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[Mike] I asked Quinn what NI was, and he said it's a country. I said, "What's the United Kingdom then?" He said, "It's a state." "But isn't a state the same thing as a country?" He said, "No." AFAICT, by state he meant a unit that has a seat at the UN and a foreign policy. I always thought that was a country, but on the other hand ppl say there's "four countries in Spain".
[Jimmy] Summaries, courtesy of Wikipedia:
"The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states." (From Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention)
The terms country, nation, state and land are often used as synonyms, but in a more strict usage they are distinguished:
The term nation state, while often used interchangeably with the term state, refers more properly to a state in which a single nation is dominant.
[Mike] There's a fascinating book called _The Nine Nations of North America_ by Joel Garreaui (1981). He was (or is) a French-Canadian working at the Washington Post. He sent reporters out and was puzzled at how different the attitudes are in different areas, and they didn't follow state or national boundaries. Finally he plotted it out. It's a little dated coz things have changed since 1981, but it's still mostly accurate. It's hard to describe without a map, but:
ABERRATIONS:
BORDER TOWNS AND BORDER SKIRMISHES:
[Ben] by these guidelines, the method is rather effective. (Mike, does this bring "Voyage From Yesteryear" to mind again?)
[Sluggo] Yes, LG is mostly a consensus-based anarchy, with a few ppl taking certain vital roles by virtue of their ability to fill the roles well (meritocracy).
_Voyage From Yesteryear_ by James Hogan. Science fiction. Highly recommended reading.
[Ben] Recommendation strongly seconded. It's one of the very few books on my 'read over and over' list.
[Sluggo] Ssshhh, Ben, don't let them think we agree on anything.
[Ben] Oh yeah. Hate your guts, you capitalist lackey.
[Rick] I've tried to make up lost time as an adult, but had to have my wife Deirdre[1] explain to me Ulster's key problem: Its millions of impoverished Catholics are largely stuck on the dole, and have been for generations. Thus, even if all the Ian Paisleys of the world were to suddenly join Sinn F�in and vote for reunification, the Dublin government simply wouldn't be able to foot the bill. Which is why republican institutions still advocate the 32-county cause in theory but not in practice.
[1] Who was given a hard time when visiting the Six Counties, because the name on her passport was "Deirdre Saoirse". (Everyone but Jimmy can read the explanation at http://www.irlnet.com/saoirse/introintro.html .)
[Ben]
Back in the '70s and '80s in L.A., you simply _did_ _not_ have a red or blue bandanna showing unless you were suicidal. The Crips, or the Bloods, or Rx-13 would shoot you down in cold blood - for either being the enemy or "pretending" to be a member. A couple of immigrant kids got shot or stabbed that way.
[Jimmy] The Irish word "Saoirse" is pronounced SEER-sheh (short 'e' sound in the second syllable, I won't try to explain the first but the long 'e' sound is close enough). The American name "Caitlin" (Kate-lynn) is an Irish word, but it's pronounced Katleen. That one's causing confusion, especially since some Irish people (who don't speak the language) are using the American pronunciation/spelling.
Actually, come to think of it, in some places the long 'e' is pronounced as a long 'a'; Ronald Reagan may or may not come from the same O'Regan branch as I do.
[Pranay] Hi,
I have installed LINUX 7.3 in my LINUX Server; I can't start the FTP server in my LINUX BOX. My LINUX server IP is 203.293.130.115 but when I put this IP along with ftp command (ftp://203.193.130.115), it can show its default folders. I can't write or create any directory in this folder. So how do I create the FTP Server in my LINUX Box and what will be the correct steps for this service.
[Thomas] This is the second time this month we have had this question. I'm guessing your homework assignments are tough for you, yes?
Sigh. Look here:
http://linuxgazette.net/tag/kb.html
That's a link to all relevant topics from past issues. Go read.
[Pranay] Will I access this site from any window machine in my LAN environment? If I do so, how do I do? Will have to change any configuration files in my LINUX server?
[Thomas] Probably.
[Pranay] Can anyone help me in these regards? Please, provide me all shorts of information regarding this FTP server creation process in LINUX server.
[Thomas] No. At least the way you've phrased it suggests a homework assignment.
[Bradley Chapman] P.S: If I've broken some unwritten rule, sorry in advance :(
[Mike] No, not at all. The reason I occasionally post spam is to collect comments that may appear on the Back Page in a future issue.
[Bradley Chapman] I know - but I thought there was a whole book of unwritten rules on who was allowed to make up the responses to the spam. In the back issues of LG, I've noticed that the responses sometimes follow a certain pattern; I was afraid that I had done something wrong.
[Mike] Is there a pattern? What pattern? The only pattern is whatever I think sounds funny. I prob'ly have a bias toward ppl I know better, but that just means you have to be more vocal and outlandish so I remember you.
[Ben] Vocal, check. Outlandish, *check.*
Now I know why so much of my stuff appears in LG....
[Bradley Chapman] BTW, has this mlist ever gotten any Linux spam?
[Thomas] Oh yes, I help publish all Ben's ans... I mean... oh
[Jason] On other note, has anybody else noticed that I *always* lose these arguments? Always. Wonder why that is. (Now is the time for something stunningly witty and sarcastic, Ben)
[Ben] It's because you get into them, DUH!
[Jason] I don't think that's it. (And, with Jason's ironic disagreement, Ben's comment quickly became self-fulfilling prophecy....)
I think it's probably because I get into without thinking things through. I just jump in without making sure this isn't a simple misunderstanding.
Or is that what you meant by "It's because you get into them, DUH! "?
[Ben] (Move along, move along. Nothing witty to see here. That's being reserved for when it's unexpected and devastating.)
[Jason] Nothing witty at *all*? You're slipping, Ben.
[Heather] You are welcome to correct my grammar but I *desperately* encourage you to read my entire paragraph before attempting it; my thought patterns are occasionally convoluted and/or filled with multiple meanings as written, an effect which would surely be affected by rewriting them, although possibly improved....
[Rick] If I ever dare to touch a sentence where there's any possibility of ambiguity, then I suck as a copyeditor and should be flogged immediately. Metaphorically, at least.
If it's too incoherent to figure out precisely what the writer meant, coming in, then it needs to stay that way in print.
If I ruin a joke or reference by "correcting" a passage, then I need to be flogged first and then shot through the head. Take care not to reverse the order; the effect is greatly diminished.
If you don't see your own style and hear your own voice after I fix the nits, and indeed don't have to look _extra_ hard to even see what I've done, then I suck in multitudinous ways, and should be flogged immediately.
[Thomas] Should we just shoot you now, and then sell you?
[Michael] They can be nasty, but in fairness, not always.
[Ben] If it was "always", they wouldn't have survived their first week of operation. That does not, IMO, mitigate their attempt to rip me off in any way. When I pay someone a large amount of money, I'm not paying to see how little dirt they can do me but how much value they can deliver.
*Any* nastiness is entirely too much.
[Michael] absolutely. And Hitachi should be blacklisted too, since they have stocks of the module but won't ship it to you. It would probably be good to know what manufacturers would ship such spare parts. Is there a list of such enlightened suppliers on the web?
[Frank] German magazine c't had an article, in their December 1st, 2003 issue, in which they describe experiences with the service of all the bigger laptop sellers.
While the article concludes not all service departments stink, one piece of statistics is quite telling:
When asked if they would buy the same brand laptop, next time, only among the owners of Apple (83%), IBM (79%) and Toshiba (55%) laptops, the majority vote was "yes". (The choices, btw, were: "yes", "no", and "not sure yet".)
[Ben]
> Yesterday, we ended up pulling the entire forge apart to fix an air > leak....
[Rick] You folks at the Committee for State Security have gotten better at finding leaks?
-- Cheers, Skud: Real Programmers don't use Python. Rick Moen Thorfinn: Real Programmers don't use *whitespace*. [email protected]