Hehe, I added GSM from the point of view of a foreigner unable to use my phone in the US. I should have known that on Slashdot there would be people who knew way way more about phone standards than I did.
I remember that CDMA was implemented in Australia as a replacement for analog phones for rural people because of its better range. Having voice and data on one radio sounds great if you can transmit at least a small amount of data consistently enough for voice.
Being a libertarian society seems to put certain reforms into the Too Hard Basket. Reforms that other countries enjoy include the metric system, the use of coins for small amounts of money, a modern electoral system, GSM, and restricting the use of semiautomatic weapons to professionals.
Of course, if you are as big and powerful as the US, other countries just learn to live with your proprietary standards:-)
I feel freer when I’m not driving the car. I have to drive and park the stupid thing, and driving safely restricts my activities and makes me less fit.
One of the beauties of driverless cars is that heavy traffic will be a lot less of a problem. Even if a lane on the Golden Gate Bridge is blocked, other cars will know about it way ahead and be able to merge (which they also will do a lot better).
But the thin/short person and the Biggest Loser candidate are outliers, so unless there is a weight-loss convention or a supermodels’ meeting, you can derive the number of people from their weight reliably enough for these purposes.
Having the states responsible for running elections isn’t fair. Partisan state governments seem to think of all sorts of ways to prevent people from voting who are unlikely to vote the way the state government wants. So a poor black person (for example with a name resembling that of a convicted felon) might have a lesser chance of being able to vote in Florida than they would in another state. That’s not fair.
Having a 50.1% majority decide 100% of a state’s votes in the electoral college is not very representative.
Plurality voting is also problematic with more than one candidate.
The US is one of the world’s oldest democracies. If you’re first to get something, say an underground rail network, without a lot of upgrading work you’ll eventually have the world’s oldest and creakiest underground rail network. So I think the US democratic process could do with an overhaul, if only because other, newer, democracies have been able to develop their systems learning from older democracies’ problems.
In my first year of high school (1983) we were playing with an end-of-life MONECS PDP-11 system, pencilling BASIC on to cards one character at a time. It seemed a bit pointless as I’d already been programming a friend’s VIC-20 the year before. By 1984 or 1985 the Informatics room had a few BBC computers. I can’t remember learning anything on them though.
Reminds me of undeleting an email (not in the trash) on my aunt’s computer over the phone... one of my life’s achievements on a par with fixing up an audio file using Perl.
His player piano piece remind me of a piece I wrote for Disklavier in the 90s. I didn't have access to a Disklavier, so I went to a piano shop with a laptop (with midi output) and a recorder, and asked if I could record my piece. The shopkeeper was fine with that, so I hooked it up and got my piece going. The climax was crazy, and blew a fuse, so I had to make a trip to the (fortunately close) electronics store, and record the climax in five separate passes.
I wrote a piece for Disklavier because I’m not a good pianist, and any attempts at keyboard writing beyond basic and easy tend to be (nearly) unplayable.
Yes, it doesn’t sound bad, and it only uses 31 digits of pi when so many more are available. That would suggest the piece has had more rational (ie. composer’s) input than irrational.
Eyes can trump boobs in my case. Some of the gazillion girls I've been attracted to over the years I've liked for their intelligence, which shows through the eyes (and which I can spot in less than a second). Then weeks later I've noticed with surprise that they're quite impressively built. And it's not like I don't think boobs are wonderful...
So, if you speak Australian, use Australian words, put them in the Australian dictionary, make them acceptable in Australian Scrabble. But make sure your language stays close enough to the Common language that you can still participate in it unlike people from Cork or people who vote for Palin.
Australian slang is a bit like the Norwegian dialects. We talk it to each other, and international English with non-Australians. Sometimes a certain Australian phrase will feel particularly expressive, and occasionally it’s not obvious that a phrase is particularly Australian. Maybe that’s where argy-bargy came from. But in general when talking with British people, Americans or non-native speakers, after the tenth time one has had to explain a word or phrase, one gets pretty good at simplifying one’s vocabulary.
Ah, that makes sense... I was thinking someone was spending an inordinate amount of time talking with Auntie Doris. And it also explains why someone might actually call one of those $10/min services.
...which reminds me of my philosophy professor telling us Gasking's proof (an ontological argument for the non-existence of God. He would have had many beers with Gasking.
As a not particularly religious musician I've made way more money from the church than from government or wealthy benefactors, and so have thousands of my predecessors. We're like parasites on religion.
This thing I love about pinball is how analog it is and that it has an extra level of unpredictability that it would be difficult to reproduce digitally. I'm talking about when I play- my multiballs are are a bit more adrenalin-charged and chaotic than these guys'...
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That sounds eminently sensible. Therefore, good luck getting it through the current Congress!
Hehe, I added GSM from the point of view of a foreigner unable to use my phone in the US. I should have known that on Slashdot there would be people who knew way way more about phone standards than I did.
I remember that CDMA was implemented in Australia as a replacement for analog phones for rural people because of its better range. Having voice and data on one radio sounds great if you can transmit at least a small amount of data consistently enough for voice.
As a more libertarian society...
Being a libertarian society seems to put certain reforms into the Too Hard Basket. Reforms that other countries enjoy include the metric system, the use of coins for small amounts of money, a modern electoral system, GSM, and restricting the use of semiautomatic weapons to professionals.
:-)
Of course, if you are as big and powerful as the US, other countries just learn to live with your proprietary standards
I feel freer when I’m not driving the car. I have to drive and park the stupid thing, and driving safely restricts my activities and makes me less fit.
One of the beauties of driverless cars is that heavy traffic will be a lot less of a problem. Even if a lane on the Golden Gate Bridge is blocked, other cars will know about it way ahead and be able to merge (which they also will do a lot better).
But the thin/short person and the Biggest Loser candidate are outliers, so unless there is a weight-loss convention or a supermodels’ meeting, you can derive the number of people from their weight reliably enough for these purposes.
Having the states responsible for running elections isn’t fair. Partisan state governments seem to think of all sorts of ways to prevent people from voting who are unlikely to vote the way the state government wants. So a poor black person (for example with a name resembling that of a convicted felon) might have a lesser chance of being able to vote in Florida than they would in another state. That’s not fair.
Having a 50.1% majority decide 100% of a state’s votes in the electoral college is not very representative.
Plurality voting is also problematic with more than one candidate.
The US is one of the world’s oldest democracies. If you’re first to get something, say an underground rail network, without a lot of upgrading work you’ll eventually have the world’s oldest and creakiest underground rail network. So I think the US democratic process could do with an overhaul, if only because other, newer, democracies have been able to develop their systems learning from older democracies’ problems.
In Eastern Germany in 1995, I saw an ornately and tastefully decorated apartment inside a building with a soul-crushing grey exterior.
I also got a ride (over cobblestones) in a Trabi, since consigned to history.
Maybe we can’t interact with them because they’re on the other side of the speed-of-light barrier.
In my first year of high school (1983) we were playing with an end-of-life MONECS PDP-11 system, pencilling BASIC on to cards one character at a time. It seemed a bit pointless as I’d already been programming a friend’s VIC-20 the year before. By 1984 or 1985 the Informatics room had a few BBC computers. I can’t remember learning anything on them though.
Reminds me of undeleting an email (not in the trash) on my aunt’s computer over the phone... one of my life’s achievements on a par with fixing up an audio file using Perl.
My housemate & I once took twelve rounds to achieve a non-draw. Maybe our RPS patterns synchronized like the periods of women who live together.
The idea that RPS (played between amateurs) is not quite random seems more appealing thatn just a random coincidence.
Hehe, yes, a proper relay goes "THUNK!"
Though I recall that once the 128k Mac had the System and Microsoft Word on it, there was barely any room left for a document.
Here is a interesting article about the design of the 6502, on archeology.org of all places.
But you already knew it was archeology.org, didn’t you?
His player piano piece remind me of a piece I wrote for Disklavier in the 90s. I didn't have access to a Disklavier, so I went to a piano shop with a laptop (with midi output) and a recorder, and asked if I could record my piece. The shopkeeper was fine with that, so I hooked it up and got my piece going. The climax was crazy, and blew a fuse, so I had to make a trip to the (fortunately close) electronics store, and record the climax in five separate passes. I wrote a piece for Disklavier because I’m not a good pianist, and any attempts at keyboard writing beyond basic and easy tend to be (nearly) unplayable.
Yes, it doesn’t sound bad, and it only uses 31 digits of pi when so many more are available. That would suggest the piece has had more rational (ie. composer’s) input than irrational.
Eyes can trump boobs in my case. Some of the gazillion girls I've been attracted to over the years I've liked for their intelligence, which shows through the eyes (and which I can spot in less than a second). Then weeks later I've noticed with surprise that they're quite impressively built. And it's not like I don't think boobs are wonderful...
Australian slang is a bit like the Norwegian dialects. We talk it to each other, and international English with non-Australians. Sometimes a certain Australian phrase will feel particularly expressive, and occasionally it’s not obvious that a phrase is particularly Australian. Maybe that’s where argy-bargy came from. But in general when talking with British people, Americans or non-native speakers, after the tenth time one has had to explain a word or phrase, one gets pretty good at simplifying one’s vocabulary.
Ah, that makes sense... I was thinking someone was spending an inordinate amount of time talking with Auntie Doris. And it also explains why someone might actually call one of those $10/min services.
...which reminds me of my philosophy professor telling us Gasking's proof (an ontological argument for the non-existence of God. He would have had many beers with Gasking.
Personally I find the most interesting discussions in the polls, which is the least news-related section of the site.
As a not particularly religious musician I've made way more money from the church than from government or wealthy benefactors, and so have thousands of my predecessors. We're like parasites on religion.
Cool, I know what transonic means now... thanks Slashdot & Wikipedia!
This thing I love about pinball is how analog it is and that it has an extra level of unpredictability that it would be difficult to reproduce digitally. I'm talking about when I play- my multiballs are are a bit more adrenalin-charged and chaotic than these guys'...