Story Friday April 28, 2017

[hkmaly 490]

13 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Why do you think Romans didn't do much math? Indo-Arabic decimal digits are MUCH better for computing.

For one thing, a Roman legionary killed Archimedes before he was really finished inventing calculus, and we had to wait until Newton and Leibnitz re-invented it nineteen centuries later.

Also, Romans lacked zero, but so did Greece. It took few centuries before that idea appeared, possibly because people with zero money weren't taken seriously back then.

16 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

The Romans went in for practical math, especially subtraction. They subtracted loot from all their neighbors, subtracted freedom from millions of slaves, and subtracted democracy from everyone, including, eventually, themselves.

It is possible that if their math had better theoretical foundations, they wouldn't do the mistake of subtracting democracy from themselves.

17 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

"Decimation" comes from Latin. It means "Kill every tenth person."

It's one of few math terms Romans understood better than modern people. Currently, when military unit is decimated, much more are killed.

[Tom Sewell 268]

8 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

It's one of few math terms Romans understood better than modern people. Currently, when military unit is decimated, much more are killed.

Perhaps the term "centimation" will come into use, particularly applied to a certain 1% who seem to think they can keep on subtracting from the other 99% without fear that the 99% will do some subtracting of their own. Anyone want to chip in for a guillotine? This is a device that divides and subtracts all at once.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

15 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Anyone want to chip in for a guillotine? This is a device that divides and subtracts all at once.

A brief history lesson regarding a use of the device that bears the name of Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep9fG_ji7T8

 

[Tom Sewell 268]

5 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

A brief history lesson regarding a use of the device that bears the name of Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep9fG_ji7T8

 

Still indisputably cutting edge tech!

[The Old Hack 2,448]

6 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Do you kids still get taught Roman numerals in grade school? I did. Of course, I'm so old there weren't any Arabic numerals. Back in those days to write numbers so they were harder to read you had to use hieroglyphics.

Bah! Luxury! When I were a wee 'un and we learned oor numbers, we 'ad ta use monoliths. One monolith mean one, two monoliths mean two and so forth. An' teacher 'ad us set up math problems wit' oor oon monoliths so we 'ad ta go look all over plains an' hills of Denmark for 'em. An' when we run out, we 'ad ta swim ta Norway for more an' swim back ta Denmark wit' em. An' we 'ad ta fight dem droods from England for 'em because dey use dem ta build stonehenges. An' dem droods were so tough, ye 'ad ta bash 'em repeatedly wit' monolith ta make 'em lay still, an' den put ten monolith on 'em ta make sure dey didn't get up again. An' den swim really fast back ta Denmark wit' oor oon monolith so dey wouldn't chase us ta take 'em back. An' den we get back ta Denmark an' had ta use oor monolith ta make Fibonacci sequences an' we 'ad ta do it in space no bigger nor a rounders field. An' when we were done, teacher would beat us ta death wit' monoliths if we make even one mistake. AND WE WERE GLAD TA DO IT!

An' when ye tell young people nowadays, they'll never believe ye.

[Tom Sewell 268]

6 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Bah! Luxury! When I were a wee 'un...

Which Yorkshirman are you supposed to be?

[The Old Hack 2,448]

1 minute ago, Tom Sewell said:

Which Yorkshirman are you supposed to be?

The old Hack, of course.

[hkmaly 490]

6 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

A brief history lesson regarding a use of the device that bears the name of Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep9fG_ji7T8

Not available.

1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

Bah! Luxury! When I were a wee 'un and we learned oor numbers, we 'ad ta use monoliths. One monolith mean one, two monoliths mean two and so forth. An' teacher 'ad us set up math problems wit' oor oon monoliths so we 'ad ta go look all over plains an' hills of Denmark for 'em. An' when we run out, we 'ad ta swim ta Norway for more an' swim back ta Denmark wit' em. An' we 'ad ta fight dem droods from England for 'em because dey use dem ta build stonehenges. An' dem droods were so tough, ye 'ad ta bash 'em repeatedly wit' monolith ta make 'em lay still, an' den put ten monolith on 'em ta make sure dey didn't get up again. An' den swim really fast back ta Denmark wit' oor oon monolith so dey wouldn't chase us ta take 'em back. An' den we get back ta Denmark an' had ta use oor monolith ta make Fibonacci sequences an' we 'ad ta do it in space no bigger nor a rounders field. An' when we were done, teacher would beat us ta death wit' monoliths if we make even one mistake. AND WE WERE GLAD TA DO IT!

An' when ye tell young people nowadays, they'll never believe ye.

Possibly because Fibonacci was born in 1175, but hey, you didn't said your teachers called them Fibonacci sequences, did you?

6 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Perhaps the term "centimation" will come into use, particularly applied to a certain 1% who seem to think they can keep on subtracting from the other 99% without fear that the 99% will do some subtracting of their own. Anyone want to chip in for a guillotine? This is a device that divides and subtracts all at once.

I would just throw them out of a window. With the height of modern buildings, it would be much more effective than it used to be. Also, it's cheaper than guillotine. Especially if you don't plan to pay for that broken window.

 

[Tom Sewell 268]

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Not available.

I would just throw them out of a window. With the height of modern buildings, it would be much more effective than it used to be. Also, it's cheaper than guillotine. Especially if you don't plan to pay for that broken window.

A guillotine is much more energy efficient and can be quickly made with extremely available and inexpensive materials. Consider how much energy one expends using the elevators in any suitable tall building. Cleanup is much easier. There no risk of innocent bystanders or cheering audience members being injured or killed by a falling one-percenter. And most importantly, the gullotine's reialiability has yet to be bettered. As the famous Defenestration of Prague proved four centuries ago, a fall from a window can be survived if the defenestrees land on large piles of shit. It is my observation that there are many, many large piles of shit, most with legs. 

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

On 4/29/2017 at 0:27 AM, Tom Sewell said:

@Mlooney, would you put any Q$ on that happening?

 

On 4/29/2017 at 2:15 AM, mlooney said:

Nooooope

ISWYDT  ;-)

On 4/29/2017 at 7:30 AM, Scotty said:

That was one of Tensaided's D&D sessions.

I thought RenFaire.  Bristol Renaissance Faire is just across the Wisconsin border, an easy day trip from anywhere in Chicagoland.

[hkmaly 490]

14 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

A guillotine is much more energy efficient and can be quickly made with extremely available and inexpensive materials. Consider how much energy one expends using the elevators in any suitable tall building.

That's true, but again, I would note that you don't need to count resources the one-percenters pays. Obviously, the idea is to only defenestrate the one-percenters which already ARE in such buildings, although it's true that revolutionaries would need to get there too.

14 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Cleanup is much easier. There no risk of innocent bystanders or cheering audience members being injured or killed by a falling one-percenter.

True. The risk for cheering audience of innocent bystanders (who isn't cheering, isn't innocent and will go next) is much smaller in case of guillotine.

14 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

And most importantly, the gullotine's reialiability has yet to be bettered. As the famous Defenestration of Prague proved four centuries ago, a fall from a window can be survived if the defenestrees land on large piles of shit. It is my observation that there are many, many large piles of shit, most with legs. 

Hence the advantage of high buildings. No amount of shit is going to save one-percenter falling from 100th floor.

 

[The Old Hack 2,448]

7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Hence the advantage of high buildings. No amount of shit is going to save one-percenter falling from 100th floor.

After a certain height is reached, any further elevation becomes moot. And people have -- rarely -- survived falls from incredible heights. An example was a hapless pilot about a mile above France during WW1. This was 1917, so due to the genius of High Command pilots were not allowed to bring parachutes as this would 'merely encourage them to abandon their expensive planes'. This particular plane was on fire so the pilot had a choice between jumping and burning to death. He elected to jump. After falling a mile he went through the straw thatched roof of a sleepy little nunnery and landed in a bed. Fifteen minutes later he walked out of the place under his own power.

There have been other cases, many if not most of them involving extended hospitalisation. But if I personally had a choice, a huge pile of shit would not be lowest on my list of where to land after a fall like that. It has enough give to it that I might actually survive. I'd prefer the straw thatched roof and the bed, though.

(Incidentally, if that had been me in the scenario above, I would probably have become a believer after that. All due respect to science, and I would not call it false, but I defy science to come up with a logical explanation that would overcome the emotional impact of that. Not to mention the physical one.)

[hkmaly 490]

26 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Hence the advantage of high buildings. No amount of shit is going to save one-percenter falling from 100th floor.

After a certain height is reached, any further elevation becomes moot. And people have -- rarely -- survived falls from incredible heights. An example was a hapless pilot about a mile above France during WW1. This was 1917, so due to the genius of High Command pilots were not allowed to bring parachutes as this would 'merely encourage them to abandon their expensive planes'. This particular plane was on fire so the pilot had a choice between jumping and burning to death. He elected to jump. After falling a mile he went through the straw thatched roof of a sleepy little nunnery and landed in a bed. Fifteen minutes later he walked out of the place under his own power.

Damn. Ok, that solves it, guillotine it is.

27 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Incidentally, if that had been me in the scenario above, I would probably have become a believer after that. All due respect to science, and I would not call it false, but I defy science to come up with a logical explanation that would overcome the emotional impact of that. Not to mention the physical one.

The scientific explanation is obvious ; the straw thatched roof had exactly the correct "density" to not kill him and still slow his fall. I suppose the only problem with constructing such roof deliberately would be shortage of volunteers for testing.

But I agree this wouldn't overcome the emotional impact of this, especially considering the luck he had hitting it. Sure, with amount of pilots falling from sky during WW1, the probability that at least one of them hits such roof wouldn't be THAT small, so it's likely survivorship bias, but that doesn't overcome the emotional impact either.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

The scientific explanation is obvious ; the straw thatched roof had exactly the correct "density" to not kill him and still slow his fall. I suppose the only problem with constructing such roof deliberately would be shortage of volunteers for testing.

While crash test dummies are less finicky about such things, real humans tend to be curiously reluctant to accept such matters on faith. As one example, back in the black and white Hollywood days they were making a Robin Hood movie. During the movie Errol Flynn was supposed to be fired from a catapult inside a castle and land in a haystack. So they started the shot, had Flynn climb into the catapult, then paused, told him to climb out again and told a stuntman to climb in. However, the stuntman asked if they had tested it first and was told, "No worries, it will work." But he insisted that they test it with a sack that weighed about the same as he did. The director got mad and threatened to fire him -- from the job, that is -- and the stuntman replied he would rather be fired from the job than from an untested catapult. With ill grace, the director gave in and ordered a properly weighted sack procured and the catapult tested, telling the stuntman that after this, he would be in trouble.

When they did the test shot, the catapult overshot the haystack by almost a hundred yards. The sack impacted on the tree line and burst. After that they entirely reworked the catapult and the director meekly agreed to three successful test shots before the stuntman was fired. This time from the catapult, not the job. And yes, he did land in the haystack when they finally made the shot.

ETA: While the guillotine is much more reliable in operation, it is nonetheless not a perfect method as Scarlet Pimpernelage may cause a certain amount of loss of executables before it has a chance to perform its job.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

4 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Scarlet Pimpernelage may cause a certain amount of loss of executables

The solution to that problem is obvious.

You are too picky about what constitutes an executable.  Just follow the example of the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror.  Broaden your definition of "executable" and you won't run out of Guillotine fodder.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

2 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

The solution to that problem is obvious.

You are too picky about what constitutes an executable.  Just follow the example of the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror.  Broaden your definition of "executable" and you won't run out of Guillotine fodder.

Oh, it is not a question of running out of fodder. In fact, the principal problem with the Guillotine is that given just a handful of so, they can often operate much faster than you can keep supplies coming. But while the proportionate loss of fodder may get smaller, it will not go to zero and the absolute amount of losses will not be reduced at all. In fact, it may even drastically increase as discontent with the feeding process may grow and cause the general populace (the primary source of mass Guillotinage) to rise in protest and make strongly worded objections.

In fact, such objections led to the end of the Terreur in France, with one of the last victims of it being Robespierre himself.

[ijuin 572]

On 4/29/2017 at 9:44 PM, Tom Sewell said:

And I'm not going back to Vegas until Vegas puts the Raiders back where they found them. I was born in Oakland.

Neat. My mother was born and raised in Oakland too.