I think you're right: jealously. Musk has runs on the board - multiple runs in multiple arenas. He should be every geek's action hero, but instead people are calling him a con-man, a fake, a wannabe. It's absurd in light of the observable facts, and the only explanation that fits is that a collection of true wannabe's are sitting at home chucking sour grapes.

Knuth for how things work, Mythical man month for how things don't work. Everything else is left as an exercise for the reader.

Yes, it's Scratch-like in construction -- but it excludes concepts like loops and branching. This tutorial is really not much more than configuring a couple of parameters in a pre-built flappy-bird game.

I'm a big fan of Scratch, of code.org, and of teaching kids how to code. But sad to say this offering misses the point entirely.

Temperature doesn't have the absurd issue of units that the other measurements have. If Faremheit included features like "12 degrees to a larksvomit, 3 larksvomits to a thrumblehorn", so a 75 degree day would actually be expressed as "3 thromblehorns and a larksvomit", then it would have the same issue.

The problem isn't the magnitude of these things, the problem is the absurd units and multiples involved.

So why use a decimal system for currency? Indeed, until the year 2001 US stock market operated in fractions: two and a half dollars, twelve and 17/32, etc. By your reasoning, fractions are such a wonderful notion that they should never have changed.

Yes, excellent point. I propose that we immediately abandon base 10 and start using base pi.

It's that when the advert says "Jaws 12, coming to a theatre near you not far from the longest day of the year", I have no idea when to don my Jaws 11 T-shirt and head down to the multiplex.

Anyway, happy Generic Solstice to you !

I'm not sure what you're saying. I think you're saying christmas is a shortest day celebration, and that therefore in the southern hemisphere christmas should be observed in June. I think you're saying the southern hemisphere is doing the right thing on the wrong date.

If you never said 'christmas == cold' (two equal signs, note), you certainly did say 'christmas == shortest day', and by virtue of physics 'shortest day == cold'.

Seasons are local effects, but many inwardly-focussed societies don't grasp that. Whenever I see an ad that says "coming this summer", my immediate reaction is "when the fuck is that?". I'm not being obtuse for the sake of it, I'm just being tripped up by someone using a metric that is not appropriate for indicating time. I have to consider a) where I am, b) where the ad writer was, c) whether the ad writer has a global view (usually not), d) convert.

What do you in the north do to celebrate the shortest day of the year in the southern hemisphere? I'm guessing not much (and rightly so) !

Well, I've looked out the window, and it's none of those things. The sun is shining, it's hot, the grass is green and I think I might go for a swim. Oh, and by the way, it's also tomorrow.

You hemispherist, you.

That Kim Jong Un is no fool. When executing relatives, always do it just *before* xmas, not *after*. That way you save on buying a present.

Yep, only domestic, and moreover only when your entire journey involves major domestic airports. If you're flying from one capital to another and then onward to somewhere interesting, the Q-Tag she no work. Great for business travellers; not so good for people travelling with fishing rods or BCDs :(

Doubtless the reach will spread in time, but in the years I've had them, I've been asked to take them off more often than I've been able to leave them on.

Well, it's a rigid pressure vessel and air weighs 1.2kg per cubic metre, so why not lighten the boat simply by removing the air.

True, that wouldn't account for 100T, but after you remove the bodies you could also remove the air (vacuum) conditioning equipment, galley, fresh water, etc, etc.

From TFA: "close in" and "slow moving". So as long as the North Koreans can arrange to have their rockets hover over US ships on clear days, yeah, nothing to worry about at all.

I've been on this ship several times, albeit not recently. Steel below the water line.

It has to do with use of the word "World", and the assumption that it always involves the actual world rather than an expansive term applied to a parochial event.