I merely wished to engage in a lively debate as to the inherent cognitive faculties of the various races -- and had even armed myself with all manner of statistics to reinforce up my arguments! It seems my erstwhile comrades have mistaken my quest to advance the science of phrenology for a hatred of the Irish...
Speaking of such, during a rousing game of backgammon I did have occasion to refer to my opponent as a "Paddy", but I cannot believe that my use of
"That Gaming Term" could cause such consternation as to precipitate my removal.
Barring isolated systems (mines, logging) all track should be two meter gauge (78-3/4"). Although the measuring system of our neighbors across the Channel is not widely esteemed here, what we choose here in Britain will of course be widely copied throughout the World. Such a gauge would provide for the future, "future-proof", the Global system of track, allowing wider loads, greater stability for passengers, etc., it being readily apparent that rail is the future of all long distance travel.
2. This is sort of why steam locomotives needed about 8 hours of maintenance per day. Back when VHS tapes were "in", one of my favorite tape sets was restored railroad training films (ok, nerd pron, so what). One of which showed a lot of what went on behind the scenes in a locomotive maintenance facility - and why steam locomotives were limited to 8 hours of work per day: 8 hours driving, about 4 hours cooling down, 8 hours maintenance and about 4 hours of heating the water in the boiler. When diesel electric locomotives started becoming "a thing", some people said thing like "they're junk - the wheels fall off". Looking at why the wheels had such "bad" wear problems, it turns out that those locomotives were being driven 24/7, not 1/3 of the time like steam locomotives.
These are not dissimilar in style from the "100 Years Ago" sidebar in Scientific American in a past now further receding, when I made a regular practice of reading that once-estimable journal.
>If you have the temerity to submit a video or pdf, I should be grateful if you would mark it as such, so as not to cause the undoing of my fragile sensibilities.
The temerity, the absolute temerity of assaulting my fragile sensibilities with a pdf or video! I will not countenance it. I say good day to you, sir.
I say old man, I too should jolly well appreciate a fair warning about bandwidth-hungry formats. Too often these days do the rakes and scoundrels of this establishment assault both the senses and the available kilo-cycles of bandwidth with such extravagant formats that are quite unnecessary to communicate one's point. If 5-bit telegraph coding is enough for Her Britannic Majesty it is certainly good enough for her loyal subjects on VHN!
My fellow countrymen, I am grateful for the time you have given to my humble endeavor, and I remain ever hopeful that you will find some small gem of beauty or truth that will illuminate your day.
The code, if one wishes to peruse it, may be found upon the GitHub website. [1]
This reminded me of the "Victorian Laptop" that Justine Cassell and students worked on at the MIT Media Lab, in the late 1990s.
IIRC, in the original idea, the Victorian Laptop hardware was an antique portable wood laptop desk, retrofitted with PC electronics and custom software, and the purpose was to relate/connect the user's thoughts in a particular location to the writings of others who've been in some similar context before. With the time-traveler writing desk adding to the reflective experience.
(Physical craft-wise, this was before the steampunk DIY computers that we see today. Cassell collected antique writing desks, had inspiration from those, and some energetic students worked on figuring out and building it.)
Seems like modern ML tools should open up more possibilities along these lines. I'd like to see the focus on leveraging information and computation for genuine experiences and accurate understand (not, say, some of the currently more obvious automated content generation applications, for SEO, addictive engagement, demagoguery, etc.)
"Do not complain to me, gentle reader, that a submission is inappropriate. Rather, take it upon yourself to peruse the rules and guidelines, and to use your best judgment in making a decision. If you find a story to be spam or off-topic, you are within your rights as a reader to report it to the moderators, that it might be dealt with swiftly and the site returned to its former glory. Do not attempt to engage those who would fling the most vile and abhorrent comments; instead, report them so that they might be dealt with swiftly and with the utmost severity. It is the custom of many a gentleman to flag, when the arduous journey has become too much for their failing strength, yet they will not deign to offer the lady a word of explanation or apology, but will continue to drive on relentlessly, as if nothing were amiss, leaving the poor lady to wonder what has become of her escort, and whether he has met with foul play."
S3 is a glorious bastion of uptime in the otherwise storm-tossed sea of the World Wide Web, a shining beacon of safety to which one may entrust one's most valuable data, whether files, or precious objects, or even blobs of the most unique and ephemeral content.
One of the perks of technology that move very fast is that everyone is out of touch weekly due to frequent updates and major changes. So you can look at the state of things and you will not be that far behind the main group.
Some researchers say Victorian era people were more intelligent than people in our present time, and after reading the Victorian guidelines, maybe they're right.
This is sincerely, really stupid. General intelligence being measured by reaction time greatly misses the question. Monkeys have significantly higher reaction times than humans. Never surpassed the stone age, did they?
I'm not saying the conclusion is accurate, but there is a correlation between mean reaction time and intelligence in humans. That doesn't mean that you can extrapolate intelligence from reaction time of Victorian era people. Their reaction time could be better for other un-accounted-for reasons. But it's not like the researchers just made up a link between reaction time and intelligence out of thin air because it sounded true. There really is a correlation between the two.
I would say this is weak evidence in favor of Victorians having higher intelligence, and insufficient to actually draw that conclusion. But still, evidence.
I wonder if there's an Victorian -> contemporary English filter. While I actually like Victorian prose, I know some people (especially non-native English speakers) are put off from reading Charles Dickens and the like because of the Victorian style which can come across as stilted to to modern ear. Maybe a filter could be made to make Victorian prose seem more modern.
It’s not just the phrasing, though; there’s also a lot of cultural context that the modern reader will miss without footnotes to guide them. For example, from Oliver Twist:
> It was a meanly furnished apartment, with nothing but the contents of the closet to induce the belief that its occupier was anything but a working man; and with no more suspicious articles displayed to view than two or three heavy bludgeons which stood in a corner, and a “life-preserver”* that hung over the chimney-piece.
> * ‘life-preserver’: stick weighted with lead; widely used for self-protection.
That footnote rather drastically changes the mental picture for the modern reader!
That reminds me of how, in A Christmas Carol, Dickens describes a ghost glowing like "a bad lobster in a dark cellar". Some modern people think Dickens was just being surreal, but there was a real meaning to this. Before refrigeration, people would keep meat and seafood in the cellar as was cooler than elsewhere. But not cool enough and things would rot after a couple of days. One of the bacteria that rots seafood is Vibrio, which often has genes for luminescence. So you could see if seafood had gone off if it glowed.
- Is the use of the first person entirely correct? Shouldn't there instead be some reference to the convening institution, such as "management" or "proprietors", or the community? (Though I would think that for HN the convening institution would be something less commercial.)
Indeed, Sir, I am not; a mere gadfly on the rump of society, such is yr. humble correspondent. Yet even one unskilled in letters, such as I, may become sensible of a certain terseness, an unaccustomed lack of elegance, a rude brevity, in a communication, when it is flourished in front of his nose.
It is an unfortunate habit of mine, the subject of well-intentioned chiding from my friends, that I return like for like: thus, my response. I cravenly pray your indulgence for my peccadillo.
Thine brevity is bereft of wit. And thy poem rhymes like that of a twit.
Loquacious scribings hath wit overflowing like the bacchanalian cup overfloweth with wine. And so brother take my Shakespearian cup of rhyme, and come let us dine.
(Sorry couldn't think of anything that rhymed with wit. Except tit which isn't better, or dimwit.)
Great idea! Though in several instances it essentially repeats the submission title (which isn't too bad, but maybe you can instruct it to extend from the title?).
I laughed at this one, you might want to take a look at it:
> The article is about how to enable JavaScript in order to use twitter.com
> I implore you, dear reader, to set aside your petty grievances; trifling things such as the format of an article or website, the unfortunate repetition of a name, or the vexing loss of information when pressing the back button. They are so common and so lacking in originality that they have no interest whatsoever.
Was anybody else also hoping for a Victorian HN Front Page with list of parody HN links which one might've expected to see in the 1880s or something?
- New Developments Greatly Increase Steam Engine Efficiency
- Show VHN: I have developed plans for a machine that will travel through time
- Nikola Tesla on Direct Current
- Ask VHN: Is the Trans-Atlantic telegraph cable down?
Any other ideas?