid.
I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. Most of the problems do result in taking the earths surface and putting it on a flat map. This isn't to big of a deal for small areas, but it is for larger ones, as you correctly point out. Latitude and Longitude themselves aren't the problem, but the way they are used is. People do try to take lat/long lines and make them perfect squares, and that is what we need to move away from.
And while lat/long are polar, they assume that the earth is a perfect sphere, which isn't true. Using two lat/long coordinates to calculate a distance is pretty imprecise. Other coordinate systems are better (MGRS is what the DoD is most concerned with). An accurate 3D Polar system would have a third variable, the distance from the center of the earth (geometrically, not the center of mass). Lat/Long uses a constant distance to mean sea level.
I hate to tell you all this, but there isn't a standard on the Prime Meridian. When you create a mapping system, you have to account for the curvature of the earth, including the fact that it is fatter at the equator (think of a slightly squished ball). As a result, map creators have created things called spheroid's (there are also datum's, which are related). Any decent map should tell you which spheroid and which datum it used to figure the latitude and longitude. Each spheroid is a little different, and each has their own "prime meridian". Spheroids are chosen to be very accurate in specific areas, and less so in others (there is no spheroid that gives more better than 100 meter accuracy everywhere on earth, and as far as I know, there isn't one that does very well at the poles).
If you go to England, and see the "official" marker for the Prime Meridian, and then check with your nifty GPS system, you will find that there is about a 100 meter difference (assuming my memory is correct in this). That is because all GPS systems (even those not American) uses a spheroid called WGS-1984, which is an *American* DoD spheroid, and is very accurate except for the north pole, south pole, and along the International Date Line. The British have used several different spheroids over the course of history, each one a little more accurate than the previous one, but each with their own areas on earth where they aren't so hot. The Soviets use GK (Gauss-Krueger, which I think was originally a German standard) which is very accurate in Europe, reasonable for the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, but poor south of it. Many American sailors use Perry-1864. Most foreign sailors use International. The Japanese have a Tokyo standard, which does well in the Pacific. No one spheroid is really better than all the others everywhere (though WGS-1984 is better than most), and there is no standard spheroid, and hence no standard Prime Meridian (though WGS-1984, because of its association with GPS systems, might become a standard in the future).
Most of these spheroids differ only by a maximum of 600 meters or so, which is more than accurate for most of us. However, Sailors, pilots, and the military care very much which spheroids are being used. If you are using a map and you want to relay detailed information to someone else, you both have to agree on a spheroid. Luckely, most groups have a standard within themselves, so most pilots, sailors, and soldiers don't even know about all this. I only know all this because right now my job is working for a Government contractor that maintains software used by the U.S. Military Intelligence community, and I have been dealing mainly with different mapping subsystems, so I have a fairly "low-level" perspective on maps (not that I understand most of what I know).
Really, if the French want to do this, let them. It will probably mean another spheroid for everyone to worry about, but that isn't much of a big deal.
Stuff like this will continue until there is a recognized standard or until we move away from the stupid longitude/latitude way of doing things. I mean, the basis for Longitude/Latitude is that you can divide the world into little squares, which is obviously not accurate. 3D Polar Coordinates would be much better as long as you correctly model the shape of the earth.
Now, I'm not looking to play the blame game but England and the United States are not ones to speak when it comes to avoiding world-accepted standards (inches vs. meters, driving left vs. driving right, etc).
So, is the world-accepted standard to drive on the left, or to drive on the right, and pray tell how can the UK and the US both violate said standard? Same for metric vs. english units, since the UK switched over a few years back.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
But of course, everyone knows that there are actually four days in one. Or at least that's what the guy at timecube.com says.
P.S.: Don't bother trying to convince him he's wrong...it's like trying to convince the Pope that God doesn't exist.
[BTW, all american readers are invited to search for 'Clinton' on any search engine you may think of. Get a hint ??].
I used to think most people on /. had to be at least litterate, and thus would prove to be intelligent.
Is there a higher than usual proportion of internet-enabled morons in your country ??
This really looks like like an AOL forum from the 'good' old times.
Fabien BERNARD.
What's that jack-ass wrech that Bob Villa sells for Sears? The auto-grip or some non-sense? Man, that wrench was just invented for POS "American" cars that have like 85% foreign (metric) parts in them!
What a disaster!
(As an afterthought, that is actually really lame compared to what the french are doing. Unless the ball falls down because of Y2K, that would rule!)
--
According to the NIST
"The international definition of a second is "the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium atom."
"An Ye Harm None, Do What Ye Will" Wicca Rede
I agree either they are now Americans or we should all speak French, cause next the Frech Gov will repeal William the Conqueror's victory.
Hey, at least they aren't converting to Swatch Internet Time.
Vive la difference!
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
Silly english types... Your father was a hampster and your mother smelled of elderberrys.
Now go away or we shall taunt you some more...
How come I learned about this thing only on slashdot?
No media here's talking about that thing. If nerds are so eager to exercise their nationalists arguments than they take a minor celebration and describe it as a 'revolt' they should start considering to stop using drugs.
. . . . . . .
may u!sh 2 sm!le at dz!z bad nn.!m!tat!ion
Bite two ...
Interesting that you chose nuts and bolts for your example, IIRC it was Whitworth who made the first manufacturing standard, when he decreed the thread size/pitch and width. Now you could take one manufacturers bolt and use any other manufacturers nut, provided they used Whitworth's standard. Much like open standard software.
The UK government in its infinte wisdom has banned imperial measurements (the US has arsed around with gallons anyhow) on foodstuffs to bring us in line with Europe. At least the pint of beer stays - just the right size.
> When the british came up with it I guess they didn't hire a shrink and figure out what's easier for humans.
It's far easier to mentally work out quotients without a calculator than floating point when doing division.
French kiss, French fries--two things I try to not do without for extended periods of time.
+&x
French view on standards :
You don't frighten us, English pig-dog! Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person. I blow my nose on you, so-called Arthur-king, you and your silly English K...kaniggets.
Dava Sobel, in her excellent book "Longitude" (subtitled: How a lone genius solved the greatest scientific problem of his time - mandatory reading for any geek interested in pre-20th century hacking), points out that French navigation charts and ephimerides (tables of astromonical movements) protested the establishment of Greenwich as the Prime Meridian by printing thier reference time as "Greenwich Mean Time retarded by 19 minutes and 42.3 seconds" (not the actual value, do you think I memorized it??).
:-)
So really, this isn't new, just the same dumb thing again, which seems to be a pattern over there. I'm sure this sort of thing embarasses our French colleagues, so let's try not to be too hard on them. It's not thier fault they have the stupidest and most spineless government on the planet. Hmm, on second thought, maybe it is...
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Perhaps if the French were not so quick to surrender, the members of my family here in America might not have had to go over there to give their lives. I assure you the US felt the war nearly as severely as did many European countries.
Clue for the clueless: As a general rule, it's bad form to criticize those willing to come to your aid from halfway around the world when your country has a history of being unwilling to defend even its own territory.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Geez, when did the political correctness bug escape the States? :) I thought when the rest of the world wasn't using various and creative curses to describe the people of the USA that they refered to "us" as Americans. And as you put it, you are from Brazil and therefore Brazilian.
And maybe things have changed in current education but I thought there was a continent called _North_ America and one called _South_ America. With all these different ways of qualifying how one is an American I find it hard to believe that I'm "stealing other people's rights..."
Of course, being a member of a magnanimous society and willing to please, I am more than happy to have Brazil as a 51st state and consider you an "Amazonian American".
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Not another 'can be seen from space' ploy. Maybe M$ did buy France after all! There's no way the French could plant enough trees to be wide enough to be visible, even from LEO. Think about it for a minute - New Zealand can't be seen with the naked eye from space, so how the hell could they plant enough trees??
1nterMod
As well as many of the xDSL standards. It just makes sense to allocate more of the available bandwidth to downloading, as that is what most people do, most of the time.
> Je ne comprende pas...pourquois ecrivez-vous en français? C'est un website américain!
Mais, c'est une Internet mondiale.
hey, lots of people do it. sometimes for benevolent reasons and sometimes not.
examples: iceland, israel, indonesia, china, etc.
the english language is just more of a slut than most. we get into bed with anyone, but mainly because we'd rather absorb a word or two than actually encourage real language study.
It's just a lame-ass attempt for Swatch to make money, and I sure as hell hope it doesn't work. If they were going to do it, they could at least use GMT, and find a better name, but it's not likely. Hopefully, it wil die a quick but painful death.
Yeah, this is offtopic, but I don't care.
Well, for a country with a committee to monitor that the language not change from 16th Century forms, I shouldn't be too surprised...
"We Surrender!"
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off
Yeah, that's pretty annoying, but not as annoying as the fact that your screen size is generally 2.54 or more centimeters less than advertised. Not to mention the fact that the number is a diagonal "measurement."
Actually, if you look at the specs for a monitor (all of the monitors I have seen, anyway) there is usually a metric equivalent. Sometimes they put it right on the box.
As for floppy disks, who cares? I applauded the lack of them on the iMac. I only use mine for booting and nothing else (I like having a BIOS that will boot off a CDROM, it's about time). I have painful memories of splitting files to fit on the damn things, and of having a disk case just for Slackware (~60 odd disks) 5 and 6 years ago.
Not even close, I'm afraid. Try Greece.
Canadian culture?
'Fair play' is for gentlemen, not Frenchmen
I belive some Swiss people also speak Germa ad Italian ;o)
It's a pubic-hair wig used by stage actors. It's an adequate description for many Americans, I admit.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
except in a few countries like England, Ireland, and Japan.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
http://www.dolex.org see the movie
This is JUNE 1st, not April 1st. *grin*
--Carlos V.
Its a shame this came out after school park was released. They could have had the line going through south park :)
(1) almost 170 years
;-)
(2) it depends
(3) you're almost perfectly right: "the vast majority of french wines" should be a better term for "All".
But don't forget that Californian wine is just pure socks juice
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
Vamos lá ter mais calma.
O Português é a unica que merece o titulo de língua mundial.
As línguas Inglesa, Francesa, Italiana e Espanhola são versões fracas do Latin.
Pelo menos os seguintes países falam decentemente: Portugal, Brasil, Angola, Moçambique, Sao Tomé e Principe, Macau e Cabo Verde.
Quem sabe um dia o resto do mundo vai acordar!
> You know, almost everything in >France is decided in Paris. As a french citizen, >I really like to know who has responsability for >having taken such a "parisianist" idea (though >not surprising when you live in France).
And thats why the French bother everyone (well not everyone) so much. Its not the French people. Its the stupid government that is too centralized.
We could bombard them with boxes of Windblows9X! We could shower them with the 95 upgrade floppies! We could even drop Kenneth Starr and Linda Trip on them!! (how about dropping the boxes of papperwork from the CLITon trial....
So I can shift and steer with my strong arm while flipping off the sorry bastard that is driving in my lane with my left!
A more widely accepted theory is that Britain never developed a true national economy until canals were dug - the dirt roads were too muddy for travel most of the year. Since most people are right-handed, they naturally led their mule trains on the *left* bank of the canal so the mules and barge would be on their right.
In contrast, the US developed a national economy with roads (although a few canals were built). Instead of mules pulling a barge to the side, we had horses pull carts behind themselves. Again the people walked so the horses and carts were to their right, but unlike barges the drivers could chat in the middle of the road. So they usually passed each other on the right so they could easily talk.
By the times automobiles were introduced (and they were *not* invented by Americans) the patterns were well established.
This theory may not be correct either, but I doubt anyone would take the first theory seriously. By the time of the French revolution the canal and horse-drawn cart patterns were well established and French revolutionary politics would only affect France, in the same way that only the US picked up the odd knife-and-fork usage (arguably) developed as a way to disarm dinners caught up in political discussion.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Two remarks here :
1) The article of the BBC is fearfully misinformed. I happen to know someone working at the architectural firm in charge of the project. It has _nothing_ to do with claiming for a change in the Prime Meridian. The project is purely symbolical and meant to celebrate the new millenium. Its name is "The Green Meridian". The idea is to celebrate y2k with something which relates to the environment : a reminder that environmental issues will be the greatest challenge of the next century.
Regarding The French and the British being white Europeans:
One in four French citizens is either an immigrant or a first or second generation immigrant. If you withdraw the input of immigration in France from the thirties on, the current population would be 40 million, instead of 60 million. Some posters here have not travelled much obviously. Take a stroll in Paris or London, and you will realize that the ethnic mix there pretty much matches that of New York, for instance.
As for "guests" not contributing to the building of the country, statistics show, both in France and in the US that immigrants are net contributors to the economies and government budgets of the hosting countries (meaning that they pay more than they receive). Not to mention of course their contribution in terms of ideas, culture, arts, science etc... If you are not convinced, check out the names on the doors at the science and engineering dept of any American or French university. Arabs, Chinese, Indians, Russians, etc... are currently researching and training Western students, for the better future of our economies. We should be thankful, I believe...
Unfortunately the view expressed in post #461 --which is both plain wrong and morally inacceptable-- is all too often heard in France too.
This just adds weight to my claim that the French suck (irrational dislike, I know, but so what). This is complete silliness. A couple months ago I walked around on DC on my lunchbreak surveying tourists, asking them "Do you support the nuclear annihilation of France and the extermination of its people," and plan to send the results to the French embassy when I get 1,000 people. An overwhelming majority of people said yes. I feel it is time to reopen the survey. Send your answers to isis69666@hotmail.com, with age, gender, and race (statistical purposes only).
Meghan
Even if this were more than simply a celebration, it wouldn't be suprising. The US of A is the only non-third world country that *still* doesn't use metric, just going to show that you don't have to be French to be obstinate.
The 'native Americans' are guests too. They just got here before the Europeans.
There are some who believe that Robert Pierce in Canterbury, NZ may have made earlier, more controlled, powered, heavier than air flights sometime before the Wright brothers. Some initial research that someone did on the history leading to the development of the automobile found some evidence that Koreans in the early 1700's may have made heavier than air flights (not necessarily powered, but like gliders).
The justification that UTC replaced GMT due to GMT being based on the (changing) duration of the Earth's rotation probably doesn't tell the whole story. After all, the new UTC-defined second was based on the old second. It was merely a refinement of that well-established short period of time. It isn't really a new measure -- it's just a new, more precise, way of measuring the same period.
;)
Why didn't we simply adjust GMT rather than come up with a new name -- that didn't include the name of a place in England? Maybe the new name was thrown in because we non-Brits vastly outnumber Brits.
Anyway, now that we have our atomic-clock derived whiz-bang UTC that is not *quite* GMT, we add a leap second now and then to bring it back in line with GMT. So much for the technological justification. Sheesh.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
What is wrong with this ?
There aren't much human made monuments u can see from space and these monuments were build for military reasons.
So why a government could'nt celebrate the next millenium with this? It's not just about being proud ("arrogant" as you say).
US is now world's only hyperpower. It dominates the entire world in term of science, technology, culture, and even way of life!
Can't we just have a monument to remember the days were France was leading.
Nobody builds cathedrals, cathedrals are now skycrappers and it's build for banks. The world's only god is money and it's the god who figures on USDollars!
So materializing the Paris Meridien may be seen as arrogant, but it's not for money, just for history, and future space tourism.
What about creating a Free Monument Foundation to cover the world and show visiting aliens we're not focused only on money anymore ?
Personellement, je m'en fous. Tout le monde sait que c'est a Grenwich, et si les francais veulent faire encore des betises politiques, laissez les le faire. Souvennez-vous de l'academie Francais il y a quelques annees, avec tout cette histoire du vocabulaire "anglais" et la musique anglophone sur la radio. Est-ce que ca marchait? Je ne le crois pas. C'est toujours une question de nationalisme avec les francais. Ils n'acceptent pas qu'ils ne sont pas au centre du universe. Tant pis pour eux. Vive l'angleterre, dieu saver la reine!
Veuillez m'excuser pour le manque des marques d'accent. Je n'ai pas une clavier AZERTY ici.
Tcl my Pico! There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.
How does one "stope"? Is it legal in Virginia?
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
> the basis for Longitude/Latitude is that you can
;) Look at a globe.
> divide the world into little squares, which is
> obviously not accurate. 3D Polar
> Coordinates would be much better as long as you
> correctly model the shape of the earth.
Hate to tell you, but Longitude/Latitude *do* specify polar coordinates. You have been looking at maps for too long.
The square-problem only arises when you try do map earth's surface to a flat map. You'll have to make compromises, depending on what the map is for. E.g. road maps will usually give correct distances, but angles will be distortet. Naval maps will have distortet distances, but angles will be accurate.
bla
Wasn't it Cugnot? Anyhow, this is correct - from what I know his was the first "steam carriage" or whatnot. The thing was HUGE - the boiler (on the front, driving the front wheel - the chassis was a tricycle arrangement, two back wheels undriven, one front driven steering wheel) was something like 8 feet in diameter (there goes those imperial mesurements again)! The thing was meant to haul cannon, and was pretty slow. Funny thing was, he crashed it into a stone (or brick) wall on its initial run - and that was that!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Yes I took the bait....
Has anyone ever taken anything apart??
You take apart your japanese, german, whatever bicycle and you need a 13 mm, ok that doesn't fit, try a 14 mm, ok great works.
You take apart your "Made in USA" bike and you need a 5/8, nope that's not it, hmm whats next, multiply by 2, ok that gives me 10/16, so I guess I need an 11/16. Hmm thats not it...what's next 12/16, nope not a wrench, reduce..3/4..aha, got it.
Having twice as many wrenches as the world needs is pain enough, but why the hell can't all the English wrenches have the same denominator?? Or a precentage of an inch? When the british came up with it I guess they did'nt hire a shrink and figure out what's easier for humans. At least they learn from their mistakes.
I have to program a goddamn data structure for fractions every time I want to fix my car.
quoth the article. As my own little french-bash:
When did the French stop being revolting?
NO FRENCHMEN WERE HARMED IN THE CREATION OF THIS MESSAGE.
Here's the english translation for the language impaired (if you don't know at least two (foreign) languages, you can't be considered a full human) :
Personally, I'm mad about this :
Everyone in the world knows that (the prime meridian) is at Greenwich, and if the french want to commit some political stupidities, let them. Think back of the Academie Francais(e) some years ago, with all these stories about the "english" vocabulary and the "anglophone" (==english speaking) music on the radio. Did this work ? I don't think so. This is always a question of nationalism with the french people. They don't accept that they aren't in the center of the universe. Too bad for them.
Long live england. God save the queen.
Premier argument to install Linux at the workplace - I get paid while waiting for fsck to scan the partitions.
Where do you think the names florida, california, arizona, new mexico, nevada, montana, colorado, and texas came from? Much of the western US (and therefore, much of the US in general) was colonized by the spanish, not the english
While english may be the most common language in the western US, it does help to be able to habla espanol a little bit, even if to just appreciate place names a little bit.
Some example street names that I've seen in southern california:
El Camino Real --> "the king's road"
Salsipuedes --> "get out if you can"
Indio Muerto --> "dead indian"
>We would also have gone to the metric year of ten
>months.
Actually some clockmakers preemptively started making decimal clocks (there used to be one at my old high school for some reason...you could never figure out when class was over!). They never caught on. The metric system, as you indicate, is no better than any other, besides the fact that human brains can understand decimal arithmetic more easily (for some reason). The metric system would not work well for a calendaring system. The time system we use dates back to the Shumarians' (yes..Sh) 60-based system (60 seconds a minute, 60 min/hr, etc.). This works out very well and is intuitive. Months are based on the cycle of the moon...of which there happen to be ~12 per year. If we wanted to be like the Romans, time would actually progress faster during daylight in the winter (due to the usage of sundials to tell time), so that the average "day" would be shorter in winter. It just doesn't make sense to apply a decimal system to everything. In fact, in some very important ways, forcing the usage of a sole numbering system is very restrictive and dangerous (where would computers be without bin, hex, oct?). Just like language, mathematics is merely a medium for ideas and thoughts...it shouldn't arbitrarily be cast into one form.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
When will the French realize that they aren't the center of the universe (America is of course). While saying America is obviously an arrogant (and only half serious) statement, at least it can be backed up.
But the arrogance is only part of it, the worst part is the ungratefullness, remember WWII? Now the French did help out America in the American Revoultion, but that was mainly to piss off the British I think. Anyway we kept strong to France afterwords and were friendly etc... But not long after WW II the French turned out to be irritating and ungrateful to America. Ah whata ya gonna do.
are these the same French people that think Jerry Lewis is funny? I still wonder why people see that place as a tourist spot...
It seems, from the replies that slashdot's French readers have posted, that this article is completely wrong--a gross distortion produced by a deranged francophobic British journalist's imagination. I suggest that the article be removed from slashdot.
--
As a matter of fact, many French people are fascinated by the U.S., so it's no surprise that most of the TV shows and movies shown in France, and most of the songs on French radio, are American. And French foreign and economic policy heavily favors the interests of the U.S. government and U.S. corporations.
It's silly to make blanket generalizations about the attitudes of whole countries. Governments often do unpopular things. Would it have been logical for a Vietnamese person in 1972 to conclude that most Americans hated Vietnamese people?
--
Man, the French government has pulled some stupid shit in their time, (like the Dreyfus affair, and the Maginot line), but this is so absurd that you could almost denounce it as a plot by traitors in the French government to make France look stupid.
They just haven't been right in the head since the NAZIs marched in, kicked their asses, and got their national hero to bend over and run the Vichy government. I think they hate the US and the UK for saving them, even if they didn't have a ghost of a chance of saving themselves.
Note to France: GET OVER IT!
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
seems to me, that the united states(and I agree fully) thinks that We've got the bombs. therefore, we win.
BAHAHAHAHA!!!! Sure, no problem. Are they willing to pay for the costs to rewrite all the books and programs that will now have to be updated for their revolutionary idea? Why the HELL does the Prime Meridian have to be changed all of a sudden? They should concentrate their energy on taking baths and showers to rid themselves of bodily odors.
In reference to WE GOT THE BOMBS and the frenchman who said 'yeah we got them too':
Sure you got 'em, but they suck! French nuclear weapons sounds like an oxymoron. I'd like to see Dassault or whomever make a system to match a D5.
because french women put out.
In composing this reply about 9e9 "meters" passed by... I'm thinking this is just a tad awkward. :-)
Hey, if we can all switch over to Paris Meridian Time before the Millenium then we could watch all the MS boxes out there crash 9 minutes and 22 seconds earlier!
Stop working on those Y2K bugs, we must devote ALL of our attention on the new problem of removing Greenwich mean time to Paris mean time!
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
"Ribbit"
-awc
Badda-boom
At least the british don't surrender _every time_. Look out! Behind you! The Germans!
Before the rise of the railways, it was normal for cities in Britain, and most probably everywhere else as well, to use their own local time. Thus, in traveling a few hundred miles east or west, you would have to reset your watch. The church bells would ring at the local noon, when the sun was in the South.
Not a problem when the journey took several days, and you probably didn't have a watch anyway.
One of the relics of this age is a clock on the railways station in Bristol (IIRC), which has two minute hands, set about 12 minutes apart. One shows railway time (i.e. London time), and the other shows local time.
After a while it became obvious that simple timetables were more improtant than the sun being in the south at noon, and most places picked standard timezones.
I don't know when the US or France switched over though. Does anyone know how this came about?
Well I am French, I must be crazy to write something in this thread I'm gonna die by flaming. Anyway :
:-)... I think it's nice to make fun of national particularities, (even min ;-) ), as long as there is no racism around. I think we should be able to discuss people's opinions without telling them : "you're stupid because you're from [inseert country]".
:-).
I am going to try not to be too arrogant
Now, some wise people already said this : this is the government, not a popular action by the people. I've been talking with French people for 23 years now, and I never heard anybody complaining that the prime meridian does not run through Paris. Nobody actually gives a fuck. Even the worse arrogant French people
Besides, I think this has nothing to do with the prime meridian it's just some silly 'cultural' action to celebrate Y2k or something like that... British conspiracy to discredit the gratest country of the world (joke) ?
Now I agree that some Frenchmen are arrogant. Especially my boss
Djaak
( Pardon my English I am French )
Yeah I really agree with you. All these moronic "my country's better than yours" flame wars should be banned from /.
These are the political proposals by the group of sad fuckers who call themselves "Front National", usurping the name of a former Resistance group. Not fluent enough in English to translate it in English but basically it means "foreigners out of France ?"
Now why did you post it ? To show that French people are all racists ? It's not true, each time these bastards make meetings there are hundreds of people in the streets to protest ! Sure it's sad but each country has its bloody fascists...
If you agree with them you have nothing to do on this website
Djaak
( La jeunesse emmerde le Front National)
For those living in Canada, this shouldn't surprise anyone. The French government has had long history of attempts to impose Franco culture/standards everywhere... even on the Internet.
9 90614/2722299.html
9 90609/2701204.html
The Quebec government now patrols the internet, looking for Quebec websites that are in English only. If the webpage is in English, and it's related to business/commerce, they can now be fined.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/editorial/pages/
http://www.montrealgazette.com/editorial/pages/
http://www.microbytes.com/protest1.html
gutterface
(Don't like responding to flames but...) :) so your third statement is absolute nonsense.
1. Have you _read_ the article?
2. Have you ever been in France? All French wine I drinked was produced in France ( and I drinked a lot
After all 55 years ago, our grandfathers were screwing their grandmothers for Hershey bars and packs of Camels.
The French are just like their cute little poodles....noisy and annoying as hell but not very important in the scheme of things.
You mean British BullShit?
But Indonesian is the easiest both in spelling and in grammar.
Impaired? Next time let's translate it into Chinese. There are languages other than French and English and certainly more important than the former.
I will grant that French is one of the biggest primary languages in the World(Why else would it be one of the main languages at the U.N.), but the fact is that English is the largest official language in the world, followed closely by Mandarin Chinese. This is due mainly to the fact that the official language of the following countries is English...India, U.S., Great Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and about half a dozen other African countries and about a dozen other island nations. The number of people with English as their official language is approaching 1.5 billion.
Lesson here...Although you have a valid point about French being a world language, check your facts before you start proclaiming what languages are the biggest. French is actually the fifth largest language. They rank in the following order: English, Chineses(Mandarin), Spanish, Arabic and then French.
Guys,
Such practices of public information reaches
the bottom of ethics. This is no better than
MSNBC's coverage of the Monica's "scandal".
Slashdot was supposed to be a symbol of the
Linux community, an advocate for tolerance
and "stuff that matters".
There is always a bit of xenophobia in any
national information channel, and having an
out of context link to such information is often
like opening a Pandora box.
People lobbying for a French Meridian or
planting any nationalistic ideas into young
people's mind are all from the same vermin.
Those same people exist in all countries and
should be the our common enemy. They are the
same ones who say that you must pay for your
human basic needs (college, health care...
Operating System).
The Linux movement goes in the opposite
direction, and is of course immediately,
wrongfully and intentionally tagged with a
"commie" reputation.
Many people who commented today should
understand that in a certain context, humor is
a double-edged weapon and that an anonymous
flame can actually ignite things out of control.
The community is at a crucial stage of it's life.
Many eyes are directed to it while some of it's
most notorious names (RedHat, Cygnus, VAR)
are trying to control the delicate alchemy of
business and public service.
This is also valid for the SlashDot team and I
hope that those words will reach them in some
way.
[ Ego is the most addictive substance -- himself ]
We should give europe back to the huns!! and France back to the Romans! Wait, I sense a chicken and egg thing here.. :)
Depends on how far you want to go back when it comes to 'claiming the motherland'..
Damn those Neanderthals, we have to give everything to them?!?!?
I have read in several books unrelated to the specific subject of geography about the Paris meridian. This is nothing new, just a resurgence.
Arawak
Europe is just a bunch of rebuilt monuments anchored in tons of human bone meal. The American point of view is that we saved your French ass and now you're trying to mess up our clocks, which, come to think of it, doesn't really bother me. Just keep that damned fish-soup over there.
Off the top of my head I can think of at least one country who should have armed their citizens so that the Germans didn't completely whoop their ass twice in the same century......
Come on, who's with me! No one likes the french anyway. They'll never be missed. This ranks up there with the "internet swatch time". Maybe I should make up my own time standard....
It bemused me when I first looked at this 'Paris Mean Time' that the abbreviation PMT stood out. This may give other an insight into Fances time dillema.
:)
BTW, will anybody else in the world really take notice of this new meridian? I think not