The Royal family do own quite a lot of land and are (on paper) fairly rich (the Queen herself is one place higher on the UK rich list than Noel Edmonds, IIRC, around £500 million).
They don't have much income though, and the land is kind of worthless as they can't really sell it (lots of parks and things like that), but if they could sell it, it would be worth around £150 million.
I can't think of specific examples at present, but constantly hearing discussions between the prime Minister and the leader of the opposition opens people up to understanding the principles of debate and of intellectual arguement.
There are other factors at work, including the fact that it is much easier to get your voice heard. You can write to your MP, and even get him to ask questions in parliament on your behalf if he thinks it is worth it.
"Ban districts with concave shapes unless the lack of convexity is due to a use of a natural feature (river, ocean, mountain ridge) as a boundary"
If you ban all distrcts with concave shapes, you will have to give every district straight edges or else ban half the districts (if districts connect to each other then any convexity of one district will equal the concavity of it's neighbour).
"the Prime Minister has to defend his position to the opposition"
It's called Prime Minister's Question Time. He has to do it in the House of Commons, and he has to do it every week. It used to be twice a week, but Tony Blair changed it to once a week (but doubled the length of the session).
He also faces constant questioning because he participates in parliament in general (which would be like the president sitting in the senate every day).
I think you've hit on a major problem with American politics. Because your lead politician and figurehead is never engaged in discussion, his views are never, ever questioned. I think this may have had a more general effect on the level of debate in the country in general.
I think a system that selects about 5 or 6 candiates by lottery, and then people vote for their favourite, would be better. Otherwise a complete idiot with evil intentions could end up as the President, and surely that should never be allowed to happen.
Re:I thought the first programmer is
on
The Real da Vinci Code
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
"Well, it'd still go to Ada for the first electrical programing. da Vincci just did it in mechanicly."
Babbage's analytical engine was entirely mechanical, and was designed well before the invention of any device providing a consistant flow of electrical energy. However it was never actually built until a hundred years after his death, as engireeing wasn't of a high enough standard in those days to build the parts he required.
Ada Lovelace described the methods for programming the analytical engine and wrote a program for it (ie literally wrote it). da Vinci didn't actually write a program at all, he just designed a working robot.
"Similary they forget that the "Microsoft route" actually involves switching every few years anyway..."
To be fair, that's looking like 'once a decade' at the moment, and whatever comes after Longhorn will probably be about two decades away, at this rate.
dyslexia is formed form dual activity in right and left sides of the brain, intellectual types often have dyslexia and geeks too, whihc may be because of hormonal issues and right/left conflicts.
I'd be interested to see where you got this information from. Currently there isn't even enough conclusive reasearch to say what dyslexia is, or even what all the symptoms are. A lot is known from experience of dealing with dyslexics, but most of the research done has been inconclusive.
Everyone seems to be saying that because there are boring roles in a team, no one would play, which is rubbish, otherwise no one would play real amateur sports.
People will get together in clans and play as teams with their friends. They would probably rotate, so that everyone gets their fair go at being a star.
It doesn't have to be a real sport either. Five a side football (English football) would be better suited than some other real sports. But it could be a completely new game such as space football or football with elves and orcs (ie Bloodbowl), or something completely new.
It could basically just be a much better version of the league system currently around for some online sports games.
It also doesn't have to be realtime. There are plenty of us left who still prefer turn-based strategy type games. (Civ could be turned into an amazing MMO game with people battling over a solar system and forming huge alliances).
You also don't have to have all 22 (or whatever) people playing at the same time. This would be just as good in the style of four player console football games (such as FIFA) or even just one on one and it could be a manager type game (can you get your team to be the best in your country).
Just make the game a bit more of a sim than pure aracde play as the sports games currently are.
Thanks, certainly helpful, but I was thinking a bit more on idealogical grounds as well.
Do ATI or nVidia have a particularly good relationship with the OSS community? Or maybe Intel or AMD? Maybe their products both work, but one or the other helps in other ways?
For example Nestle chocolate is probably just as good as other chocolate, but they are an unethical company and so I don't buy their products. Fair Trade coffee is probably slightly worse than some other coffees but they are very ethical (though I don't actually buy Fair Trade coffee as Lavazza is too good).
I'd like to know what hardware is recommended by the open source community? Which processor manufacturer supports the community the most? Which video card manufacturer? Which motherboard/sound card/etc?
We must have quite a bit of purchasing power between us, and could probably soon make open source drivers the norm.
I think the prime incentive is that they are terrified that they are going to be next after Iraq and want to be seen to be joining the 'free world' of copyright enforcement, patenting, etc, in order to delay the inevitable US invasion of their country (whether economic or military).
That R&D department (a black box which you pour money in and get cool toys out) is possible because of the £120 a year fee every household in the UK has to pay.
Which is a good thing, let's be clear.
The value for money we get is good, but is secondary to the fact that it means we can get intelligent and impartial television and radio. Our friends in the US have nothing remotely like Radio 3 or 4. (High-brow classical music and jazz played in full, not just the famous bits, and high-brow, impartial current affairs, drama and comedy). They don't even have any politically impartial major broadcasters.
In America most major stations are heavily right-wing because they are all owned by rich people who, unsurprisingly, support the Republicans. We get at least half a chance of hearing things from a reasonably independent, though critical, source.
Worth every penny if you ask me, and I don't even watch TV.
Slashdot Mirror
Just a minor correction.
The Royal family do own quite a lot of land and are (on paper) fairly rich (the Queen herself is one place higher on the UK rich list than Noel Edmonds, IIRC, around £500 million).
They don't have much income though, and the land is kind of worthless as they can't really sell it (lots of parks and things like that), but if they could sell it, it would be worth around £150 million.
You forgot co-op play.
That's what made Halo. I don't like fps games but I loved the co-op in Halo. It's the best time two buddies can have.
There are other factors at work, including the fact that it is much easier to get your voice heard. You can write to your MP, and even get him to ask questions in parliament on your behalf if he thinks it is worth it.
For example, everyone who wrote to their MP about software patents has been invited to a meeting to discuss the issue with representatives of the government: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/09/patent_ch
If you ban all distrcts with concave shapes, you will have to give every district straight edges or else ban half the districts (if districts connect to each other then any convexity of one district will equal the concavity of it's neighbour).
It's called Prime Minister's Question Time. He has to do it in the House of Commons, and he has to do it every week. It used to be twice a week, but Tony Blair changed it to once a week (but doubled the length of the session).
He also faces constant questioning because he participates in parliament in general (which would be like the president sitting in the senate every day).
I think you've hit on a major problem with American politics. Because your lead politician and figurehead is never engaged in discussion, his views are never, ever questioned. I think this may have had a more general effect on the level of debate in the country in general.
That is one of the funniest things I've read in ages.
Isn't the internet winderful? A bile-fueled, swear-word laden rant that actually links to sources. You never get that kind of thing in real life.
I think a system that selects about 5 or 6 candiates by lottery, and then people vote for their favourite, would be better. Otherwise a complete idiot with evil intentions could end up as the President, and surely that should never be allowed to happen.
It's also unfair on people who's pen had burst that day.
Also, people could cheat by cutting their thumb off after they vote, and then going and voting again, and then cutting their other thumb off, etc.
Republican voters would probably be willing to do that if they got whipped up into enough of a relgious frenzy.
I'd stop allowing Republicans to participate.
Babbage's analytical engine was entirely mechanical, and was designed well before the invention of any device providing a consistant flow of electrical energy. However it was never actually built until a hundred years after his death, as engireeing wasn't of a high enough standard in those days to build the parts he required.
Ada Lovelace described the methods for programming the analytical engine and wrote a program for it (ie literally wrote it). da Vinci didn't actually write a program at all, he just designed a working robot.
More on Ada Lovelace, (daughter of Lord Byron)
That's even worse, but thanks for the tip.
To be fair, that's looking like 'once a decade' at the moment, and whatever comes after Longhorn will probably be about two decades away, at this rate.
Personally, I'm always irritated by the fact that you can't copy the text from an error message or dialog window.
Error messages are rarely meaningful, but often if you search for the error message on the web you find some useful info or advice.
Instead you have to copy it down on a piece of paper (and pen and paper should never be necessary for using a computer).
Next they'll be patenting the broken y-chromosome as well.
I'd be interested to see where you got this information from. Currently there isn't even enough conclusive reasearch to say what dyslexia is, or even what all the symptoms are. A lot is known from experience of dealing with dyslexics, but most of the research done has been inconclusive.
(I say this as a practising dyslexic my self).
The British Dylsexia Association
I always thought that the Prisoner's Dilemma was whether to pick up the soap when you drop it in the shower.
Everyone seems to be saying that because there are boring roles in a team, no one would play, which is rubbish, otherwise no one would play real amateur sports.
People will get together in clans and play as teams with their friends. They would probably rotate, so that everyone gets their fair go at being a star.
It doesn't have to be a real sport either. Five a side football (English football) would be better suited than some other real sports. But it could be a completely new game such as space football or football with elves and orcs (ie Bloodbowl), or something completely new.
It could basically just be a much better version of the league system currently around for some online sports games.
It also doesn't have to be realtime. There are plenty of us left who still prefer turn-based strategy type games. (Civ could be turned into an amazing MMO game with people battling over a solar system and forming huge alliances).
You also don't have to have all 22 (or whatever) people playing at the same time. This would be just as good in the style of four player console football games (such as FIFA) or even just one on one and it could be a manager type game (can you get your team to be the best in your country).
Just make the game a bit more of a sim than pure aracde play as the sports games currently are.
Great idea.
Thanks, certainly helpful, but I was thinking a bit more on idealogical grounds as well.
Do ATI or nVidia have a particularly good relationship with the OSS community? Or maybe Intel or AMD? Maybe their products both work, but one or the other helps in other ways?
For example Nestle chocolate is probably just as good as other chocolate, but they are an unethical company and so I don't buy their products. Fair Trade coffee is probably slightly worse than some other coffees but they are very ethical (though I don't actually buy Fair Trade coffee as Lavazza is too good).
I'd like to know what hardware is recommended by the open source community? Which processor manufacturer supports the community the most? Which video card manufacturer? Which motherboard/sound card/etc?
We must have quite a bit of purchasing power between us, and could probably soon make open source drivers the norm.
"Hi, I'm a pedophile. Would you mind proving that you are underage before I start grooming you for sex?
Ok, that's great. Now what's your address, little girl?"
No, there is no way to deal with dynamic IPs AFAIK. Everytime your IP changes, you lose your credit.
As long as you retain a few important files, reinstalls of software are fine. A completely fresh install on a new machine, you lose your credits.
This sounds interesting. I don't suppose you have more information on how to do it, do you? A link to a website or something?
I use a TV for my games consoles and to watch DVDs. Plus my girlfriend watches TV.
I think the prime incentive is that they are terrified that they are going to be next after Iraq and want to be seen to be joining the 'free world' of copyright enforcement, patenting, etc, in order to delay the inevitable US invasion of their country (whether economic or military).
Which is a good thing, let's be clear.
The value for money we get is good, but is secondary to the fact that it means we can get intelligent and impartial television and radio. Our friends in the US have nothing remotely like Radio 3 or 4. (High-brow classical music and jazz played in full, not just the famous bits, and high-brow, impartial current affairs, drama and comedy). They don't even have any politically impartial major broadcasters.
In America most major stations are heavily right-wing because they are all owned by rich people who, unsurprisingly, support the Republicans. We get at least half a chance of hearing things from a reasonably independent, though critical, source.
Worth every penny if you ask me, and I don't even watch TV.