Its not as fast as linux, and doesn't have hardware support. So, there is no bother kicking it out. Because nothing ever gets better. Especially when people start adopting it and taking it apart to see how it works and make it better. I for one, am not building a new computer for it. Nope. Not me.
Fair point, I guess, it has room to improve...
But it's hard not to be cynical about Hurd. It's been present to some extent for as long as I've been aware of Linux, but it's always been sort of a joke. It was supposedly going to do all these amazing things (and maybe now it can actually do some of them) but for year after year after year it was all talk, combined with a failure to deliver. Hey guys, it's going to have this amazing mount structure that will make/usr/bin and/usr/local/bin obsolete! It's going to have a fantastic microkernel architecture with pluggable modules so you can dynamically adjust the shit out of it! It'll be really, really great - oh, but it's not really usable yet. Maybe next year. This has been going on for a long, long time.
Meanwhile, GNU, lacking a usable kernel of their own (more or less) but wanting to have a full system to call their own, laid their brand on Linux... And, you know, I respect GNU and appreciate everything they've given us over the years, and I think they have a reasonable point that GNU software is pretty central to the typical Linux system. But you see "GNU/Linux" even in GRUB - think about that... GRUB is booting the Linux kernel. It's a safe bet that the system, once it's started up, will run GNU software, but they're not booting GNU software in that case: They're booting Linux. (OK, bit of a rant there, but can you see my point here?)
Can't fault 'em too much for limited hardware support, 'cause limitations like that have generally been an issue for Linux as well. The hardware side is less of an issue now only because Linux has exposure and commercial support driving hardware support (sometimes in a non-free or quasi non-free form). They should be able to adapt some of that code to work in Hurd over time (well, as long as they don't have an issue with the code being licensed GPL v2) and get a lot of what's missing.
But, after all that build-up and all that delay, for the system to still be a bit weak - I feel like it hasn't really earned the right to escape the derision it earned in all those years of being steeped in theoretically good concepts, while failing to deliver the goods.
Hurd, DNF, Wine 1.0, Gmail out of beta, Windows running stable, grannies using Linux, video chat on handheld computers, movies commonly coming out in 3D, video games you don't play with your hands, electric cars on dealership lots, a US president who isn't a white guy...
If shipping through the mail is more expensive than streaming, why are they charging the same for both?
Well, for starters they've also seriously decreased the amount of DVDs you can get from the service, right? Down from X number of DVDs at a time to X number of DVDs per month. With one DVD at a time you could potentially get four or more DVDs per month (assuming about a week turnaround in the mail, and assuming you watch your DVDs and return them rather than hold on to 'em for a while.) Compare that to streaming where you might watch a couple hours of video per day and it's different every day.
But, if I'm not mistaken, streaming carries a different kind of cost: broadcasting rights. Movie rentals via physical media were negotiated a long time ago: I think someone renting out movies in that fashion doesn't need to do much besides just own a copy of the disc. But renting streaming movies over the internet is a different ball-game legally, because it's different enough that the studios saw and seized an opportunity to change the rules.
I, too, believe they're trying to wean us off DVD rentals. Honestly, we got our three Netflix discs in the mail months ago and haven't yet returned any of them. We're very undisciplined with the DVDs. The one thing that makes me feel it may be worth holding onto Netflix DVD service is the fact that they have a good catalogue: lots of things that I wouldn't expect to find at the local video store (if I still had a local video store) let alone a dinky little Redbox kiosk. I haven't quite decided what I want to do about this change yet.
bsnes has some of the features you would expect in every modern emulator like save states, but it's not like you have to use them just because they're there - I don't. As for the games themselves, you could make a rule for yourself to only play games you own a physical copy of
There's a big difference between artificially self-imposed rules and limitations you can't readily circumvent. Again, the House of the Dead example. The game's not as fun if you can just press that start button any time you want to continue.
but if you download a game and can't be bothered playing through it, that's most likely a sign that you don't find it worth your time.
On a strictly objective basis, perhaps. But I do not operate on a strictly objective basis. I like Gundam designs more when I enjoy the show they were in, for instance. Likewise, the process of acquiring a game can have an impact on my enjoyment of it.
As for the controller; adapters aren't so expensive you couldn't afford one.
Don't worry, I know all about that stuff. I even USB-converted an NES controller myself, and later modified it so I could use it to play Mega Man 9 and 10 on PS3. (There were button layout issues with my initial attempt. In retrospect I really should have added in a PS button feature as well.)
That controller coupled with bsnes (and its 99.9% accure emulation) feels exactly like the real experience back in the days, except games don't look like shit when output to modern displays.
Games didn't look like shit when output to old displays, either - so I don't really get your point. On the other hand, when you take a low-res game made with an interlaced display in mind, scale it up, deinterlace it, and put it on a modern, hi-res LCD panel - I think the results can be a bit unflattering. You start to see the pixels as pixels. They look like big rectangles on the screen, where originally this effect wasn't so noticeable because the display was probably smaller and less precise.
Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy emulators, and I don't mean to tell everybody that they shouldn't play them - just that there's elements of the original experience that are worthwhile, IMO, and which shouldn't be forgotten when you're on a nostalgia kick.
I think this qualifies as "Geek Nostalgia": Lately I've been watching Star Trek:TNG on Netflix. Starting with the first season. I thought season 1 was just going to be really, really bad, but... I don't know, I'm enjoying it. Maybe just 'cause it's a bit kitschy, maybe 'cause it actually has a bit of TOS flavor to it but with higher production values (and I'm not just talking about the two TOS episode rehashes in the first three stories), maybe 'cause I remember watching those episodes as a kid (and never really felt the hatred for the Wesley character)
The thing I've already purchased is an NES Game Pak. I can make use of it by format-shifting the program on the Game Pak using a cartridge reader. Which cartridge reader do you recommend?
What's your point, man? Trying to remind us all that downloading ROMs is wrong? 'Cause I know you can't be ignorant of the reality that people download ROMs off the internet. Nor do I expect that you're ignorant of the fact that Nintendo contends that even format-shifting is illegitimate use of their cartridges.
This is bound to sound a bit hokey but I don't believe emulators provide the same kind of experience. For starters, you're not going to have the original controllers unless you get some kind of adaptor. Sound emulation often isn't quite right, and a computer monitor is likely to be a bit too crisp for a lot of those old games. (Deinterlacing can have a bad effect as well...) But there's also issues of the experience that frames the game - the tactile nature of dealing with cartridges, the limitations on (or complete lack of support for) saving games, and how that affects the experience.
As a basic example of this "framing experience" thing - I enjoy going to the arcade and playing House of the Dead (when I can find it) - the game is kind of cheap sometimes, and it's kind of a quarter-pumper by nature, but I think if it were the same game but set on "free play" it wouldn't be fun, because there would be no more sense of urgency in trying to avoid getting killed.
Even the basic process of trying to get a cartridge (within an agreeable price range) can be part of this - if it's hard to find the game you want at a price you're willing to pay, that increases the apparent value of the game, and (assuming it's one you really want to play) you may want it for a while but not get it. Instant gratification (i.e. downloading a ROM) makes me less likely to stick with a game.
"Why does the court treat violent images and sexual images so differently?"
Why would anyone think that sexual images and violent images should fall in the same category?
A child can understand violence, it is not very hard. Everyone has bumped their head or cut themselves, they know it hurts, it is not good. It is easy to extrapolate this to a greater extent, a child can do that. But sexuality, a child by definition has not even hit puberty, sexuality is physically incomprehensible
But we're not talking about physical comprehension at all, rather mental comprehension.
I think people tend to underestimate what children are capable of. (Exactly how young are you thinking here? I mean, at ten I didn't know about sex, but I still understood basic concepts, like men wanting to see women naked. If I'd seen tits in a game at that point I doubt it'd have impacted me much, apart from enjoying the "scandalous" nature of it.)
But at the center of this debate are questions of how exposure to sexual content and violent content affects a child's development. The question with regard to violence isn't whether violence hurts, the question is whether the child will think it's OK to hurt people, or adopt violent behaviors as a result of the exposure. The question with regard to sex is, I guess, some kind of "tree of knowledge" thing, concern that knowledge of sex will encourage kids to become sexually active too early, or adopt deviant behavior or something...
I should add that steak and apples sounds like a potentially delicious combination.
When I read this guy's name, and note that he's opposing the side of this thing that I support, I can't help but associate his name with the Japanese word "baka"...
Re:It's those pesky humans
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I said measure the diameter, not guess the diameter. The only "guessing" I mentioned is the requirement of guessing where the center is if you want to measure the radius.
Here are a couple examples of what I had in mind when I said that measuring a diameter is easy: - you see a circle painted on the wall. Pull out a ruler or a tape measure. Done. - you come across a poured concrete circular fire pit on the ground. You and a friend stand on opposite sides of it and stretch across a tape measure. Done.
If the measurement doesn't go through the center of the circle, then you got it wrong.
What possible reason could you have not to finish switching to metric?
Manly American Football is played on a 100 yard field. Sissy Canadian Football is played on a 100 meter field. I refuse to see our beloved sports (e.g. Baseball is defined in yards as well) redefined, therefor causing old records to be irrelevant.
More realistically, I have no idea why base 10 is a great idea. Imperial has binary units (volume/mass) and base twelve units (hello 1/3!). Either standard seems better than base 10.
It's a fair point, but the main issue to my mind is that they didn't pick a base and stick with it, rather the conversion factors are all over the map. Teaspoons-to-tablespoons is a factor of three, but up to cups, pints, quarts, and (US) gallons is a power of two. Inches to feet is factors of twos and three, feet to miles is factors of two, five, and eleven. And fractions of inches are powers of two, unless you're dealing with mils in which case it's powers of ten. And there's no straightforward conversion between the length and volume measures, or (as you get into physics calculations) the length, weight, and force. One cubic foot is 7.48051948 US gallons.
Had the system been planned better, I think the disparate conversion factors could be quite acceptable: 12 inches per foot is reasonable, potentially helpful in cases that involve division by a factor of three. Working with arc-degrees and the fractions thereof (arc-minutes, arc-seconds) is similarly reasonable. The bigger problem is that some of the conversion factors aren't even integers.
Speaking personally - I build models and deal with small measurements a lot. In that context I'd rather deal with powers of ten rather than powers of two. I can do fractional math, obviously, but it's still easier to work out the drill bit sizes between 3mm and 5mm than it is to work out the drill bit sizes between 1/8" and 13/64" - even if I change the denominator (i.e. 3.5mm has an extra digit, so I'm effectively working in ten-thousandths of a meter instead of thousandths) the change to the numerator is trivial. Power-of-two changes to the numerator are pretty easy but not as easy, simply because my numerical representation isn't powers-of-two.
There is a flip side to that scale modeling scenario, which is that kit scales are in many cases chosen specifically to suit the foot-to-inch conversion factor. For instance, a six-foot-tall man would be exactly one inch tall in 1/72, or three inches tall in 1/24. That is handy, but it becomes less helpful if the measurement you're converting isn't that fundamental measurement on which the scale was based. The scales have factors of three - if you're starting with feet, one of those gets eaten by the inch conversion... But if you're starting with a measurement in inches and going for a fractional measure of inches, the factors of three have to be used to divide the numerator... eleven inches scales down to (11/9)/8 in 1/72 scale, for instance. Converting that to the closest power-of-two fraction means finding the right denominator... (22/9)/16 or (44/9)/32 or (88/9)/64 - scaling up the numerator enough to find a good answer, and then scaling it back down to a satisfactory precision. (44/9 is slightly less than 45/9=5, so 5/32 would be a good approximation..)
Dealing with a problem like that in metric is actually easier IMO, even though the unit conversions don't eat any of the scaling factors. 28cm / 72 = 3.5cm / 9, very close to 3.9mm. (Well, the 28cm measurement comes from a conversion from the 11" measurement I used in the inches example, so it may be a bit too convenient as 28 already carries two factors of two... If it were a prime number, as in the previous example - say, 31cm/72 = 10.33cm/24 = 3.44cm/8 = 4.3mm) It's convenient to not have to change bases at any point during the calculation, even if that means some cases are less convenient.
Of course, with the right calculator you can handle all those
Re:For the moment, not persuaded.
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Because outside of the world of digital calculators metric sucks?
We can have a quarter pounder with cheese. You have the Royale with cheese. One tells you how much you are actually getting.
That's pre-cooked weight, so no it doesn't.
Re:For the moment, not persuaded.
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Happy Tau Day
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Luckily, you can easily write T=2Pi in your equations. No need to reprint thousands of T-Shirts.
I think the main point of the rant is that Tau somehow seems more fundamental. What defines a circle? A locus of points on a plane equidistant from a certain point. That distance is somehow more fundamental than 2r, even if the distinction is trivial.
It's not about the ratio of the circumference to the radius (or diameter) - it's about the fact that all this other math that uses pi winds up needing an extra factor of two... When you're working with arc lengths or integrating circumferences, you're generally working with radius and multiplying by 2*pi.
I'd agree from a practical standpoint it's fairly silly to think of switching people to using tau (equal to 2*pi) in their calculations instead of pi. But it's worth thinking critically about those kinds of decisions, the slightly arbitrary choice of which version of the constant we use, if there may be clear benefits to an alternative choice. And regardless of whether any kind of actual switch takes place, it's worthwhile to at least recognize the idea that 2*pi may actually be a more important constant than pi. Exploring ideas like that holds the potential to usefully change how you think about math.
Re:For the moment, not persuaded.
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1 btu = 1 055.05585 joules
according to Google, you metric bigot!
it is NOT unstandardized.
How many litres in a gallon?
Re:Pronounciation fail
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Happy Tau Day
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In modern greek, the letter "insert letter here" is pronounced "taf".
Mega Man is also my pick for the appropriate counter-example. The recent re-releases used the old engine
You mean the recent sequels? (Rockman 9 and 10 - both are on PS3...)
They don't actually use the old engine, as they don't run on an NES emulation. The old engine has been reimplemented. This is why Rockman 9 had an option to allow you to emulate sprite flicker (which on old hardware would have been caused by software dealing with a hardware limitation on the number of sprites per scanline) - it's also why they were able to do things in 9 and 10 that aren't actually possible on NES hardware.
I did enjoy those two titles, but as examples go they're kind of uninspiring. Going full retro like they did is fun, but it's not something that would work for every title and going backwards like that, back to familiar, safe territory means (in terms of game design) you're not taking a lot of chances.
it sure made me feel weird to be listening to his new album only to find that except for 'Perform This Way' I'd never heard the other songs he was parodying before.
Heh, me too. Actually I don't listen to Gaga, either, so I don't know any of the originals he parodied for this album, or any of the songs from the polka medley... Well, except "Poker Face".
What I am continually amazed by is just how large a range he and his band have. They do tons of different styles when parodying songs and do them extremely well.
Particularly impressive are the style parodies, because they are always so dead on. They really can capture the style of a band and create a new tune that sounds just right.
Actually I think Weird Al is in kind of a unique and special place as a musician. Apart from the matter of being technically able to perform different styles, his niche in the musical world gives him the fairly unique opportunity to try different styles freely. Other musicians, once they're popular, may get boxed in by their past hits - fans will expect them to do similar work in the future. Al can do just about anything (at least within the realm of "popular music"). The fact that "Smells Like Nirvana" was a big hit for him doesn't mean he's forever a grunge artist.
Legally, you are correct. However, Weird Al has always had permissions to release parodies. It's not a question of legality, it's a question of being a nice guy.
Additionally (as Al pointed out in TFA) he needs to consider what kind of relationship he's creating between himself, his label, the other artist, and their label. If releasing a particular song would make an enemy of another label, his label might prefer not to release it.
Yeah, this _is_ a great reminder. Just use KeePassX (http://www.keepassx.org/) or something similar...
I can't recommend this product highly enough. I've used Keep Ass X on my website for years, and I would certainly say it lived up to its promise of covering my ass!
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Its not as fast as linux, and doesn't have hardware support. So, there is no bother kicking it out. Because nothing ever gets better. Especially when people start adopting it and taking it apart to see how it works and make it better. I for one, am not building a new computer for it. Nope. Not me.
Fair point, I guess, it has room to improve...
But it's hard not to be cynical about Hurd. It's been present to some extent for as long as I've been aware of Linux, but it's always been sort of a joke. It was supposedly going to do all these amazing things (and maybe now it can actually do some of them) but for year after year after year it was all talk, combined with a failure to deliver. Hey guys, it's going to have this amazing mount structure that will make /usr/bin and /usr/local/bin obsolete! It's going to have a fantastic microkernel architecture with pluggable modules so you can dynamically adjust the shit out of it! It'll be really, really great - oh, but it's not really usable yet. Maybe next year. This has been going on for a long, long time.
Meanwhile, GNU, lacking a usable kernel of their own (more or less) but wanting to have a full system to call their own, laid their brand on Linux... And, you know, I respect GNU and appreciate everything they've given us over the years, and I think they have a reasonable point that GNU software is pretty central to the typical Linux system. But you see "GNU/Linux" even in GRUB - think about that... GRUB is booting the Linux kernel. It's a safe bet that the system, once it's started up, will run GNU software, but they're not booting GNU software in that case: They're booting Linux. (OK, bit of a rant there, but can you see my point here?)
Can't fault 'em too much for limited hardware support, 'cause limitations like that have generally been an issue for Linux as well. The hardware side is less of an issue now only because Linux has exposure and commercial support driving hardware support (sometimes in a non-free or quasi non-free form). They should be able to adapt some of that code to work in Hurd over time (well, as long as they don't have an issue with the code being licensed GPL v2) and get a lot of what's missing.
But, after all that build-up and all that delay, for the system to still be a bit weak - I feel like it hasn't really earned the right to escape the derision it earned in all those years of being steeped in theoretically good concepts, while failing to deliver the goods.
Hurd, DNF, Wine 1.0, Gmail out of beta, Windows running stable, grannies using Linux, video chat on handheld computers, movies commonly coming out in 3D, video games you don't play with your hands, electric cars on dealership lots, a US president who isn't a white guy...
Dogs and cats living together... Mass hysteria!
If shipping through the mail is more expensive than streaming, why are they charging the same for both?
Well, for starters they've also seriously decreased the amount of DVDs you can get from the service, right? Down from X number of DVDs at a time to X number of DVDs per month. With one DVD at a time you could potentially get four or more DVDs per month (assuming about a week turnaround in the mail, and assuming you watch your DVDs and return them rather than hold on to 'em for a while.) Compare that to streaming where you might watch a couple hours of video per day and it's different every day.
But, if I'm not mistaken, streaming carries a different kind of cost: broadcasting rights. Movie rentals via physical media were negotiated a long time ago: I think someone renting out movies in that fashion doesn't need to do much besides just own a copy of the disc. But renting streaming movies over the internet is a different ball-game legally, because it's different enough that the studios saw and seized an opportunity to change the rules.
I, too, believe they're trying to wean us off DVD rentals. Honestly, we got our three Netflix discs in the mail months ago and haven't yet returned any of them. We're very undisciplined with the DVDs. The one thing that makes me feel it may be worth holding onto Netflix DVD service is the fact that they have a good catalogue: lots of things that I wouldn't expect to find at the local video store (if I still had a local video store) let alone a dinky little Redbox kiosk. I haven't quite decided what I want to do about this change yet.
bsnes has some of the features you would expect in every modern emulator like save states, but it's not like you have to use them just because they're there - I don't. As for the games themselves, you could make a rule for yourself to only play games you own a physical copy of
There's a big difference between artificially self-imposed rules and limitations you can't readily circumvent. Again, the House of the Dead example. The game's not as fun if you can just press that start button any time you want to continue.
but if you download a game and can't be bothered playing through it, that's most likely a sign that you don't find it worth your time.
On a strictly objective basis, perhaps. But I do not operate on a strictly objective basis. I like Gundam designs more when I enjoy the show they were in, for instance. Likewise, the process of acquiring a game can have an impact on my enjoyment of it.
As for the controller; adapters aren't so expensive you couldn't afford one.
Don't worry, I know all about that stuff. I even USB-converted an NES controller myself, and later modified it so I could use it to play Mega Man 9 and 10 on PS3. (There were button layout issues with my initial attempt. In retrospect I really should have added in a PS button feature as well.)
That controller coupled with bsnes (and its 99.9% accure emulation) feels exactly like the real experience back in the days, except games don't look like shit when output to modern displays.
Games didn't look like shit when output to old displays, either - so I don't really get your point. On the other hand, when you take a low-res game made with an interlaced display in mind, scale it up, deinterlace it, and put it on a modern, hi-res LCD panel - I think the results can be a bit unflattering. You start to see the pixels as pixels. They look like big rectangles on the screen, where originally this effect wasn't so noticeable because the display was probably smaller and less precise.
Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy emulators, and I don't mean to tell everybody that they shouldn't play them - just that there's elements of the original experience that are worthwhile, IMO, and which shouldn't be forgotten when you're on a nostalgia kick.
I think this qualifies as "Geek Nostalgia": Lately I've been watching Star Trek:TNG on Netflix. Starting with the first season. I thought season 1 was just going to be really, really bad, but... I don't know, I'm enjoying it. Maybe just 'cause it's a bit kitschy, maybe 'cause it actually has a bit of TOS flavor to it but with higher production values (and I'm not just talking about the two TOS episode rehashes in the first three stories), maybe 'cause I remember watching those episodes as a kid (and never really felt the hatred for the Wesley character)
The thing I've already purchased is an NES Game Pak. I can make use of it by format-shifting the program on the Game Pak using a cartridge reader. Which cartridge reader do you recommend?
What's your point, man? Trying to remind us all that downloading ROMs is wrong? 'Cause I know you can't be ignorant of the reality that people download ROMs off the internet. Nor do I expect that you're ignorant of the fact that Nintendo contends that even format-shifting is illegitimate use of their cartridges.
Oddly, I don't really care.
You download the games instead
Good point. Which publishers sell emulated NES games over PSN?
Capcom sells Rockman 1, 2, and 3. :) PSX versions, so they're probably not actually emulated, but you know...
A SNES? Emulators?
This is bound to sound a bit hokey but I don't believe emulators provide the same kind of experience. For starters, you're not going to have the original controllers unless you get some kind of adaptor. Sound emulation often isn't quite right, and a computer monitor is likely to be a bit too crisp for a lot of those old games. (Deinterlacing can have a bad effect as well...) But there's also issues of the experience that frames the game - the tactile nature of dealing with cartridges, the limitations on (or complete lack of support for) saving games, and how that affects the experience.
As a basic example of this "framing experience" thing - I enjoy going to the arcade and playing House of the Dead (when I can find it) - the game is kind of cheap sometimes, and it's kind of a quarter-pumper by nature, but I think if it were the same game but set on "free play" it wouldn't be fun, because there would be no more sense of urgency in trying to avoid getting killed.
Even the basic process of trying to get a cartridge (within an agreeable price range) can be part of this - if it's hard to find the game you want at a price you're willing to pay, that increases the apparent value of the game, and (assuming it's one you really want to play) you may want it for a while but not get it. Instant gratification (i.e. downloading a ROM) makes me less likely to stick with a game.
"Why does the court treat violent images and sexual images so differently?"
Why would anyone think that sexual images and violent images should fall in the same category?
A child can understand violence, it is not very hard. Everyone has bumped their head or cut themselves, they know it hurts, it is not good. It is easy to extrapolate this to a greater extent, a child can do that. But sexuality, a child by definition has not even hit puberty, sexuality is physically incomprehensible
But we're not talking about physical comprehension at all, rather mental comprehension.
I think people tend to underestimate what children are capable of. (Exactly how young are you thinking here? I mean, at ten I didn't know about sex, but I still understood basic concepts, like men wanting to see women naked. If I'd seen tits in a game at that point I doubt it'd have impacted me much, apart from enjoying the "scandalous" nature of it.)
But at the center of this debate are questions of how exposure to sexual content and violent content affects a child's development. The question with regard to violence isn't whether violence hurts, the question is whether the child will think it's OK to hurt people, or adopt violent behaviors as a result of the exposure. The question with regard to sex is, I guess, some kind of "tree of knowledge" thing, concern that knowledge of sex will encourage kids to become sexually active too early, or adopt deviant behavior or something...
I should add that steak and apples sounds like a potentially delicious combination.
When I read this guy's name, and note that he's opposing the side of this thing that I support, I can't help but associate his name with the Japanese word "baka"...
I said measure the diameter, not guess the diameter. The only "guessing" I mentioned is the requirement of guessing where the center is if you want to measure the radius.
Here are a couple examples of what I had in mind when I said that measuring a diameter is easy:
- you see a circle painted on the wall. Pull out a ruler or a tape measure. Done.
- you come across a poured concrete circular fire pit on the ground. You and a friend stand on opposite sides of it and stretch across a tape measure. Done.
If the measurement doesn't go through the center of the circle, then you got it wrong.
Manly American Football is played on a 100 yard field. Sissy Canadian Football is played on a 100 meter field. I refuse to see our beloved sports (e.g. Baseball is defined in yards as well) redefined, therefor causing old records to be irrelevant.
More realistically, I have no idea why base 10 is a great idea. Imperial has binary units (volume/mass) and base twelve units (hello 1/3!). Either standard seems better than base 10.
It's a fair point, but the main issue to my mind is that they didn't pick a base and stick with it, rather the conversion factors are all over the map. Teaspoons-to-tablespoons is a factor of three, but up to cups, pints, quarts, and (US) gallons is a power of two. Inches to feet is factors of twos and three, feet to miles is factors of two, five, and eleven. And fractions of inches are powers of two, unless you're dealing with mils in which case it's powers of ten. And there's no straightforward conversion between the length and volume measures, or (as you get into physics calculations) the length, weight, and force. One cubic foot is 7.48051948 US gallons.
Had the system been planned better, I think the disparate conversion factors could be quite acceptable: 12 inches per foot is reasonable, potentially helpful in cases that involve division by a factor of three. Working with arc-degrees and the fractions thereof (arc-minutes, arc-seconds) is similarly reasonable. The bigger problem is that some of the conversion factors aren't even integers.
Speaking personally - I build models and deal with small measurements a lot. In that context I'd rather deal with powers of ten rather than powers of two. I can do fractional math, obviously, but it's still easier to work out the drill bit sizes between 3mm and 5mm than it is to work out the drill bit sizes between 1/8" and 13/64" - even if I change the denominator (i.e. 3.5mm has an extra digit, so I'm effectively working in ten-thousandths of a meter instead of thousandths) the change to the numerator is trivial. Power-of-two changes to the numerator are pretty easy but not as easy, simply because my numerical representation isn't powers-of-two.
There is a flip side to that scale modeling scenario, which is that kit scales are in many cases chosen specifically to suit the foot-to-inch conversion factor. For instance, a six-foot-tall man would be exactly one inch tall in 1/72, or three inches tall in 1/24. That is handy, but it becomes less helpful if the measurement you're converting isn't that fundamental measurement on which the scale was based. The scales have factors of three - if you're starting with feet, one of those gets eaten by the inch conversion... But if you're starting with a measurement in inches and going for a fractional measure of inches, the factors of three have to be used to divide the numerator... eleven inches scales down to (11/9)/8 in 1/72 scale, for instance. Converting that to the closest power-of-two fraction means finding the right denominator... (22/9)/16 or (44/9)/32 or (88/9)/64 - scaling up the numerator enough to find a good answer, and then scaling it back down to a satisfactory precision. (44/9 is slightly less than 45/9=5, so 5/32 would be a good approximation..)
Dealing with a problem like that in metric is actually easier IMO, even though the unit conversions don't eat any of the scaling factors. 28cm / 72 = 3.5cm / 9, very close to 3.9mm. (Well, the 28cm measurement comes from a conversion from the 11" measurement I used in the inches example, so it may be a bit too convenient as 28 already carries two factors of two... If it were a prime number, as in the previous example - say, 31cm/72 = 10.33cm/24 = 3.44cm/8 = 4.3mm) It's convenient to not have to change bases at any point during the calculation, even if that means some cases are less convenient.
Of course, with the right calculator you can handle all those
Because outside of the world of digital calculators metric sucks?
We can have a quarter pounder with cheese. You have the Royale with cheese. One tells you how much you are actually getting.
That's pre-cooked weight, so no it doesn't.
Luckily, you can easily write T=2Pi in your equations. No need to reprint thousands of T-Shirts.
I think the main point of the rant is that Tau somehow seems more fundamental. What defines a circle? A locus of points on a plane equidistant from a certain point. That distance is somehow more fundamental than 2r, even if the distinction is trivial.
It's not about the ratio of the circumference to the radius (or diameter) - it's about the fact that all this other math that uses pi winds up needing an extra factor of two... When you're working with arc lengths or integrating circumferences, you're generally working with radius and multiplying by 2*pi.
I'd agree from a practical standpoint it's fairly silly to think of switching people to using tau (equal to 2*pi) in their calculations instead of pi. But it's worth thinking critically about those kinds of decisions, the slightly arbitrary choice of which version of the constant we use, if there may be clear benefits to an alternative choice. And regardless of whether any kind of actual switch takes place, it's worthwhile to at least recognize the idea that 2*pi may actually be a more important constant than pi. Exploring ideas like that holds the potential to usefully change how you think about math.
1 btu = 1 055.05585 joules
according to Google, you metric bigot!
it is NOT unstandardized.
How many litres in a gallon?
In modern greek, the letter "insert letter here" is pronounced "taf".
And in Latin, "Jehovah" begins with an "I"...
Mega Man is also my pick for the appropriate counter-example. The recent re-releases used the old engine
You mean the recent sequels? (Rockman 9 and 10 - both are on PS3...)
They don't actually use the old engine, as they don't run on an NES emulation. The old engine has been reimplemented. This is why Rockman 9 had an option to allow you to emulate sprite flicker (which on old hardware would have been caused by software dealing with a hardware limitation on the number of sprites per scanline) - it's also why they were able to do things in 9 and 10 that aren't actually possible on NES hardware.
I did enjoy those two titles, but as examples go they're kind of uninspiring. Going full retro like they did is fun, but it's not something that would work for every title and going backwards like that, back to familiar, safe territory means (in terms of game design) you're not taking a lot of chances.
it sure made me feel weird to be listening to his new album only to find that except for 'Perform This Way' I'd never heard the other songs he was parodying before.
Heh, me too. Actually I don't listen to Gaga, either, so I don't know any of the originals he parodied for this album, or any of the songs from the polka medley... Well, except "Poker Face".
I cant ever listen to Lola or Girls Just Want to Have Fun with out hearing the Weird Al versions in my head.
Ugh, "Girls Just Want to have Lunch" was terrible... Al just made that one 'cause his record label told him to.
What I am continually amazed by is just how large a range he and his band have. They do tons of different styles when parodying songs and do them extremely well.
Particularly impressive are the style parodies, because they are always so dead on. They really can capture the style of a band and create a new tune that sounds just right.
Actually I think Weird Al is in kind of a unique and special place as a musician. Apart from the matter of being technically able to perform different styles, his niche in the musical world gives him the fairly unique opportunity to try different styles freely. Other musicians, once they're popular, may get boxed in by their past hits - fans will expect them to do similar work in the future. Al can do just about anything (at least within the realm of "popular music"). The fact that "Smells Like Nirvana" was a big hit for him doesn't mean he's forever a grunge artist.
Legally, you are correct. However, Weird Al has always had permissions to release parodies. It's not a question of legality, it's a question of being a nice guy.
Additionally (as Al pointed out in TFA) he needs to consider what kind of relationship he's creating between himself, his label, the other artist, and their label. If releasing a particular song would make an enemy of another label, his label might prefer not to release it.
Unless of course you are only 300 feet from the ground . . . in which case your a
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Quite.
...and don't call me Shirley!
The Shirley joke does not work in text! 10 points deducted from Ravenclaw!
Yeah, this _is_ a great reminder. Just use KeePassX (http://www.keepassx.org/) or something similar...
I can't recommend this product highly enough. I've used Keep Ass X on my website for years, and I would certainly say it lived up to its promise of covering my ass!