Word implicitly forces you to use styles when you are doing numbered lists (especially outline numbering)
Numbered lists work, but they are idiosyncratic as hell. You absolutely must use styles, because once you get your styles just right, you can then rely upon them.
You're right that it's most obvious in numbered lists, but I'd argue that any extended use of Word (more than, say, five pages) requires you to set up the styles you want (or use an included set). I discovered this when I was given the job of editing/rewriting a 200 page policy manual. (For which, to meet requirements, I now have a set of styles where everything is 12pt black Times New Roman.)
It's a good thing the Official Secrets Act prevented this from being news at the time. I'm not sure reporters could have kept a straight face reporting on the "Cocks Algorithm."
Ah, yet another person who reads the one article and believes they know everything about it. As much as you will hate hearing it, you are absolutely wrong. This was a case of forgetfulness. He had paid the fee on-time for years and years past, and slipped his mind this time.
And? Every month except last month I've paid my water bill on time. Last month I forgot to mail it until the day after it was due, and consequently the city charged me a late fee. Which I paid. The reason Mr. Cranick did not pay his $75.00 fee would only be relevant if he were genuinely prevented from doing so—which he wasn't, as far as I can tell.
Now, in a fire, the amount of money destroyed by letting any given fire run amok in an average house is always far higher than the cost of actually stopping the fire.
I'm not saying this assertion is untrue, but I'd like to see it substantiated before accepting it.
I realize they were in their "rights" legally and such to put out the neighbours fire and not his.. (from the TFA, they just sat there and made sure it didn't spread). But I mean, as a human, what the fuck. Is there so little empathy?
Why couldn't they have put it out and then billed him? He probably would have been so happy he would have paid it. This reeks of callousness. What have "we" become (I'm not american, but I am a human, I think..)
Is there so little empathy? Yes. There is. And quite rightly so, in this case.[1] This is simply the free-rider problem writ in large, fiery letters—basic economics. Fire departments have enormous up-front costs to acquire resources like equipment, maintenance, training, etc. Every time a department deploys those resources, it lessens its ability to respond to future emergencies. With building owners or tenants paying fees, the department can potentially replenish those resources. If they deploy those resources on buildings whose owners or tenants have not paid the fees, well, they've just become a barrel with a hole in the bottom. Eventually, the department may well put itself into a situation where it can't put out any fires except the barbecue pit next to the station.
As for billing afterwards—well, I'll just say that gratitude is not nearly as widespread in this fallen world as you seem to think it is. Further, if there's a fee system in place, and the fire department responds to anybody regardless of whether they've paid, you've just removed the incentive for anyone to pay. As I mentioned, fire departments have large up-front costs; without money to pay them, goodbye, fire department.
The Right Answer, of course, is make paying the "fee" mandatory, i.e., a tax, and have it enforced by the government. That's the difficulty with democracy, though; you can't make people choose the Right Answer.
[1] Caveat: I only read the summary, not the article.
Why not ban texting while actually driving, but permit it at stop signs and red lights? People then have an incentive to wait until it's safer—I don't say "safe" even in this case, but safer—for them to do so. And of course if you sat there for too long after the light turned green, I'm sure a police officer could cite you for something (blocking a roadway? hazardous driving? whatever)
There's a second edition, if you didn't know, published within the last ten years. Although "second edition" is somewhat misleading; it's largely rewritten--but it's even better than the first.
I also remember that the install process told you, and I quote, "Windows 95 makes everything better." Not just everything on your computer, everything.
Most of the non-standard features of AAVE are also present in Southern American English—it's just that they're there all the time in AAVE, while in SAE it might only be 30%, say, of utterances. At least one AAVE feature has even crossed over into SAE and other dialects (emphatic "been"). And those features of AAVE not present in SAE (aspectual "be," for example) are at least intelligible to SAE-speakers, given the successful interactions between speakers of AAVE and SAE that occur every day (some of them by me, an SAE-dialectal in central Mississippi). Hardly isolation.
That said, there are lots of reasons why stuff could and should be done for AAVE speakers, many (most?) of whom are fairly far down on the socioeconomic scale. Linguistic isolation just isn't one of those reasons.
I think you were trying to be funny. A head shot is perfectly fine—if you can hit it,[1] and you're trying to kill someone, both of which are pretty damn big conditionals. People are told to aim for the center of mass for two reasons:
It's a hell of a lot easier to hit at any random distance.
More importantly, it's less likely to kill someone (the weapon in question and its ammunition obviously play a role in this also). You then remove not only the guy you shot from the firefight, but also his two buddies who carry him off.
[1] I originally wrote "if you can do it," which could have been ambiguous; I was specifically referring to the shooter's skill. I'd guess that shooting someone in the face is also psychologically harder for the untrained than a body shot, but I have no data.
1, 5, 6, and 7 are technological hurdles. Those are relatively easy, I should think. But 2–4 require the people at the "paper" working hard, and more, doing a good job, presumably in a timely manner.[1] I think there (and this touches on 8) you run into the "fast, cheap, good: pick two" problem.
[1] There's a reason The Economist only publishes weekly.
On the other hand, he is not sure if they could have started out as you suggested. He thinks it takes 250k to lauch a low cost, no thrills alt-indie band like his. More if you want to go mainstream. He talks about the months that it took to write, produce and polish their first albume. Quiting their part time jobs to work full time on the album. Thier first tour, upfront costs, etc.
This shouldn't be so surprising: after all, if you do things this way, you're essentially creating your own small business.
I'm gonna argue that technology making society better was always a non-starter. It's the use to which individual people put that technology which makes society better (or worse, of course)—and frankly, given what you said here, I'm suprised that's not your argument too.
Let's also remember that some of us don't have cell phones (I finally let even my prepaid minutes expire last month; I just wasn't using it) or cable (wife and I looked at the packages, decided we'd rather spend that money on other things, got a 4-disc Netflix subscription instead for $25.67/month), change banks when they fuck us over (Dear Regions Bank: Go to hell and die. Love, Byz), and actually read and make a rational decision about the terms and conditions when we incur debt. Personal responsibility has essentially nothing to do with technology.
None of which has much to do with operating systems or app stores, admittedly.
Nah, Raymond's not a shill—he's just rabidly anti-authoritarian, and IBM (or the patent system, if you prefer) qualifies as "authority" in this instance.
Well, if you want to be really nitpicky, the plural of "virus" in Latin would be "viri" (one i on the end) if it were a second declension noun—which it isn't. It's a fourth declension noun, which means its plural is—wait for it—"virus." (Trivia: Another fourth declension noun ending in -us is "Jesus.")
Slashdot Mirror
More accurate—but not as funny. Sigh.
Word implicitly forces you to use styles when you are doing numbered lists (especially outline numbering)
Numbered lists work, but they are idiosyncratic as hell. You absolutely must use styles, because once you get your styles just right, you can then rely upon them.
You're right that it's most obvious in numbered lists, but I'd argue that any extended use of Word (more than, say, five pages) requires you to set up the styles you want (or use an included set). I discovered this when I was given the job of editing/rewriting a 200 page policy manual. (For which, to meet requirements, I now have a set of styles where everything is 12pt black Times New Roman.)
Dannye Kaye never gets old.
Of course, the fine print of most (all?) newspapers' "How to Write to the Editor" says that they can can editor your letter before publishing it.
It's a good thing the Official Secrets Act prevented this from being news at the time. I'm not sure reporters could have kept a straight face reporting on the "Cocks Algorithm."
He didn't forget to pay. He chose not to pay.
Ah, yet another person who reads the one article and believes they know everything about it. As much as you will hate hearing it, you are absolutely wrong. This was a case of forgetfulness. He had paid the fee on-time for years and years past, and slipped his mind this time.
And? Every month except last month I've paid my water bill on time. Last month I forgot to mail it until the day after it was due, and consequently the city charged me a late fee. Which I paid. The reason Mr. Cranick did not pay his $75.00 fee would only be relevant if he were genuinely prevented from doing so—which he wasn't, as far as I can tell.
Now, in a fire, the amount of money destroyed by letting any given fire run amok in an average house is always far higher than the cost of actually stopping the fire.
I'm not saying this assertion is untrue, but I'd like to see it substantiated before accepting it.
I realize they were in their "rights" legally and such to put out the neighbours fire and not his.. (from the TFA, they just sat there and made sure it didn't spread). But I mean, as a human, what the fuck. Is there so little empathy?
Why couldn't they have put it out and then billed him? He probably would have been so happy he would have paid it. This reeks of callousness. What have "we" become (I'm not american, but I am a human, I think..)
Is there so little empathy? Yes. There is. And quite rightly so, in this case.[1] This is simply the free-rider problem writ in large, fiery letters—basic economics. Fire departments have enormous up-front costs to acquire resources like equipment, maintenance, training, etc. Every time a department deploys those resources, it lessens its ability to respond to future emergencies. With building owners or tenants paying fees, the department can potentially replenish those resources. If they deploy those resources on buildings whose owners or tenants have not paid the fees, well, they've just become a barrel with a hole in the bottom. Eventually, the department may well put itself into a situation where it can't put out any fires except the barbecue pit next to the station.
As for billing afterwards—well, I'll just say that gratitude is not nearly as widespread in this fallen world as you seem to think it is. Further, if there's a fee system in place, and the fire department responds to anybody regardless of whether they've paid, you've just removed the incentive for anyone to pay. As I mentioned, fire departments have large up-front costs; without money to pay them, goodbye, fire department.
The Right Answer, of course, is make paying the "fee" mandatory, i.e., a tax, and have it enforced by the government. That's the difficulty with democracy, though; you can't make people choose the Right Answer.
[1] Caveat: I only read the summary, not the article.
Why not ban texting while actually driving, but permit it at stop signs and red lights? People then have an incentive to wait until it's safer—I don't say "safe" even in this case, but safer—for them to do so. And of course if you sat there for too long after the light turned green, I'm sure a police officer could cite you for something (blocking a roadway? hazardous driving? whatever)
There's a second edition, if you didn't know, published within the last ten years. Although "second edition" is somewhat misleading; it's largely rewritten--but it's even better than the first.
I also remember that the install process told you, and I quote, "Windows 95 makes everything better." Not just everything on your computer, everything.
Most of the non-standard features of AAVE are also present in Southern American English—it's just that they're there all the time in AAVE, while in SAE it might only be 30%, say, of utterances. At least one AAVE feature has even crossed over into SAE and other dialects (emphatic "been"). And those features of AAVE not present in SAE (aspectual "be," for example) are at least intelligible to SAE-speakers, given the successful interactions between speakers of AAVE and SAE that occur every day (some of them by me, an SAE-dialectal in central Mississippi). Hardly isolation.
That said, there are lots of reasons why stuff could and should be done for AAVE speakers, many (most?) of whom are fairly far down on the socioeconomic scale. Linguistic isolation just isn't one of those reasons.
Concurrent Resolutions have no force of law.
This is off-topic, but it's worth mentioning that concurrent resolutions are also how constitutional amendments get started
I think you were trying to be funny. A head shot is perfectly fine—if you can hit it,[1] and you're trying to kill someone, both of which are pretty damn big conditionals. People are told to aim for the center of mass for two reasons:
[1] I originally wrote "if you can do it," which could have been ambiguous; I was specifically referring to the shooter's skill. I'd guess that shooting someone in the face is also psychologically harder for the untrained than a body shot, but I have no data.
This trend will only worsen when robots start taking over routine jobs...
...and killing all humans! You can't pull a fast one on me—I've seen movies!
1, 5, 6, and 7 are technological hurdles. Those are relatively easy, I should think. But 2–4 require the people at the "paper" working hard, and more, doing a good job, presumably in a timely manner.[1] I think there (and this touches on 8) you run into the "fast, cheap, good: pick two" problem.
[1] There's a reason The Economist only publishes weekly.
On the other hand, he is not sure if they could have started out as you suggested. He thinks it takes 250k to lauch a low cost, no thrills alt-indie band like his. More if you want to go mainstream. He talks about the months that it took to write, produce and polish their first albume. Quiting their part time jobs to work full time on the album. Thier first tour, upfront costs, etc.
This shouldn't be so surprising: after all, if you do things this way, you're essentially creating your own small business.
I have a friend who claims to have learned Spanish by watching Mexican reruns of Baywatch. I'm not sure which approach is better.
One day, I will learn how to read for content and not skim through, I promise! :)
Er, it's the 32nd anniversary of TeX. Or as http://tug.org/tug2010 says, the 2^5 anniversary.
I'm gonna argue that technology making society better was always a non-starter. It's the use to which individual people put that technology which makes society better (or worse, of course)—and frankly, given what you said here, I'm suprised that's not your argument too.
Let's also remember that some of us don't have cell phones (I finally let even my prepaid minutes expire last month; I just wasn't using it) or cable (wife and I looked at the packages, decided we'd rather spend that money on other things, got a 4-disc Netflix subscription instead for $25.67/month), change banks when they fuck us over (Dear Regions Bank: Go to hell and die. Love, Byz), and actually read and make a rational decision about the terms and conditions when we incur debt. Personal responsibility has essentially nothing to do with technology.
None of which has much to do with operating systems or app stores, admittedly.
Like that would happen.
Nah, Raymond's not a shill—he's just rabidly anti-authoritarian, and IBM (or the patent system, if you prefer) qualifies as "authority" in this instance.
"Automobilists"? Whatever happened to the perfectly useful English word "drivers"?
Well, if you want to be really nitpicky, the plural of "virus" in Latin would be "viri" (one i on the end) if it were a second declension noun—which it isn't. It's a fourth declension noun, which means its plural is—wait for it—"virus." (Trivia: Another fourth declension noun ending in -us is "Jesus.")