Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Penguin on February 26, 2012, 09:09:08 PM
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Life is good, but man, there are some freakin' annoying parts to it. So I've titled this thread: "Little Tweaks" so that everyone who's had those moments can add theirs.
-All time is 24-hour UTC (No more timezones, no more A.M. P.M. shenanigans)
-All measurements are metric, but temperatures are in Kelvin (let's get with the times, and no more negative temperatures)
-Tau, a new variable defined as circumference divided by radius, joins math along e, i, and pi (Makes trigonometry easier)
-School starts at 8:00, ends at 15:00 (More sleep)
-All homework, materials, plans, powerpoints, etc., are on the internet (Easier to get back on track after absences, fewer worries)
-Tax day is moved to the first of a month (Why not, it looks nicer on a calendar, and the previous date was just as arbitrary)
-Change US National Anthem to "America the Beautiful" (It makes more sense)
-9 months of 30 days each, and December picks up the extra 5-6 (No more date-guessing shenanigans)
-10 days in a week with three days off in a row (See above)
-Make month names latin numerals (Sounds cooler, and makes more sense)
-Remove irregular verbs/adjectives/nouns from all languages everywhere (Makes more sense)
-Issue all students laptops (on good behavior)
-Redraw state borders to make a grid (It's like that in the West, why not in the East?)
-Rename soccer to football (Get with the rest of the world)
-Rename football to American Rugby (It's pretty much that)
-Get rid of the titles of Mr., Mrs., Miss, and Ms., and just call everyone by their first names
-Change QWERTY to Dvorak as the standard keyboard layout (it's much faster)
-Tiny bit of cartilage in skull coded into everyone's DNA so that nanobots can get in and out via syringe to enable us to work, perform every day tasks, and play games just by thinking. (Not so much a tweak as a technological breakthrough, but it's still awesome!)
EDIT: Explanations in parentheses
-Penguin
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I can understand 1 or 2 things on there but there rest....WTF :headscratch:
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Wondering if Penguin got one of those California glaucoma perscriptions.
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Wondering if Penguin got one of those California glaucoma perscriptions.
I do, but it's for something completely different... and joking aside, I can't take opiates for pain due to side effects that would be detrimental to my condition... this 'alternative' pain medicine allows me to work and function, rather than be curled up in the fetal position or doped out of my mind licking windows.
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-9 months of 30 days each, and December picks up the extra 5-6 (No more date-guessing shenanigans)
(10 x 30) + 6 = 306
Which is not equal to 365 days.
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(10 x 30) + 6 = 306
Which is not equal to 365 days.
exactly my thoughts too.....
to issue students laptops would be A LOT of money in a schools budget. even in a good economy how many schools could afford to do this?
my school day starts at 0800 and ends at 1445...I get just as much sleep as if it ended at 1300...
why Kelvin? 0K is "absolute zero" or the temperature at which NOTHING moves..... to get a temp of 70F it would be how many thousands of K's?
Mr., Mrs., Ms., and Miss are all formalities. If I was a teacher I wouldnt want my students saying "hey Kevin!" I would require "Hey, Mr. Brown!" How I was raised, how I'll die.
wtf is dvorak keyboard layout??? :headscratch:
putting the ability to inject nanobots into someones DNA so they can function, in my eyes, proves current societies lazyness and dependancy on technology to technology to make through a simple day.
All my teachers put theyre homework online, we can send powerpoints to them, some of them put the current days lesson online.... some public schools are ahead of yours.....
Timezones... to do away with this would be pointless in my eyes... it could be 12PM ET right now and still dark outside because we are -5 UTC.... taking away PM we may as well incorporate 24 hour clocks.
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wtf is dvorak keyboard layout??? :headscratch:
It's the keyboard layout for folks with a really high opinion of themselves.
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No more daylight savings nonsence! If we are saving it, where is it? Its archaic, stupid and drives me up the wall. I used to live in the virgin islands (Atlantic Standard Time), we didnt change our time twice a year. It was beautiful, didnt need an alarm clock.
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Penguin, do yourself and the world a favor and start smoking weed.You could use a little paranoia in your life if you can't see a problem with injecting nanorobots into your brain. At the very least it will soften the landing for when you fall off your high horse eventually.
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Penguin, do yourself and the world a favor and start smoking weed.You could use a little paranoia in your life if you can't see a problem with injecting nanorobots into your brain. At the very least it will soften the landing for when you fall off your high horse eventually.
:rofl :rofl :rofl
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-All measurements are metric, but temperatures are in Kelvin (let's get with the times, and no more negative temperatures)
+1 for a worldwide standard temperature unit, but I don't care if it includes negative numbers.
-Tau, a new variable defined as circumference divided by radius, joins math along e, i, and pi (Makes trigonometry easier)
-1, introducing 2*pi as tau would just obfuscate the true constants. And a constant it would be, not a variable.
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Trig is already easy.
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(10 x 30) + 6 = 306
Which is not equal to 365 days.
My bad, I meant to say 11. Oops!
-Penguin
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Life is good, but man, there are some freakin' annoying parts to it. So I've titled this thread: "Little Tweaks" so that everyone who's had those moments can add theirs.
-All time is 24-hour UTC (No more timezones, no more A.M. P.M. shenanigans)
-All measurements are metric, but temperatures are in Kelvin (let's get with the times, and no more negative temperatures)
-Tau, a new variable defined as circumference divided by radius, joins math along e, i, and pi (Makes trigonometry easier)
-School starts at 8:00, ends at 15:00 (More sleep)
-All homework, materials, plans, powerpoints, etc., are on the internet (Easier to get back on track after absences, fewer worries)
-Tax day is moved to the first of a month (Why not, it looks nicer on a calendar, and the previous date was just as arbitrary)
-Change US National Anthem to "America the Beautiful" (It makes more sense)
-9 months of 30 days each, and December picks up the extra 5-6 (No more date-guessing shenanigans)
-10 days in a week with three days off in a row (See above)
-Make month names latin numerals (Sounds cooler, and makes more sense)
-Remove irregular verbs/adjectives/nouns from all languages everywhere (Makes more sense)
-Issue all students laptops (on good behavior)
-Redraw state borders to make a grid (It's like that in the West, why not in the East?)
-Rename soccer to football (Get with the rest of the world)
-Rename football to American Rugby (It's pretty much that)
-Get rid of the titles of Mr., Mrs., Miss, and Ms., and just call everyone by their first names
-Change QWERTY to Dvorak as the standard keyboard layout (it's much faster)
-Tiny bit of cartilage in skull coded into everyone's DNA so that nanobots can get in and out via syringe to enable us to work, perform every day tasks, and play games just by thinking. (Not so much a tweak as a technological breakthrough, but it's still awesome!)
- Teach math in schools, or at least explain how to use the calculator option on the free laptops (so kids can make a proper calendar change request)
EDIT: Explanations in parentheses
-Penguin
Fixed
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exactly my thoughts too.....
to issue students laptops would be A LOT of money in a schools budget. even in a good economy how many schools could afford to do this?
my school day starts at 0800 and ends at 1445...I get just as much sleep as if it ended at 1300...
why Kelvin? 0K is "absolute zero" or the temperature at which NOTHING moves..... to get a temp of 70F it would be how many thousands of K's?
Mr., Mrs., Ms., and Miss are all formalities. If I was a teacher I wouldnt want my students saying "hey Kevin!" I would require "Hey, Mr. Brown!" How I was raised, how I'll die.
wtf is dvorak keyboard layout??? :headscratch:
putting the ability to inject nanobots into someones DNA so they can function, in my eyes, proves current societies lazyness and dependancy on technology to technology to make through a simple day.
All my teachers put theyre homework online, we can send powerpoints to them, some of them put the current days lesson online.... some public schools are ahead of yours.....
Timezones... to do away with this would be pointless in my eyes... it could be 12PM ET right now and still dark outside because we are -5 UTC.... taking away PM we may as well incorporate 24 hour clocks.
Dvorak is a keyboard layout built for speed, as opposed to QWERTY, which was actually built to create typos and slow you down (early typewriters couldn't handle the speed). It would require a few weeks' training, but you'd gain around 10 wpm and a good dose of accuracy. It's the way it was supposed to be in the first place.
On titles, my point exactly. They're needless- we have first names for a reason. For a long time, we only had one name (e.g., Socrates, Joseph). Last names are a necessity nowadays due to the billions of people that we have, but titles are a bizarre holdover from medieval times.
The laptops would be just like calculators (which run at around $80 a pop)- most would buy them themselves, and aid would take care of the rest. It turns out that enough people feel bad about not paying for it themselves if they can that the cost goes way down. Buying in bulk directly from suppliers also drives costs down. In addition, laptops are a common feature of many households already, so it's not like you have to buy them for everyone. Districts can also collect old laptops and refurbish them, or ask for donations (with the donor's name glued on it). There's plenty that can be done to reduce the cost.
Ok, so let's get with the times, then. Can your school teach our school how to get our stuff online? I kid you not.
So I guess when Oog and Boog thought of the wheel and moved their stuff on rickshaws instead of their backs, they were lazy? We make technology to make things easier, so that we can do more of what we want and less of what we don't. That's logic, not laziness. In fact, the "simple" day that you speak of is only simple because of the vast amount of technology in it already. For example, before small-scale refrigerators and ovens (as opposed to hearths) cooking used to take all day. So what's so great about doing stuff like fiddling with the lights, heat, garage door, keyboards/mice, credit/debit cards, printers, yourself, anyway? I can use your argument to take civilization back to the stone age.
@Hannibal Yes, let's inhale acrid, stifling smoke in order to escape reality. Woohoo! Lung cancer! :bhead
@Dragon, I get it, I made a multiplication error. I'll do it on paper next time. Yes, I know it makes me look like an idiot.
-Penguin
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All homework, materials, plans, powerpoints, etc., are on the internet (Easier to get back on track after absences, fewer worries)
That's the way some of my daughters high school classes are run.
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Dvorak is a keyboard layout built for speed, as opposed to QWERTY, which was actually built to create typos and slow you down (early typewriters couldn't handle the speed). It would require a few weeks' training, but you'd gain around 10 wpm and a good dose of accuracy. It's the way it was supposed to be in the first place. I type about double the speed of other peers around me...do I need another 10WPM?
On titles, my point exactly. They're needless- we have first names for a reason. For a long time, we only had one name (e.g., Socrates, Joseph). Last names are a necessity nowadays due to the billions of people that we have, but titles are a bizarre holdover from medieval times.How is that your point...? I said I would require "Mr. Brown", which enforces keeping titles.
The laptops would be just like calculators (which run at around $80 a pop)- most would buy them themselves, and aid would take care of the rest. It turns out that enough people feel bad about not paying for it themselves if they can that the cost goes way down. Buying in bulk directly from suppliers also drives costs down. In addition, laptops are a common feature of many households already, so it's not like you have to buy them for everyone. Districts can also collect old laptops and refurbish them, or ask for donations (with the donor's name glued on it). There's plenty that can be done to reduce the cost.This is true, but still an expensive cost up front for the districts.
Ok, so let's get with the times, then. Can your school teach our school how to get our stuff online? I kid you not. I'm sure my school could.
So I guess when Oog and Boog thought of the wheel and moved their stuff on rickshaws instead of their backs, they were lazy? We make technology to make things easier, so that we can do more of what we want and less of what we don't. That's logic, not laziness. In fact, the "simple" day that you speak of is only simple because of the vast amount of technology in it already. For example, before small-scale refrigerators and ovens (as opposed to hearths) cooking used to take all day. So what's so great about doing stuff like fiddling with the lights, heat, garage door, keyboards/mice, credit/debit cards, printers, yourself, anyway? I can use your argument to take civilization back to the stone age.You completely read my post wrong... If we need a robot for us to make simple every day tasks done by thinking would we have to move from our bed in the morning? no. Yes, we need advances in technology, but we can already see what the internet has done to our generation. Find me any 50 random adolescents, or young adults for that matter, and have them write me a 10 page research paper WITHOUT using the internet, only using interviews and researching books. Highly doubt much more then half of them could do it.....
@Hannibal Yes, let's inhale acrid, stifling smoke in order to escape reality. Woohoo! Lung cancer! :bhead
@Dragon, I get it, I made a multiplication error. I'll do it on paper next time. Yes, I know it makes me look like an idiot.
-Penguin
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Maybe not you, but they could use it.
That seems arbitrary and pointless, though.
True, but we got the school in the first place- so it's not impossible. The money can be accumulated over time, too.
Books, like the internet, are just wrappers for the information inside. It's just that one book weighs more than the entire internet (calculated by estimating the number of electrons in all internet-enabled devices and multiplying by the mass of one electron). Furthermore, if I asked 50 of your generation to do research with only the internet from the early 90s (I estimate that you're around 20 years old), then they'd be bagged, too. More and more information is on the internet, especially on Wikipedia and Google. Being able to use books is just like being able to use a slide rule, punch-card, or even an abacus to do math. The old versions were inefficient, so now we use computers and graphing calculators. Also, define "adolescent" if you mean an 11 year old, then they'd be hard pressed to write a paper that long at all. Save for one story I wrote, I've only gotten to 7 pages. I rarely used the library before the 7 page paper, and it wasn't too hard to figure out. Just ask the librarian to find it, and then go to the table of contents and find what you want. It works the same way on Wikipedia, only with a search function and that table of links.
-Penguin
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This thread makes me
(http://images.static-bluray.com/reviews/2404_14_large.jpg)
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Some interesting ones, the DVORAK keyboard at least.
Why titles? Respect, manners, because you don't have an informal relationship with everyone. How would you get the attention of someone you didn't know, just call out their hair color and sex?
I agree with uniform scales on time and temperature, as well as other units.
Some of those things I don't believe will be changed in our lifetime just because of their familiarity and history with people. Like the sports names. I'm sure you have to have seen what happens on these forums (if not in real life) if you try to offer a change that is different from what someone "grew up with". They fight it to the death, no matter how logically or obvious it may be.
Others are silly.
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Don't fix something that's not broken. :old:
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I agree with the idea of moving to a uniform measurement system. Lets face it, for a country that rebelled against 'the king' we are the only ones still using 'his foot' as measurement of length.
As for the keyboard, yeah, its a better layout but I'm lazy and I've gotten used to QWERTY keyboards.
As for the laptops in school... well I don't know about laptops, but I do believe a move to cheap 'e-book' readers would be an enormous savings if managed correctly (one could easily see how this could get manipulated to cost schools more).
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-Rename football to American Rugby (It's pretty much that)
Blasphemy
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How would you get the attention of someone you didn't know, just call out their hair color and sex?
"Hey, ginger woman" lol
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@Hannibal Yes, let's inhale acrid, stifling smoke in order to escape reality. Woohoo! Lung cancer! :bhead
I challenge you to find proof of that.
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"Hey, ginger woman" lol
I thought they were rangars in your parts.
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Key:
Approved.
Conditional Approval or Approval with alterations/corrections.
Conditional Denial.
Denied.
-All time is 24-hour UTC (No more timezones, no more A.M. P.M. shenanigans) Approved.
All measurements are metric, but temperatures are in Kelvin (let's get with the times, and no more negative temperatures) Approved except for temperature, which is approved for science, not every day life by non-scientists.
-Tau, a new constant defined as circumference divided by radius, joins math along e, i, and replaces pi (Makes trigonometry easier) Approved with corrections in bold-italics.
-School starts at 8:00, ends at 15:00 (More sleep) Denied. School times should vary according to when its daytime locally. Consequence of changing to UTC, see above.
-All homework, materials, plans, powerpoints, etc., are on the internet (Easier to get back on track after absences, fewer worries) While more could be on the internet, not all can be.
-Tax day is moved to the first of a month (Why not, it looks nicer on a calendar, and the previous date was just as arbitrary) Approved.
-Change US National Anthem to "America the Beautiful" (It makes more sense) Denied. Actually I rather like our war-anthem.
-9 months of 30 days each, and December picks up the extra 5-6 (No more date-guessing shenanigans) Approved.
-10 days in a week with three days off in a row (See above) Approved with alterations. Make it first, last, and sixth day off each week, and you have my support.
-Make month names latin numerals (Sounds cooler, and makes more sense) Approved.
-Remove irregular verbs/adjectives/nouns from all languages everywhere (Makes more sense) Approved.
-Issue all students laptops (on good behavior) Conditionally Denied. Laptops go out of date too fast. Desktops. And no Macs.
-Redraw state borders to make a grid (It's like that in the West, why not in the East?) Except when major water boundaries make more sense.
-Rename soccer to football (Get with the rest of the world) Non-American Football when speaking in English in North America.
-Rename football to American Rugby (It's pretty much that) Denied. I'll consider American Football, but only when conversing in English with non-North-Americans. Still gets color red.
-Get rid of the titles of Mr., Mrs., Miss, and Ms., and just call everyone by their first names Approved.
-Change QWERTY to Dvorak as the standard keyboard layout (it's much faster) Approved.
-Tiny bit of cartilage in skull coded into everyone's DNA so that nanobots can get in and out via syringe to enable us to work, perform every day tasks, and play games just by thinking. (Not so much a tweak as a technological breakthrough, but it's still awesome!) Denied until the technology is actually here to do it, then we can talk.
EDIT: Explanations in parentheses
-Penguin
I wrote something like this on my Facebook wall once. Or technically, as a "note" on my wall. Whatever. I had titled it, "10 laws I would pass for the betterment of the worlds of religion, government, and entertainment." Cut and pasting from it:
1) Almost everything that isn't a danger or removal of rights to others (unless with their informed and revokable-at-any-time consent) will be legal. Nothing is illegal or immoral that doesn't qualify above.
2 & 3 skipped for being a Rule 14.
Edit: decided to risk #3. #2 will never fly though.
3) Religions are now free to try, convict, and impose punishments to their own members for violations of their religious rules outside of any interference from the state. The accused/convicted/punished however can "get out of jail free" at any time by disavowing their affiliation with the religion in question, if they don't want to accept the accusation/judgment/consequences. No government will recognize religious laws, and no religion will have any authority over non-members of that religion.
4) All American college football divisions will have a 32 team playoff to determine the national champion. There will now be a 10 second runoff rule in college football, and all goalpost uprights in college football must be replaced if they are not of NFL height.
5) Repeatedly failing to fact check your TV "news" stories will result in it being illegal to label your TV channel a "news" channel. Just like you can't call your drink "juice" unless there's at least 10% stuff from fruit in there.
6) All non-scientific temperature measurements of the weather will be done in Fahrenheit world-wide. Because -10 to 110 is a more useful range of numbers for understanding what the temperature actually feels like than -23 to 43. Scientific measurements are free to use whatever suits them best.
7) Every nation will have an independent body of its private citizens that looks through state secrets and publishes what is safe to be known to the public before the public can even know to ask for the information. Nothing will legally remain a secret by any government from the public for longer than 50 years.
8) In American football, in the National Football League, there will be a play-in game for any NFL division winner with a .500 or lower record to be played against the last potential wild-card team left out of the playoffs in the same conference. In addition the NFL will be prohibited from extending the regular season to more than 16 games while claiming to be enhancing player safety.
9) Every "reality" TV series featuring people who are best described as a "socialite" will be canceled and never re-aired.
10) Science and learning oriented TV shows are permitted only 10 seconds after a commercial break to describe what was going on before the commercial break, and no more than that. If you don't have enough material to make a TV episode without repeating everything repeatedly, you must choose to not make that TV episode.
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I thought they were rangars in your parts.
Ranga seems to be the current spelling.
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Puck you ranga.
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Key:
Approved.
Conditional Approval or Approval with alterations/corrections.
Conditional Denial.
Denied.
I wrote something like this on my Facebook wall once. Or technically, as a "note" on my wall. Whatever. I had titled it, "10 laws I would pass for the betterment of the worlds of religion, government, and entertainment." Cut and pasting from it:
1) Almost everything that isn't a danger or removal of rights to others (unless with their informed and revokable-at-any-time consent) will be legal. Nothing is illegal or immoral that doesn't qualify above.
2 & 3 skipped for being a Rule 14.
Edit: decided to risk #3. #2 will never fly though.
3) Religions are now free to try, convict, and impose punishments to their own members for violations of their religious rules outside of any interference from the state. The accused/convicted/punished however can "get out of jail free" at any time by disavowing their affiliation with the religion in question, if they don't want to accept the accusation/judgment/consequences. No government will recognize religious laws, and no religion will have any authority over non-members of that religion.
4) All American college football divisions will have a 32 team playoff to determine the national champion. There will now be a 10 second runoff rule in college football, and all goalpost uprights in college football must be replaced if they are not of NFL height.
5) Repeatedly failing to fact check your TV "news" stories will result in it being illegal to label your TV channel a "news" channel. Just like you can't call your drink "juice" unless there's at least 10% stuff from fruit in there.
6) All non-scientific temperature measurements of the weather will be done in Fahrenheit world-wide. Because -10 to 110 is a more useful range of numbers for understanding what the temperature actually feels like than -23 to 43. Scientific measurements are free to use whatever suits them best.
7) Every nation will have an independent body of its private citizens that looks through state secrets and publishes what is safe to be known to the public before the public can even know to ask for the information. Nothing will legally remain a secret by any government from the public for longer than 50 years.
8) In American football, in the National Football League, there will be a play-in game for any NFL division winner with a .500 or lower record to be played against the last potential wild-card team left out of the playoffs in the same conference. In addition the NFL will be prohibited from extending the regular season to more than 16 games while claiming to be enhancing player safety.
9) Every "reality" TV series featuring people who are best described as a "socialite" will be canceled and never re-aired.
10) Science and learning oriented TV shows are permitted only 10 seconds after a commercial break to describe what was going on before the commercial break, and no more than that. If you don't have enough material to make a TV episode without repeating everything repeatedly, you must choose to not make that TV episode.
Regarding start times, your proposal makes more sense. How about school starting an hour after children of that age would naturally wake up due to dawn?
#4 I don't know too much about American Football...
#5 Definitely. Cruddy reporting would become 'conjecture'
#6 It's just a matter of personal preference. Saying that 70 degrees is hot is just as subjective as saying that 30 or 300 is hot.
#7 In the words of Caesar, "Who guards the guards?" You have to trust your government or their affiliates eventually.
#8 Again, I don't know anything about football.
#9 You can choose to watch it.
#10 Yeah, that really ticks me off. However, few people remember stuff like the Ideal Gas Law, much less everyday scientific terminology, so telling them would definitely help.
-Penguin
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Some interesting ones, the DVORAK keyboard at least.
Why titles? Respect, manners, because you don't have an informal relationship with everyone. How would you get the attention of someone you didn't know, just call out their hair color and sex?
I agree with uniform scales on time and temperature, as well as other units.
Some of those things I don't believe will be changed in our lifetime just because of their familiarity and history with people. Like the sports names. I'm sure you have to have seen what happens on these forums (if not in real life) if you try to offer a change that is different from what someone "grew up with". They fight it to the death, no matter how logically or obvious it may be.
Others are silly.
Respect is something that doesn't need a fancy title. I could just as easily say, "You're a dirtbag, Mr. Rogers". That certainly wouldn't be respectful. I don't see how Mr. helps with calling out in a crowd. That's where 'sir' or 'dude' come in. They were designed for that purpose.
-Penguin
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Trees are stupid, i love cutting them down all the time done you penguin?
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:rolleyes:
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Trees are stupid, i love cutting them down all the time done you penguin?
Are you alright? Your spelling has been off for a while now, and nothing you say to me seems to be related to what I've said. :eek:
Get well soon. :salute
-Penguin
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13 year olds lol.
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I was 13 years old not too long ago. Squeakers are people, too. Though my voice may have broken, I still stand behind them, and welcome each with open arms.
-Penguin
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I was 13 years old not too long ago. Squeakers are people, too. Though my voice may have broken, I still stand behind them, and welcome each with open arms.
-Penguin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99j0zLuNhi8&ob=av3e
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Oh come on, really? Really? :rolleyes: I must admit, that was clever, though. ;)
-Penguin
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Swag
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-Artificial straight line borders are god awful and an eyesore. If you don't see the beauty of organic borders then you're pretty much just an awful person.
-Have you ever had to do an online course? They're miserable.
-Any language without irregularity (specifically 'to be' conjugation) is soulless and completely devoid of humanity and emotion. Constructed languages are a stain on the human race.
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Swag
You be gettin' mah son mad tight, yo!
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You be gettin' mah son mad tight, yo!
:rofl :rofl
-Artificial straight line borders are god awful and an eyesore. If you don't see the beauty of organic borders then you're pretty much just an awful person.
-Have you ever had to do an online course? They're miserable.
-Any language without irregularity (specifically 'to be' conjugation) is soulless and completely devoid of humanity and emotion. Constructed languages are a stain on the human race.
didnt think of this. +1
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-All measurements are metric, but temperatures are in Kelvin (let's get with the times, and no more negative temperatures)
Kelvin and centigrade are the same system, but with a different zero point. Centigrade has an important place in the metric system because the system is all about ease of use and that all the units relate closely to each other. The metric system revolves around the properties of water, perhaps the most used and essential compound in nature. Water freezes at 0C and boils at 100C (at sea level). One liter (volume) of water weighs one kilogram (weight). One cubic meter (length) equals 1000 liters, and 1000 kilos or one metric ton of water. It's much more intuitive to say that the temperature today is 40C than 313 Kelvin.
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Kelvin and centigrade are the same system, but with a different zero point. Centigrade has an important place in the metric system because the system is all about ease of use and that all the units relate closely to each other. The metric system revolves around the properties of water, perhaps the most used and essential compound in nature. Water freezes at 0C and boils at 100C (at sea level). One liter (volume) of water weighs one kilogram (weight). One cubic meter (length) equals 1000 liters, and 1000 kilos or one metric ton of water. It's much more intuitive to say that the temperature today is 40C than 313 Kelvin.
Actually its completely arbitrary because it depends on one atmosphere to make sense. To every life form in the universe that didn't originate on Planet Earth, its arbitrary. But a temperature scale based on absolute zero is universal in that the only difference between the Terran version and an alien version is a scalar multiplier.
Well we haven't met any alien life yet, so ok fine. But as soon as we do, you better get used to Kelvins!
With our luck the Aliens will use Rankine anyways.
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It's meant to be intuitive and easy to use for humans living on planet Earth doing everyday Earthling stuff. I realize now that I should have been spesific about that, this being the internet and all. ;P
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Between Penguin and BoilerDown, I can't decide who is the weirder... :O
Oh yeah btw:
My bad, I meant to say 11. Oops!
-Penguin
(11*30)+6=336 :huh
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9 months of 30 days each, and December picks up the extra 5-6
+
My bad, I meant to say 11. Oops!
=
11 months of 30 days each, and December picks up the extra 5-6
Do the math...
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Kelvin and centigrade are the same system, but with a different zero point. Centigrade has an important place in the metric system because the system is all about ease of use and that all the units relate closely to each other. The metric system revolves around the properties of water, perhaps the most used and essential compound in nature. Water freezes at 0C and boils at 100C (at sea level). One liter (volume) of water weighs one kilogram (weight). One cubic meter (length) equals 1000 liters, and 1000 kilos or one metric ton of water. It's much more intuitive to say that the temperature today is 40C than 313 Kelvin.
I know that Kelvin and Centigrade have the same scale, but 'metric' temperature usually refers to Celsius. It's not more intuitive to say 40 than 313. They are both equally arbitrary, and as a side note, how is it 40C in February? Global warming is a harsh mistress.
-Artificial straight line borders are god awful and an eyesore. If you don't see the beauty of organic borders then you're pretty much just an awful person.
-Have you ever had to do an online course? They're miserable.
-Any language without irregularity (specifically 'to be' conjugation) is soulless and completely devoid of humanity and emotion. Constructed languages are a stain on the human race.
-The borders we have already are also artificial. Though some follow rivers, they are mostly the results of piecemeal negotiations and periodic wars with the Native Americans and other groups during the 1500-1950s era. Straightening them or aligning them with rivers would eliminate this artificial irregularity. They could also be based on the Global positioning system, so that you could read directly to a map without conversions.
-Really? Try the Khan Academy. It gives you math through Calculus CD, and it's taught in a friendly, comfortable way with built-in exercises. It also teaches physics, chemistry, art history, Python (computer language), and has entertaining videos on the idiosyncrasies of math.
-On what grounds? Most of a language follows its rules, so why shouldn't the rest of it? Arrive, arrived; open, opened, go, WENT? That's not human, that's just weird. Goed would be just as easy to pronounce, and would eliminate issues for those learning English. English itself, however, is a poor example of such frustratingly poor grammar. French has scores of conjugations for every single irregular verb, of which there are scores, too. What's worse, it has an agency devoted to controlling precisely what is and isn't French (L'Academie Francaise) so it has no justification for having all these irregular conjugations.
-Penguin
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Actually, Kelvin is the standard metric SI unit for temperature. The reason why everyone uses Celsius is exactly because it is more intuitive. Arbitrary or not everybody knows hot water from cold water. We use it every day (unless you're a bum).
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-On what grounds? Most of a language follows its rules, so why shouldn't the rest of it? Arrive, arrived; open, opened, go, WENT? That's not human, that's just weird. Goed would be just as easy to pronounce,and would eliminate issues for those learning English. English itself, however, is a poor example of such frustratingly poor grammar. French has scores of conjugations for every single irregular verb, of which there are scores, too. What's worse, it has an agency devoted to controlling precisely what is and isn't French (L'Academie Francaise) so it has no justification for having all these irregular conjugations.
-Penguin
did you ever read 1984 by George Orwell? That sounds EXACTLY like "newspeak".... your scaring me after that statement....
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did you ever read 1984 by George Orwell? That sounds EXACTLY like "newspeak".... your scaring me after that statement....
I had the same think.
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Actually, Kelvin is the standard metric SI unit for temperature. The reason why everyone uses Celsius is exactly because it is more intuitive. Arbitrary or not everybody knows hot water from cold water. We use it every day (unless you're a bum).
Yes, but most people don't know that it is. I didn't know that you knew.
did you ever read 1984 by George Orwell? That sounds EXACTLY like "newspeak".... your scaring me after that statement....
Yes, it was a good book- one of Orwell's most stinging critiques of tyranny. Having irregular verbs and redundant characters is not an act of defiance- it's irrational. Who said that the government would do it? It would most likely be an independent body of English language scholars similar to the Academie Francaise. Went, goed, the meaning is the same. The principle of Newspeak was to limit thought by steadily reducing the language to dichotomies, and then finally to a vague, subservient "Yes". The purpose of my idea is the make English easier to learn for those who speak another language, and to eliminate the annoying discrepancies that run throughout English. If I had my way, the character set would actually be increased (net) in order to accommodate sounds like ch, th, sh, and others. There would be no more need for letter combos, so 'the' would be spelled like the pronunciation guide in the dictionary. There, easy. There would be no conjugations, so know would be conjugated as:
I know
You know
He/she/it know
We know
There would be no other changes save for Mrs. and Miss becoming Ms. (It's a pet peeve of mine). The vocabulary would stay rich and varied. Remember, English has changed quite a bit over the centuries. It hasn't always been like it is now- just read Dickens or Twain and you'll see the little things that have changed from then to now. English will continue to change through the centuries- the language that we speak will seem outmoded from the perspective of our grandchildren and forever more. My proposal will simply keep it readable, unlike Shakespeare's Early Modern English which requires occasional translation in order to be read by those who haven't grown up in the 1600s.
-Penguin
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY
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-The borders we have already are also artificial. Though some follow rivers, they are mostly the results of piecemeal negotiations and periodic wars with the Native Americans and other groups during the 1500-1950s era. Straightening them or aligning them with rivers would eliminate this artificial irregularity. They could also be based on the Global positioning system, so that you could read directly to a map without conversions.
-Really? Try the Khan Academy. It gives you math through Calculus CD, and it's taught in a friendly, comfortable way with built-in exercises. It also teaches physics, chemistry, art history, Python (computer language), and has entertaining videos on the idiosyncrasies of math.
-On what grounds? Most of a language follows its rules, so why shouldn't the rest of it? Arrive, arrived; open, opened, go, WENT? That's not human, that's just weird. Goed would be just as easy to pronounce, and would eliminate issues for those learning English. English itself, however, is a poor example of such frustratingly poor grammar. French has scores of conjugations for every single irregular verb, of which there are scores, too. What's worse, it has an agency devoted to controlling precisely what is and isn't French (L'Academie Francaise) so it has no justification for having all these irregular conjugations.
-Penguin
First, have you ever used Khan Academy?
Personally, I've used Khan Academy and similar tools as a learning aid in both of my calc courses so far. Online lessons such as those can be quite useful when you need a tiny bit of extra instruction or a different angle on a concept, but the core of the curriculum just has to be done by a real flesh and blood teacher, you can't replace it.
I've also done real math coursework, in a program (Carnegie Online Learning) bought by our highschool to review & drill concepts to improve student performance on Pennsylvania state assessments... Carnegie quickly became a dreaded, hated word in the school and even hundreds of points often fails to motivate students to complete their lessons. Trying to do algebra through a computer interface just sucks. Probably the best part of taking calc II is having a class with no juniors so I don't have to do Carnegie...
As far as borders go, even in the east American borders are pretty boring and arbitrary. But even beyond the obvious aesthetic advantage in organic border shapes, it really doesn't make any sense practically to have borders that ignore topography and cultural division in favor of having silly straight lines that don't really mean anything.
In language, rules are observed, like the laws of nature, not followed. True enough some countries have bureaus for language regulation but they're really quite silly as well, since they change the rules enough (since there really are no true rules) that they tend to confuse people as to what the accepted spelling is at the given time... we had a German exchange student who would always spell things wrong (well kinda) because he'd mix up spelling reformations and stuff like that. It's just not very useful to have a regulatory committee.
The more regular and strictly logical a language becomes, the less soulful and interesting it is. Honestly English is a kind of cool language but it really does lack a lot of things that make others beautiful, beside just the way it sounds, like grammatical gender and, to a large extent, mood. For example many times when talking to a Russian I have him refer to English as a 'robot language', because it's just so... barren, without irregularity or flair.
"English itself, however, is a poor example of such frustratingly poor grammar."
This is the worst. I don't know why so many Americans think this, perhaps because they never have to learn another language, so they assume that the irregularities of English must be unique, but pretty much every opinion I've ever heard or read from someone who speaks multiple languages and doesn't hold English as their mothertongue says that English is the easiest language they've ever learned. It's just not a really complicated language; our conjugation is insanely easy, we have no grammatical gender, etc.
Try reading Esperanto sometime, or even Interlingua or that pan-slavic one (though you probably won't have a very easy time with the latter). Perfect examples of soulless constructed languages, simple to no end (though even they have grammatical gender if I remember correctly), that just don't have any magic to them. When you're reading Esperanto (it's not hard once you pick up some of the basic rules) you don't feel like you're reading a language, there's no mistaking that it's just something some Polish guy came up with because he had too much time on his hands.
did you ever read 1984 by George Orwell? That sounds EXACTLY like "newspeak".... your scaring me after that statement....
I had the same think.
And the body of Orwell's work will be completely overlooked in favor of a sensationalist novel he wrote when it was the cool thing to do for Socialists to make the Soviet Union look as bad as possible
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10) Science and learning oriented TV shows are permitted only 10 seconds after a commercial break to describe what was going on before the commercial break, and no more than that. If you don't have enough material to make a TV episode without repeating everything repeatedly, you must choose to not make that TV episode.
I disagree with this. Science and Learning shows are permitted once in a half hour segment to recap the show for 5 seconds. Twice for a one hour segment. I'm tired of, after the fourth damn commercial in twenty minutes, hearing how once again you discovered there were glaciers in North America because of the scars they left in Central Park.
All half hour TV shows are only allowed one commercial break of no more than two minutes, two four minute breaks for one hour shows.
It will be illegal to make any TV show for any length of time that constantly puts the viewer in suspense of one single accomplishment or outcome: ie: We found this fascinating shaft in one of the Pyramids and we're sending a robot up it to find out what is in it. But we didn't actually find anything so we put a 2 hour special on TV filled with useless backstory and immense amounts of filler because... we didn't actually find anything...
That crap needs to be a illegal.
@DVORAK Vs. QWERTY:
I already average about 60-70 WPM with qwerty without really trying to type... for the most part I type faster than I can speak. When I really push myself I get over 100 WPM. Back in computers for dummies I managed to score 203 WPM on a test with 98% accuracy... Why should I have to relearn to type?
All in favor of 24H time. Although not really in favor of ditching the time zones, I have an awesome watch that lets me set local and zulu times seperately.
Laptops issued in school is a bad idea IMHO.
Reason number 1: Despite taking a nice long break and going to the cheapest university and gritting my teeth over terrible professors, I have over 14,000 dollars in Student loans... the last thing I want is for schools to issue me a laptop made of toe-jam and charging me another 1,000 dollars for it. I have a nice laptop, cost me 1,400 dollars. It is going to last my entire school career and well into the rest of my life, I don't doubt that this laptop will last me for over a decade. It's going to last that long because I picked and chose every detail of it and compared it to everything on the market at the time. Like that kind of scrutiny is going to be done for a college that realizes they can order 15,000: 1,000 dollar laptops and charge the students 1,000 dollars for the laptop and 500 additional dollars for the processing and issuance fee. Pff hah yeah they're already scamming me on an enormous amount of things, I don't want another added to the list.
While minesweeper managed to keep me awake in my history classes(lol despite being a history major... but then again the lectures are merely the professor making sure we've read the material and collecting papers so really I just need to be slightly distracted enough not to fall asleep and still be able to engage in any conversation to get the participation points). I see far too many students playing WoW(Actually saw someone raiding in class, kept passing him notes telling him not to stand in the fire), facebook, a couple here and there watching porn, online chess, etc. etc. If you can think of a distraction on a laptop during class... I've probably seen it... although I don't think I've ever seen anyone watching 2g1c in class... that'd probably draw the line and get the students behind them to speak up.
And sure, I'm able to take notes like a speed demon; but I'm actually the only student in my classes so far that actually uses their laptop to take notes. Well okay except for the cute girl who sat next to me in American Lit but she was married. :cry
I'll have to check out that Khan Academy thingy... my math skills have always sucked, it wasn't until senior year in high school that I actually was able to grasp letters being mixed in with my numbers. :huh
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(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v170/Jamescush/motivator2442376.jpg)
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Yes, but most people don't know that it is. I didn't know that you knew.
Yes, it was a good book- one of Orwell's most stinging critiques of tyranny. Having irregular verbs and redundant characters is not an act of defiance- it's irrational. Who said that the government would do it? It would most likely be an independent body of English language scholars similar to the Academie Francaise. Went, goed, the meaning is the same. The principle of Newspeak was to limit thought by steadily reducing the language to dichotomies, and then finally to a vague, subservient "Yes". The purpose of my idea is the make English easier to learn for those who speak another language, and to eliminate the annoying discrepancies that run throughout English. If I had my way, the character set would actually be increased (net) in order to accommodate sounds like ch, th, sh, and others. There would be no more need for letter combos, so 'the' would be spelled like the pronunciation guide in the dictionary. There, easy. There would be no conjugations, so know would be conjugated as:
I know
You know
He/she/it know
We know
There would be no other changes save for Mrs. and Miss becoming Ms. (It's a pet peeve of mine). The vocabulary would stay rich and varied. Remember, English has changed quite a bit over the centuries. It hasn't always been like it is now- just read Dickens or Twain and you'll see the little things that have changed from then to now. English will continue to change through the centuries- the language that we speak will seem outmoded from the perspective of our grandchildren and forever more. My proposal will simply keep it readable, unlike Shakespeare's Early Modern English which requires occasional translation in order to be read by those who haven't grown up in the 1600s.
-Penguin
See, Big Brother in their beginnings probably said the same, "We are just making the language easier for others to learn." before cutting out immigrants as a whole, completely brainwashing the citizen body and ultimately having so much control over the citizens that even though the changed wars throughout the book, when Big Brother said they were at war with one country for the past century (I think it was?) with the one country everyone believed it. Look at Winston (the main character), When we see him holding a piece of currency George Orwell very simply makes a depressing scene. You know whats sad about this? I look at a dollar before I buy my coffee or smokes, and I wish I didn't need my coffee or get those random urges for a cigarette, as I would be 10 bucks richer a day. When we look at our immigration issues, We can see the government making more and more harsh rules for the immigrants coming up from Mexico, but none of us citizens are openly trying to stop this. We are letting the government run our lives over the years, and it isn't a slow transformation. I see a very sad future for those of us in the US in the years to come... I'm only a few years older then you, yes, but with the obvious changes in our society in those couple years it gives me good reason. I want to have my freedoms, not have the government tell me i can't be an EMT, and I have to be a male model.
rant off... I hope you start to see my point :bhead
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See, Big Brother in their beginnings probably said the same, "We are just making the language easier for others to learn." before cutting out immigrants as a whole, completely brainwashing the citizen body and ultimately having so much control over the citizens that even though the changed wars throughout the book, when Big Brother said they were at war with one country for the past century (I think it was?) with the one country everyone believed it. Look at Winston (the main character), When we see him holding a piece of currency George Orwell very simply makes a depressing scene. You know whats sad about this? I look at a dollar before I buy my coffee or smokes, and I wish I didn't need my coffee or get those random urges for a cigarette, as I would be 10 bucks richer a day. When we look at our immigration issues, We can see the government making more and more harsh rules for the immigrants coming up from Mexico, but none of us citizens are openly trying to stop this. We are letting the government run our lives over the years, and it isn't a slow transformation. I see a very sad future for those of us in the US in the years to come... I'm only a few years older then you, yes, but with the obvious changes in our society in those couple years it gives me good reason. I want to have my freedoms, not have the government tell me i can't be an EMT, and I have to be a male model.
rant off... I hope you start to see my point :bhead
What on earth does regulating language have to do with immigration? You're nostalgic and paranoid. Big brother died with the USSR. Read a little history and you'll see how far we've come. No more slavery, women's rights, minority rights, Braille, SAP (Spanish dubbing), wheelchair ramps, FOIA; the list goes on and on. Does that make government perfect? Heck no. There's corruption, foolishness, and scoundrelry everywhere. It's always been that way, and it always will be. Spanish is also one of the US's official languages, and Asians are everywhere and doing well.
As for language itself, I speak Polish, a language with all sorts of grammar. It's not more 'beautiful' than English because of its gender. It just makes the language harder to use. The beauty comes from the poets and authors.
-Penguin
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As for language itself, I speak Polish, a language with all sorts of grammar. It's not more 'beautiful' than English because of its gender. It just makes the language harder to use. The beauty comes from the poets and authors.
Oooh, Polish! Slavic languages are so nice! I've never learned much though unfortunately, Slavic languages are of course far removed and difficult for an Anglophone to learn (though I've always had a bit of a fetish for them). In fact I know precisely one sentence in Polish, 'co to kurwa jest' :). That may not even be proper grammar, either a colloquialism or something intentionally wrong. I have no idea, just something I memorized for some reason...
Also Polish gains you access to Slovio, one of those barren boring constructed languages I mentioned. It's also very ugly looking as for some reason they decided it would be a good idea to use 'x' in place of z as it's used in Polish or h as it's used in English in consonant clusters.
Anyway
"The beauty comes from the poets and authors. "
The poets and authors (especially poets) use completely the idiosyncrasies of language that you see as only tedium to create art, instead of just a string of boring, lifeless words. This is why (good) books never translate completely from one language to the next, it's impossible to take say a Dostoevsky novel and expect the English translation to compare directly to the Russian text. You just can not convey the same feelings the same way between the languages. You definitely cannot convey the same feeling when you take out everything that is used to do so.
There is, quite simply, an art in words that comes from using them in clever ways and taking advantage of the funny quirks in language. That's where every enjoyable poem, book, and song comes from.
The same way poets and authors use language is the same way musicians use music. The more you can deviate from written laws, generally the more enjoyable and pleasing and rewarding feeling- more artistic especially- something gets. This is why Bach gave way to Beethoven, gave way Stravinsky, gave way to... I don't know, Davis, then... It's just great when stuff clashes and still sounds, in some way, pleasing. Same goes for when rules fail in language.
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Life is good, but man, there are some freakin' annoying parts to it. So I've titled this thread: "Little Tweaks" so that everyone who's had those moments can add theirs.
-All time is 24-hour UTC (No more timezones, no more A.M. P.M. shenanigans)
-All measurements are metric, but temperatures are in Kelvin (let's get with the times, and no more negative temperatures)
-Tau, a new variable defined as circumference divided by radius, joins math along e, i, and pi (Makes trigonometry easier)
-School starts at 8:00, ends at 15:00 (More sleep)
-All homework, materials, plans, powerpoints, etc., are on the internet (Easier to get back on track after absences, fewer worries)
-Tax day is moved to the first of a month (Why not, it looks nicer on a calendar, and the previous date was just as arbitrary)
-Change US National Anthem to "America the Beautiful" (It makes more sense)
-9 months of 30 days each, and December picks up the extra 5-6 (No more date-guessing shenanigans)
-10 days in a week with three days off in a row (See above)
-Make month names latin numerals (Sounds cooler, and makes more sense)
-Remove irregular verbs/adjectives/nouns from all languages everywhere (Makes more sense)
-Issue all students laptops (on good behavior)
-Redraw state borders to make a grid (It's like that in the West, why not in the East?)
-Rename soccer to football (Get with the rest of the world)
-Rename football to American Rugby (It's pretty much that)
-Get rid of the titles of Mr., Mrs., Miss, and Ms., and just call everyone by their first names
-Change QWERTY to Dvorak as the standard keyboard layout (it's much faster)
-Tiny bit of cartilage in skull coded into everyone's DNA so that nanobots can get in and out via syringe to enable us to work, perform every day tasks, and play games just by thinking. (Not so much a tweak as a technological breakthrough, but it's still awesome!)
EDIT: Explanations in parentheses
-Penguin
all top fighters pilots need give their perks up to the guys that dont have any perks we'll call it paying their fair share. :rofl :bolt:
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It's funny how many people think that language needs to be controlled, or even can be controlled. You'd need a Big Brother style tyrannic state to enforce it. All living languages today are very different from what they were a mere ten generations ago, both in pronunciation and grammar.
Our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debters.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
If we go another 10 generation back in time...
Oure fadir žat art in heuenes halwid be ži name;
ži reume or kyngdom come to be. Be ži wille don in herže as it is dounin heuene.
yeue to us today oure eche dayes bred.
And foryeue to us oure dettis žat is oure synnys as we foryeuen to oure dettouris žat is to men žat han synned in us.
And lede us not into temptacion but delyuere us from euyl.
Another 10 generations...
Fęder ure žuže eart on heofonum
si žin nama gehalgod tobecume žin rice gewurže žin willa on eoršan swa swa on heofonum
urne gedęghwamlican hlaf syle us to dęg
and forgyf us ure gyltas swa swa we forgyfaš urum gyltendum
and ne gelęd žu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfele sožlice.
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It wouldn't be tyrannical at all. The language would change just as it did before, but with some more structure. The only difference would be in the way it is taught and written on government documents. That would eliminate the old spellings and conjugations over time. However, words, phrases, and styles themselves would certainly go in and out of style, and the language agency would adapt just like the dictionaries do. No dogma, no shenanigans, just phonetic spelling and an end to conjugations and titles such as Mr. Ms. Miss, and Mrs. Sir and Ma'am would stay, for addressing unnamed parties in a formal way.
-Penguin
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How kin thet wawk when varmints doesn't even talk like they larn in skoo now?
How kin dat wo'k when sucka's duzn't even rap likes dey teach in farm now?
How can that work wen blokes don't even rabbit and pork like they teach in school now?
Duh, how can dat work when peoble don't eben talk like dey teach in school now, duh...uh...?
ohw an that Wr0k wh3n doodz don't even 4l;k 7iek tehy teach in cshool now!??!?!???!?
How can dat werk when niggas don' even jive like dey teach in skoo now? all ye damn hood ratz..
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-School starts at 8:00, ends at 15:00 (More sleep)Cry me a river
-All homework, materials, plans, powerpoints, etc., are on the internet (Easier to get back on track after absences, fewer worries)not bad idea
-Change US National Anthem to "America the Beautiful" (It makes more sense)I would kick you in the chest if you said this to me in person
-Issue all students laptops (on good behavior)We are already moving toward that
-Redraw state borders to make a grid (It's like that in the West, why not in the East?)Because of natural boundary lines...like Maryland's southern border...the Potomac River
-Rename football to American Rugby (It's pretty much that)Flat out unAmerican
-Get rid of the titles of Mr., Mrs., Miss, and Ms., and just call everyone by their first names Your Parents failed here
-Penguin
Here are some little tweaks
-All US citizens must serve 2 years in a military branch
-Genral Patreus (Ret.) runs for President
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How kin thet wawk when varmints doesn't even talk like they larn in skoo now?
How kin dat wo'k when sucka's duzn't even rap likes dey teach in farm now?
How can that work wen blokes don't even rabbit and pork like they teach in school now?
Duh, how can dat work when peoble don't eben talk like dey teach in school now, duh...uh...?
ohw an that Wr0k wh3n doodz don't even 4l;k 7iek tehy teach in cshool now!??!?!???!?
How can dat werk when niggas don' even jive like dey teach in skoo now? all ye damn hood ratz..
Really? Besides some mild accents, every single person without a speech impediment in my school speaks English clearly and fluently. Besides, there are pronunciation guides in the dictionaries. These would be the new spellings. You're taking my points and building strawmen out of them.
-Penguin
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Really? Besides some mild accents, every single person without a speech impediment in my school speaks English clearly and fluently. Besides, there are pronunciation guides in the dictionaries. These would be the new spellings. You're taking my points and building strawmen out of them.
-Penguin
Yeah but you live in the Northeast. Go to Houston, and your opinion will change.
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What on earth does regulating language have to do with immigration? You're nostalgic and paranoid. Big brother died with the USSR. Read a little history and you'll see how far we've come. No more slavery, women's rights, minority rights, Braille, SAP (Spanish dubbing), wheelchair ramps, FOIA; the list goes on and on. Does that make government perfect? Heck no. There's corruption, foolishness, and scoundrelry everywhere. It's always been that way, and it always will be. Spanish is also one of the US's official languages, and Asians are everywhere and doing well.
As for language itself, I speak Polish, a language with all sorts of grammar. It's not more 'beautiful' than English because of its gender. It just makes the language harder to use. The beauty comes from the poets and authors.
-Penguin
you read into my post too much.... In the novel, Big Brother did not allow immigration. Why would you dumb down a language that everyone speaks already? Yes, you could argue that it would begin brainwashing and the sorts, but if you want control that bad, martial law can be implemented to the larger cities.
Government controlling a freedom of ours restricts our freedoms more. We have a right to "Freedom of speech", when the government comes in and tells me how I can and cannot talk, I will come to you and ask if it reminds you of big brother.
Yeah but you live in the Northeast. Go to Houston, and your opinion will change.
I live in MA, and in my section of MA I can second this. I live in a working middle class/ working poor area. MY family got lucky when the recession hit, and both my mom and dad stayed employed until just a couple years ago. Different story, different time. where I live, There are asians, mexicans and different breeds of europeans, visitors and citizens, and I hear A LOT of speech imperfections. even amongst my peers who I grew up with I can still hear speech impediments.....
ignorance, and living off what mommy and daddy tech. open your mind and think with your own thoughts. :bhead
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Where did I say that the government would police how people speak? I could speak like Shakespeare for the rest of my life and no-one would throw me in jail. It wouldn't be just one country, though, all the English speaking countries would form an independent body (made of scholars, not the governments themselves) to come up with the implementation. How is 'cow' any 'smarter' than 'kow'? Not everyone speaks English already, you're arguing from tradition. People are born all the time, and English should be something easy for them to learn, not full of arcane rules that only confuse them. Have you considered the fact that having these arcane rules creates those imperfections? For instance, in France, spelling errors run rampant due to all the irregular conjugations.
-Penguin
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Here are some little tweaks
-All US citizens must serve 2 years in a military branch
-Genral Patreus (Ret.) runs for President
I like the idea of the military serving. However, it wouldnt be a free country if we are forced to do so.
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Where did I say that the government would police how people speak? I could speak like Shakespeare for the rest of my life and no-one would throw me in jail. It wouldn't be just one country, though, all the English speaking countries would form an independent body (made of scholars, not the governments themselves) to come up with the implementation. How is 'cow' any 'smarter' than 'kow'? Not everyone speaks English already, you're arguing from tradition. People are born all the time, and English should be something easy for them to learn, not full of arcane rules that only confuse them. Have you considered the fact that having these arcane rules creates those imperfections? For instance, in France, spelling errors run rampant due to all the irregular conjugations.
-Penguin
In this argument, say english was "easy" to learn, shouldnt the rest of the worlds languages be easy to learn? why should our language be the only "easy" language for a foreigner to learn? My view for the outcome if that were the case: Those that didn't care to try in life would come here thinking "If they're language is easy to learn, so is the rest of they're lives" and it would ultimately compound our national issues, such as debt, drug abuse and un-safe living conditions.
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What on earth does regulating language have to do with immigration? You're nostalgic and paranoid. Big brother died with the USSR. Read a little history and you'll see how far we've come. No more slavery, women's rights, minority rights, Braille, SAP (Spanish dubbing), wheelchair ramps, FOIA; the list goes on and on. Does that make government perfect? Heck no. There's corruption, foolishness, and scoundrelry everywhere. It's always been that way, and it always will be. Spanish is also one of the US's official languages, and Asians are everywhere and doing well.As for language itself, I speak Polish, a language with all sorts of grammar. It's not more 'beautiful' than English because of its gender. It just makes the language harder to use. The beauty comes from the poets and authors.
-Penguin
The United States has an official Language?
Even more to the point, you say, "Spanish is also one of the US's official languages", indicating that you believe there to be even more than one official language? (U.S.'s, not US's. One of the many written English rules I learned in school some 50 years ago.)
While your upbringing seems to be very New England upper middle class, your writing very above average and many of your thoughts and ideas well above average, you also need to realize that the more you know, the more you should realize that there is much that you don't know.
When you go head to head with some of us older generation fellows who did not learn to speak and write as well as you, you may find that age, wisdom and life experience is more than the equal of a polished, smooth talking person such as yourself.
When and if you get out in the world and are fortunate enough to realize that not everyone has had your advantage in life, you will begin to mature and realize that most of what you are saying in this thread is not the way things are, no matter how much you may wish them to be.
I wish you a long life and the ability to learn as you grow.
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All languages should be easier to learn, I agree; however, your conclusion does not follow from your premises. You keep referring to these one-dimensional people whose sole goal in life is not to try, but I don't see how making life easier for everyone hurts things. We could make screws have randomly assigned thread directions, but would that get us anywhere? No, it would just make screwing something together a major pain in the butt. The same applies to language. Does it really help anyone to have forty different conjugations of a single word (French)? No. Anything above one conjugation for each tense is superfluous and only makes the language harder to use. Do I have problems with English? Not really, but I'd certainly like it if French were easier. It would take a pointless load off the backs of those trying to talk to French people and French children. Having a complicated language doesn't help anyone at all. Look at ASCII art, it comes from simple, functional pictures arranged in creative shapes.
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See? Now if I had to conjugate my backslashes, would that make the art better? Or if I had to type with my toes? No. Language should be like ASCII art or LEGO bricks: The complexity comes from its arrangement, not its properties.
@HB555 According to my 5th or 6th grade Social Studies book, yes, the U.S. does have two official languages: English and Spanish. Oops, I forgot to add the periods in U.S. My bad. I'm slightly confused about what you refer to with regard to "advantage," though. Yes, my town certainly has wealthy people in it, and I may be one of them, but my only reference is a discussion that I had in middle school about annual household income, and if I remember correctly my parents made the most. I say this as a confirmation of what you said about my upbringing. Kids don't really think about what their parents make unless something awful happens (job loss, death, disaster) and those sorts of things don't happen too often where I'm from (it's not because of anything specific, really, we're just away from the coast and not in a geologically unstable area). I try to not be snooty as best I can, though I do avoid those who speak of drugs for my own sake (i.e., someone overhears me and I get in trouble). Now with that said, do you mean that as I meet more people I will realize that their teachers taught them poorly and that no matter how you made the language they'd still mess up? That I can understand, but we can always try, because as it stands they mess up, too.
-Penguin
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.__.
(O,o)
(/::\)
" "
say whut
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Where'd you learn that one? :x
-Penguin
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All languages should be easier to learn, I agree; however, your conclusion does not follow from your premises. You keep referring to these one-dimensional people whose sole goal in life is not to try, but I don't see how making life easier for everyone hurts things. We could make screws have randomly assigned thread directions, but would that get us anywhere? No, it would just make screwing something together a major pain in the butt. The same applies to language. Does it really help anyone to have forty different conjugations of a single word (French)? No. Anything above one conjugation for each tense is superfluous and only makes the language harder to use. Do I have problems with English? Not really, but I'd certainly like it if French were easier. It would take a pointless load off the backs of those trying to talk to French people and French children. Having a complicated language doesn't help anyone at all. Look at ASCII art, it comes from simple, functional pictures arranged in creative shapes.
| |
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\_____/
See? Now if I had to conjugate my backslashes, would that make the art better? Or if I had to type with my toes? No. Language should be like ASCII art or LEGO bricks: The complexity comes from its arrangement, not its properties.
@HB555 According to my 5th or 6th grade Social Studies book, yes, the U.S. does have two official languages: English and Spanish. Oops, I forgot to add the periods in U.S. My bad. I'm slightly confused about what you refer to with regard to "advantage," though. Yes, my town certainly has wealthy people in it, and I may be one of them, but my only reference is a discussion that I had in middle school about annual household income, and if I remember correctly my parents made the most. I say this as a confirmation of what you said about my upbringing. Kids don't really think about what their parents make unless something awful happens (job loss, death, disaster) and those sorts of things don't happen too often where I'm from (it's not because of anything specific, really, we're just away from the coast and not in a geologically unstable area). I try to not be snooty as best I can, though I do avoid those who speak of drugs for my own sake (i.e., someone overhears me and I get in trouble). Now with that said, do you mean that as I meet more people I will realize that their teachers taught them poorly and that no matter how you made the language they'd still mess up? That I can understand, but we can always try, because as it stands they mess up, too.
-Penguin
I keep referring to "those one dimesnioal people who dont want to try" becasuse as I look around at others who are young adults. I see just that. Off the top of my head I can think of a handful of people I know that actrually want to do something with life and know how they must acquire those goals.
I have never heard of English being an "official" language, matter of fact, I have never heard of any country taking claim to an "Official" language. What HB was referring to was how lucky you are to be so educated, intelligent, and be brought up in a more financially stable family then many, but you must also realize that being intelligent, educated or financially stable as opposed to others does not change how people will think, irregardless of what you do. He also said that with learning things come accepting you don't know a lot of what here is to know. You could be another Albert Einstein, but you do you really know as much as you "think" you know? You could be unquestionably the best president we as a country have ever seen, but does that mean you know everything there is to know about being a president? one of my teachers in middle school (who I had for a high school class last year too) has a poster in his room saying something to the effect of "The human brain is like an iceberg. we only use 1/8 of it, as we only see 1/8 of an iceberg." I want you to think on this. dont answer it right now because you feel you have a correct anwer as to "why" this is the case, but in the grand scheme of life, knowledge and a singular entity in yourself, what does the saying mean?
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MaSonZ understood what i was saying. I was not putting you down for what you and your family have, I was saying those of us who do not have as much, or who have worked our butts off to raise our kids and pay our bills are theoretically just as intellectual as you are, but we have learned not everything we learned in school is correct.
If the United States had an "official language", as opposed to "the language we all use", can you explain why congress has tried to pass, during multiple sessions, a bill proposing just that? I refer you to just one of many web sites, http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_lang.html (http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_lang.html) which basically say, and I quote,
"Many people are surprised to learn that the United States has no official language. As one of the major centers of commerce and trade, and a major English-speaking country, many assume that English is the country's official language. But despite efforts over the years, the United States has no official language.
Almost every session of Congress, an amendment to the Constitution is proposed in Congress to adopt English as the official language of the United States. Other efforts have attempted to take the easier route of changing the U.S. Code to make English the official language. As of this writing, the efforts have not been successful.
Here is the text of a proposed amendment. This particular bill was introduced in the House of Representatives as H.J. Res. 16 (107th Congress):
The English language shall be the official language of the United States. As the official language, the English language shall be used for all public acts including every order, resolution, vote, or election, and for all records and judicial proceedings of the Government of the United States and the governments of the several States.
Also introduced in the 107th Congress was this text from H.R. 3333:
The Government of the United States shall preserve and enhance the role of English as the official language of the United States of America. Unless specifically stated in applicable law, no person has a right, entitlement, or claim to have the Government of the United States or any of its officials or representatives act, communicate, perform or provide services, or provide materials in any language other than English. If exceptions are made, that does not create a legal entitlement to additional services in that language or any language other than English.
Often these bills are in response to legislation recognizing non-English languages in public discourse of some kind. H.R. 3333, for example, also explicitly repealed the Bilingual Education Act which authorized funds to educate American students if their native tongue as well as to provide specialized training in the learning of English.
The most recent efforts to promote English as the official language has come as more and more immigration from Spanish-speaking and Eastern nations (such as China and Vietnam) has brought an influx of non-English speakers to the United States. According to the 1990 Census, 13.8 percent of U.S. residents speak some non-English language at home. 2.9 percent, or 6.7 million people, did not speak English at all, or could not speak it well."
It goes on about how the ACLU gets their panties all bunched up whenever this comes up, but I have little use for an organization that is basically against everything I believe, and is funded with money I pay in taxes. This forces me to support a group which I do not, in reality, support.
I await your research and response to what your "5th or 6th grade Social Studies book" which you say says, "yes, the U.S. does have two official languages: English and Spanish" taught you. Did either of those books give you a reference as to where one would find that information? In the constitution, the Bill of Rights? One of the ammendments? The ACLU pocket book of How America Should Be?
As I stated, all that is learned in today's class room is not necessarily correct, and that is the other thing I was referring to when I said the years give you wisdom.
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MaSonZ understood what i was saying. I was not putting you down for what you and your family have, I was saying those of us who do not have as much, or who have worked our butts off to raise our kids and pay our bills are theoretically just as intellectual as you are, but we have learned not everything we learned in school is correct.
And I can relate because I grew up in a family much like that. I also can relate because when my parents split when I was around 12 I had to balance hockey, football, baseball, a kids life, school and pulling the weight of a mans duty around the house with my brother who is only 2 years older. As a result, I can say from expierence I have had to make it through these past 7 1/2 years living off barely enough money to squeek through, especially after I got my license. I Could not ask my mom or dad for money because my dad had a mortgage to pay for, and my mom is only making $12/h. High school is just about over for me, and I still dont have a job I am working that I Want to do for my career. I have an interview tomorrow to ride as an EMT for an ambulance, but an interview does not gaurentee a job, especially where I live.
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MASonZ,
From an old guy who has been there, I sincerly wish you all the best, and hope that your hardships have not harmed you, but made you stronger and wiser.
Gold may never fill your pockets, but if someday you can take half of what is in your pocket and give it to someone with no pocket, you will be able to feel like the richest guy in the world.
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I never said that it was correct, it was just something that I read after class a few years ago. So I guess there is no official language of the US. I learn something new every day. :salute
Certainly, times change and science charges ahead. Learning is something that you don't stop doing once you leave school.
We don't know why we only use 1/8 of the human brain. It's a mystery of neuroscience that persists to this day. Heck, only this month did we find out the precise chemistry of memory formation. We've got a long way to go until we can answer that question.
I certainly didn't mean to put anyone down, and I don't recall saying something to the effect of "poor people are stupid," and I certainly hope that I didn't! :o
No matter how intelligent I am, I won't change the way that people think. Are you saying that debate is pointless in a philosophical sense, or that this particular BBS is made up of obstinate individuals? Both could be true, but I'm not sure which one you mean.
HB555, that was profound! :aok
-Penguin
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Penguin, could you please clarify your argument by specificing exactly which elements of the English language you would like alter?
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MASonZ,
From an old guy who has been there, I sincerly wish you all the best, and hope that your hardships have not harmed you, but made you stronger and wiser.
Gold may never fill your pockets, but if someday you can take half of what is in your pocket and give it to someone with no pocket, you will be able to feel like the richest guy in the world.
They harmed me at first, got busted selling weed, but after I got my record clean (check out MA's laws for marijuana, primarioly the decriminalization), I cleaned up and focused on what I need to do to be anything in life. Right now being a certified EMT, I cant do anything stupid. I highly doubt gold will ver fill my pockets unless I hit the lottery on the first ticket I ever play, but as long as I can put food on the table, keep a roof over my head and still have a few pennies to play with at the end of the month I will be perfectly content. It would sure be dandy to make 6 digit salary yearly, but I don't need that to be happy. just recently I damn near drained my bank account to help a buddy get a truck, and I savor the pennies I get weekly in payment right now to the fullest.
I certainly didn't mean to put anyone down, and I don't recall saying something to the effect of "poor people are stupid," and I certainly hope that I didn't! :o I didn't read it as this, coming from different ends of the financial spectrum there was a lot of clashing heads here. Hell, had HB not put things into a wise life long lesson we would still be clashing heads.
No matter how intelligent I am, I won't change the way that people think. Are you saying that debate is pointless in a philosophical sense, or that this particular BBS is made up of obstinate individuals? Both could be true, but I'm not sure which one you mean. both are true to an extent. many people on the AH BBS have their ways set and there is no changing it. this shows in their personal life too, after all, why would they change to soemthing they aren't for a website? Going onto this, where did they learn that from? their parents? Life long struggles? The world is full of people who are stuck in their ways and will not change.
HB555, that was profound! :aok
-Penguin
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Interestingly, being set in their ways makes them into excellent sparring partners- they're always ready for another go.
-Penguin
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Interestingly, being set in their ways makes them into excellent sparring partners- they're always ready for another go.
-Penguin
However, we are smart enough to realize that is all we are, sparring partners, and therefore choose to walk away, in the hopes that the next person will be more interested in what we have to say, rather than just refute our arguments based on the limited knowledge you now possess. We were all pretty smart years ago, but the older we got and the smarter we got, the more we realized that we were not near as smart as we thought we were.
Hope you remember this conversation in 25 to 50 years, like I remember the ones I had with older guys.
All the best, Penguin.
<Poof>
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HB, you are a man of much knowledge. :salute
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HB, you are a man of much knowledge. :salute
He is a gentleman and a scholar. :aok
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However, we are smart enough to realize that is all we are, sparring partners, and therefore choose to walk away, in the hopes that the next person will be more interested in what we have to say, rather than just refute our arguments based on the limited knowledge you now possess. We were all pretty smart years ago, but the older we got and the smarter we got, the more we realized that we were not near as smart as we thought we were.
Hope you remember this conversation in 25 to 50 years, like I remember the ones I had with older guys.
All the best, Penguin.
<Poof>
Certainly, you would realize this, but there are enough of them to keep me satisfied. I am certainly interested by what you have to say, but that doesn't mean that I always agree. There's a fine line between those, though, and the rather impersonal nature of our interaction certainly makes it all the more difficult to see. Why do you think I stick around? I'm alone, but you all help to keep me from falling off the deep end of my beliefs. Imagine if I hung out with a bunch of kids who were just like me, my experience would be stunted and I'd never hear the argument of the other side. Pretty soon I'd be as far on the left wing as I was on the right. This forum, which usually disagrees with me, keeps me both entertained and alert to the possibility that I, like you said, am not as smart as I think.
-Penguin