PC redux 15

[MasterRacker]

SemperFiDwonUnda, I was being effiecient, I just jumped to getting rid of all people in my third point. Takes care of the problem (unless of course, monkeys or dolphins learn take offense with each other...) ;-)


Jeff
The future is already here - it's just not widely distributed yet...

 

[Georgi1chuikov]

"Don't even start on the ACLU defending the Bill of Rights. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are a group of extreme liberal anti-American trash who only are a wrench in the justice system"
this...is an understatement. The ACLU is defending NAMBLA's rights to publish "How to Rape Children and get Away with it" manuals. The ACLU blackmails very poor towns in the south (when the legal costs are more than the entire town budget blackmail/extortion is the correct term)into removing a random cross on public land. These towns are left with a stark choice, either remove decades of beloved tradition and not fight the mega money lawyers that come in or fight this battle and completly drain their budgets, so no schools, cops, fire dept, etc.The ACLU does not care that 100% of the town is heartbroken by this act and would have voted to have this. Heck, they do not care that the town a few miles away is doing the same thing because that town has the money to fight it. The other tactic is to goto a school with the high priced lawyers and make them remove the word Christmas from any reference as it might offend the very small minority of (Insert other minority religion here that cannot be offended unlike christianity). The schools don't even try to fight as it is a lose/lose situation. Either loose all funding to these legal attacks or just give in. The SanFrancisco 9th circut of appeals is the MOST OVERTURNED COURT IN US HISTORY, I believe 80% of their decisions are overturned. Notice that most of these judges are active ACLU members. The ACLU is worse than a bunch insidious partisan bullies that only defend their rights to not be offended. They have figured out a way to legislate with impunity thru the judicial system. THAT is scary.

 

[GwydionM]

rosieb, as simple a thing as your post getting dated 'Dec 14, 2003' is part of the Western context. It is the English speaking version of the Latin calendar, modified slightly by Christian influence. Every other culture uses something different, but now all of them also use our standard as a common denominator. And within IT, it is comprehensively dominated by Microsoft. So they did the right thing in taking a solid stand against racist symbolism. I won't speculate about their motives, possibly it was just selfish commerical advantage.

Individuals do not exist in a cultural vacuum. Most people fail to realise that they have been shaped a particular way by a particular culture. So they suppose that it is natural, does not need to be defended and cannot be shaped for better or worse.

 

[sleipnir214]

GwydionM:
So, you're saying that it's proper for Mi¢ro$oft to impose Western views on the semiotics of the swastika, right?

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TANSTAAFL!!

 

[rosieb]

GwydionM
Yes, the date of my post indicates a cultural context. It says that this site operates on a Julian calendar, the accepted norm in the western hemisphere. If it were run from Amman or Cairo, the date might well be different.

I live and work with people, mostly British, some of whom have cultures slightly different to mine. I'm happy to celebrate Diwali with them, or any other festival.

Taking a totally parochial view, I feel it would be wrong for me to suggest that a symbol which has acquired negative connotations because of the Nazis, should be forbidden to those to whom it has a completely different meaning. They are still British and have the same rights as any other Briton.

I do, of course, agree that firm action should be taken against anyone using the symbol to distress or intimidate another individual or group.

The problem is not the symbol per se, it is how it is used. To ban it "in a western context" is to discriminate against those for whom it has a legitimate, positive meaning.

I don't see the swastika as, necessarily, a racist symbol, it's an arrangement of lines.

Rosie

 

[thefourthwall]

sleipnir214,

re: "jsteph[b/]:
You don't say "AD" (anno domine). You now say "CE" (current era)."

People are free to say AD or CE, last time I checked.

-thefourthwall

 

[jsteph]

thefourthwall,
I was assuming that CE was toungue-in-cheek, because I've never heard of it. Either way, whether it's 2003 AD or 2003 CE, the 'zero date' is without a doubt based soley on Christian religious beliefs, it's not 2003 years since some committee-agreed-upon random date. Which I why I'm surprised that those who want to rid all reference to any Christian symbols don't make up some new 'zero' date and force the use of that for all public use.
--jsteph

 

[SemperFiDownUnda]

"Which I why I'm surprised that those who want to rid all reference to any Christian symbols don't make up some new 'zero' date and force the use of that for all public use"

They probably would like the idea in theory but probably realise its no way possible..... but I don't think you would find any business organisation in the world that would want this to happen. The amount of effort it would take to covert from our current calendar (even if its just shifting years and days) is never going to happen.

Think of all the paperwork, programs and data that would have to be changed to accomidate this.

 

[Tarwn]

y2k revision 2?

_{01000111 01101111 01110100 00100000 01000011 01101111 01100110 01100110 01100101 01100101 00111111}
The never-completed website:

http://www.tiernok.com/

 

[MasterRacker]

Swatch is trying to change time of day:

http://www.computeruser.com/resources/internet_time/index.html

(trying to find more info on the Swatch site is an "adventure" - they need a new web design team.)

I haven't heard of anyone trying to do a universal calendar.


Jeff
The future is already here - it's just not widely distributed yet...

 

[jrbarnett]

My sister tried to work out a denary time and date system, where every unit was a factor of 10 or 100 above the previous, and keeping 24 hours as 1 denary day and 1 second the same length, and 1 denary year = 365.25 days, thus negating the need for leap years.
Unfortunately, it proved impossible without altering the length of the day, the second or the year, all of which are far too commonplace to alter.

John

 

[sleipnir214]

Do some Google queries for "calendar reform" -- you'll find all kinds of suggestions changes to the calendar. No one yet has gotten around to suggesting a new starting year, though.


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TANSTAAFL!!

 

[bluedragon2]

Would that be like adapting the metric system???



Blue

If I wasn't Blue, I would just be a Dragon...

 

[sleipnir214]

Well, the metric system has actually been generally adopted. It's only the U.S. that's been the big holdout. I'm personally all for a system that does not require me to multiply or divide by 3s, 4s, and 12s.

Some suggested calendar systems have proposed 13 28-day months, which allows for every month to always begin with the same day of the week. The 365th day and leap days don't acually have days of the week.

Probably the most easily implemented was a 12-month calendar, called the World Calendar, under consideration for adoption by the League of Nations until WWII intervened. Each quarter of the year has a 31-day month and two 30-day months, and the 365th day is "Worldday":

http://personal.ecu.edu/mccartyr/wca_history.html

And don't forget decimal time, which I think was first proposed during the French Revolution:

http://serg.us/dime/

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TANSTAAFL!!

 

[jrbarnett]

Sleipnir,

Not really relevant to the original thread topic, but certainly relevant to the metric vs imperial debate.

How's this for a mix up:
In the UK, car tyres are specified with 3 measurements:

Width of tyre tread - in millimetres, depth of tyre - in inches and diameter of the inside in centimetres.

All liquids are sold in litres, except beer and milk, which are somehow exempted and sold in pints still.

Speed is measured in miles per hour and road distances are in miles, but kids only get taught the metric measurements at school now, in which speed is in kilometres per second, so for real world use they have to learn how to convert.

No doubt other people can come up with real life examples of similar daft measurement systems.

John

 

[skiflyer]

Well my car gets 40 rods to the hogshead...

(actually it does significantly better than that... but you all know what I'm talking about)

-Rob

 

[sleipnir214]

My favorite screwy units of measurement is the old imagined "attoparsecs per microfortnight" -- it works out to about an inch per second.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[SemperFiDownUnda]

Pizza's seem to still be sold in imperial measurements.

 

[sha76]

Sorry to be a bit vague here (ie absolutely no sources), but weren't pints kept for milk & beer because they were deemed to be part of the British culture? Of course, try & but a pound of spuds & your greengrocer'll be prosecuted, but you can still fill your tyres in PSI and buy 2 by 3 from the timber yard!

 

[Spirit]

Here in the UK, I think it was in Birmingham an old lady had a collection of those funny little pigs doing funny things like wearing hats and doing funny stuff displayed in here front window.

Someone complained and she was told by the police that if she did not remove them from public display then she would face prosecution for racism!?!?!?!

Surely its fasism to tell her to remove them, much like this case, surely it is unwarranted censorship of free speech that should worry us and not an offence sign?

Although the number of people who were unaware of it being used pre-hitler scares me too, there are books outside IT and hey sometimes, just sometimes, on a very rare occasion Hollywood lies!

To see the future we must first understand the past.