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456
DnD Central / Re: The Great DnD Vote of Our Time
Quote from: ersi on
But I was right in silently assuming that the issue would look the opposite from our respective opposite ends :)

You speak as if you own English language, but to me English is not really a language. English is lingua franca. It belongs to everybody and everybody is, fortunately or unfortunately, free to twist it for their own twisted needs. English as used in EU administrative structures certainly takes odd shapes at times, and even more so as used by the wider population, but there's nothing that lingua franca (a language whose foreign speakers outnumber native speakers) can do about it.

Small languages are properly languages: Tribal or regional or national code that keeps outsiders outside, when internal matters are being handled.
Oh come on, ersi, you know better than that! Only a dead language is static, not changing as its speakers come into contact with new things or new cultures or even develop new words. I think we need some qualifiers to go with the word "language".

Forgive me, I forget where you hale from - is it Estonia? Somewhere Baltic I think. If that's the case then maybe there are some of your native words words that have crept into English for adoption and vice versa. Welcome to them.

I worked for 30 years in a European Organisation where English was used a lot. There were English words which assumed their own meaning and of course an English person not exposed to that culture would not have known exactly what was meant. Notable were US words which drifted through and got used. Normal stuff I think and not something to get excited about, at least not as far as I'm concerned.

I think I speak a proper language and I expect you do too! :)
457
DnD Central / Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens be allowed to Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?
Quote from: SmileyFaze on
Quote from: string on
Simple and easy stuff. But a bit pointless really.
In what way?
Quote from: string on
.......,Oh, in case you're wondering, Telescopic sights are for wimps; V sights are for Men.
I wasn't, but I do wonder how many times you (or any of your so called 'manly' shooters) could repetitively hit a 30cm target at 500 meters using basic "V Sights"?
At that range & greater, when the lives of many others depend on your repetitious accuracy, your girlie "V Sights" are totally useless.
The majority of my kill shots were taken on targets in excess of 500 meters --- mostly between 800-1000 meters.  If I had missed, others (many others) would have died.
I thought that would get you going SF  :D.

You ask “In what way”?

Well to answer that you need to know the context. I like many others at that time and of that age (teens), had military training at school, except it was not called military training it was a sort of compulsory extra-curriculum activity as part of what was called the CCF (Combined Cadet Force). That involved what I have already described followed by spells on further army activities, or navy or air force. After the basic army stuff was done, I opted for the air force.

The gun thing was a small part of that but considered essential. This was in the ‘50s when the country was at last getting over its WW2 war time footing.

The CCF was, essentially, a recruitment organisation for young people to join the forces. I didn’t see the point of the gun thing because I was not of an age where people were conscripted into the forces and I didn’t want to join anyway, let alone kill people, and from a civilian point of view, had not developed some form of defence paranoia since I did not live in a country where guns ran amok like you apparently do, from your descriptions of intruders and the necessity to accumulate some form of arsenal.

Hit the target at 500m? I really don’t recall what range we shot at; 300 yards certainly but I really can’t remember and don’t care. You shot, hit the target somewhere and then finished.

No great deal and not that difficult.

But it wasn't a religion.

Of course as the range gets bigger it become more technical and gadget dependent (as you say) and less of a human skill. Some people can hit a target from several hundred miles away nowadays and they don't need steely eyes and a Rambo attitude to do it. The use smart missiles and sometimes remote guidance.

As for my remark about wimps, actually apart from pulling your leg, I was not thinking of the military. I normally have great respect for the military and the courage they show in their unpleasant but normally necessary work (from a tactical viewpoint), give or take being aghast at Rambo attitudes outside of the War context. I was actually thinking of these sophisticated telescopically-sited rifles used for hunting where skill is supplanted by the sophistication of the weapon, rather than the skill of the hunter; a fetish masquerading as a sport.
458
DnD Central / Re: The Great DnD Vote of Our Time
You're probably right about their being an ad hoc nature of English used in the UK, also about  it being fluid and possibly unruly as is common, I suspect, with any living language. I suppose I should mention that the definition of "legal Tender" I quoted was from an American source.

But you're not right about there being specifically tuned so as to be at odds with continental terminology. Apart from pre-dating the concept of "Continental English" (if that exists at all as a European wide phenomenon) the Brits have hardly had such things on their minds during the evolution of the language. Nothing artificial about that other than normal human behaviour.
460
DnD Central / Re: Gun Control - Should Ordinary Citizens be allowed to Own, Carry, & Use Firearms?
Quote from: SmileyFaze on
...   Education is a good thing.....yes?

What do you think?.......


Gun education can indeed be fun for children. I've done it myself, being taught basic field craft and shooting with .22 and .303 bore rifles, not handguns.

You check out the wind and (briefly) estimate the distance, adjust the sights, line up the target with the V sight, try a ranging shot if you didn't do it before, re-adjust, then off you go. Simple and easy stuff. But a bit pointless really.

Oh, in case you're wondering, Telescopic sights are for wimps; V sights are for Men.

462
DnD Central / Re: The Great DnD Vote of Our Time
Quote from: ersi on

There's a difference between legal tender and legal currency? That clarification fails to clarify anything. It's as silly as it would be if euro area coins with German flip side were of doubtful value in France or French coins in Germany. Untenable and pointless.

It seems that Bank of England merely has not made up her mind properly. On one hand the dependencies (or whatever the parts of UK are called) are bound by the currency (legal tender), on the other hand they are free to have a little illusion of independence (opportunity to issue "own" money).


No doubt you have looked at the internet for a definition of legal tender, as I have and found it somewhat confusing, not least because the definition varies from country to country in terms of what people understand by the term.

The best definition I found, to my mind, is that from here where it states that "Legal tender is currency that cannot legally be refused in payment of debt".

With that in mind, read now this and it begins to make sense. Note the extension of legal tender status to coins; presumably this is the same for the Euro zone.

The fact is that normal people don't distinguish money in that way and it has become more up to the individual as to whether they accept payment in a different form than legal tender (that is the standard currency of the country). So we accept cheques, bank transfers and even, sometimes, Scottish money.

But formally I can't refuse to be paid in physical money that is legal tender (see last link, but I can refuse payment in some other currency (eg Dollars) or another recognised legal currency like the Sottish Pound.

All that being said, it seems to be, for practical purposes, that Scotland is actually currently sharing the pound.The pound is underwritten by UK Government guarantees at least to the extent of protecting saving of individuals up to a certain amount (£85,000) per each separate bank but also de facto as a protection against failure of the bank and its consequent huge impact on people and industry. The rescue of Lloyd's Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland (both registered in Scotland) is an example of this currency union in action.

That protection is both the reason why the SNP so desperately want to have the currency Union, to cushion their dodgy financial plans, and a prime reason why the UK is not going to grant it. It is also a reason why, if the "Yes" vote were to win the day, Banks and Insurance Companies in Scotland will flee south of the border to gain credible security and be closer to the main body of their customers. People are well aware of that and I for one have already lined up an English-based Bank "just in case". At present I don't think it will be needed.

As for the remark about "dependencies - that's a slight to Scotland and therefore also a slight to Britain.
463
DnD Central / Re: The Problem with Atheism
@Bel .. "the nonexistence of God as something demonstrated by science is definitely closed as a fallacy"

Not really; such would be no different (lack of testing) should God not exist.

Also: ... "The conscience of God it's easier if people don't slice themselves, pick a slice and disregards the rest. That's the problem, people mutilating themselves in order to "fit" into man made social structures."

The implication being that the non-religious ignore feelings? You know that's not true; they just don't ascribe them to a god-origin.

Also, regarding man-made social structures; you realise that describes churches perfectly! Anthropomorphic thinking also describes the man shape given to God, the obsession with Earth by some as being the sole host to life and numerous other examples where human attributes are ascribed to gods, prophets and the like.

@jseaton - the intrusion of anthropomorphic thinking also intrudes into the concept of there having been a "start" at the time of the big bang. It's an assumption which is used also by the religious who like to ask "who caused the big bang". But the concept of there being a beginning and an end is itself a human concept, based on our experience of the way things are perceived by us. But suppose that time does not have that characteristic; suppose that the big bang was merely preceded by the energy state that follows an eventual collapse of the Universe into itself and that these cycles are all there is. In other words that time itself was simply a circle with no beginning and no end. We simply don't know but I merely point out that anthropomorphic thinking is all around us.

464
DnD Central / Re: The Great DnD Vote of Our Time
On the matter of the status of the Scottish paper currency, after a little research, I offer the following for clarification:

Notes and coins for the English pound are legal tender only in England and Wales but are used in Northern Ireland and Scotland.  Alongside this both Scotland and Northern Ireland use their own versions of some notes issued by a select few banks located within those countries.

Scottish Bank notes are issued by the Bank of Scotland, Clydesdale Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland. While they are not legal tender, they are UK Parliament-approved legal currency and may (but not must) be accepted. However it is the responsibility of the bank that issued them to exchange them for an equivalent amount in English Pounds.

I have only seen 2 or 3 Scottish notes in my lifetime and no Northern Ireland notes. I would not accept them for fear of neither being able to exchange them for English pounds nor being able to spend them. It’s probably different near the border with Scotland but I don't know.

There is a little further information in question 24 of the Bank of England FAQ.
470
DnD Central / Re: The Great DnD Vote of Our Time
Do you remember George Galloway? He was the one who confronted some American committee or other. Whatever side of the issue of the time you were on, you must have enjoyed the little guy giving it to a row of stuffed shirts!.

Anyway in the link below you will see a report on a speech he gave on the Scottish Referendum. Part way down that page you will find an audio of the speech; I suggest you listen to that, rather than read the article,  to get the full impact of what he had to say. It's for a British audience of course, but others might find it interesting.

Scottish independence: Listen to George Galloway’s stirring speech in defence of the Union
471
DnD Central / Re: FIFA World Cups
On the Suarez biting offence, I heard an amusing suggestion for his punishment.

Take his teeth out!
472
DnD Central / Re: The Great DnD Vote of Our Time
Well, SF, the 70% figure was always a figure brewed in Guiness with a chaser of Scotch. There has been no switch as described by you. That was just bar room fantasizing.

As for the usual diatribe of hate - a colourful display of Ersatz Irish Republican BS - nothing else.