Random thought of the day
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"Pocket PC" is really a much better term for smartphones than "smartphone"
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remember palmtops?
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@anonymous234
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu3U-pmuqPUFiled Under: Isn't PocketPC copyrighted/trademarked?
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@Kuro said in Random thought of the day:
Isn't PocketPC copyrighted/trademarked?
Probably. But wasn't there that thing that you have to defend trademarks or they become public domain? And it hasn't been used in decades. So, I dunno.
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stares
...
Oh, it's his own leg he's grabbing.
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@anonymous234 said in Random thought of the day:
But wasn't there that thing that you have to defend trademarks or they become public domain? And it hasn't been used in decades.
Yes. Undefended trademarks lapse quickly precisely because they intentionally mean nothing without that defence. Trade-dress has to be non-functional; it exists to identify the product and its maker/provider/creator, nothing more.
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@anonymous234 said in Random thought of the day:
Pocket PC
"Butt Computer" is a much better name for that.
It doesn't describe it as well, but it's a better name.
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@ben_lubar said in Random thought of the day:
@anonymous234 said in Random thought of the day:
Pocket PC
"Butt Computer" is a much better name for that.
It doesn't describe it as well, but it's a better name.
I hear that'll be the naming convention for the next iteration of Android OS
fake edit this list has killed me i am ded plz finish my legacy
Anal Andy
Butt Betty
Colon Clark
Derriere Dina
Enema Edmund
Fanny Fanny
Gluteus-Maximus Gerrard
Hindquarter Hannah
Intestine Ian
Jacksy Joanna
Keister Kenny
L
Moon Michael
Nates Nancy
Orifice Orlando
Poophole Polly
Q
Rectum Ronald
Sphincter Sandy
Tushie Tony
U
V
Wazoo Wendy
X
Y
Z
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@boomzilla said in Random thought of the day:
The thing about random thoughts is you can never really tell.
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@ben_lubar ...what's inside until you open the box.
File Under: Lubar is as Lubar does.
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We should select government leaders through random means, that would guarantee an population average number of decent people, that is much better than the ratio we get in people that wants power.
The executive power shouldn't be in a single person when we do it, though.
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@groo said in Random thought of the day:
We should select government leaders through random means, that would guarantee an population average number of decent people, that is much better than the ratio we get in people that wants power.
That works great when you are a city-state of 300,000, of whom only 15,000 are male citizens eligible to serve and the city can override cases where the person is considered unsuitable. Not so great when you have 315 million, of whom 260 million are eligible for the position and the legal precedents make blocking a nutbar from office is next to impossible.
The executive power shouldn't be in a single person when we do it, though.
Uh, it isn't now, at least not in theory. Or rather, the decision-making power isn't; the POTUS' job is supposed to be, 'do what Clowngress tells you to'. All the plenary powers are meant for emergencies only. The problem is, first, it is really easy to simply say any situation that comes along is an emergency and take action while Congress decides where or not to back your play, two, it turns out that rebuilding the top-level structure every time a new POTUS comes in is a Bad Idea, so the relatively informal advisory roles that were anticipated quickly became a formal, permanent Cabinet structure that holds most of the real power in the government (though even that became so heavily delegated that actually tracking down who made what decision is a futile idea), and the 'advise and consent' system quickly broke down and turned into a shoving match between political parties; and three, a lot of 'administration' comes down to 'find out what Congress needs to know, and report back to them' than the Founding Fathers expected, meaning that the POTUS and the various Cabinet secretaries can game Congress pretty heavily, as can any other source of information they might use (read: kingmakers and lobbyists).
Basically, the real problem is that while the US system scales better than most, it still doesn't scale well. Even the Federalists, who were the ones who pushed to replace the Articles of Confederation with a stronger Constitution, assumed that the role of the Federal government would mainly be to arbitrate between the several states and organize defense against revolts and invasions; they wrote it with the idea that the states were separate nations, just united for certain common purposes - much like the EU today is supposed to be. That went out the window before the ink on it was dry, but it did set up the whole "state's rights" thing that led not only to the Civil War, but to a dozen forms of confusing legislation even today,
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@ScholRLEA said in Random thought of the day:
and the legal precedents make blocking a nutbar from office is next to impossible.
The idea isn't trying to block the bad ones. The idea is we put something like 100 random people, and they have to vote on things. I expect this to work better than the current system I have here.
One extra feature of this system is that without the same people geting re-elected, any formed corruption network will die with each interaction, and they would need to start over.
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@groo said in Random thought of the day:
The idea is we put something like 100 random people, and they have to vote on things.
I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.
– William F Buckley, Jr
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Random thought: In the UK, the weather at this time of year could be described as autumnal. What do you say in countries where the season's called fall?
I really hope it's fallic
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@Jaloopa said in Random thought of the day:
I really hope it's fallic
we call it Phallic. because that's spellaring it write
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@Jaloopa said in Random thought of the day:
Random thought: In the UK, the weather at this time of year could be described as autumnal. What do you say in countries where the season's called fall?
I really hope it's fallic
Hot.
Actually, we call it Fire Season. BURNBABYBURN!!!
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@boomzilla said in Random thought of the day:
@groo said in Random thought of the day:
The idea is we put something like 100 random people, and they have to vote on things.
I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.
– William F Buckley, JrI bet Henry Aaaaaaab would agree with him.
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@Jaloopa said in Random thought of the day:
Random thought: In the UK, the weather at this time of year could be described as autumnal. What do you say in countries where the season's called fall?
I really hope it's fallic
UK has fall weather already? Over in NL we have 20°C and sunny. We call that 'nazomer' (after-summer).
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@PleegWat Our summer here in the Midwest unusually ended halfway through August. (Didn't stop all the "OMG HOTTEST AUGUST EVER WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" climate alarmists though, who must not have ever stepped outside to notice that no, it really wasn't hot...)
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@dcon said in Random thought of the day:
Crews are battling a fast-moving brush fire on top of Loma Prieta
Ah, so that's why it looked so smokey yesterday evening. I tried turning on the news, but all that was on was an idiot and a crook insulting each other — nothing useful.
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0 3 5 2 1 6 8 9 7 4
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@Jaloopa said in Random thought of the day:
Random thought: In the UK, the weather at this time of year could be described as autumnal. What do you say in countries where the season's called fall?
I really hope it's fallicWe call it both Fall and Autumn. So I've heard either autumnal or fall-ish or just fall to describe that sort of weather.
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If I bring my desk outside, can I claim that I workout ?
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@PleegWat said in Random thought of the day:
UK has fall weather already?
Depends where you are. And what you call autumnal weather. The weather here's been mostly similar since sometime in July, with minor variations, and the average daily temperature's dropping now (an effect much more pronounced as you go north west). It's more the plants that are getting into the fall colours, and there's a lot of variation with that.
Which isn't too surprising for nearly-October. ;)
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@mott555 said in Random thought of the day:
@PleegWat Our summer here in the Midwest unusually ended halfway through August. (Didn't stop all the "OMG HOTTEST AUGUST EVER WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" climate alarmists though, who must not have ever stepped outside to notice that no, it really wasn't hot...)
Not sure where you are, but I had to run the AC yesterday. Dunno about today yet, but it's still hot.
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@masonwheeler said in Random thought of the day:
@mott555 said in Random thought of the day:
@PleegWat Our summer here in the Midwest unusually ended halfway through August. (Didn't stop all the "OMG HOTTEST AUGUST EVER WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" climate alarmists though, who must not have ever stepped outside to notice that no, it really wasn't hot...)
Not sure where you are, but I had to run the AC yesterday. Dunno about today yet, but it's still hot.
I haven't had my AC on but a day or two since mid-August. Usually it's like 2384239428082582 degrees, instead it settled down in the mid-80's. Now we're getting into the 50's already.
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@chozang said in 📷 Photos thread:
@anotherusername You always hear of the question of if you could go back in time, whether you should murder Adolf Hitler. It has occurred to me that you could have the same effect (pre-empting the Nazis) simply by bribing the admissions officer who rejected dear old Adolf from art school. This would hopefully change the course of his life into something more benign.
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I wonder if Katrina and The Waves, of "Walking on Sunshine" fame, are popular in New Orleans.
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There's a lot of "Teenagers react to X" videos.
I'd like to see a "World leaders react to US 2016 election results" video.
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I just thought, if we actually ditched native code and switched entirely to JIT-compiled languages, suddenly we wouldn't have to stick to just 2 or 3 processor architectures. You could make your own processor with a brand new instruction set, then just make a few custom compilers for it, and everything runs fine!
I wonder if this would actually make it viable for new companies to enter the processor market? Probably not.
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@anonymous234 said in Random thought of the day:
I just thought, if we actually ditched native code and switched entirely to JIT-compiled languages, suddenly we wouldn't have to stick to just 2 or 3 processor architectures.
It's been tried. The next step after that is “what if we did the JIT compilation ahead of time?”
You could make your own processor with a brand new instruction set, then just make a few custom compilers for it, and everything runs fine!
You underestimate the complexity of doing a good CPU, especially once you aren't just handling integer math with only physical memory. There are some non-trivial steps beyond that to get a practical processor.
I wonder if this would actually make it viable for new companies to enter the processor market? Probably not.
“Probably not” indeed.
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@dkf said in Random thought of the day:
You underestimate the complexity of doing a good CPU
And of doing a good JIT compiler (which requires an entirely different skill-set).
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Status: Huh. Where did @loopback0 go?
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Random thought of the day:
Status: Huh. Where did @loopback0 go?
As always, loopback0 went home.
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No no, that's for file systems.
loopback0 went localhost.
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@dkf said in Random thought of the day:
what if we did the JIT compilation ahead of time?
I'd like a compiler that can't make up its mind and just compiles the code through a chain of various bytecode languages until it bloats big enough to run out of memory in the compiler.
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@Adynathos said in Random thought of the day:
@ben_lubar said in Random thought of the day:
run out of memory in the compiler.
Hey @PythonBot!
(1<<19**8,)*4**7
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@Adynathos said in Random thought of the day:
@ben_lubar said in Random thought of the day:
run out of memory in the compiler.
@Mason-Wheeler sighting!
@masonwheeler @Mason_Wheeler @Mason-Wheeler ... wait a second, which one is the real one?!?
Edit: apparently @masonwheeler.
Also, this was his entry (for the curious if the question ever disappears):
👽👻😱
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Thought of the day: with a sufficiently accurate accelerometer, you can probably find out your location on the planet. Or at least narrow it down to a few locations.
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@anonymous234 With just an accelerometer, you only get magnitude, not direction, so I think you can at most limit your location to a countable set of lines (of finite length) and not to a countable set of points.
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Thought of my day: what kind of testing is it if there are no records from running the test?
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Random thought of the day:
Thought of my day: what kind of testing is it if there are no records from running the test?
Go doesn't show logs for tests that passed by default. It reduces noise that way.
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If we had anti-caffeine, you could just take it all the time except when you want to do work and the end effect would be the same.
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@anonymous234 said in Random thought of the day:
If we had anti-caffeine, you could just take it all the time except when you want to do work and the end effect would be the same.
Don't we call that [Insert Alcoholic Beverage Of Choice Here]?
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@anonymous234 said in Random thought of the day:
If we had anti-caffeine, you could just take it all the time except when you want to do work and the end effect would be the same.
I always think that if cocaine gets your brain used to it and you feel the reverse effect when you're addicted and without it, why isn't there an reverse cocaine that makes you feel like crap immediately, but happier after that.
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@fbmac said in Random thought of the day:
makes you feel like crap immediately, but happier after that.
That sounds like what happens after breaking up from a bad relationship