[off topic] GUPT III

[Shmi]

I say potayto and tom-ah-to (wasn't this in a song?) nuc-lee-ar, shed-ual and for good measure pronounce
lieutenant leftenant not lootenant.

Although a speaker of good "Queen's English" I can't claim that mine is superior to any other dialect in fact I am sure
I read that American vocabulary and pronunciation is often closer to the original 16th century English (ie the one that
the pesky colonists spoke before they rebelled )

[freespace2dotcom]

I have just one thing to say.

[Shmi]

What is a pomato? I asked and got

in the early 1980s. Scientists had succeeded in crossing potato with tomato - and they called it pomato -
hoping that it would increase the shelf life of tomatoes. The skin of the tomato would become thicker and that would
mean that housewives would not have to throw over-ripe tomatoes every other day.

[Strogoff]

Well.. Let's try a Offtopic GUPT III Post... (a french one )

Que pensez vous du nouveau réacteur nucléaire français, l'European Pressurised Reactor ?
La décision de le mettre en service en France vient d'être prise par le gouvernement et le parlement.
La France va sans doute en construire un exemplaire.

(it's just a French Offtopic Post)

[McBrain]

Doc, translation please.

[Shmi]

Well we English should be pleased.  For some reason we are scared of building more of our own nuclear reactors,  
pressurised or not, but what we can do is buy our electricity from France!

[DocHoliday]

And you Freebie-san, can call ME DocHoliday-sama!

HEHEHE YES, I forgot lieutenant ) That is a nice difference too. Where does that word originally come from? My
guess would be french, roughly meaning "The one who is close" although I am not sure what tenant means in French
really... I guess American english pronounciation is closer to its origin actually, but I do understand British would
prefer to prounouce it differently, as historically France and Britain ofter... had "differences" of opinion I guess the
british logic in the work would be "the one who is my LEFT hand" at least that's what it sound like

Okay, here goes my rough translation: correct me if I'm wrong.

Que pensez vous du nouveau réacteur nucléaire français, l'European Pressurised Reactor ?

What do you think of the new French nuclear reactor, the <you understoond that!>?

La décision de le mettre en service en France vient d'être prise par le gouvernement et le parlement.

The decision to put it in operation is to be made (soon?) by the government and the parliament.

La France va sans doute en construire un exemplaire.

This one I am not cure of: France will without doubt construct one ???

Well I didn't know about the reactor until now. How does it differ from the current ones? I assume it is better, but you
are the expert around here. I think you should go ahead and be the first But I hope it won't result in some
kind of 2nd Chernobil... that would really be bad news and bad timing....

I think all this discussion should be taken into the multilingual thread though But it's all offtopic anyway.

Cheers,

[Shmi]

BTW Strogoff I like your sigi!

[Strogoff]

Hi Shmi, i like your sigi too. it's a great idea to put a picture of you in it.
Your smile is bigger than your sigi !!

[Shmi]

Thanks Strogoff *blush*



Post Edited ( 07-16-04 22:40 )

[Shmi]

I have a confession to make, I don't deserve to be a Confirmed Pilot - in Orbiter I am a Useless Pilot it
is much more difficult to fly my FAB1 (DGIII) when I don't have Krytom around to help!

Oh well, I suppose the only way to learn is to keep on trying at least my dgIII seems to miraculously recover
after every mishap, with not a blemish on its pink exterior!

But I warn you, if you come to dock to a spacestation and see a pink DGIII already docked, it would be safest to dock
as far away from it as possible!

[freespace2dotcom]

Freespace's journal, (AKA rant) July 14 2004.
-------------------------------------

Ah, so I survived my first day of the summer classes. This class was physics, and after reading the the list of material
to be covered this term in the class, I was surprised that most of it was stuff that I had learned a fair bit about.

However......

My teacher reached out into the closet and pulled out the unthinkable!

Metric measuring sticks!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

He then began the lecture, and showing how all the metric units fit all so nice together, I got a little sick to my
stomach. metric IS well thought out, I have no doubts about that now. It's even better thought out than I had
originally believed humanly possible. It just means I have hard times ahead in convincing my class that the traditional
system does still work despite what a metric lover would like to tell them... In my favor, the teacher was just going
to talk about how unfriendly the number of feet in a mile was to remember, when I was quick to blurt it out before he
had a chance to finish. I could literally hear the gasps of my classmates sitting behind me. It was clear I was the only
student in the room who had bothered to memorize it. That made my day. (5280 feet in a mile, and 1760 yards.
May I remember those numbers forever more.)

Then the teacher went back in that closet and made me mad all over again.

He pulled out 1kg weights! how dare he!

I was most impressed to learn how metric works, but it gave me pains. I'm stubborn, and I don't conform. Yet I
wanna pass my class.. and get that diploma I'm working on... Life is NOT fair!!!! I'm quite tempted to go to
wherever the next metric day is held and bring my yardstick just to spite them!

To be fair, the teacher said that he was teaching us metric because the whole world pretty much uses it now, (I grant
him that...) and he gave examples in both metric and traditional units equally. In fact, I even had known that there
are 2.2 pounds in a Kg, which surprised my teacher.  At least my attempts to deal with the metric in orbiter have met
some success because I was probably the most familiar with both systems in that class besides the teacher.. Which is
sad because I don't really know metric all that well. There is a few people from outside the US that deal with metric
easily because they were raised on it, and they were struggling with the traditional units, so I felt as evenly jipped as
they did. I've learned pretty much everything I know of metric from orbiter. So I'm glad that I'm learning it, but that
just means that I have to learn how to use my system all the better. Hopefully we'll get more examples of those next
time class meets.

I don't wanna give reasons for my country to convert to metric. I like being unique.
I know almost all you guys use metric daily, but I view my measuring system just as important to me as my language.

I view metric as I would esperanto. I don't want to learn some newfangled language just because the whole world is
using it. No matter how pretty it looks. It's a matter of principles, and what is a person without principles? Esperanto
was intended to kinda be that in my opinion. a global language made up of pieces from every language.

[DocHoliday]

I'm sorry Freespace. That must have felt REALLY awful, especially after all the conversation on the subject, we've
already had here..

But hey, I guess you can be one of the few people to master BOTH systems and conversion between them. I mean,
you COULD actually make money charging people for homeworks that dealt with metric excercises,
therefore "keeping them in the traditional realm", and you yourself working on challenge hehehehe

But seriously, metric IS very practical and quite frankly I am surprised Americans didn't actually invent it themselves,
or rather be the first to use, practical people as you are. But hey, there are PLENTY more things you can be unique
in.. and not lose the practical aspects while being so... Being a conversion specialist is just one

Anyway, deal well with it Master the change, do not let the change master you.

[freespace2dotcom]

eh.. if you say so...

[DocHoliday]

I probably never told you this, but I actually took a few things from Americans, just because I figured them to be
more useful for me:
- about the Fahrenheits and weather you know. I consider them a nice "percentage" measure of temperature on
Earth. Although I rarely use them in practice.
- the other is your calendar system. Now in US a week starts with a Sunday (maybe UK too) at least the calanders
put it on the leftmost place. In Europe we start the weeks with the Monday. Now let me explain the benefit of putting
Sunday as the first day in the week.

It's a mental trick actually. We all know how Mondays are bad and how it's all hectic when the week starts. At least
the people who work will agree. Now Friday is the Lord's day in comparisson Saturday is a "free" day mentally
speaking, you can do all you want. Sunday again is sort of grim, because the next day is the cursed Monday again

Now, if you put Sunday as your "internal" first day of week, the picture changes somewhat. Now Monday is only the
SECOND day in the week. Sunday is the "bad" one. It was grim before, but now it's actually the first day, so the new
week already started and you might as well suck it in. The good thing about Sunday is, that even though your week
already started, you are still at home, taking things at your own pace.. Preparing for school, work, whatever.

Saturday is now the last day of week, but since Sat is such a cool day in any event, it has enough "credit" so that it
can easily take the damage of being the "grim last day of week" without spoiling it )) Firday is even more of a
holiday now. Thursday mentally becomes Friday now And it never hurts to feel good, especially at work, it affects
the whole atmosphere.. I won't say anything about your work productivity on Friday, but I am sure people work
better if they have fun.

So put Sun as your first day and you might notice a positive change in your life, Doc "the motivational speaker"
Holiday sez

There, my thoughts on "making use of other people's good ideas" even thought they may seem unpractical, awkward
or whatever

Cheers,

[freespace2dotcom]

I kinda look at my calandar somewhat like that too.

Of course, I'm assuming that by your post, you are inferring that having sunday as the first day of the week
is "unpractical, awkward or whatever"

But since you were so nice about it, I'll grant that having the reference point (0 degrees) of celsius at water's freezing
point is a nice thing.

But I still don't like it enough to want to use it.

[DocHoliday]

Of course, I'm assuming that by your post, you are inferring that having sunday as the first day of the week
is "unpractical, awkward or whatever"

Well, it's not my opinion, but most Europeans would probably agree. "Sunday was the day God took a day off, it was
the 7th day, so it has to be last in the week, right? Furthermore, why split up the weekend.. And why not make the
first day a working day, which is the only kind of day that counts..." --  that sort of arguments would be used, I
presume and they cover christians, hedonists and capitalists.. hehe and you've got yourself Europe all the rest in
Europe shouldn't have any special arguments against.

But since you were so nice about it, I'll grant that having the reference point (0 degrees) of celsius at water's
freezing point is a nice thing.

Ah, diplomatic concessions! The core of human progress

But I still don't like it enough to want to use it.

I don't use F either, but I can predict when and why I would

[freespace2dotcom]

As I with C.

But that would be strictly scientific stuff, and since I am not a registered member of the scientific community, I feel
quite happy with what I use.

[DanSteph]

DocHoliday wrote:
It's a mental trick actually. We all know how Mondays are bad and how it's all hectic when the week starts. At least
the people who work will agree.

I disagree

DocHoliday wrote:
So put Sun as your first day and you might notice a positive change in your life, Doc "the motivational
speaker"
Holiday sez

Another good mental trick is to take a good fresh beer

Dan

[freespace2dotcom]

Hehe. About measuring. I just got measured today. it's been the first time in ages since I've known how tall I am.

I am a whopping 6 feet, 5 & 1/4 inches.

Which to you metric guys means I'm 1.96215 meters tall

So be careful if you disagree with me. I'm quite likely able to tower over you and look menacing.

[DocHoliday]

Another good mental trick is to take a good fresh beer

There's a thought. a Friday beer is just the best

6'5???? I thought you said you were 5'10 or so??

*Doc shrinks and hides behind his Moderator Shield of Power* I'll be good, pwomise

[Shmi]

Wow that is tall!! 8o That must mean your  reach with a katana is formidable!:)
I hope you pick tall girls to ask out, it always used to annoy me when I was young that the very few guys who were
taller than me used to pick tiny doll-like girls to go out with.

[DocHoliday]

"Only losers clean up, the true Genius oversees the Chaos"?

NEAT

[McBrain]

Doc: Exact!!

[Shmi]

Yup McBrain

"Only losers clean up, the true Genius overlooks the chaos"?

But it sounds much more intellectual in german:)