French revolt against Prime Meridian-Sort Of 575
Well, this amused Rob and I so much that we just had to post it. Rather then continue to use the World-accepted Prime Meridian (Yeah, who needs standards?), the French Government has decided that the world' prime meridian runs through Paris. To celebrate, they're building groves of trees all the way down through France, which will be viewable from space. I should be clear: This is the Government, not a popular action by the people. And I think this is only 1/2 as stupid as US Crypto laws. I've been told that this is actually one of those many Millenium Celebration things, and not actually a revolt-thanks to those who write me.
Re:ok, here goes.. (Score:1)
Re:ok, here goes.. (Score:1)
Of course, basing the whole system of units of measure on the arbitrary fact that we have ten fingers and ten toes is about as lame as any other scheme.
Let's use Hexadecimal. Why adopt half-baked solutions based on obsolete notions like base ten?
Or, of course, we could base units of measure on human-based scales and ratios.
But to prevent the degeneration into a Metric system squabble:
It's all great. I'm glad we're on the brink of adopting the Metric system, or whatever. I'll still feed those cats I own about a cup a day of kibbles. They don't care if I call it a watermelon. Just that it's in the dish in the morning.
Re:Not quite the same thing..standards (Score:1)
But I prefer to use a 21/43" if one is handy.
Re:Did Microsoft buy France?? (Score:1)
>>the US government?
Ummm....because he too thinks Jerry Lewis is a comic genius?
Because he gets all pissy when you use a language other than his? (Although French has better exception handling than VBScript...)
Because he too is convinced of his own superiority even in the face of evidence to the contrary?
Because he wants a World Cup? (Allez Les Bleus!)
Because his company's products are only allowed to use the security features his company develops?
Because he likes pommes frites?
Re:Similar motivations in UTC versus GMT? (Score:1)
We, humans, measure time in days.
A day is divided in 24 hours of 60 seconds.
Noon, GMT is defined as the time the Sun is directly above the horizon.
What happens is that the duration of the day varies, and therefore the GMT second is of variable length -- not good for scientific measurement.
Thus, they arbitrarily defined the UTC second, to closely match the GMT one. But if we were not to add leap seconds, then noon would drift (slowly but it would) and it time as we know it wouldn't be the same -- therefore it's a Good Thing.
On the other hand, one could argue that it would't make much of a difference. It would take a LONG time for the difference to reach 1 hour, and we don't seem to bother much when we switch to daylight saving time.
Establishing an accurate measuring unit of time for scientific purposes that also serves as a unit of time for day-to-day purposes without forcing us to 'forget' all those assumptions that are inherent in the human culture about time is almost impossible.
Which is a shame really.
So long as we're on french jokes... (Score:4)
Because German soldiers like to march in the shade!
What are French military exercises like?
Stupid Ignorant Judgemental American Attitude (Score:4)
1) It is known as the "Meridien de Paris" or Paris' Meridian.
2) It is meant to be a celebration of the end of the millenium
3) It will consits of school kids holding hands for a few minutes so that there will be an uninterrupted line of people near the west-east center of France passing through Paris.
4) Trees are/will be planted along that lines every few 100's meters so that a line of tress will be visible from the air
Bashing the French might be fun and a national bobby, but you should at least get your facts straight! Yes, France does strange things and this is another example of the weird artistic taste (like the Louvre Pyramids) but at least they are trying to do things that are nice just because they can be done...
Re: I correct you (Score:1)
Re:Cela n'a rien à voir (Score:1)
Re:Idiot. (Score:1)
I think what he meant was learning english orthography, as opposed to other languages. Hey, far more frequently than on would like, an english word pops up whose spelling has nothing to do with the way it's pronounced.
In this regard, French is easier to learn. And Spanish has them both beat ;-).
---
Language Academies (Score:1)
Language planning is something many countries do. I'm not acquainted with the French Academy, but I do know about the Spanish Academy of Language, the counterpart for the Spanish language.
This kind of stuff is important to with international languages. Spanish, for example, is spoken in 20 countries, each with its own culture, national press, etc. It happens that sometimes people in one country spontaneously adopt some word from another language, say, English, but people in other countries do not, import a different word, or import the same word, but in a different form. For example, in Mexico people use the word troca (from the English "truck"); in Puerto Rico, people say troc. In some countries, there are even syntactical forms that don't exist in others!
The point is that there is a need for some organization to review the data on the language as its used in different places, and decide on general forms to be used by everyone when one needs to be sure to be understood everywhere. That is, there needs to be a general dictionary, which collects words that you can expect to be usable in all places, and a general grammar.
English speaking countries (well, at least Britain and the USA) also have this--- only that they are to be found in the form of the better known dictionaries (like the Oxford Dictionary) or grammar and composition guides.
---
Re:not just France... (Score:1)
---
Re:Touche? (Score:1)
Re:ok, here goes.. (Score:1)
French "Standards" (Score:1)
(Acutally, and acronym and a word, but who's counting?)
Re:Nothing wrong with paris time ... (Score:1)
Re:From Space?? Yeah Right.... (Score:1)
Re:The French are still pissed..... (Score:1)
Compound words (Score:1)
Re:Colonies don't count (Score:1)
Re:Wait... (Score:1)
Why not?
Re:Exactly the same thing (Score:1)
Re:Not quite the same thing..standards (Score:1)
Re:ok, here goes.. (Score:1)
Re:So long as we're on french jokes... (Score:1)
Re:So long as we're on french jokes... (Score:1)
Re:I reserve the right to laugh @absolutely anythi (Score:1)
Re:Accurate spatial reference systems (Score:1)
Re:Wrong month (Score:1)
I correct you. (Score:1)
Re:There is no Prime Meridian Standard (Score:1)
Uh, I have two different Garmin GPS units. The old one has 23 different "spheroids" (called 'datums'), and the new one (12xl) has close to 100, including one for Britain (Ord. Survey) and two for Europe.
...phil
Frenchies at it again? (Score:1)
Just because the english came up with it first the French must somehow either outdo the English, or ignore then steal their standards claiming it their own. I am all for nationalistic pride, I have no problem with the French or any nation celebrating their own achievements, but 're-mapping' the prime meridian simply b/c the english did it first and your nation resents them is absurd.
France = Mikrosoft (Score:1)
I'm sick and tired of the French and their proprietary systems! They're like a chain-smoking, closed-source Asylum.
one reason why a Paris Meridian shouldn't last... (Score:1)
Yes, civilian GPS is deliberately imprecise. (Score:1)
Military GPS users have access to a second, encrypted channel which allows them to circumvent SA and also gain accurage measurements of ionospheric delay error, since you can get a good guess at the absolute signal delay by measuring the difference between delays of signals at different frequencies.
Civilian GPS users can get around SA with a system called "differential GPS" (DGPS), in which a ground station at a precisely known position near to the roving receiver broadcasts the error term in the signal it receives, allowing the roving receiver to compensate. DGPS allows position measurement to within 2-3 metres.
For measuring small relative displacements, there's also RGPS which can measure down to the centimetre level.
None of this is secret or denied or anything, it's all part of the publically released GPS specs. I had to learn all this stuff when I used to work for a navigation company that handled deep-sea surveys.
--
Employ me! Unix,Linux,crypto/security,Perl,C/C++,distance work. Edinburgh UK.
Re:Standards (Score:2)
"Well I'll ask him, but I don't think he'll be very keen... 'e's already got one, you see."
"Already got one?"
"Yes, it's a-very nice."
The French know their role. (Score:1)
Typical. (Score:1)
In the meantime, I'd like to declare that the new international date line runs right through Raleigh, NC. Therefore, if I need an extra day to work on something, I can just say I was downtown. That's a good reason, right?
Can you say Aushwitz? (Score:1)
whatever, I don't care. What the Nazi's were doing justified that. The fact that we were in war justified it. When the gov't purposely targets civilians, that's wrong. When they bomb a city, my feeling is that it's too bad but that's why wars suck. I wish all these people whining about a couple dozen Serbs getting killed when we bomb would look at those mass graves and shut the fuck up.
Uhh no (Score:1)
Re:Driving on the right is the standard... (Score:1)
Jón
Colonies don't count (Score:1)
Why don't they move Paris? (Score:1)
Re:What Meridian? (Score:1)
not just France... (Score:1)
ok, here goes.. (Score:5)
If I remember my history correctly, there was a great debate as to where the prime meridian was supposed to be at first. It obviously came down to France and England, and it's rather obvious who 'won'. Now, I'm not looking to play the blame game but England and the United States are not ones to speak when it comes to avoiding world-accepted standards (inches vs. meters, driving left vs. driving right, etc). So please, before you insult the whole French population, think of your own country and how it stands out from the others in terms of standards. Also, one of the posts was saying that the French are arrogant, and although I'm not saying they aren't, you can't deny that there is no country more arrogant than the USA. And yes, for the last time, I think this is a dumb idea.
Let the flaming begin! (right KrON?)
Re:Idiot. (Score:1)
Re:Not quite the same thing..standards (Score:1)
Microsoft Plot Revealed (Score:1)
2. Microsoft will purchase the road, trees, and French national archive.
3. Bill Gates will be revealed as having invented the Meridian, before the French -or- British, and the (updated and re-released) French archives will "confirm" this.
4. The Microsoft Meridian will be announced, as running through Redmond. All versions of Windows will be updated to use the Microsoft Meridian.
5. The Grenwich Observatory will be purchased by Microsoft, to prevent competition, sorry, reduce incompatiabilities.
6. World Governments will shift to the Microsoft Meridian, as none of their computers will work with anything else.
Academie Française (Score:1)
(I won't try to translate - it would rather spoil the idea!)
"
A ma gauche, les termes anglais, utilisés par tout le monde. A ma droite, les termes de l'Academie Francaise ou du Journal Officiel correspondant.
Firewall - Ecluse
Shareware - Partagiciel
Plugin - Plugiciel
Freeware - Graticiel
Hacker - Finaud
Browser - Brouteur, butineur
E-mail - Mel
CD-ROM - cederom
Chat - Babillard
Chat mode - Babillardage
Swap - Permutation
Polling - Scrutation
Debugger - Epépineur
Encapsulation - Emmaillotage
Flame (to) - Attaquer au lance-flammes
HTML - Langage Hyper Descriptatif a Ferrets
patch (to) - Rustiner
Smiley - Souriard, Mimique, Emoticon, Rictus, Facies, Binette, Souriant
Thread - Enfilade
Virus - Fragment infectieux de code necessitant un programme hote
WWW - Hypertoile
WYSIWYG - VISualisation Imitant Virtuellement une Impression Graphique
Par exemple :
J'ai lancé le brouteur de Rose qui a refusé de demarrer. Je pense qu'il est infecté par une Fragment infectieux de code nécessitant un programme hôte. Avec l'épépineur je n'ai rien vu. Il faut dire qu'avec l'emmaillotage de axmth on ne peut pas savoir si le programme a été rustiné ou pas. J'ai essayé d'envoyer un mel au support mais il y a un probleme d'ecluse. L'Hypertoile est inaccessible. J'en ai marre de ces graticiels, ils ne sont meme pas multi-enfilade ! Je vais demander à un de mes finaud de me trouver un meilleur partagiciel
La France avance...
"
Re:C'est ma faute? - desolé (Score:1)
Pire que ça - j'ai traduit quelques termes en français (de anglais) et j'ai complètement confondu mes collegues. Ex l'interface 'E1' pour ISDN (je n'ai jamais entendu RNIS) est prononcé "eee one" et pas "uuu un"
David K-M (dckm88@zepler.org)
Waterloo (Score:1)
If the French want to believe Napoleon won at Waterloo, we 'Merkins are in no position to complain. We picked Napoleon's side in that war and it's not as if our high school textbooks tell us that we lost.*
*unless they've changed a lot in the last 30 years.
The Hub, The Hub (Score:1)
Not quite the same thing (Score:1)
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
Snitty Comment :) (Score:4)
"Mankind in general occupies the position between the angels and the French." -Mark Twain
But then, we 'mericans can't say much since we can't comprehend the metric system.
--
Cute. (Score:1)
Re:Cute. (Score:1)
Most French are OK; officials are silly (Score:1)
Of course, that didn't stop French officials, then or now, from making silly statements. C'est la vie.
Re:The reason the Greenwich Meridian is Prime (Score:1)
The origins of verious Imperial standards (Score:2)
Interesting, since the French are also credited with the metric system (and adopted it during the French Revolution not so much for its scientific value as for its ability to piss off the aristocracy by removing the lengths of their various body parts from the standard of measure; this is why they also completely rewrote the calendar).
Regardless, it appears Bill Gates has infiltrated the French government, since they're trying to Embrace and Extend the standard for cartography and time zone measurement.
Re:Paris and the metre (Score:2)
Re:Driving on the right is the standard... (Score:1)
The government offered special deals for a couple of years previously to tempt people to buy right hand drive cars, and then when the majority of cars were righthand drive they basically made a colossal changeover overnight from one side to the other
Granted this was early in the century when im sure the amount of cars on the road was pitiful in comparison to the modern amount, and the cars would hardly have been zooming around at any great speed. But still a very impressive achievement, I wish we could pull off a trick like this at the current late stage.
Make our cars a bit cheaper i suppose, and we could do away with the lines of messages at the airports saying to drive on the left, and the occasional crushed continental car that shows up everynow and then when someone forgets.
I wouldn't mind finding out if my half overheard and forgotten version of the swedish events were correct. Anyone know ?
C.
just the facts (Score:1)
ISO/IEC 6709:1983 Standard representation of latitude, longitude and altitude for geographic point locations Characteristics/description Latitude is measured positively north of the equator and negatively south. Longitude is measured postively east of Greenwich and negatively west. The Prime meridian is indicated using a plus sign while the 180th meridian is preceded by a minus. Both longitude and latitude may be expressed in degrees and decimal degress, degrees, minutes and decimal minutes or degrees, minutes, seconds and decimal seconds. Number less than 10 must have a leading 0.
Optionally an altitude can be specified as a number of metres and decimal fractions thereof above or below the geodetic reference datum level.
Locations are entered by entering two or three numbers identifying the latitude, longitude and, optionally, altitude, each number preceded by either a plus or minus sign and with no spaces separting the numbers. The end of the locator is identified by a solidus (slash) giving a completed entry of the form +24.45-00.11+800.35/.
Usage (Market segment and penetration) Standard scientific notation for global positioning.
Further details available from: ISO or local national standards bodies
Assignment of ISO 6709 to TC211 (NB. By March 1998 this decision appears to have be rescinded!) OII Multimedia and Hypermedia Standards Activity Report, May 1997
http://www.echo.lu/search97cgi/s97_cgi?Action=Vie
other facts
ITRF92 (International Terrestrial Reference Frame ) WGS84
International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), whereas WGS84 was developed by the US Department of Defence over ten years ago
WGS84 system was developed it was based on the GRS80 ellipsoid, but computational techniques resulted in a small difference in the flattening.
When used to express earth-centred Cartesian positions (X, Y, Z) as latitude, longitude and ellipsoidal height, these two ellipsoids result in a difference of less than 1 millimetre. WGS84 GRS80
Semi major axis (a) 6378137 m 6378137 m
flattening (1/f) 298.257223563 298.257222101
from australian cartographic viewpoint new and improved coordinate system for Australia which is compatible with modern positioning techniques such as the Global Positioning System (GPS).
http://www.anzlic.org.au/icsm/gda/faq-f.htm
Q. Will zero degrees longitude still pass through Greenwich?
A. Yes, zero degrees longitude will still pass through Greenwich because this is part of the definition of the coordinate system used by GDA.
Q. Will GDA be the same as the WGS84 coordinates used by GPS?
A. GDA and WGS84 are compatible at better than a metre. In fact in early 1994, the WGS84 system was modified to align it even more closely with the ITRF system on which GDA is based.
Q. Why is the ITRF92 used for GDA, instead of the WGS84?
A.The International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF) has been adopted in favour of WGS84 because it is more recent and is supported by the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), whereas WGS84 was developed by the US Department of Defence over ten years ago. This decision was affirmed in early 1994, when WGS84 was modified to align it more closely with ITRF.
Re:You Morons!!! (Score:1)
Re:Driving on the right....... (Score:1)
Erm, I thought the reason we Brits drove on the left was that horse carriage hand brakes are located on the side of the vehicle, and therefore the driver had to have his strong hand (usually his right hand) within easy access of the hand brake.
This would mean the driver was seated on the right.
In order to have a seating position central to the road (to give better visibility), the driver therefore rode on the left of the road.
--
A silly attempt to appeal to my love of nature.. (Score:1)
You're not fooling me, you french guys.
Oh well, maybe I just didnt like my french lessons back then...
Re:So long as we're on french jokes... (Score:1)
What did I want to say? Ah, yes... dont take everything so damn seriously...
Re:Wait... (Score:1)
Re:Standards (Score:2)
This is a joke, right? (Score:1)
Greenwich Mean Time: GMT
Paris Mean Time: PMT?
Someone's having a laugh!
--
Barry de la Rosa,
Senior Reporter, PC Week (UK)
Work: barry_delarosa[at]vnu.co.uk,
tel. +44 (0)171 316 9364
Infinite number of days! (Score:1)
Makes perfect sense to me...
(my monkeys have just finished Hamlet and are starting on Romeo and Juliet)
Re:ok, here goes.. (Score:2)
Per the Encyclopedia Britannica (ok,ok, I know, it's all a British Plot)
"Santos-Dumont, Alberto
b. July 20, 1873, Cabangu, near Palmyra [now Santos-Dumont], Minas
Gerais, Braz.
d. July 23, 1932, Guarujá, São Paulo
Brazilian aviation pioneer who in 1909 produced his famous "Demoiselle" or "Grasshopper" monoplanes, the forerunners of the modern light plane.
Santos-Dumont was educated in France, where he spent most of his life. Becoming interested in aerial flight, he made a balloon ascent in 1898 and then began to construct dirigible airships.
After many failures he built one that in
1901 won the Deutsch Prize and a prize from the
Brazilian government for the first flight in a given time from Saint-Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and return.
Shortly after the Wright brothers' flights in 1903, Santos-Dumont turned his attention to heavier-than-air machines. After experimenting with a vertical-propeller model, in 1906 he built a machine, the 14-bis, on the principle of the box kite, and in October he won the Deutsch-Archdeacon Prize for the first officially observed powered flight in Europe; in November he flew 220 metres in 21 seconds. "
Note, Dumont's 1901 flight was in a _lighter_than air craft, a dirigible, not a heavier than air craft.
The Wright Flyer did fly free, in fact. Soon after their first short flight they were making considerably longer ones. The original 1903 flyer made four flights on Dec 17th 1903: 120, 175, 200, and 852 feet (36.6, 53.3, 61, and 260 m)
Re:ok, here goes.. (Score:1)
People from the United States, arrogant? I'm given to understand we're some of the meekest, gentlest people. That's why everyone keeps showering our embassies with doves and flowers.
Re:Un point de vue français | A french point of vi (Score:1)
More seriously, this looks like history; Never heard anyone complaining of Greenwich Meridian in my life...
Re:Touche? (Score:1)
Re:Silly French (Score:1)
Re:Cela n'a rien à voir (Score:2)
| concentrate on italian.
Do you also understand Thousand Island, Honey Mustard, and Ranch?
Driving on the right....... (Score:4)
90 % of the population is right-handed, and in days of yore, people drove in the middle of the road. When they passed someone coming in the other direction, 90% of peopl pulled in to the left to present their "sword hand" to the on-coming vehicle in case the occupants were enemies.
It was usually middle- and upper-class people who could afford coaches/horses etc in those days, so the French revolution changed things.
After and during the revolution, people drove and rode on the opposite side of the road (the right) to show their contempt for the middle and upper classes.
This practice was adopted throughout republican Europe, and spread to the New World.
Us Brits and other eccentrics stuck to driving on the left.
Hope that clears up a few things.
Lots of love,
Morbid
xxx
Re:Stupid Ignorant Judgemental American Attitude (Score:2)
The reason the Greenwich Meridian is Prime (Score:3)
Christopher A. Bohn
Longitude, by Dava Sobel (Score:3)
And it's a biography of a cool 18th century hacker.
Paris and the metre (Score:2)
Touche? (Score:2)
And not a moment too soon.. David Letterman was running out of material.
--
Re:Standards (Score:2)
"I fart in your general direction!"
--
Re:Touche? (Score:2)
--
well... (Score:3)
So people don't get confused here, the french are in no way going to use the Paris meridian again, they're just celebrating it
(And btw even though I live in france I haven't heard about this story at all)
Breaking News (Score:3)
Attitude in France sounds like Quebec here.. (Score:2)
Re:Standards (Score:2)
--
Re:Stupid Ignorant Judgemental American Attitude (Score:2)
In fact, we here in the United States have decided to align the equator with Rochester, NY. We have decided to comemmorate this for the millenium by building a giant chain of Starbucks stretching along the entire length of the northern United States.
We will get around the whole idea of this insignificant "equator" notion of it being 0 degrees latitude by renaming it "le Equator de Rochester."
---
Arrogant? Don't forget the Romans... (Score:2)
How about Iraqi's? Russians? Albanians? Don't forget Canadians. The point is, every people on the earth think their nation (in general) is the best, and most all other national peoples are:
arrogant
make bad cars
don't have enough alcohol in their beer
are lousy tourists
should be molested on site
This... is why we still have racist jokes, wars, AND flame wars on anonymous sites such as this. Ta-ta!
(ps. This public service announcement has been brought to you by an ignorant, arrogant, intolerant, judgemental, bible-thumping, knuckle-dragging yank... oh wait that's a stereotype...)
----- if ($anyone_cares) {print "Just Another Perl Newbie"}
Oh well...makes a better target though.... (Score:2)
"What're we supposed to drop these on again?"
"Just aim for that line of trees down there!"
Re:ok, here goes.. (Score:3)
Why can't programmers tell the difference between halloween and christmas?
Because oct31 = dec25
There is no Prime Meridian Standard (Score:3)
If you go to England, and see the "official" marker for the Prime Meridian, and then check with your nifty GPS system, you will find that there is about a 100 meter difference (assuming my memory is correct in this). That is because all GPS systems (even those not American) uses a spheroid called WGS-1984, which is an *American* DoD spheroid, and is very accurate except for the north pole, south pole, and along the International Date Line. The British have used several different spheroids over the course of history, each one a little more accurate than the previous one, but each with their own areas on earth where they aren't so hot. The Soviets use GK (Gauss-Krueger, which I think was originally a German standard) which is very accurate in Europe, reasonable for the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, but poor south of it. Many American sailors use Perry-1864. Most foreign sailors use International. The Japanese have a Tokyo standard, which does well in the Pacific. No one spheroid is really better than all the others everywhere (though WGS-1984 is better than most), and there is no standard spheroid, and hence no standard Prime Meridian (though WGS-1984, because of its association with GPS systems, might become a standard in the future).
Most of these spheroids differ only by a maximum of 600 meters or so, which is more than accurate for most of us. However, Sailors, pilots, and the military care very much which spheroids are being used. If you are using a map and you want to relay detailed information to someone else, you both have to agree on a spheroid. Luckely, most groups have a standard within themselves, so most pilots, sailors, and soldiers don't even know about all this. I only know all this because right now my job is working for a Government contractor that maintains software used by the U.S. Military Intelligence community, and I have been dealing mainly with different mapping subsystems, so I have a fairly "low-level" perspective on maps (not that I understand most of what I know).
Really, if the French want to do this, let them. It will probably mean another spheroid for everyone to worry about, but that isn't much of a big deal.
Stuff like this will continue until there is a recognized standard or until we move away from the stupid longitude/latitude way of doing things. I mean, the basis for Longitude/Latitude is that you can divide the world into little squares, which is obviously not accurate. 3D Polar Coordinates would be much better as long as you correctly model the shape of the earth.
Re:Not quite the same thing..standards (Score:2)
What a disaster!
Re:Not quite the same thing (Score:2)
It used to be the case around here that the speedos on American-imported cars were modified "conservatively" to metric... it would say 65kph when you are doing 60. Hence people get used to driving at 65 in a 60 zone and be ok...
Now with speedos being made for metric system, they are more accurate, and hence there are many people caught for speeding as a result (and having accidents through driving faster)!
So there you go... the speed limits in the States being in miles/hour (indirectly) causing car accidents and deaths in Australia!
Standards (Score:3)
You don't frighten us, English pig-dog! Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person. I blow my nose on you, so-called Arthur-king, you and your silly English K...kaniggets.
Re:Driving on the right....... (Score:2)
There are some populous countries
with left hand traffic, including India,
Japan, Indonesia and, roughly, the southern
half of Africa.
According to http://www.ar100123.demon.co.uk/signs/leftf.htm
Countries where driving on the left is normal:
Anguilla Antigua & Barbuda Australia Bahamas Bangladesh Barbados Bermuda
Bhutan Bophuthatswana Botswana British Virgin Islands Brunei Cayman
Islands Channel Islands Ciskei Cyprus Dominica Falkland Islands Fiji
Grenada Guyana Hong Kong India Indonesia Ireland Jamaica Japan Kenya
Lesotho Macau Malawi Malaysia Malta Mauritius Montserrat Mozambique
Pakistan Papua New Guinea Seychelles Sikkim Singapore Solomon Islands
Somalia South Africa Sri Lanka St Kitts & Nevis St. Helena St. Lucia
Surinam Swaziland Tanzania Thailand Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Uganda
United Kingdom Venda Zambia Zimbabwe St. Vincent & Grenadines Namibia
Nepal New Zealand
On the Bright Side of Things (Score:2)
Stop working on those Y2K bugs, we must devote ALL of our attention on the new problem of removing Greenwich mean time to Paris mean time!
Has /. become a tabloid ? (Score:2)
Guys,
Such practices of public information reaches
the bottom of ethics. This is no better than
MSNBC's coverage of the Monica's "scandal".
Slashdot was supposed to be a symbol of the
Linux community, an advocate for tolerance
and "stuff that matters".
There is always a bit of xenophobia in any
national information channel, and having an
out of context link to such information is often
like opening a Pandora box.
People lobbying for a French Meridian or
planting any nationalistic ideas into young
people's mind are all from the same vermin.
Those same people exist in all countries and
should be the our common enemy. They are the
same ones who say that you must pay for your
human basic needs (college, health care...
Operating System).
The Linux movement goes in the opposite
direction, and is of course immediately,
wrongfully and intentionally tagged with a
"commie" reputation.
Many people who commented today should
understand that in a certain context, humor is
a double-edged weapon and that an anonymous
flame can actually ignite things out of control.
The community is at a crucial stage of it's life.
Many eyes are directed to it while some of it's
most notorious names (RedHat, Cygnus, VAR)
are trying to control the delicate alchemy of
business and public service.
This is also valid for the SlashDot team and I
hope that those words will reach them in some
way.