Even naming hills, rocks and so on with arbitrary letter combinations will work. In WWII, many hills, ridges and features were known by their map coordinates, or in some cases by their elevation. As long as it's clear and unambiguous, it doesn't really matter what you use.
Re:Naming ... and I shall name this a hippopotamus
on
Martian Naming Madness
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· Score: 1
Or haven't you heard of a planet named George ?
That reminds me of a classic story about Alexander Woollcott. A magician spread out some cards and asked him to name one. He pointed to one and said, "I name this card Ralph."
Just out of curiosity, how rich do you have to be in order to be "incredibly rich?" Would you find it incredible if you were as rich as J.P. Morgan, or Henry Ford, or would you still find it credible if you were as rich as Bill Gates? Enquiring minds want to know!
I've always thought it'd be a good thing to stick in a science fiction book. You know, going to a planet orbiting a star named "John Beckmeyer," and having the hero wonder how it got its name. Now, you can do the same thing in a book about Mars, just by using some of the odder names already in use.
...and I have convinced several people who never voted in their lives to register and show up at the polls.
So have I. The first time was back in '84, when I persuaded a good friend of mine to vote for the first time. He's strongly liberal, but he voted for Reagan instead of Mondale, because he liked what Reagan was doing. Not being a liberal, I was very proud of the results.
I've personally explained how to fix a the same problem several times to the same person, yet they keep asking me how to fix it every time it comes up.
I've run across the same thing, many times. Sometimes, in doing phone support, I've had to tell a caller how to do something twice in less than three minutes. They didn't learn the first time, and I knew they wouldn't the second. I've come to the conclusion that these people see no reason to learn how to do things because of course they'll never need to do it again so there's no point in remembering it. It isn't that they can't learn, it's that they won't.
No, they're not complete morons; at best, they're incomplete morons. Most of the time they're just your common, garden-variety luser proud of their ignorance and unwilling to abandon it.
Even make up things to help your cause, like the mail server will break if they send large attachments.
If you ever need help thinking up appropriate excuses, here's an Excuse of the Day Server you can use. Lots of interesting reasons for things to break. Some, but by no means all, are real.
I don't find it important that I can't calculate the value of cos(theta) for an arbitrary theta, or that that makes it a "black box" for me. I can't calculate the value of an aribtrary logarithm either, but I understand what they are. The point I was trying to make is, that once you understand that they are a ratio, you know how to apply them and why. If you're just given a set of tables and rules, you can use them, but you won't know why.
I believe there's this new-fangled invention known as...training. It works on pilots, soldiers, rescue personnel, slashdot posters, and even flight attendents.
I'll go along with that, except in the case of slashdot posters.
Air marshals putting bullets in the heads of potential hijackers can foil them, too.:)
Personally, I've always been fond of Archie Bunker's idea of how to deal with hijackers: arm all the passengers so the hijackers know they're ournumbered.
Once word gets out that they press a button on a wrist band, or something else, hijackers will know what action to watch for and what device to remove from the staff.
Fine. Have it on a wrist band. Make it so that unless you have the proper key, taking off the wrist band sets off the alarm. Of course, you don't exactly publish that little detail.
We also wouldn't need a heat shield if we could afford to build rockets that landed on a tail of fire like God and Heinlein meant us to. Of course, we also wouldn't need a beanstalk if we could do that. I'll be interested in watching the two competing ways to orbit and back to see which one comes first.
Hot, brught, blue-white stars don't last long. As there's no sign of a recent collision, or any nearby galaxy that Andromeda could have collided with, there's no way they could have lasted long enough for us to see them if they'd been captured by an earlier collision.
BTW, and a bit off-topic, if anybody asks how far a person can see under ideal conditions, the answer's 2,000,000 light years. The Andromeda galaxy is that far away, and is a naked-eye object.
P.S. Sorry, it's one of my pet pieves when someone says "that not how physics works!"
Back in the Golden Age of Science Fiction, there were a number of stories about disabled space ships "spiraling into the Sun." The best response to that type of plot is "No, that's not how physics works."
Having the Earth "pulled out of orbit" by a passing star isn't the only problem. Consider a close approach at right angles to the ecliptic. As the intruder passes, it will perturb the Earth's orbit toward it, making it more eliptical than it is now. Not, of course, enough to cause a collision, but possibly enough for climate change; hotter summers and cooler winters for the Northern hemisphere, where most people live. (Assuming it came while there are still people living here, of course.)
Are you telling me you want a government who cannot lie at all? What happens when they have to lie to state or non-state adversaries?
Somewhere in this discussion, somebody quotes Doc Smith on why people swear. I'd like to quote him again, as there's a passage about when politicians should and shouldn't lie in First Lensman. For those of you who haven't read it, a lens permits telepathic communication, and you can't lie when using one. Rod "the rock" Kinnison is running for president, when the lens has just been introduced, and is a lensman:
"You could demand from him at any time a Lensed statement upon any subject. Upon some matters of state he could and should refuse answer; but not upon any question involving moral turpitude. If he answered you would know the truth. If he refused to answer, you would know why and could start impeachment proceedings then and there."
From what I understand, the doctor is wrong. The title was originally pronounced Much Adoo about Noting. If you read/watch it, you'll see that much of the action is driven by people noting things they weren't intended to overhear, thus making the title a play on words.
Slashdot Mirror
Even naming hills, rocks and so on with arbitrary letter combinations will work. In WWII, many hills, ridges and features were known by their map coordinates, or in some cases by their elevation. As long as it's clear and unambiguous, it doesn't really matter what you use.
That reminds me of a classic story about Alexander Woollcott. A magician spread out some cards and asked him to name one. He pointed to one and said, "I name this card Ralph."
Just out of curiosity, how rich do you have to be in order to be "incredibly rich?" Would you find it incredible if you were as rich as J.P. Morgan, or Henry Ford, or would you still find it credible if you were as rich as Bill Gates? Enquiring minds want to know!
I've always thought it'd be a good thing to stick in a science fiction book. You know, going to a planet orbiting a star named "John Beckmeyer," and having the hero wonder how it got its name. Now, you can do the same thing in a book about Mars, just by using some of the odder names already in use.
So have I. The first time was back in '84, when I persuaded a good friend of mine to vote for the first time. He's strongly liberal, but he voted for Reagan instead of Mondale, because he liked what Reagan was doing. Not being a liberal, I was very proud of the results.
I've run across the same thing, many times. Sometimes, in doing phone support, I've had to tell a caller how to do something twice in less than three minutes. They didn't learn the first time, and I knew they wouldn't the second. I've come to the conclusion that these people see no reason to learn how to do things because of course they'll never need to do it again so there's no point in remembering it. It isn't that they can't learn, it's that they won't.
No, they're not complete morons; at best, they're incomplete morons. Most of the time they're just your common, garden-variety luser proud of their ignorance and unwilling to abandon it.
If you ever need help thinking up appropriate excuses, here's an Excuse of the Day Server you can use. Lots of interesting reasons for things to break. Some, but by no means all, are real.
Not very helpful is it, when he doesn't bother to define "compressed?"
Maybe if you logged in you'd get more mod points. +5 posts don't help a bit when you're running as AC, as you are now.
As written, that link is invalid. You need to delete the space before the final 7 for it to work.
I don't find it important that I can't calculate the value of cos(theta) for an arbitrary theta, or that that makes it a "black box" for me. I can't calculate the value of an aribtrary logarithm either, but I understand what they are. The point I was trying to make is, that once you understand that they are a ratio, you know how to apply them and why. If you're just given a set of tables and rules, you can use them, but you won't know why.
I'll go along with that, except in the case of slashdot posters.
Personally, I've always been fond of Archie Bunker's idea of how to deal with hijackers: arm all the passengers so the hijackers know they're ournumbered.
Fine. Have it on a wrist band. Make it so that unless you have the proper key, taking off the wrist band sets off the alarm. Of course, you don't exactly publish that little detail.
Thank you. The quote is from Dr. Pournelle. I've heard him say it a numuber of times and taken to using it myself.
Wherever you biuld it, it will be easily accessable. If it isn't already, it will be long before it's open for use. If you build it, they will come.
We also wouldn't need a heat shield if we could afford to build rockets that landed on a tail of fire like God and Heinlein meant us to. Of course, we also wouldn't need a beanstalk if we could do that. I'll be interested in watching the two competing ways to orbit and back to see which one comes first.
BTW, and a bit off-topic, if anybody asks how far a person can see under ideal conditions, the answer's 2,000,000 light years. The Andromeda galaxy is that far away, and is a naked-eye object.
Back in the Golden Age of Science Fiction, there were a number of stories about disabled space ships "spiraling into the Sun." The best response to that type of plot is "No, that's not how physics works."
Having the Earth "pulled out of orbit" by a passing star isn't the only problem. Consider a close approach at right angles to the ecliptic. As the intruder passes, it will perturb the Earth's orbit toward it, making it more eliptical than it is now. Not, of course, enough to cause a collision, but possibly enough for climate change; hotter summers and cooler winters for the Northern hemisphere, where most people live. (Assuming it came while there are still people living here, of course.)
If Tribes is using Shazbot, they stole it from Robin Williams. He used it as Mork in Mork and Mindy almost thirty years ago.
Somewhere in this discussion, somebody quotes Doc Smith on why people swear. I'd like to quote him again, as there's a passage about when politicians should and shouldn't lie in First Lensman. For those of you who haven't read it, a lens permits telepathic communication, and you can't lie when using one. Rod "the rock" Kinnison is running for president, when the lens has just been introduced, and is a lensman:
"You could demand from him at any time a Lensed statement upon any subject. Upon some matters of state he could and should refuse answer; but not upon any question involving moral turpitude. If he answered you would know the truth. If he refused to answer, you would know why and could start impeachment proceedings then and there."
I'm also vastly amused by a /. article that lets us all use as much vulgarity as we want without getting modded -1 Flamebait.
From what I understand, the doctor is wrong. The title was originally pronounced Much Adoo about Noting. If you read/watch it, you'll see that much of the action is driven by people noting things they weren't intended to overhear, thus making the title a play on words.