Thanks you got my meaning and made it clear than I could myself.

The best answer that I have heard is that the existential nihilism that is covered by the book is an important aspect of Jewish / Christian traditions and that all wise people must confront it and think about it. The idea is so central that it even suggests the idea that God himself wrestles with this question and more specifically in the Christian Tradition this is what the Christ wrestled with on the cross when he cried out "Why have you forsaken me?" The saints, holy people, and mad men through out history have all struggled with this and were all changed by the questions asked by this book.

Here is the a good summary of the work in a PDF of a PPT.

http://www.saifmohammad.com/WebDocs/LaTeCH-emotions-in-books.pdf

Ted

You say: I have a dog
I ask: What color is your dog?
You say: That would depend, as a dog can have many colours.

At this point would think you are not trying to communicate or you are a computer.

I'm not saying this makes sense to -me- I was saying this is what you have to overcome. People created the imperial system after things they could visualize. Over time the system became a part of the culture. At that point its almost impossible to change, in order to hack culture, you have to overload and redefine the symbols and the rituals of that culture. This has been the chief problem with the Metric system, its hard for the common man to know if 1 Kg of a substance for $10 is a better deal that 1 Lbs of the same substance for $10.

Now in order for the metric system to catch on we are going to need to come up with good ways to get people to think in meter, liter, or gram units.

In the United States the Liter is the soda bottle. This is good. The gram... drug use is popular enough among certain groups and but in the states where the legalization process is underway most of the substances is not sold by the gram. As for the meter, we are already making an impact on the health nuts with the 5K/10K runs, but there needs to be something people can get their minds around. 5,000 or 10,000 doesn't work.

The funny thing about the United States is that HR 596 was passed by the 39th congress in 1866 which authorized its use.

http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/laws/metric-act-bill.html

Opps

1 mile = 8 furlongs

The reason that the old system still holds is that it makes more sense to the people who are not scientists.

100 degrees F = HOT!
0 degrees F = COLD!
1 inch = thumb
1 foot = foot
1 yard = 1 persons stride
1 Rod = 1 oxe in length
1 furlong = distance a oxe could plow without resting
1 acre = amount of land an oxe can plow in one day
1 mile = 8
1 cup = 1 glass of liquid
1 pint = beer
1 quart = 2 beers
1 gallon = drunk
1 lbs = 1 Rock
1 grain = 1 grain of sand

I could go on, but basically the reason that its hard to do away with the Imperial systems.

Plus the Metric system was a part of revolutionary France, and some of it has still to catch on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_time

I swear by my Pilot Vanishing Point Pens. I have a set of 3 of them.

http://www.levenger.com/PAGETEMPLATES/PRODUCT/Product.asp?Params=category=8-1073%7Clevel=2-3%7Cpageid=1761

+1 for me on this.

I loved my Atari ST.

Part of the skill of piracy is the ability to find a pirate copy of said game. My guess is that finding those apps is also something that most people don't have.

My guess is that piracy is orders of magnitude lower on the iOS because iOS is targeted at the stereotypical American mom who has no piracy skills, while Android is targeted at the stereotypical Slashdot user who probably has several orders of magnitude of pirating skills more than the stereotypical American mom.

I think a classic book like the Hobbit should be available in classic 2D.

Then again, I can't see most 3D theater experiences.

Are you using their equipment, their network, their bandwidth, their physical space?

Even if the computer is yours, its still their network, bandwidth, and physical space. This means they are bending over backwards to even let you go to personal websites like your bank.

Well, I definitely failed that test, I guess I'm a bot. What do you do now that you wake up and know that you are an AI?