Well, as another poster mentioned, America seems to be metricating on the sly (the race is on: which will come first, a metric america on the sly, or an australian republic on the sly?). Soft drinks are starting to come in metric measurements there, maybe next week we'll start seeing breakfast cereal in grams.
(One other odd holdover hereabouts is that all-Australian spread, Vegemite, made by that all-American company, Kraft. The large jars of it are quite bizarly 455 g, i.e. about a pound.)
Good to know we aren't alone in our 600 mL goodness. I'm sure the Coca-Cola Company and Schweppes and Pepsico agree with me on this:/
Just a couple points on your English, so that you need to apologise less...
In English, 'the metric system' refers mostly to the practical/informal usage of the SI (Système Internationale d'Units or something en Français). There's only one metric system, but there are multiple systems of measurement.
In English (and BIPM---the people in charge of the SI---agree with me here), you should use full stops for the decimal point and space for thousand(th)s, so that pi*10*100 is about 3 141.592 65. (Actually, in Portuguese, you ought to be using the space anyway for thousand(th)s; thus spake BIPM.) If you refuse to use a space (because you don't want your numbers to break in the middle and doesn't work for you (it doesn't work for/.)), in English use the comma only for the thousands separator. It has nothing doing with decimal points or thousandths separating. Thus spake Zsau.
I also forgot to mention the smallest bottles, with are IIRC 390 mL.
My understanding gleaned from people older than me is that bottles used to come in 1 L sizes, but then they had a 'value added' thing and they eventually standardised on 1.2 L. The same process is currently happening with juice: 2 L used to be common, but now 2.2 L seems to be pretty normal, and so is 3 L.
(Three litres of fizzy drink seems excessive, but in addition to 600 mL cartons, milk comes in 1 L cartons, 1.5 L (plastic) bottles designed to fit in fridge doors that weren't sized properly, the most common 2 L bottles (which newer fridges hold quite happily), 3 L and 4 L.)
It is my understanding that Australia is eccentric in this regard, though, so don't get too excited. Ever-metric Europe has 330 mL cans and bottles and 500 mL bottles... You sometimes see 330 mL cans here, but only of imported products. A few years ago Hahn, I think it was, made a fuss on their products that they had big stubbies now, all of 375 mL...
But really, I don't give a damn about what measurements of volume the US uses. It'd only bother me when I'm there. On the other hand, I'd love it if youse decided to use A4 paper! No more fussing around with paper sizes and discovering that it's still expecting Letter because you missed one single setting over here! For crying out loud, isn't once enough??? I want A4, not Letter.... *Breaks down*
Actually, the English didn't go about metrication in a good way. The evidence is that they haven't fully metricised. In Australia, we used to use the imperial system, but now, most people my age don't know how much a pint, quart, ounce, pound, mile is...
To metricise speed limits, for instance, pick a long weekend. Over the weekend, replace as many speed signs as you can. (It's a good idea to make sure everyone knows that you're doing this well in advance, of course, and as an interim measure, it's probably a good idea to have 'mph' and 'km/h' on the speed limit signs, but they're long gone by now.)
In general, get everything done as quickly as you can. (Milk bottles were apparently another overnight thing even though at the time you returned them to be refilled.)
Of course, we still have our little remnants. Many people know their height in feet and inches, though the internet seems to exaggerate this. 30 cm rulers are still common, but that's probably more because it's a convenient length, and 40 cm rules exist too. Smallish bottles of drink (fizzy or milk) are 600 mL, the closest round measurement to the imperial pint (but we also have 375 mL cans (of grog or fizzy drinks) and 1.2 L bottles (of fizzy drinks), neither of which are nicely rounded imperial measurements,* so perhaps pre-metrication doesn't hold the answer for that, either).
* A British pint is close enough to 568 mL, which is closer to 600 mL than 500 mL, but two of them is 1.13 L, which is closer to 1.1 L than 2 L, and anyway, 1.1 L is close enough to 1 L that that's probably the better metrication.
I was interested in trying to use KDE, simply to see what it was like. However, the menu was too overcrowded, with many Gnome/GTK apps in it (I wanted to use KDE, not Gnome), which really put me off. Yours seems to only have KDE apps. How to you get rid of non-KDE apps from the KDE menus (or at least move them to a submenu)?
Didn't work for me. I just get a white screen in the middle of the command prompt with a purple border that says in purple 0: PING 192.168.0.7. Pressing Enter runs ping a couple times.
I'm far from a Windows fanboy. I use Linux almost all the time... I just happened to have a Windows box on my network atm.
Being kind's never got me anywhere. Most kind and nice people I know are really bitter, and generally bastards, too. For a while, I thought being nice necessarily meant being a bastard. (I'm almost sure that I've come to the realisation that that's wrong, and it's possible to have a nice person who isn't a bastard, but I'm not entirely certain...)
How can anyone have steaks and fries every night for dinner?? Wouldn't you get tired of it? I reckon he did and his taste buds said to his heart: 'I can't stand this any longer. If he won't change, you're going to have to stop beating'. And there was a conspiracy various other parts of his body were in to make it look like an accident, not a suicide, so they filled up his arteries. That's how it happened. Science be damned!
(And McDonalds' have more than just red meat... I think my friend is partial to chicken, actually. And I exaggerated anyway.)
I have a friend who just about lives on Macca's. When he isn't eating or working there, he's thinking about it or driving twenty minutes to the nearest 24-hour McDonalds. However, he isn't fat. He's much fitter and healthier than I am. Why? He exercises. I don't know the full details but I know he competes in both both basketball and netball on Mondays during the season. McDonalds is accused of making people fat, but they don't. The customers' lifestyles make them fat. Eat what you need to, do the exercise you need to, then eat what you want to, and exercise it off and I promise you you won't be one of those annoying people who take up two seats on the bus... (Also, all the McDonalds round here sell salads and the like, so it's not like it's impossible to get a half-decent meal from them.)
(Personally, I don't think McDonalds' food tastes all that bad. It isn't brilliant, no, and for preference I'd get a hamburger and chips from a fish and chips shop. But for something quick and reliable, it's certainly where I turn to.)
Of course, this doesn't excuse Maccas from being an evil multinational.
(Note: I come from Australia. It's my understanding that Maccas's menus varies around the world, and that many innovations in their menus come here very early on because of their comparative success in Australia. I suppose it's entirely possible that Mickey-D's in America or [colloquial name] in [your country] actually does have revolting crap food that consists of four-fifths fat, one-tenth sugar and one-tenth salt. My apologies if it is.)
I don't necessarily agree with what I'm saying, however:
People who 'steal' music are taking something that was already released of a friend or something. Most music stealers are allowed to get the music if only they pay for it. The only thing they're doing that might be objectionable is copying the data.
The people who 'stole' HL2's code breached Valve's security and trespassed to get it. These people weren't allowed to get access to the source code. Also, Valve has apparently lost something inasmuch as they've had to change the code because they couldn't right it properly in the first place or something... In addition to copying the data, they've trespassed and done a few other things that make the word 'steal' slightly more appropriate to the situation.
Mostly, though, I think it's just too many people here like computer games but hate the RIAA. Personally, I don't give a damn about the former and would much rather see the source code out there...
My priorities are quality of LIFE, not quality of STUFF.
"[The modern economist] is used to measuring the 'standard of living' by the amount of annual consumption,... that a man who consumes more is 'better off' than a man who consumes less.
"A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption."
- E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful
Actually, you'll find 'thru' in a number of dictionaries, without the sort of complaints you'd find against 'fuck' or 'bludge' (a dialectal Australian word which you can say to your mother/teacher/Queen, and the former two will probably say it to you). Many people find 'thru' acceptible in all but formal situations, including McDonalds. Not that they're the epitome of language use, but still:)
I don't understand how two independent clipboards is a problem. The selection never over-rides the clipboard, so what difference does it make? If I've never heard of middle-button clicking, I won't do it and I'll never care. I don't see what's wrong with that...
(BTW: The Windows clipboard isn't as simple as you think. Try using the clipboard in cmd the same as you'd use it in Word and welcome the confusion that ensues.)
It bemuses me that it might make a difference. On X, I can middle click till the cows come home. On X, you can go Edit/Copy until such a time as female domesticated bovine arrive at their abode. What I do shouldn't bother you, what you do shouldn't bother me.
(If XTerm's inability to use the clipboard is a problem for you, there are alternative terminal emulators around. But for the most part, the two clipboards operate independently, and if you don't use the primary selection, you don't need to worry about it. I actually find having two clipboards amazingly useful.)
Oh god no. Never. If I own my computer. I own my digital camera. I own a copy of Monday's paper and a copy of Applied Stastics for the Behavioral Sciences. But no-one owns me.
Slashdot Mirror
I should add that I'm male, 23, and consider both arguments completely idiotic
:)
Yes, but you're biased.
Wordifying is more morruptious than using already-establish ones.
Well, as another poster mentioned, America seems to be metricating on the sly (the race is on: which will come first, a metric america on the sly, or an australian republic on the sly?). Soft drinks are starting to come in metric measurements there, maybe next week we'll start seeing breakfast cereal in grams.
:/
/.)), in English use the comma only for the thousands separator. It has nothing doing with decimal points or thousandths separating. Thus spake Zsau.
(One other odd holdover hereabouts is that all-Australian spread, Vegemite, made by that all-American company, Kraft. The large jars of it are quite bizarly 455 g, i.e. about a pound.)
Good to know we aren't alone in our 600 mL goodness. I'm sure the Coca-Cola Company and Schweppes and Pepsico agree with me on this
Just a couple points on your English, so that you need to apologise less...
In English, 'the metric system' refers mostly to the practical/informal usage of the SI (Système Internationale d'Units or something en Français). There's only one metric system, but there are multiple systems of measurement.
In English (and BIPM---the people in charge of the SI---agree with me here), you should use full stops for the decimal point and space for thousand(th)s, so that pi*10*100 is about 3 141.592 65. (Actually, in Portuguese, you ought to be using the space anyway for thousand(th)s; thus spake BIPM.) If you refuse to use a space (because you don't want your numbers to break in the middle and doesn't work for you (it doesn't work for
I also forgot to mention the smallest bottles, with are IIRC 390 mL.
My understanding gleaned from people older than me is that bottles used to come in 1 L sizes, but then they had a 'value added' thing and they eventually standardised on 1.2 L. The same process is currently happening with juice: 2 L used to be common, but now 2.2 L seems to be pretty normal, and so is 3 L.
(Three litres of fizzy drink seems excessive, but in addition to 600 mL cartons, milk comes in 1 L cartons, 1.5 L (plastic) bottles designed to fit in fridge doors that weren't sized properly, the most common 2 L bottles (which newer fridges hold quite happily), 3 L and 4 L.)
It is my understanding that Australia is eccentric in this regard, though, so don't get too excited. Ever-metric Europe has 330 mL cans and bottles and 500 mL bottles... You sometimes see 330 mL cans here, but only of imported products. A few years ago Hahn, I think it was, made a fuss on their products that they had big stubbies now, all of 375 mL...
But really, I don't give a damn about what measurements of volume the US uses. It'd only bother me when I'm there. On the other hand, I'd love it if youse decided to use A4 paper! No more fussing around with paper sizes and discovering that it's still expecting Letter because you missed one single setting over here! For crying out loud, isn't once enough??? I want A4, not Letter.... *Breaks down*
Actually, the English didn't go about metrication in a good way. The evidence is that they haven't fully metricised. In Australia, we used to use the imperial system, but now, most people my age don't know how much a pint, quart, ounce, pound, mile is...
To metricise speed limits, for instance, pick a long weekend. Over the weekend, replace as many speed signs as you can. (It's a good idea to make sure everyone knows that you're doing this well in advance, of course, and as an interim measure, it's probably a good idea to have 'mph' and 'km/h' on the speed limit signs, but they're long gone by now.)
In general, get everything done as quickly as you can. (Milk bottles were apparently another overnight thing even though at the time you returned them to be refilled.)
Of course, we still have our little remnants. Many people know their height in feet and inches, though the internet seems to exaggerate this. 30 cm rulers are still common, but that's probably more because it's a convenient length, and 40 cm rules exist too. Smallish bottles of drink (fizzy or milk) are 600 mL, the closest round measurement to the imperial pint (but we also have 375 mL cans (of grog or fizzy drinks) and 1.2 L bottles (of fizzy drinks), neither of which are nicely rounded imperial measurements,* so perhaps pre-metrication doesn't hold the answer for that, either).
* A British pint is close enough to 568 mL, which is closer to 600 mL than 500 mL, but two of them is 1.13 L, which is closer to 1.1 L than 2 L, and anyway, 1.1 L is close enough to 1 L that that's probably the better metrication.
Ah. Okay. Don't I feel silly now?
I would've put it on my webpage, but I don't have enough bandwidth...
I was interested in trying to use KDE, simply to see what it was like. However, the menu was too overcrowded, with many Gnome/GTK apps in it (I wanted to use KDE, not Gnome), which really put me off. Yours seems to only have KDE apps. How to you get rid of non-KDE apps from the KDE menus (or at least move them to a submenu)?
http://freecache.org/http://www.mountaincable.net/ ~krypt/bo2004.pdf
But a closed source one...
Didn't work for me. I just get a white screen in the middle of the command prompt with a purple border that says in purple 0: PING 192.168.0.7. Pressing Enter runs ping a couple times.
I'm far from a Windows fanboy. I use Linux almost all the time... I just happened to have a Windows box on my network atm.
Being kind's never got me anywhere. Most kind and nice people I know are really bitter, and generally bastards, too. For a while, I thought being nice necessarily meant being a bastard. (I'm almost sure that I've come to the realisation that that's wrong, and it's possible to have a nice person who isn't a bastard, but I'm not entirely certain...)
It won't be compulsory though.
(Did my french head got the right "than" this time?).
I think so, but my English-native head can never get in right either, so I don't think it's much of an issue...
P.S.: can't wait to be able to buy one myself!
Ditto!
I'm glad it's not just me! I was thinking of buying a Mac laptop, but two things put me off, one of which was the fact that Aqua is ugly as all hell.
How can anyone have steaks and fries every night for dinner?? Wouldn't you get tired of it? I reckon he did and his taste buds said to his heart: 'I can't stand this any longer. If he won't change, you're going to have to stop beating'. And there was a conspiracy various other parts of his body were in to make it look like an accident, not a suicide, so they filled up his arteries. That's how it happened. Science be damned!
(And McDonalds' have more than just red meat... I think my friend is partial to chicken, actually. And I exaggerated anyway.)
But I spose you could well be right...
Didn't say he was thin though, did I? (He isn't.)
:)
But okay, I s'pose it's possible his liver's dying or something, but people always complain about Maccas making you fat, not killing your liver
I have a friend who just about lives on Macca's. When he isn't eating or working there, he's thinking about it or driving twenty minutes to the nearest 24-hour McDonalds. However, he isn't fat. He's much fitter and healthier than I am. Why? He exercises. I don't know the full details but I know he competes in both both basketball and netball on Mondays during the season. McDonalds is accused of making people fat, but they don't. The customers' lifestyles make them fat. Eat what you need to, do the exercise you need to, then eat what you want to, and exercise it off and I promise you you won't be one of those annoying people who take up two seats on the bus... (Also, all the McDonalds round here sell salads and the like, so it's not like it's impossible to get a half-decent meal from them.)
(Personally, I don't think McDonalds' food tastes all that bad. It isn't brilliant, no, and for preference I'd get a hamburger and chips from a fish and chips shop. But for something quick and reliable, it's certainly where I turn to.)
Of course, this doesn't excuse Maccas from being an evil multinational.
(Note: I come from Australia. It's my understanding that Maccas's menus varies around the world, and that many innovations in their menus come here very early on because of their comparative success in Australia. I suppose it's entirely possible that Mickey-D's in America or [colloquial name] in [your country] actually does have revolting crap food that consists of four-fifths fat, one-tenth sugar and one-tenth salt. My apologies if it is.)
I don't necessarily agree with what I'm saying, however:
People who 'steal' music are taking something that was already released of a friend or something. Most music stealers are allowed to get the music if only they pay for it. The only thing they're doing that might be objectionable is copying the data.
The people who 'stole' HL2's code breached Valve's security and trespassed to get it. These people weren't allowed to get access to the source code. Also, Valve has apparently lost something inasmuch as they've had to change the code because they couldn't right it properly in the first place or something... In addition to copying the data, they've trespassed and done a few other things that make the word 'steal' slightly more appropriate to the situation.
Mostly, though, I think it's just too many people here like computer games but hate the RIAA. Personally, I don't give a damn about the former and would much rather see the source code out there...
That's not a funny joke.
This is a funny joke.
No, on second thoughts, that wasn't funny either. Must all references to Australia have this joke? Modded up?
Actually, you'll find 'thru' in a number of dictionaries, without the sort of complaints you'd find against 'fuck' or 'bludge' (a dialectal Australian word which you can say to your mother/teacher/Queen, and the former two will probably say it to you). Many people find 'thru' acceptible in all but formal situations, including McDonalds. Not that they're the epitome of language use, but still :)
I don't understand how two independent clipboards is a problem. The selection never over-rides the clipboard, so what difference does it make? If I've never heard of middle-button clicking, I won't do it and I'll never care. I don't see what's wrong with that...
(BTW: The Windows clipboard isn't as simple as you think. Try using the clipboard in cmd the same as you'd use it in Word and welcome the confusion that ensues.)
It bemuses me that it might make a difference. On X, I can middle click till the cows come home. On X, you can go Edit/Copy until such a time as female domesticated bovine arrive at their abode. What I do shouldn't bother you, what you do shouldn't bother me.
(If XTerm's inability to use the clipboard is a problem for you, there are alternative terminal emulators around. But for the most part, the two clipboards operate independently, and if you don't use the primary selection, you don't need to worry about it. I actually find having two clipboards amazingly useful.)
Yeah... I hate when I go to Windows and try to paste something only to discover it hasn't been copied. It's just what you're used to!
Live Free. Own your life. Own yourself.
Oh god no. Never. If I own my computer. I own my digital camera. I own a copy of Monday's paper and a copy of Applied Stastics for the Behavioral Sciences. But no-one owns me.