Posts by Irony Deficient

etiamnunc in fundo plectrologii

It’s still at the bottom of your keyboard.

another opinion

It was almost exclusively [a] riot for “we don’t want any taxation” after Britain imposed very, very light taxes to pay for a war largely fought to protect the American colonies from the French.

Rather, it was almost exclusively a riot for “we don’t want any taxation without representation in Parliament” after Parliament imposed a series of light taxes without the consent of the representatives of those being taxed (see William Pitt the Elder’s oration in Parliament on this day in 1766, following the passing of the Sugar Act, the Currency Act, the first Quartering Act, and the Stamp Act), to pay for a war largely fought to annex Nouvelle France.

You are correct that the War of Independence would not have succeeded without massive French support, in men, materiel, and money — but that support was in essence revenge for the results of the 1763 Treaty of Paris.

Since the US national debt is denominated in US dollars, and the US retain control of the issuance of US dollars, the national debt can be repaid. (That, of course, is an entirely separate issue from when it would be repaid.)

Re: “realise” with an ‘s’

That’s not leftpondian.

It is in Northern Leftpondia / l’Étang-gaucherie du Nord, though even a Medioleftpondian could substitute -s- for -z- and -our for -or if it were deemed essential for anonymization.

a decently large, national 3rd Party

I could see a decently large, national 3rd Party being a useful force for good in the USA. Just not if it’s a “breakaway Trump Party”.

The most recent decently large, national third party in the USA was the Progressive Party in the 1912 election, when its presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt finished in second place in the Electoral College, behind Wilson (and ahead of the incumbent Taft). However, one could argue that in 1912, the Progressives were a breakaway Republican party.

Re: we needed some way of shutting some absolute fuckwits up

[…] speaking generally, it is not, in constitutional countries, to be apprehended that the government, whether completely responsible to the people or not, will often attempt to control the expression of opinion, except when in doing so it makes itself the organ of the general intolerance of the public. Let us suppose, therefore, that the government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in or opposition to it. If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

— John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Chapter II.: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion

Re: And so on. and so on.

Recite the poem De Chaos for a larger sampling (note that its text was written for a 1920s en-GB pronunciation).

Re: Four baking potatoes

It’s a potato baker’s tetrad.

Re: Not the general but the blimp.

The Hindenburg was a zeppelin, not a blimp.

Re: Federal Supermax?

I'm doubting his crime would even be considered for a Federal Supermax

Robert Hanssen is still in a federal Supermax, serving 15 consecutive life sentences for 15 violations of the Espionage Act: 14 counts of espionage * and one count of conspiracy to commit espionage †. All but one of the allegations for which Assange’s extradition is sought are also violations of the Espionage Act ‡. If extradited and found guilty on all counts (including the non-espionage alleged conspiracy to commit computer intrusions), the maximum total consecutive sentence would be 175 years.

* — 18 U.S.C. § 794(a)

† — 18 U.S.C. § 794(c)

‡ — viz in the second superseding indictment, one count of 18 U.S.C. § 793(g); two counts of 18 U.S.C. §§ 793(b) and 2; four counts of 18 U.S.C. §§ 793(c) and 2; three counts of 18 U.S.C. §§ 793(d) and 2; three counts of 18 U.S.C. §§ 793(e) and 2; three counts of 18 U.S.C. § 793(e).

Re: Social Distancing

This being El Reg, I might have suggested “queutard”, but for it already existing in French with an entirely different definition.

Perhaps “queueist” (on the model of “canoeist”) might be another alternative?

Re: Nether web

There must be a special place out there in the ether that is full of dead, dying or zombie websites.

The Wayback Machine?

Re: Only once

And why are phone keypads the opposite layout to calculators and computers?

See here, though “Bell Labs” probably would have been more precise than “AT&T (…)” in the second reason given there.

Re: Что дѣлать?

I agree regarding security, but can it be presumed that the 25–44 male majority of the FOSS-contributing respondents in this survey are old hands at security? If full-time paid employment in security can motivate some people, then putting money into training newbies from that motivated cohort might not be a bad investment.

Re: Reaction

The perfection of art is to conceal art. — Quintilian

In context, Quintilian refers only to the art of the exordium (the beginning of an oration) in a court case — his only surviving work is on rhetoric.

Re: Newfangled

(and goodness, it would make a change from Lorem ipsum)

Ditch Cicero, and use a bit of Catullus instead — Catullus 23 is one possibility. (Translations into other languages are easily located via search engine.)

sticky situations

He did — Canada was one of the major targets of his steel and aluminum tariffs in 2018–2019.

Since the US imports roughly half of Canadian maple syrup exports, and US maple syrup producers aren’t a particularly influential lot in Washington, maple syrup wouldn’t have been a likely target for a tariff. (Curiously enough, Canada is the largest importer of US maple syrup exports, but the net syrup flow is predominantly southbound.)

Re: At least the commenters are always grammatically perfect.

The icon’s meaning is clear, but the target is ambiguous — at least to someone who is irony deficient.

Re: “Clump of plinths”

“A wunch of bankers” is an example of a spoonerism rather than an anagram.

Re: overwhelming evidence ?

Huge Danish study showing they don’t do very much. Shadow banned by Google, as it goes against the current narrative.

If you’re referring to the Danish study that was published recently in the Annals of Internal Medicine (see https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817), its findings were nowhere near as general as “[masks] don’t do very much [for anyone anywhere at any time]”. If no other part of the study is read, at least its last three paragraphs should be digested.

Re: However

That was probably the last security update for High Sierra, since Apple tends to provide security updates only for the previous two macOS versions. With the release of Big Sur, only Catalina and Mojave are likely to continue receiving security updates.

Re: Rechargeable batteries and also “non-supported hardware”

I don’t know which Braun model Jean had in mind, but the Braun MobileShave M-90 “travel razor” takes two (possibly rechargeable) AA batteries, and requires no tools to change them.

Re: Wrong mammal

Yes, Latin — Latin got hippopotamus from Ancient Greek ῐ̔πποπότᾰμος, but English got “hippopotamus” directly from Latin, not directly from Ancient Greek. Similarly, English “elephant” came from Old French elefant (the Old French spelling was also the Middle English spelling), which got it from Latin elephantus, which got it from Ancient Greek ἐλέφᾱς. (The -ντ- is found in most of the other Ancient Greek declensions, but it’s not in the nominative singular; the Latin word probably came from the genitive singular ἐλέφᾰντος.)

English words of ultimately Ancient Greek origin often arrive through a Latin intermediary, which is why the Latinate “hippopotami” is one of the English plurals, but the Hellenic “hippopotamoi” isn’t. Similarly, “hippocampus” came directly from Late Latin hippocampus, and is also a second declension noun, which is why “hippocampi” is its English plural rather than “hippocampoi”.

If you are over 55 now you don’t have a chance of surviving 8 years.

jason 7, whatever one thinks of their merits, George W. Bush was first inaugurated at age 54½, and Reagan was first inaugurated a few weeks before turning 70, and both of them were in office for eight years. George H. W. Bush was first inaugurated at age 64, ran for a second term, and lost on economic grounds rather than on his age. For whatever reason, the most recent Democratic president to be at least 55 at first inauguration and serve for eight years was Woodrow Wilson. (My guess is that if Senator Sanders were elected as president, he would not subsequently run for reëlection.)

Re: We can’t arrest or detain someone because they “might” do something.

tom dial, Mark 85’s point was about arresting or detaining someone for something that hasn’t yet happened, not making the charge stick for something that has already happened. In the case of the US, see the Supreme Court case United States v. Shabani, where the court unanimously found that an actus reus was not necessary for a criminal conspiracy charge to stick, reversing the decision of the circuit court.

Re: Even the ladies are allowed to drive these days

Voyna i Mor, I’m not disputing that a one inch difference is “about the same height”; my disagreement is with your statement that Nelson was “above average” height. The origin of the statistic that I’d linked to was Floud et al.’s study Height, Health and History, which

was based on an analysis of changes in the heights of poor boys recruited by the Marine Society of London between 1770 and 1870, and of men who were recruited by the Royal Marines and the British Army between 1740 and 1914

If there were minimum height requirements to join the Royal Marines or the British Army between 1760 and 1800, then that would skew that source for average heights; those recruits were drawn from the general population, though.

Other data were also noted in that work, including Komlos’ average heights for convicts and indentured servants born in England and transported to North America, which were presented in a table (by decades of birth, 1710 – 1759). Since Nelson was born in 1758, the 1750s data would be of greatest relevance: the average height was 67.79 inches (172.2 cm) for transported convicts born in the 1750s and 66.88 inches (169.9 cm) for transported indentured servants born in the 1750s, with both groups being taller than the 168.2 cm average at that link and Nelson’s height of 166.4 cm.

The heights in my last comment were in feet, inches, and lines (pieds, pouces, and lignes in the French case) because Napoléon’s height was physically measured with those units, and using those units preserves the precision that they represent. Since no degree sign was present and the discussion was about height, I don’t know why you thought that angular measure was involved. Any interested party will be able to use a search engine to find conversion factors if needed.

Why would I comment on your nick? It’s not a Boolean statement like “Nelson’s height was above average”.

“He”

Anonymous Coward, perhaps because (epicene) “He” requires fewer keystrokes than either (singular) “They” or “He/She”.

Re: Free Speech?

PatientOne, “we should do something about it” does not necessarily cross the free speech dividing line in the US; see here for where that boundary is found in the States.

”The US has long-standing extradition treaties with all European countries.”

JeffyPoooh, presuming that Kieren used the phrase “all European countries” to mean “all EU member states”, given that the article is about a vote in the European Parliament, then it is precisely the longest-standing treaty which would be likeliest to be most advantageous to Snowden, since it would lack coverage of “modern crimes”. Among the EU member states, that would almost certainly be the extradition treaty with Croatia, which is one of the inheritors of the 1902 extradition treaty with the Kingdom of Serbia (via the post-WWI Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, then through Yugoslavia).

Re: Land of the free…

Jason, the US electoral college is (for 48 of the 50 states) precisely FPTP — it’s possible for a minority of popular votes to select sufficient Electors to elect the president and vice-president, which happened in the 1876 election.

Re: an advantage of hierarchy

PC Paul, that’s certainly possible. It’s also possible that they didn’t care how goals were achieved as long as they got achieved, and so wouldn’t be curious enough about the “how” to even ask about it.

Re: Doesn’t pass the smell test

Voland’s right hand, if the best proof is in the dates, then look at when the EPA Tier 2 rules were entered into the Federal Register — 10th February 2000, in the last year of the Clinton administration, nine months before the 2000 election. (The NOₓ emission limits for Tier 2 are identical to those of California’s LEV II emission.standard, which took effect on 27th November 1999 for enforcement in model years 2004 and beyond.)