... it is also that you are murdering innocent people.
The person being executed is the one who has murdered innocent people. I know, you are referring to the state with your comment. However, the definitions say otherwise.
"Law . the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law." Since by definition it isn't murder, then your claim is inflammatory. Killing, yes, murder, no. But this inflammatory use of terminology is a minor point that can be ignored once we understand you are doing it purposefully.
In any group of convicted murderers, there are going to be some people who are innocent.
Also wrong, under current jurisprudence. "Considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law." Now, this point does have some merit, in that you are assuming that all people found guilty of murder in a court of law would be executed and there may be some mistakes in some cases.
However, the person you are replying to has already made execution depend on the circumstances of the murder, and "amount of physical evidence" and "statements of the accused" would most certainly be part of the conditions.
In other words, you are arguing against all death penalty uses based on current usage, and the OP is arguing for it based on a different usage with stricter limits. "You can't do it at all because sometimes you do it wrong" is not a valid argument; "sometimes we do it wrong, so let's fix the errors" is.
Whenever I talk to pro-death penalty people, I ask them if they would still support the death penalty if they or one of their loved ones was one of those one in a thousand cases where an innocent person was wrongly convicted,
If one of my "loved ones" had been found guilty of murdering half a dozen people based on irrefutable physical evidence, had admitted to doing so, and showed zero remorse, I would probably still have an emotional hesitancy to execution, but the law is not emotional nor is it supposed to be. "Don't execute him because I love him" is a bit lacking in sufficiency when there were probably people who loved the half a dozen people he killed, too.
And the short answer to your question would be "yes". I would still support the death penalty in general.
Would you stand outside the prison when your child was executed with a sign that says, 'Fry the bastard',
Of course not, and that's a stupid and insulting question. You can support the death penalty without having to stand outside any prision with any sign. I've never held such a sign, for example. Are you saying you question my honesty because I have not?
when you knew they were only guilty of not having a good alibi and a good lawyer?
When that was the sole basis of the conviction, then the conditions that the OP to whom you replied would not be met, and the person would not be sentenced to death.
It would be a sad(der?) world indeed if the barrier to wanting a better approach was expertise in the matter.
If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.
Everyone wants something better. The sad part is that we often try to get there without having any expertise in the matter. Or what expertise we have has the same flaw humanity has as a whole: it isn't perfect.
If a bad outcome is a 1:100000 chance, then even if you test 100000 times you might miss it. And then you find that 1:100000 and have to weigh that outcome against the 99999 beneficial outcomes.
How many people would have died from botulism or other food-born disease, compared to a tendency to be overweight, and is the benefit of them not dying worth the cost of the latter?
They're cheap because they're mass market items. A lot more people buy TV dongles to watch TV than they do to mess around with SDRs.
Using commercial TV hardware to do radio isn't new. Many years ago, the Yaesu FRG9600 used a commercial TV tuner to build a wideband multi-mode receiver. It was kind of a shock to pay good money for the radio, and then open it up to see that almost the whole thing was just one of the ubiquitous PLL/VCO based TV tuners.
As for the specs not being really great, you don't always need a $1000 radio. Sometimes all you need is a $20 one.
It's not a "have you stopped beating your wife" kind of question if the latent assumption (e.g. that Rush Limbaugh "hate[s] teh druggies") is previously established as true (which earlier posts claim is the case).
"Earlier posts c;laim" is not proof, especially when they provide at best a context-less, unsupported quote and admit that he didn't actually call the users evil, only the weed itself.
Is the quote valid? Dunno. What was the context? He's done entire shows in irony mode. He did an entire show claiming to be supporting a democrat candidate. It provides lots of fodder for Rush bashers to quote forever, but little light on the subject of what he really thinks. As if most people cared what he really thinks.
So, same question, but this time can I get a non-masturbatory answer?
That's called "projection". Why don't you drop the attitude if you want a discussion, instead of just trying to insult people you haven't really listened to in the first place?
The answer is "yes" he hates the people the same amount. That is, not. That's what you could have gotten from the previous answer if you thought about it for a minute.
Nice try with the "not open to question". It's a good trick when you don't want to support the claims you make. It's the real masturbatory tactic in this discussion. Just so you know, most people realize that calling weed evil isn't the same as calling the people who use it evil. Even the person who posted the "quote" as proof of how he hates smokers admitted that it wasn't an admission that he called them evil. Maybe you didn't notice. And gosh, maybe you also noticed that pointing that tiny detail out was placing the claim fully in question.
The street price is higher because the pharmacy cost is higher.
The street price is higher because the drug is on the federal schedule of drugs as something to be restricted. The street price is higher because the demand for it is significant. The street price is higher because the risk of getting caught dealing is higher, and the penalties greater. The street price is higher because people will pay it. For every person who walks away because they think $80 a pill is too high, there is someone next in line who will pay it.
The point was, however, that using the "street price" as some indicator that the manufacturer charges too much is just silly. It's not the stadium's fault when you buy a ticket from a scalper for a sold-out game for ten times the box office price, nor is it the stadium's fault when the scalper charges you a service fee to make up for his costs in getting tickets and the risks of doing so.
I don't think so. Street value for an Oxy 80 is $80.00 or more..
That's like buying a McDonalds dollar menu burger from a scalper on the street for $10 and then blaming McDonalds for overcharging you.
Street price is what you pay to guys who get the drugs illegally and charge you dearly for the privilege of avoiding the risk of doing that yourself. OTC price is what you pay a pharmacy, and I suspect that $80 is not what they'd charge you.
OTH, I did once pay $1100 for a about 30 anti-seizure pills when they were necessary and the insurance hadn't gotten processed for them yet. That's still only $36 each.
The man made his income by giving up any semblance of a soul he had to become as close to a literal mouthpiece for a powerful political party as is possible while still being considered "human".
A more apt description of James Carville and Paul Begala would be hard to find. Although the former might have slipped over the "still being human" line a few times.
so I really can't remember... does he hate teh gays as much as teh druggies? I'm just asking.
Yes? No? How do you answer a "have you stopped beating your wife" kind of question, and what does it say about the person who doesn't know what someone else has said but will still ask that kind of question?
They were always so pissed off and difficult when I told them I had to transfer them. What did they expect?
Good customer service from a company that truly cares about their business and doesn't waste their time playing through an endless cycle of "press 1 for this" or "press 2 for that", usually after starting the cycle with the useless "please listen carefully to the options because our menu has changed", when the menu hasn't changed in two years. A company that clearly offers "None of the options fits, press 0 for a person who is trained to assist you" instead of simply repeating the same three or four irrelevant options when you press 0 to try to get help.
A company that doesn't force you to "press or say your 15 digit account number" and then force you to say your 15 digit account number to the next three people in a row you talk to, because none of them are able to do anything to help and none of them are able to pass your information along to the next person?
How about customer service that doesn't keep interrupting the hold music to tell you that you can do what you want to do on "w w w dot whatever" and it is faster and easier, when what you are calling to talk about is HOW THE FUCKING WEBSITE IS FUCKING BROKEN AND WON"T LET YOU DO JACK SHIT? Or even not interrupting the hold music AT ALL until it is time to talk to someone, because every time a voice comes on the line you think it is a real person and you stop whatever else you are doing to... listen to a repeated sales pitch that doesn't help.
If they would have made the constitution easier to ammend, maybe we'd see a more modern document.
Yes, a more modern document. Also one that shifts with every change of the political winds. You wouldn't get to complain that FISA is unconstitutional, because it would not have been on 9/12.
A friend of mine has a van that can be opened up with a magnet held at the lower right corner of the rear window. It's the "magic key" system they installed in his handicapped accessible van that opens the side door. Freaked him out when I pulled a magnet out of my pocket one day and opened his door for him.
obama promised more than he could deliver. his failure was thinking he could actually do things in this very rigid world.
I'm sorry, where did you get the idea that Obama has failed? He won the election, he's living in the White House, he's idolized by a significant fraction of the US populace, as well as a significant fraction of the world. He's snagged a pretty cushy pension for the rest of his life, and made his wife proud of the US for the first time in her life.
And where did you get the idea that he actually thought he was going to do any of the things he promised to do? If he never thought he could do it, then it isn't a failure when he fails to do it. If you really believe that he believed what he was promising to do, then you must believe that Obama is a naive fool. A fool he ain't.
I'd say the failure is on the part of those who fell for it the first time around and who gleefully chant that they'll fall for it this time.
Liberal and civil rights supporter Ron Wyden has put a hold on the corresponding act in the Senate, as he has on multiple such acts in the past.
And you might read to the end of the article and notice that Wyden says he'd be agreeable to a 'short term extension' of FISA so that the issues can be more fully discussed. This is a five year extension, which is a reasonably short extension in terms of government actions.
For a Republican congress to pass anything, all they need is a simple majority.
301 to 118 is hardly "a simple majority".
For a Democratic congress to pass anything requires a super-majority.
For the existing Senate, all it took to block passage of this extension was one person. One person is hardly a super-majority. I don't need to bother looking up whether the Senate is Democrat or Republican controlled, if all it takes is one it doesn't matter.
That's a pretty strong clue that one person could have stopped this before, and not a single Democrat could muster up the ability. Your rants about those awful Republicans are ignoring a large number of other, non-Republican guilty parties.
Obama is another story, though.
Obama is the same old story, rewarmed and rehashed and doing the same things, under the banner "Hope and Change". How could anyone see his pick for VP and not know that it would be four more years of the same old politics? And now the banner "You Hope we can Change what we didn't Change during our first four years."
I think ex post facto laws refer to making what was formerly a legal activity to suddenly become illegal. Not sure if it covers the reverse (i.e. retroactively legalizing and excusing law-breaking)
Ex post facto means, literally, "after the fact". Yes, it would apply to legalization as well as criminalization.
However, consider this. Criminal cases in the US are brought by the public prosecutor, an arm of the state. It is the state that is passing this law. The state should have no standing in objecting to an action by the state. The accused who isn't prosecuted would be stupid to object to his crime being made legal. He's the only other party with any standing. So, who's going to go to court to test whether ex post facto legalization of something is constitutional?
Civil matters are different, and I suspect that such cases are not hindered by ex post facto laws, but a real lawyer would have to answer that.
If it did, then, presidential pardon would be trickier than it is.
iPhones no longer need/use a USB port. Everything is wireless except charging.
Really? According to this, the iPhone 5 which was just released has a proprietary USB connection and computer sync (in addition to "OTA sync"). I also see an earphone connection. Both wired connections appear to have nothing to make them waterproof.
I guess Apple doesn't agree that nobody needs a USB port and everything is wireless except for charging. Maybe they know they have customers who might want to connect it to their computer to transfer data, instead of maxing out their data plans transporting movies and music there.
So when Caterpillar's manufacturing plant dumps its waste oil in my lawn,
If that's what you thought I meant when I referred to "corporate policy", then there is not enough of a common ground of language for us to be able to communicate effectively.
Dumping waste oil on your lawn is a violation of your property rights, which is MUCH MORE than just a disagreement over their policies.
The point is that the YY/MM scheme is sufficient to distinguish versions even if you do not understand the date represented in it.
No, your point was that I was lazy for not bothering to look up in advance how Ubuntu manages its version numbers, and that somehow my failure to notice that the major version number followed the year was somehow calling that numbering system arbitrary and stupid. Neither is true. You're right, as am I, that nn.nn is sufficient to differentiate versions. What is arbitrary and stupid is using cute names that only create confusion and waste people's time.
You would know that if you cared enough to look it up.
You're right, I don't care enough to look up the rules a group uses for making up silly names for their software or how they decide when to switch major version numers. It's good enough to know that version 13 comes after version 12, and if I want to upgrade from 12 I look for 13.
It is of course much more comfortable to assume that the numbering is arbitrary and stupid.
it is of course much more comfortable to assume the person who disagrees with you has said something he has not, like that the version numbering system Ubuntu uses is "arbitrary and stupid", and then attack him for something he didn't say. The fact that it isn't obvious that the major verion number they use is tied somehow to the current year is nowhere close to saying that it is either arbitrary or stupid. Arbitrary and stupid would be if version 13 came out next after version 10, and then version 11, and then version 1.
Feel free to explain any numbering/naming convention that is easier to understand than YY.MM and is at the same time so intuitive that no one could ever ask "Why would I know that?"
Version 1 is called "version 1". Version two is called "version 2". Minor releases between version 1 and version 2 start at 1.1, then 1.2, 1.3, etc.
I know that might seem complicated and capricious, but it's really pretty simple. Most people understand how to count. Most people have an intuitive grasp of where "1.4" falls in the system.
Slashdot Mirror
... it is also that you are murdering innocent people.
The person being executed is the one who has murdered innocent people. I know, you are referring to the state with your comment. However, the definitions say otherwise. "Law . the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law." Since by definition it isn't murder, then your claim is inflammatory. Killing, yes, murder, no. But this inflammatory use of terminology is a minor point that can be ignored once we understand you are doing it purposefully.
In any group of convicted murderers, there are going to be some people who are innocent.
Also wrong, under current jurisprudence. "Considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law." Now, this point does have some merit, in that you are assuming that all people found guilty of murder in a court of law would be executed and there may be some mistakes in some cases. However, the person you are replying to has already made execution depend on the circumstances of the murder, and "amount of physical evidence" and "statements of the accused" would most certainly be part of the conditions.
In other words, you are arguing against all death penalty uses based on current usage, and the OP is arguing for it based on a different usage with stricter limits. "You can't do it at all because sometimes you do it wrong" is not a valid argument; "sometimes we do it wrong, so let's fix the errors" is.
Whenever I talk to pro-death penalty people, I ask them if they would still support the death penalty if they or one of their loved ones was one of those one in a thousand cases where an innocent person was wrongly convicted,
If one of my "loved ones" had been found guilty of murdering half a dozen people based on irrefutable physical evidence, had admitted to doing so, and showed zero remorse, I would probably still have an emotional hesitancy to execution, but the law is not emotional nor is it supposed to be. "Don't execute him because I love him" is a bit lacking in sufficiency when there were probably people who loved the half a dozen people he killed, too.
And the short answer to your question would be "yes". I would still support the death penalty in general.
Would you stand outside the prison when your child was executed with a sign that says, 'Fry the bastard',
Of course not, and that's a stupid and insulting question. You can support the death penalty without having to stand outside any prision with any sign. I've never held such a sign, for example. Are you saying you question my honesty because I have not?
when you knew they were only guilty of not having a good alibi and a good lawyer?
When that was the sole basis of the conviction, then the conditions that the OP to whom you replied would not be met, and the person would not be sentenced to death.
It would be a sad(der?) world indeed if the barrier to wanting a better approach was expertise in the matter.
If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.
Everyone wants something better. The sad part is that we often try to get there without having any expertise in the matter. Or what expertise we have has the same flaw humanity has as a whole: it isn't perfect. If a bad outcome is a 1:100000 chance, then even if you test 100000 times you might miss it. And then you find that 1:100000 and have to weigh that outcome against the 99999 beneficial outcomes.
How many people would have died from botulism or other food-born disease, compared to a tendency to be overweight, and is the benefit of them not dying worth the cost of the latter?
They're cheap because they're mass market items. A lot more people buy TV dongles to watch TV than they do to mess around with SDRs.
Using commercial TV hardware to do radio isn't new. Many years ago, the Yaesu FRG9600 used a commercial TV tuner to build a wideband multi-mode receiver. It was kind of a shock to pay good money for the radio, and then open it up to see that almost the whole thing was just one of the ubiquitous PLL/VCO based TV tuners.
As for the specs not being really great, you don't always need a $1000 radio. Sometimes all you need is a $20 one.
It's not a "have you stopped beating your wife" kind of question if the latent assumption (e.g. that Rush Limbaugh "hate[s] teh druggies") is previously established as true (which earlier posts claim is the case).
"Earlier posts c;laim" is not proof, especially when they provide at best a context-less, unsupported quote and admit that he didn't actually call the users evil, only the weed itself.
Is the quote valid? Dunno. What was the context? He's done entire shows in irony mode. He did an entire show claiming to be supporting a democrat candidate. It provides lots of fodder for Rush bashers to quote forever, but little light on the subject of what he really thinks. As if most people cared what he really thinks.
Yeah and calling them maggot-infested is both accurate and a compliment. LOL.
False dichotomy.
You see what he says the way you want to see it. You also don't seem interested in a civil conversation, so ta for now.
So, same question, but this time can I get a non-masturbatory answer?
That's called "projection". Why don't you drop the attitude if you want a discussion, instead of just trying to insult people you haven't really listened to in the first place?
The answer is "yes" he hates the people the same amount. That is, not. That's what you could have gotten from the previous answer if you thought about it for a minute.
Nice try with the "not open to question". It's a good trick when you don't want to support the claims you make. It's the real masturbatory tactic in this discussion. Just so you know, most people realize that calling weed evil isn't the same as calling the people who use it evil. Even the person who posted the "quote" as proof of how he hates smokers admitted that it wasn't an admission that he called them evil. Maybe you didn't notice. And gosh, maybe you also noticed that pointing that tiny detail out was placing the claim fully in question.
The street price is higher because the pharmacy cost is higher.
The street price is higher because the drug is on the federal schedule of drugs as something to be restricted. The street price is higher because the demand for it is significant. The street price is higher because the risk of getting caught dealing is higher, and the penalties greater. The street price is higher because people will pay it. For every person who walks away because they think $80 a pill is too high, there is someone next in line who will pay it.
The point was, however, that using the "street price" as some indicator that the manufacturer charges too much is just silly. It's not the stadium's fault when you buy a ticket from a scalper for a sold-out game for ten times the box office price, nor is it the stadium's fault when the scalper charges you a service fee to make up for his costs in getting tickets and the risks of doing so.
I don't think so. Street value for an Oxy 80 is $80.00 or more..
That's like buying a McDonalds dollar menu burger from a scalper on the street for $10 and then blaming McDonalds for overcharging you.
Street price is what you pay to guys who get the drugs illegally and charge you dearly for the privilege of avoiding the risk of doing that yourself. OTC price is what you pay a pharmacy, and I suspect that $80 is not what they'd charge you.
OTH, I did once pay $1100 for a about 30 anti-seizure pills when they were necessary and the insurance hadn't gotten processed for them yet. That's still only $36 each.
The man made his income by giving up any semblance of a soul he had to become as close to a literal mouthpiece for a powerful political party as is possible while still being considered "human".
A more apt description of James Carville and Paul Begala would be hard to find. Although the former might have slipped over the "still being human" line a few times.
so I really can't remember... does he hate teh gays as much as teh druggies? I'm just asking.
Yes? No? How do you answer a "have you stopped beating your wife" kind of question, and what does it say about the person who doesn't know what someone else has said but will still ask that kind of question?
The article indicates that the attack was done by speaking attack commands.
Sit!
Stay!
Good dog, Ubu!
some designs will prioritize the ones that sound increasingly angry so as to get them dealth with and out of the way.
I can't figure out whether you put an extra 'h' on 'dealt', or an extraneous 'l' in 'death', but I guess either way they are "out of the way".
They were always so pissed off and difficult when I told them I had to transfer them. What did they expect?
Good customer service from a company that truly cares about their business and doesn't waste their time playing through an endless cycle of "press 1 for this" or "press 2 for that", usually after starting the cycle with the useless "please listen carefully to the options because our menu has changed", when the menu hasn't changed in two years. A company that clearly offers "None of the options fits, press 0 for a person who is trained to assist you" instead of simply repeating the same three or four irrelevant options when you press 0 to try to get help.
A company that doesn't force you to "press or say your 15 digit account number" and then force you to say your 15 digit account number to the next three people in a row you talk to, because none of them are able to do anything to help and none of them are able to pass your information along to the next person?
How about customer service that doesn't keep interrupting the hold music to tell you that you can do what you want to do on "w w w dot whatever" and it is faster and easier, when what you are calling to talk about is HOW THE FUCKING WEBSITE IS FUCKING BROKEN AND WON"T LET YOU DO JACK SHIT? Or even not interrupting the hold music AT ALL until it is time to talk to someone, because every time a voice comes on the line you think it is a real person and you stop whatever else you are doing to ... listen to a repeated sales pitch that doesn't help.
Sorry, but you asked.
Has there been some research done on that?
They looked it up in the Encyclopedia Galactica.
If they would have made the constitution easier to ammend, maybe we'd see a more modern document.
Yes, a more modern document. Also one that shifts with every change of the political winds. You wouldn't get to complain that FISA is unconstitutional, because it would not have been on 9/12.
A friend of mine has a van that can be opened up with a magnet held at the lower right corner of the rear window. It's the "magic key" system they installed in his handicapped accessible van that opens the side door. Freaked him out when I pulled a magnet out of my pocket one day and opened his door for him.
None of then are mine. They represent the highest bidder.
What would you say to a white, middle-class, middle-aged male who says "Obama isn't my president because I didn't vote for him"?
Do you see any parallel between that and what you just said?
obama promised more than he could deliver. his failure was thinking he could actually do things in this very rigid world.
I'm sorry, where did you get the idea that Obama has failed? He won the election, he's living in the White House, he's idolized by a significant fraction of the US populace, as well as a significant fraction of the world. He's snagged a pretty cushy pension for the rest of his life, and made his wife proud of the US for the first time in her life.
And where did you get the idea that he actually thought he was going to do any of the things he promised to do? If he never thought he could do it, then it isn't a failure when he fails to do it. If you really believe that he believed what he was promising to do, then you must believe that Obama is a naive fool. A fool he ain't.
I'd say the failure is on the part of those who fell for it the first time around and who gleefully chant that they'll fall for it this time.
Liberal and civil rights supporter Ron Wyden has put a hold on the corresponding act in the Senate, as he has on multiple such acts in the past.
And you might read to the end of the article and notice that Wyden says he'd be agreeable to a 'short term extension' of FISA so that the issues can be more fully discussed. This is a five year extension, which is a reasonably short extension in terms of government actions.
For a Republican congress to pass anything, all they need is a simple majority.
301 to 118 is hardly "a simple majority".
For a Democratic congress to pass anything requires a super-majority.
For the existing Senate, all it took to block passage of this extension was one person. One person is hardly a super-majority. I don't need to bother looking up whether the Senate is Democrat or Republican controlled, if all it takes is one it doesn't matter.
That's a pretty strong clue that one person could have stopped this before, and not a single Democrat could muster up the ability. Your rants about those awful Republicans are ignoring a large number of other, non-Republican guilty parties.
Obama is another story, though.
Obama is the same old story, rewarmed and rehashed and doing the same things, under the banner "Hope and Change". How could anyone see his pick for VP and not know that it would be four more years of the same old politics? And now the banner "You Hope we can Change what we didn't Change during our first four years."
I think ex post facto laws refer to making what was formerly a legal activity to suddenly become illegal. Not sure if it covers the reverse (i.e. retroactively legalizing and excusing law-breaking)
Ex post facto means, literally, "after the fact". Yes, it would apply to legalization as well as criminalization.
However, consider this. Criminal cases in the US are brought by the public prosecutor, an arm of the state. It is the state that is passing this law. The state should have no standing in objecting to an action by the state. The accused who isn't prosecuted would be stupid to object to his crime being made legal. He's the only other party with any standing. So, who's going to go to court to test whether ex post facto legalization of something is constitutional?
Civil matters are different, and I suspect that such cases are not hindered by ex post facto laws, but a real lawyer would have to answer that.
If it did, then, presidential pardon would be trickier than it is.
Presidential pardons are not ex post facto laws.
iPhones no longer need/use a USB port. Everything is wireless except charging.
Really? According to this, the iPhone 5 which was just released has a proprietary USB connection and computer sync (in addition to "OTA sync"). I also see an earphone connection. Both wired connections appear to have nothing to make them waterproof.
I guess Apple doesn't agree that nobody needs a USB port and everything is wireless except for charging. Maybe they know they have customers who might want to connect it to their computer to transfer data, instead of maxing out their data plans transporting movies and music there.
So when Caterpillar's manufacturing plant dumps its waste oil in my lawn,
If that's what you thought I meant when I referred to "corporate policy", then there is not enough of a common ground of language for us to be able to communicate effectively.
Dumping waste oil on your lawn is a violation of your property rights, which is MUCH MORE than just a disagreement over their policies.
The point is that the YY/MM scheme is sufficient to distinguish versions even if you do not understand the date represented in it.
No, your point was that I was lazy for not bothering to look up in advance how Ubuntu manages its version numbers, and that somehow my failure to notice that the major version number followed the year was somehow calling that numbering system arbitrary and stupid. Neither is true. You're right, as am I, that nn.nn is sufficient to differentiate versions. What is arbitrary and stupid is using cute names that only create confusion and waste people's time.
You would know that if you cared enough to look it up.
You're right, I don't care enough to look up the rules a group uses for making up silly names for their software or how they decide when to switch major version numers. It's good enough to know that version 13 comes after version 12, and if I want to upgrade from 12 I look for 13.
It is of course much more comfortable to assume that the numbering is arbitrary and stupid.
it is of course much more comfortable to assume the person who disagrees with you has said something he has not, like that the version numbering system Ubuntu uses is "arbitrary and stupid", and then attack him for something he didn't say. The fact that it isn't obvious that the major verion number they use is tied somehow to the current year is nowhere close to saying that it is either arbitrary or stupid. Arbitrary and stupid would be if version 13 came out next after version 10, and then version 11, and then version 1.
Feel free to explain any numbering/naming convention that is easier to understand than YY.MM and is at the same time so intuitive that no one could ever ask "Why would I know that?"
Version 1 is called "version 1". Version two is called "version 2". Minor releases between version 1 and version 2 start at 1.1, then 1.2, 1.3, etc.
I know that might seem complicated and capricious, but it's really pretty simple. Most people understand how to count. Most people have an intuitive grasp of where "1.4" falls in the system.