That's a good point. I introduced my wife to Sim City, because of how it's one of those computer games that people who don't play computer games play. She played it a bit, but then got abnnoyed because you couldn't edit the basic economic assumptions - I hadn't really given it any thought, but she pointed out how the whole thing was firmly rooted in a US capitalist/free-market ideology, and there was only so far you could push it, for example:
1. Put taxes above 7% and everyone leaves town. This, more than anything, shows the game's US roots. If it were European, the rule would be: Lower taxes below 30% and you trigger rioting in the streets.
2. No city-owned industry or commerce. It would be cool to be able to collectivise steel production, or to make a profit selling power to other cities.
I think Civilisation is a bit better as far as this goes, but it does seem to be slanted towards the "chrushing your enemies beneath your vast war machine" school of foreign policy. Again, this does have certain parallels with, naming no names, a certain Western-hemisphere superpower.
So what I want to know is, are there any system simulations based on different political ideologies? SimCollectiveFarm, or SimCommune, or whatever?
...installed into the wings of NASA's remaining shuttle fleet....
Fleet? They've only got three left! How small can a fleet be?
Anyway, what we really need to get the public interested in spaceflight again is a SSTO nuclear-powered rocket that takes off and lands vertically. That would be so cool. I honestly believe that the single best, and most logically defensible, reason for going into space is that it's cool to do so, and I believe that the hardware should be designed accordingly.
Because it isn't relational there is some bigotry against it and it is ignored in the popular press.
Dude, where I come from the popular press doesn't often run stories on database architecture of any description - they're more into celebrity gossip and stuff.
Ooohhh,
while we're on the subject, and trust me, I don't normally indulge in grammar nazi posts, but this one bugs me, you don't, strictly speaking, mean 'disinterest'; you mean 'lack of interest'.
If you're not interested in something, you're uninterested.
If you're disinterested it means that you have no personal bias, as in no interest in it.
For example, a Judge presiding over the case is hopefully disinterested in the verdict, but I'd hope he wasn't uninterested.
Posting without karma bonus due to flagrant OTness of this post
In Lord of the Rings, it says that a mathom is a thing that you have no use for but can't bear to throw away, so you send it to the Mathom House in Michel Delving, the capital of the Shire.
Bow down before my superior LOTR knowledge!!! Bwahahahahaaaa!!!! Oh yeah, the laydeeeez are gonna be so impressed.
Whaddaya mean, "eventually" it will become an international collaboration? You do know that Denmark, Holland, and Germany are differnt countries, right?
Although I have to admit that "collaboration" is an unfortunate word to choose when you're talking about those particular countries working together.
That is because Umberto Eco is longwinded onld fart who is no more clever than he thinks he is. Anyone who disagrees with me should try to read "Foucault's Pendulum". Boring boring boring yadda yadda yadda.
The name of the rose is good, though. But the film is better.
There's no existing mineral called Kryptonite, but there is an inert gas called Krypton. It's with those other ones like neon, argon, etc on the periodic table. So I always thought that "Kryptonite" ought to be a compound or weird allotrope of Krypton, like the Carbonite Han Solo is frozen in presumably has Carbon in it, or is an as-yet-undiscovered allotrope of Carbon particularly suitable for petrifying spacefaring bad-boys.
Hey, that's yet another little cultural difference between the US and the UK (I'm making a list). In my local branch of Blockbusters (in London), all the (softcore) porn is all mixed up with the normal-type films. So you'll get "The erotic witch project" under horror, "The seX Files" under Sci-fi, and so on.
My wife, who isn't so good at spotting the genre of a film from the video box, sometimes says stuff like, "hey, what's "Lesbian Prison Riot' about? Have you seen it? Is it good?"
The other thing that annoys me is the way they don't put all the Hollywood stuff under "World Cinema". I said to the guy in the shop, "hey, 90% of your stock is foreign films! All these American films should really be over there with the arty French stuff.
And then the rest of the shop would be kept free for Four Weddings and a Funeral, and, er, that other film.
Er, all new cameras have to be fitted with mercury switches that cut the power unless it's held the correct, non-copyright-circumventing way up.
Or maybe forget the polarisation idea, but have all video equipment fitted with highly accurate clocks synched to a central transmitter that makes sure that the refresh cycle of recording devices (cameras) is 180 degrees out of phase with display devices. No, that wouldn't work either.
Hey, maybe you could make it the law that all consumer-grade video display equipment (TVs, projectors, advertising displays, etc) has to emit light polarised in a certain direction only, and that all consumer-grade video recording equipment (camcorders, etc) only records light polarised in the other direction.
Then, video displays will appear black if filmed.
Problem solved!
Disclaimer: I think this proposed bill is as stupid as you all think it is, but I had this interesting idea.
Michael Crichton's books are both good and original. Unfortunately, the original parts are not good, and the good parts are not original.
Re:2 application I heard of...
on
Mafia Tech Support
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· Score: 2, Insightful
That's why barber shops are good, because they don't need much in the way of supplies. Many many barber shops in London launder drug money.
Another way I heard of for laundering a lump sum quickly was to go to a casino, turn it all into chips, place a few small bets, and at the end of the night take all your remaining chips to a diffferent cashier and say "whooo! Big win! Can I have a cheque please?" The nice thing about this is that the Casino is actually making money out of your scam, so it's far more likely to go "unnoticed".
It's both redundancy and context.
Natural languages have enough redundancy in them that one can tell the meaning of a word with missing information from the context.
For example, one can often guess what a word is even after the vowels have been removed (because he vowels are largely redundant); however, this is easier with sentences than single words.
Demonstration:
What does "ppls" mean? Can't tell?
Suppose I say "ppls r frt tht grw n ppl trs".
QED (hopefully) - combination of redundancy and context, ergo, you're all right. Chill out, dudes.
Well, firstly i have to say that my only qualification for answering this question is that I am British. It sounds as though you may well have a better understanding of some areas of British history than I do.
However, as far as I understand it, we don't have a constitution - the Magna Carta must count as something else. A "Big Charter", perhaps?:) - and we certainly don't have constitutional rights. Those rights we do have are described as "residual rights" - that is, you have a right to do whatever hasn't been prohibited by law. Which sucks.
And yeah, many Brits (myself included) do believe that the Royal Family are a drag on the country. However, you don't see this views widely aired because, among other things, it is illegal to advocate republicanism in print. I kid you not.
So anyway, what's this about Charlie and the footman?
Well I never. Do you believe it? What else are they saying about it?
Man, I hate the censorship in the English press. I get as tired of Americans trotting out the old "our country is the best in the world" stuff as much as the next cheese-eating European Liberal, but I have to say that it would be rather nice to have a constitutional right to free speech over here.
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That's a good point. I introduced my wife to Sim City, because of how it's one of those computer games that people who don't play computer games play. She played it a bit, but then got abnnoyed because you couldn't edit the basic economic assumptions - I hadn't really given it any thought, but she pointed out how the whole thing was firmly rooted in a US capitalist/free-market ideology, and there was only so far you could push it, for example:
1. Put taxes above 7% and everyone leaves town. This, more than anything, shows the game's US roots. If it were European, the rule would be: Lower taxes below 30% and you trigger rioting in the streets.
2. No city-owned industry or commerce. It would be cool to be able to collectivise steel production, or to make a profit selling power to other cities.
I think Civilisation is a bit better as far as this goes, but it does seem to be slanted towards the "chrushing your enemies beneath your vast war machine" school of foreign policy. Again, this does have certain parallels with, naming no names, a certain Western-hemisphere superpower.
So what I want to know is, are there any system simulations based on different political ideologies? SimCollectiveFarm, or SimCommune, or whatever?
What's Sneakers? I've seen the other 3 films and liked 'em, so I'm guessing I'm missing out on something cool here.
Yeah, I could google it or look on imdb, but on the other hand it would be nice for someone to tell me. Cheers.
...installed into the wings of NASA's remaining shuttle fleet....
Fleet? They've only got three left! How small can a fleet be?
Anyway, what we really need to get the public interested in spaceflight again is a SSTO nuclear-powered rocket that takes off and lands vertically. That would be so cool. I honestly believe that the single best, and most logically defensible, reason for going into space is that it's cool to do so, and I believe that the hardware should be designed accordingly.
Because it isn't relational there is some bigotry against it and it is ignored in the popular press.
Dude, where I come from the popular press doesn't often run stories on database architecture of any description - they're more into celebrity gossip and stuff.
Ooohhh,
while we're on the subject, and trust me, I don't normally indulge in grammar nazi posts, but this one bugs me, you don't, strictly speaking, mean 'disinterest'; you mean 'lack of interest'.
If you're not interested in something, you're uninterested. If you're disinterested it means that you have no personal bias, as in no interest in it.
For example, a Judge presiding over the case is hopefully disinterested in the verdict, but I'd hope he wasn't uninterested.
Posting without karma bonus due to flagrant OTness of this post
In Lord of the Rings, it says that a mathom is a thing that you have no use for but can't bear to throw away, so you send it to the Mathom House in Michel Delving, the capital of the Shire.
Bow down before my superior LOTR knowledge!!! Bwahahahahaaaa!!!! Oh yeah, the laydeeeez are gonna be so impressed.
Well, that depends if you're talking about the guy who plays Frasier or referring to one of your parents' mothers, doesn't it?
No, you're getting Terminator confused with Conan the Librarian.
Whaddaya mean, "eventually" it will become an international collaboration? You do know that Denmark, Holland, and Germany are differnt countries, right?
Although I have to admit that "collaboration" is an unfortunate word to choose when you're talking about those particular countries working together.
No, it's "Mr. [I {took (a class) in (group theory)}]" to you.
nice black empty billboards.
Or even better have your glasses replace the advert with the picture of your choice.
Imagine hanging out on Picadilly Circus / Times Square, viewing your favourite jpegs on the huge billboards.
I know Foucault's Pendulum was supposed to be confusing. I don't think it was supposed to be boring, though.
That is because Umberto Eco is longwinded onld fart who is no more clever than he thinks he is. Anyone who disagrees with me should try to read "Foucault's Pendulum". Boring boring boring yadda yadda yadda.
The name of the rose is good, though. But the film is better.
There's no existing mineral called Kryptonite, but there is an inert gas called Krypton. It's with those other ones like neon, argon, etc on the periodic table. So I always thought that "Kryptonite" ought to be a compound or weird allotrope of Krypton, like the Carbonite Han Solo is frozen in presumably has Carbon in it, or is an as-yet-undiscovered allotrope of Carbon particularly suitable for petrifying spacefaring bad-boys.
Gamers aren't good people, but some of them have lawful alignment.
Hey, that's yet another little cultural difference between the US and the UK (I'm making a list).
In my local branch of Blockbusters (in London), all the (softcore) porn is all mixed up with the normal-type films. So you'll get "The erotic witch project" under horror, "The seX Files" under Sci-fi, and so on.
My wife, who isn't so good at spotting the genre of a film from the video box, sometimes says stuff like, "hey, what's "Lesbian Prison Riot' about? Have you seen it? Is it good?"
The other thing that annoys me is the way they don't put all the Hollywood stuff under "World Cinema". I said to the guy in the shop, "hey, 90% of your stock is foreign films! All these American films should really be over there with the arty French stuff.
And then the rest of the shop would be kept free for Four Weddings and a Funeral, and, er, that other film.
Er, all new cameras have to be fitted with mercury switches that cut the power unless it's held the correct, non-copyright-circumventing way up.
Or maybe forget the polarisation idea, but have all video equipment fitted with highly accurate clocks synched to a central transmitter that makes sure that the refresh cycle of recording devices (cameras) is 180 degrees out of phase with display devices. No, that wouldn't work either.
Well, that's a relief.
Hey, maybe you could make it the law that all consumer-grade video display equipment (TVs, projectors, advertising displays, etc) has to emit light polarised in a certain direction only, and that all consumer-grade video recording equipment (camcorders, etc) only records light polarised in the other direction.
Then, video displays will appear black if filmed.
Problem solved!
Disclaimer: I think this proposed bill is as stupid as you all think it is, but I had this interesting idea.
Michael Crichton's books are both good and original. Unfortunately, the original parts are not good, and the good parts are not original.
That's why barber shops are good, because they don't need much in the way of supplies. Many many barber shops in London launder drug money.
Another way I heard of for laundering a lump sum quickly was to go to a casino, turn it all into chips, place a few small bets, and at the end of the night take all your remaining chips to a diffferent cashier and say "whooo! Big win! Can I have a cheque please?" The nice thing about this is that the Casino is actually making money out of your scam, so it's far more likely to go "unnoticed".
You know, sometimes the moderation is the funniest thing about a post. Informative? Informative???
It's both redundancy and context.
Natural languages have enough redundancy in them that one can tell the meaning of a word with missing information from the context.
For example, one can often guess what a word is even after the vowels have been removed (because he vowels are largely redundant); however, this is easier with sentences than single words.
Demonstration:
What does "ppls" mean? Can't tell?
Suppose I say "ppls r frt tht grw n ppl trs".
QED (hopefully) - combination of redundancy and context, ergo, you're all right. Chill out, dudes.
Honestly, I'm not being a pedant here (well, maybe a bit), but there is no such thing as a British accent.
There are, however, a great variety of English, Welsh, and Scottish Accents.
The variation between them is at least as great as between the "Standard" (ie Southern Middle-Class) English accent and many American Accents.
As a Londoner, when I went to Glasgow, I couldn't understand a bloody word that anyone was saying, but we were both speaking with "British" accents.
Well, firstly i have to say that my only qualification for answering this question is that I am British. It sounds as though you may well have a better understanding of some areas of British history than I do. :) - and we certainly don't have constitutional rights. Those rights we do have are described as "residual rights" - that is, you have a right to do whatever hasn't been prohibited by law. Which sucks.
However, as far as I understand it, we don't have a constitution - the Magna Carta must count as something else. A "Big Charter", perhaps?
And yeah, many Brits (myself included) do believe that the Royal Family are a drag on the country. However, you don't see this views widely aired because, among other things, it is illegal to advocate republicanism in print. I kid you not.
So anyway, what's this about Charlie and the footman?
He was what?
Well I never. Do you believe it? What else are they saying about it?
Man, I hate the censorship in the English press. I get as tired of Americans trotting out the old "our country is the best in the world" stuff as much as the next cheese-eating European Liberal, but I have to say that it would be rather nice to have a constitutional right to free speech over here.