Actually, Fahrenheit is very metricy for weather. Zero and 100 are the limits beyond which don't-go-out-unless-absolutely-necessary apply. Below 60 is jacket weather. Below 40 is heavy coat weather. Above 80 is swimming/shorts weather. Well for most people. I start wearing shorts at around 60, but I'm weird.
Which hints at the real truth behind so-called Imperial units. It's not one system. It's a whole bunch of systems developed within different industries and fine-tuned to their needs.
A board foot is very handy for a professional cabinet maker or finish carpenter. So, it's useful to lumber yards by default. Nobody else cares.
A rod is useful to a surveyor working with pre-laser, pre-GPS technology. As a result, those who use his work use measures derived from it. e.g. realtors.
A yard is very natural for anyone working on land. It's pretty much defined as a good-length stride. Most adult men can reliably stride a fairly accurate yard with little effort.
Oh those cabinet makers up there, they like feet and inches. A dresser rarely needs measurements to be adjusted by 10ths. It always needs halves, thirds and quarters. Hey! A base-12 system can do all of those easily.
Most of Imperial is actually base-12. Because it is easier to do the conversions that people often actually do in real life. Halving, thirding, quartering, doubling, tripling, quadrupling,... These occur naturally a lot more than fifthing and tenthing. In addition, base-12 simply has more natural factors.
But then, at least one metric unit has the same sort of origin. Celsius was designed to be useful to the scientist. Water freezing and evaporating are useful signposts to him. To people in everyday life, body-temperature and frick-you-everything-will-be-frozen-solid-out-there are pretty useful signposts*.
* Go research the origin of the F scale. That's pretty much what the benchmarks were set at.
I was taught in HS chemistry that pounds are used to measure weight and kilograms to measure mass. Only comparable in an assumed, consistent gravitational field. And even then, not really interchangeable. Know what you are measuring.
BTW, for those who don't know, Fahrenheit is based on "natural" measurements too. It's off a bit because the instruments used were imprecise, but it was based that way.
I'm seeing the same thing with my children in the Midwest. When I was in grade-school, in the 70's, we were taught both. Now, they seem to be occasionally told the conversion to proper* measurements. Most of it is metric.
Black and white TVs were sold well into the late 80's. Probably into the 90's. I wouldn't know. I didn't shop for a TV at all during the 90's, or most of the 00's either.
When I was starting out on my own, in the late 80's, a smallish black and white TV cost around 100 bucks. The crappiest color TV available was 2-3 times that price. The same as CRTs vs LCD/LED/whatever until fairly recently. I've been contemplating a TV upgrade for a couple years. During that period, the clear price advantage of CRT has dried-up.
For a lot of us, TV is a convenience. It would not be the first thing we'd look to replace if we had to start-over from scratch. Even in entertainment. I'm mostly happy with the 20-some inch CRT we've had for a decade. I was fairly happy with the late-70's vintage CRT it replaced. The new one was a gift from a relative that couldn't believe we were "making do" with a 19" CRT that was 20 years old. I mainly want a bigger picture now. Higher resolution and non-CRT will be nice perks. But, I'm only looking at them because they are the bottom of the price range.
Actually, I expect that used crap on eBay is more reliable than new crap on eBay. The bulk scammers are usually very eager to stress how this is a new, unopened, brand-name product.
Um, if you want a no-prior-knowledge episode, it really doesn't get any better than "Blink". At least three, er four, characters have to have the Doctor explained to them in that ep. In addition, it has THE BEST description of non-linear time ever!!!
But every thing I read about Dr Who suggest me to avoid it like hell. I have a hard time accepting a species that renamed themselves "Time Lords". Even if they invented the technology, it's like renaming ourselves TV Lords then Internet Lords every time we invent something. I have a hard time accepting that a race of "Time Lords" can experience conflict of any kind. How many times does time machinery fail per episode? Even 0.5 times per episode would be too much to take.[...]
As far as I know the doctor has gone over several iterations and I'm sure there's at least a couple of retcons.
As I remember, not all Gallifreyans are Time Lords. It is more of a title than a species. But, most of the universe is not familiar with the non-Time Lord Gallifreyans.
Further, they aren't just time-travelers using some neat tech. They are attached, in-tune, with their TARDIS in some way. There are several references to the Doctor being able to "feel" time and events. Looking into the Vortex somehow tunes them into the entire multiverse.
As to machine failures, the Doctor's TARDIS is one of the oldest in usage when the series began. He stole it and hasn't done much, if any, of the appropriate maintenance he should have. It breaks down because it is several generations out-of-date technology that the Doctor chooses to nurse along.
When you're talking about a time-travel series, it could be easily argued that the term RetCon is meaningless.
As someone else has already pointed-out, Dr Who is not science fiction. It's science fantasy.
I only caught a couple of the David Tennent episodes, and he didn't seem to have really turned into The Doctor by then, unlike Eccleston who did that pretty fast.
You should watch "The Christmas Invasion", David Tennant's first episode. He defines his Doctor very well. And, lives up to it throughout the next several seasons.
Well, it really depends on the source of your back pain. If it is muscular, sure.
If it is caused by compressed discs like mine, not so much. Strengthening exercises have some value in preventing recurrence, but do very little for me when it comes to reducing a flare-up. Only two things have really helped when it starts. Being very conscious of posture and learning that I have a problem with auto-immune inflammatory issues and getting the appropriate treatment for that.
But then, one of the other major sources of back pain is ulcers. I really doubt strength-training will do much for those.
The GP was talking about setting up XAMPP and installing software. I took that to mean a home-server.
About Linode, are you happy with them? I'm thinking about changing hosts for my personal stuff and am starting to research alternatives. If you don't mind, I'll email you some specific questions.
Slashdot Mirror
Um. Reading-comprehension much?
Actually, Fahrenheit is very metricy for weather. Zero and 100 are the limits beyond which don't-go-out-unless-absolutely-necessary apply. Below 60 is jacket weather. Below 40 is heavy coat weather. Above 80 is swimming/shorts weather. Well for most people. I start wearing shorts at around 60, but I'm weird.
Because European plywood in multiples-of-three millimeter thicknesses is really metric-origin units?
Which hints at the real truth behind so-called Imperial units. It's not one system. It's a whole bunch of systems developed within different industries and fine-tuned to their needs.
A board foot is very handy for a professional cabinet maker or finish carpenter. So, it's useful to lumber yards by default. Nobody else cares.
A rod is useful to a surveyor working with pre-laser, pre-GPS technology. As a result, those who use his work use measures derived from it. e.g. realtors.
A yard is very natural for anyone working on land. It's pretty much defined as a good-length stride. Most adult men can reliably stride a fairly accurate yard with little effort.
Oh those cabinet makers up there, they like feet and inches. A dresser rarely needs measurements to be adjusted by 10ths. It always needs halves, thirds and quarters. Hey! A base-12 system can do all of those easily.
Most of Imperial is actually base-12. Because it is easier to do the conversions that people often actually do in real life. Halving, thirding, quartering, doubling, tripling, quadrupling,... These occur naturally a lot more than fifthing and tenthing. In addition, base-12 simply has more natural factors.
But then, at least one metric unit has the same sort of origin. Celsius was designed to be useful to the scientist. Water freezing and evaporating are useful signposts to him. To people in everyday life, body-temperature and frick-you-everything-will-be-frozen-solid-out-there are pretty useful signposts*.
* Go research the origin of the F scale. That's pretty much what the benchmarks were set at.
Pedantry Man to the rescue!
I was taught in HS chemistry that pounds are used to measure weight and kilograms to measure mass. Only comparable in an assumed, consistent gravitational field. And even then, not really interchangeable. Know what you are measuring.
And true to boot! (Says the abstract-mathematician-at-heart*)
* Heck, actual numbers should be avoided even. I mean natural and real numbers are okay as something to count. More than that? No thanks.
Hmm. Using square-miles/kilometers of 2/3rds of one of the countries for this comparison.
According to the CIA:
Population 22 million vs 313 million
Roads 813 thousand km vs 6.5 million km
GDP U$890 billion vs U$15 trillion
I'm thinking that you may have chosen a biased metric.
+1 on weather temps.
BTW, for those who don't know, Fahrenheit is based on "natural" measurements too. It's off a bit because the instruments used were imprecise, but it was based that way.
I'm seeing the same thing with my children in the Midwest. When I was in grade-school, in the 70's, we were taught both. Now, they seem to be occasionally told the conversion to proper* measurements. Most of it is metric.
*Look Ma! A drive-by trolling!
Cost.
Black and white TVs were sold well into the late 80's. Probably into the 90's. I wouldn't know. I didn't shop for a TV at all during the 90's, or most of the 00's either.
When I was starting out on my own, in the late 80's, a smallish black and white TV cost around 100 bucks. The crappiest color TV available was 2-3 times that price. The same as CRTs vs LCD/LED/whatever until fairly recently. I've been contemplating a TV upgrade for a couple years. During that period, the clear price advantage of CRT has dried-up.
For a lot of us, TV is a convenience. It would not be the first thing we'd look to replace if we had to start-over from scratch. Even in entertainment. I'm mostly happy with the 20-some inch CRT we've had for a decade. I was fairly happy with the late-70's vintage CRT it replaced. The new one was a gift from a relative that couldn't believe we were "making do" with a 19" CRT that was 20 years old. I mainly want a bigger picture now. Higher resolution and non-CRT will be nice perks. But, I'm only looking at them because they are the bottom of the price range.
Actually, the scene with Chewie appearing to finish off a not-quite-dead Greedo sounds pretty cool.
If we could get good CGI of Greedo's head being ripped off, it would definitely work.
But, according to the summary up there, this one survives password changes. That's really the gotcha. It sounds like they are using something similar to the SSH authentication keys. http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=ssh-keygen&sektion=1
But, they really need to implement a way to reset the key files and force you to restart the authentication cycle.
Actually, I expect that used crap on eBay is more reliable than new crap on eBay. The bulk scammers are usually very eager to stress how this is a new, unopened, brand-name product.
Here you go. http://www.cvs.com/CVSApp/catalog/shop_product_detail.jsp?skuId=251591&productId=251591
Which sits in your house for 8 or more hours every day? Do you turn it off a random distance from home every time you approach home?
You can be rather certain that it is associated with you. The association may be a little harder to identify. But, it is there.
(with ReSharper added on) [...] (though it's no IntelliJ IDEA)
These bits right here, +1.
Um, if you want a no-prior-knowledge episode, it really doesn't get any better than "Blink". At least three, er four, characters have to have the Doctor explained to them in that ep. In addition, it has THE BEST description of non-linear time ever!!!
But every thing I read about Dr Who suggest me to avoid it like hell. I have a hard time accepting a species that renamed themselves "Time Lords". Even if they invented the technology, it's like renaming ourselves TV Lords then Internet Lords every time we invent something. I have a hard time accepting that a race of "Time Lords" can experience conflict of any kind. How many times does time machinery fail per episode? Even 0.5 times per episode would be too much to take.[...]
As far as I know the doctor has gone over several iterations and I'm sure there's at least a couple of retcons.
As I remember, not all Gallifreyans are Time Lords. It is more of a title than a species. But, most of the universe is not familiar with the non-Time Lord Gallifreyans.
Further, they aren't just time-travelers using some neat tech. They are attached, in-tune, with their TARDIS in some way. There are several references to the Doctor being able to "feel" time and events. Looking into the Vortex somehow tunes them into the entire multiverse.
As to machine failures, the Doctor's TARDIS is one of the oldest in usage when the series began. He stole it and hasn't done much, if any, of the appropriate maintenance he should have. It breaks down because it is several generations out-of-date technology that the Doctor chooses to nurse along.
When you're talking about a time-travel series, it could be easily argued that the term RetCon is meaningless.
As someone else has already pointed-out, Dr Who is not science fiction. It's science fantasy.
>
I only caught a couple of the David Tennent episodes, and he didn't seem to have really turned into The Doctor by then, unlike Eccleston who did that pretty fast.
You should watch "The Christmas Invasion", David Tennant's first episode. He defines his Doctor very well. And, lives up to it throughout the next several seasons.
+1
Well, it really depends on the source of your back pain. If it is muscular, sure.
If it is caused by compressed discs like mine, not so much. Strengthening exercises have some value in preventing recurrence, but do very little for me when it comes to reducing a flare-up. Only two things have really helped when it starts. Being very conscious of posture and learning that I have a problem with auto-immune inflammatory issues and getting the appropriate treatment for that.
But then, one of the other major sources of back pain is ulcers. I really doubt strength-training will do much for those.
How's that hook taste?
Although, to be fair, the GP seemed to be more of a joke than a troll.
Kinda like Chewbacca's presence in the prequels.
Um, are you thinking of Grima Wormtongue? Who stabs Saruman and then is slain by hobbit archers.
The GP was talking about setting up XAMPP and installing software. I took that to mean a home-server.
About Linode, are you happy with them? I'm thinking about changing hosts for my personal stuff and am starting to research alternatives. If you don't mind, I'll email you some specific questions.