frobozz

27 ms·

211.
by frobozz 8y ago
It is also possible for commoners to be ennobled if they show sufficient merit. It also doesn't take many generations of second and subsequent children under primogeniture to fall out of the nobility entirely. Neither system necessitat
212.
by frobozz 8y ago
The problem in my last paragraph exists from the beginning. I would not be surprised if one of the reasons that the gap between C-level and worker salaries has widened so much, is due to the adoption of the term "meritocratic". On
213.
by frobozz 8y ago
Meritocracy, when the term was coined, referred to a society that was essentially a reboot of aristocracy. A new group takes charge by their own merit, then they embed their own descendants in the leader caste through a combination of shapi
214.
by frobozz 8y ago
Very few opera houses offer subtitles. This is because subtitles near or on the stage would be difficult to read due to the heads of those in front of you. Some (e.g. Vienna) have a seat-back system that shows subtitles. Surtitles, on the
215.
by frobozz 8y ago
I'm a little unconvinced by that list. Pat, for example, appears on both, that and Theo and are short versions of male and female names, rather than being names that have swung from female to male. Jan and Jean could both be caused by
216.
by frobozz 8y ago
Wow! It's like an honesty box, but without all the convenience.
217.
by frobozz 8y ago
It does seem to be worded that way. I disagree with that statement, but there is still a financial incentive issue. Having gained your first degree, you have a choice between starting to earn real money by leaving academia or starting a Ph
218.
by frobozz 8y ago
Yes. This. What then happens is that the mocked out functions change what they return, or the order of what they do inside (e.g so that for a given set of inputs now throws a different exception). Someone forgets to update the mocks. All
219.
by frobozz 8y ago
I'd like to add: 4) Don't know how to mock effectively I've seen three flavours of this one: - tests that take forever because they don't mock a slow external process that gets called 100s of times in the suite. - tests
220.
by frobozz 8y ago
Increase the time units by one and double it.
221.
by frobozz 8y ago
So the same accent as Malcolm Turnbull, Jacinta Ardern, The Queen, Donald Trump, Leo Varadkar, my Polish GP, my Italian dentist, Elon Musk, Alan Sugar and Duncan Bannatyne. I'm not sure that works.
222.
by frobozz 8y ago
> but there is also actual value in being close to standard and having less accents considered standard So who gets to decide what is standard and what isn't and why?
223.
by frobozz 8y ago
Entire towns have been built because of public transit.
224.
by frobozz 8y ago
> But this isn't just about Uber. This is about ride-sharing in general, which completely changed what transportation in cities means. It is absolutely innovative in every sense of the word. I think you are overstating it somewhat.
225.
by frobozz 8y ago
Except that that can end up costing even more. A common "cost saving" measure in companies is to get rid of various admin staff, people like PAs and the ones who book travel etc. Now everyone has to spend a bunch of time doing wor
226.
by frobozz 8y ago
> managers who want to look like they’re doing something big so that they gain status. So much this! I've seen many outsourced multi-million-pound projects that would have been quicker, cheaper, and better as in-house projects for a
227.
by frobozz 8y ago
The Dwarf Fortress background music. Game music (mostly) is designed for a related purpose - setting a mood whilst also encouraging you to focus on the task at hand (whether it's shooting aliens or squashing bugs). Film scores are sim
228.
by frobozz 8y ago
Conspiranoic? I'm just pointing out that (as solomatov summarises) that these things are complicated, and that saying that one simple comparison is wrong, and another equally simple one is right does not work. One factor that I suspec
229.
by frobozz 8y ago
In a sense, the other shoe may already be on the floor. The value of something you don't want to buy or sell is essentially irrelevant to you. However, because the percentage increase applies broadly (though not uniformly) across the
230.
by frobozz 8y ago
That is true, but it is slightly more complicated. When lenders were routinely offering 100% (or even higher) LTV mortgages, the relationship is as simple as you describe. Homeowners and renters alike pay out a portion of their income each
231.
by frobozz 8y ago
This is true, but the some of the same factors that facilitate WFH can also facilitate those companies locating their offices in suburbs or in large towns/small cities.
232.
by frobozz 8y ago
A qwerty keyboard made of physical buttons is a lot easier to type with than a touch screen. From some of the discussion here, it looks like the Kindle 3 was a pretty neat idea. (As the author suggests)
233.
by frobozz 9y ago
This is one of the reasons I enjoy working on in-house products for a company that does things other than software. My users are my colleagues and friends, people I meet in the canteen and the pub. I don't just find out about the probl
234.
by frobozz 9y ago
Trademarks are domain-specific. Multiple unrelated organisations can and do have the same names in different industries. If you see 'apple.co.uk' do you think of iPhones and Macbooks, or do you think of "Hey Jude" and &
235.
by frobozz 9y ago
Rightly so. Otherwise there would be no point in all this evidence, trial and jury business.
236.
by frobozz 9y ago
Maybe some big names like Like Facebook, Duckduckgo, Wikipedia, or the New York Times?
237.
by frobozz 9y ago
The "prepositions are not things for ending sentences with" point is a distraction. "Who did you hit?" and even "who hit who" have long been the norm in speech. The _whom_ version of those utterances would not
238.
by frobozz 9y ago
The decline of whom started a century and a half ago, and was barely used at the end of the last century. As a news item this is about as timely as the outbreak of the Iraq War.
239.
by frobozz 9y ago
Why is this news? _Whom_ has been a rarity for decades. Questions like "Who did you give it to?" are far more common in normal speech than "To whom did you give it?", and have been since long before I was born.
240.
by frobozz 9y ago
I wouldn't call 37.4% of the electorate a majority.

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