What planet are you from that has 450 days per year?
You laugh, and justly, but just as a matter of interest, the year 46 BCE had -- well, not quite 450 days -- but ca. 445 days. (It was the year that the Romans transitioned from the chaotic old republican calendar to the shiny new Julian calendar. They got it wrong at first, mind you, having leap years every three years instead of four because of a misunderstanding, but they worked it out eventually.)
is it easier to bust 1000 pot dealers, half of whom are anonymous or untracable, or the guy who helps everyone find them?
Well, if the guy who helps everyone find them really does help everyone find them, then it will be really easy to bust them, as they will be neither anonymous nor untraceable. The gpp's point here was that Yahoo!'s service has great value for the music industry's efforts to enforce its IP. I guess the music industry's position is that they'd prefer to have security through obscurity.
I love hearing from the experts how we all suck for even DARING to like Grand Theft Auto.
If he had actually said that, you might have a point. But he didn't. What he said was
I think, you certainly can play Grand Theft Auto and come away from it with a story. But I think most of the time people play games they come away with a really bad, boring story.
... which is absolutely true for most games. Most games have crumby stories. That doesn't stop them from being fun, since a lot of people (like you) don't care about a storyline. I like GTA, and I also like games with storylines (of the three GTA 3 games, only San Andreas had a storyline so's you'd notice, but even there it wasn't so much a story as a pretext). In fact, this is exactly the same opinion that he expressed in the interview; obviously you can't be bothered to take any notice of what he actually said:
There are definitely times when I sit down in the game and I just want to blow stuff up. I don't really care about the story. Give me a good pretext, give me a big gun and let me blow things up, that's what I'm interested in. There are other times when I'm way more interested in the story,...
It's a niche market, sure, but FWIW, within the last year I bought two -- Monkey Island 3, and Planescape: Torment. (Actually, I'm not certain about Monkey Island 3, but I'm pretty certain Planescape is 640x480.)
Absolutely right, and yes it is wishful thinking. Implementing that kind of thing would take enormous public pressure. Still, it has happened at least once before -- albeit 2500 years ago -- and it sounds to me like a pretty decent system.
Have a set of tests to determine which senator(s) can lecture / vote on a given topic. Those who fail the test lose their voting rights...
ALTERNATIVELY!!, YOU!! COULD!! -- oh wait, I'll stop yelling. Alternatively, you could consider the system that was practised in ancient Athens -- every elected official, upon leaving office, underwent an independent audit of his conduct in office. Those found wanting were prosecuted for abuse of power -- and not too infrequently, I might add. I've often wondered why this isn't practised nowadays. It's just too haphazard, this being held accountable only when someone happens to call you on something you've done.
Parent does have a point ("it's pretty easy to get confuse shelley with a real republican" [sic]), and gpp is a bit harsh on the AC ggpp (who, I get the impression, did get the joke, but kept quiet about it thinking that others would too): it's more than a little worrying that not just a few, but most, comments on the linked shelleytherepublican item take the article dead seriously.
around 150,000 years ago. I'm not quite convinced that a statistical argument or mathematical simulation can trump anthropological considerations
As it happens, there's not a lot of evidence coming from "anthropological considerations" about events that took place 150,000 years ago. If there were any anthropologists around considering things in the Pleistocene, they haven't (alas) left any written records.
In any case, the ggpp was quite correct. The most widely accepted date is around 40-50,000 year BP. (reference)
If you do some reading-up, you'll find that the earlier you go, the more important and dominant genetic and statistical evidence becomes -- not quite the only kind of evidence there is, but one of the most important kinds.
That should, I trust, be mater certa. (Incidentally, that sounds like a paraphrase of a line in the Odyssey (very early Greek, not Roman) -- book 1, lines 215-16 -- though some people have thought that it was already proverbial then.)
Well, occasionally they did a bit of smiting. As you say, they got involved in the Trojan War, but as well as that there's also the business with the flood, and a chap called Lykaon. (See Ovid, Metamorphoses book 1.) It's mostly when mortals compared themselves favourably to a god, or made the wrong kind of joke about a god...
As I recall, the Eastern Orthodox church maintains that they are the original Christian church and the Roman Catholics split off from them.
The disagreement isn't over who came first, but about who's in charge. Most everyone agrees that the Patriarch of Rome (a.k.a. the Pope) has seniority, but the Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox churches disagree with each other about the nature of that seniority, and what kind of authority it comes with.
"thou art Peter (petros), and upon this rock (petra) I will build my Church."
petros is simply a masculinised form of the feminine noun petra "rock".
You don't know what judder is. Judder is the artifact (uneven pans) when converting progressive 24FPS film to 60fields/sec interlaced displays.
Your assessment was correct. Thanks for the correction. Is there a word for the jittery effect you get in pans or rapid motion at 24 fps, then? (Where I live I'd have imagined "judder" would be the most appropriate word for that, as it feels like going over judder bars -- what they call cattlestops in some parts of the world.)
Checks and balances, my friend, checks and balances:-) I guess they come in all shapes and sizes... but I think it's more the bureaucracy, rather than the corruption as such, that balances things there. It means that thousands of middle-level officials can exercise enormous power. Upper-level officials can countermand their decisions, but it's like a dog chasing its own tail. The upshot is that lots and lots of people have the power to take an ideological -- or corrupt -- stand, if they want to.
I already posted this in another message in this thread, but I found quite an interesting article about this here. Just as a bit of good news, the author (name not cited, annoyingly) thinks 60 fps capture is likely to be common in another decade.
Slashdot Mirror
You laugh, and justly, but just as a matter of interest, the year 46 BCE had -- well, not quite 450 days -- but ca. 445 days. (It was the year that the Romans transitioned from the chaotic old republican calendar to the shiny new Julian calendar. They got it wrong at first, mind you, having leap years every three years instead of four because of a misunderstanding, but they worked it out eventually.)
I can certainly see why you wouldn't have, but just suppose: if your positions were reversed, would it have been surprising if she called the cops?
Just for reference, Richard Nixon's voice in Futurama was provided by ... guess who.
I think it's fair, given that Billy also provides the present-day voices for Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, and Pepe le Pew.
Well, if the guy who helps everyone find them really does help everyone find them, then it will be really easy to bust them, as they will be neither anonymous nor untraceable. The gpp's point here was that Yahoo!'s service has great value for the music industry's efforts to enforce its IP. I guess the music industry's position is that they'd prefer to have security through obscurity.
No, I equate "doing something with the intent of causing confusion" or "doing something unusual as an act of provocation" with "causing trouble".
"Fortnight" in UK English is about as remarkable as "elevator" or "automobile" in US English.
That is a different situation, though: those people went to that Best Buy with the sole and specific intention of causing trouble, not to buy things.
Funny that that isn't routinely cited as an acronym yet. Windows has BSODs, OS X has SBODs.
If he had actually said that, you might have a point. But he didn't. What he said was
... which is absolutely true for most games. Most games have crumby stories. That doesn't stop them from being fun, since a lot of people (like you) don't care about a storyline. I like GTA, and I also like games with storylines (of the three GTA 3 games, only San Andreas had a storyline so's you'd notice, but even there it wasn't so much a story as a pretext). In fact, this is exactly the same opinion that he expressed in the interview; obviously you can't be bothered to take any notice of what he actually said:
It's a niche market, sure, but FWIW, within the last year I bought two -- Monkey Island 3, and Planescape: Torment. (Actually, I'm not certain about Monkey Island 3, but I'm pretty certain Planescape is 640x480.)
Umm ... I'd guess Ubuntu.
Absolutely right, and yes it is wishful thinking. Implementing that kind of thing would take enormous public pressure. Still, it has happened at least once before -- albeit 2500 years ago -- and it sounds to me like a pretty decent system.
ALTERNATIVELY!!, YOU!! COULD!! -- oh wait, I'll stop yelling. Alternatively, you could consider the system that was practised in ancient Athens -- every elected official, upon leaving office, underwent an independent audit of his conduct in office. Those found wanting were prosecuted for abuse of power -- and not too infrequently, I might add. I've often wondered why this isn't practised nowadays. It's just too haphazard, this being held accountable only when someone happens to call you on something you've done.
I guess the main reason this hasn't been modded "-1, Shill" is that there hasn't so far been a tradition of people shilling for Google.
Parent does have a point ("it's pretty easy to get confuse shelley with a real republican" [sic]), and gpp is a bit harsh on the AC ggpp (who, I get the impression, did get the joke, but kept quiet about it thinking that others would too): it's more than a little worrying that not just a few, but most, comments on the linked shelleytherepublican item take the article dead seriously.
As it happens, there's not a lot of evidence coming from "anthropological considerations" about events that took place 150,000 years ago. If there were any anthropologists around considering things in the Pleistocene, they haven't (alas) left any written records.
In any case, the ggpp was quite correct. The most widely accepted date is around 40-50,000 year BP. (reference)
If you do some reading-up, you'll find that the earlier you go, the more important and dominant genetic and statistical evidence becomes -- not quite the only kind of evidence there is, but one of the most important kinds.
That should, I trust, be mater certa. (Incidentally, that sounds like a paraphrase of a line in the Odyssey (very early Greek, not Roman) -- book 1, lines 215-16 -- though some people have thought that it was already proverbial then.)
Well, occasionally they did a bit of smiting. As you say, they got involved in the Trojan War, but as well as that there's also the business with the flood, and a chap called Lykaon. (See Ovid, Metamorphoses book 1.) It's mostly when mortals compared themselves favourably to a god, or made the wrong kind of joke about a god ...
The disagreement isn't over who came first, but about who's in charge. Most everyone agrees that the Patriarch of Rome (a.k.a. the Pope) has seniority, but the Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox churches disagree with each other about the nature of that seniority, and what kind of authority it comes with.
petros is simply a masculinised form of the feminine noun petra "rock".
Well, I have to say that already sounds like a big improvement.
So, you don't live in London or Manchester then?
Hmm, wait, maybe you do. It's so confusing these days.
Your assessment was correct. Thanks for the correction. Is there a word for the jittery effect you get in pans or rapid motion at 24 fps, then? (Where I live I'd have imagined "judder" would be the most appropriate word for that, as it feels like going over judder bars -- what they call cattlestops in some parts of the world.)
Checks and balances, my friend, checks and balances :-) I guess they come in all shapes and sizes ... but I think it's more the bureaucracy, rather than the corruption as such, that balances things there. It means that thousands of middle-level officials can exercise enormous power. Upper-level officials can countermand their decisions, but it's like a dog chasing its own tail. The upshot is that lots and lots of people have the power to take an ideological -- or corrupt -- stand, if they want to.
I already posted this in another message in this thread, but I found quite an interesting article about this here. Just as a bit of good news, the author (name not cited, annoyingly) thinks 60 fps capture is likely to be common in another decade.