That newfangled Journal thing

Posted Nov 21, 2011 5:16 UTC (Mon) by bferrell (subscriber, #624)
In reply to: That newfangled Journal thing by vonbrand
Parent article: That newfangled Journal thing

At one time, the whole of the population knew the world was flat and that was accepted... Because it was the majority and widely believed.

At other times heinous things have been done because everyone "knew" it was right for various reasons.

As mama said, "if everyone else jumps off a bridge are you going to do it too?"

On my system (XPS1730, quad core and 4G ram), there is no noticeble improvement in my Suse system boot time. I have no idea what effect system spec have on it. But I mention them for completeness.

I, and many people I know, automatically disable pulse... It's there, unused and more trouble that it's worth. Avahi, asi I said, interesting but adds little value that I can see except to make Linux more Mac Like.

Tell you what, next week, we're going to outlaw gasoline and you have to use this new fuel. Eventually they'll work out the bugs, but in the mean time, sometimes car engines are going to blow up and have to be re-built. But when it's done right, it'll be really cool. How do you feel about that?

Look, I've already invested way to much time in this discussion. I recognize that I have little no influence in this. You do and as a wise man once said, never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrell. You have the barrells and an agenda.

I'm out.

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Flat Earth Myth

Posted Nov 21, 2011 14:20 UTC (Mon) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] (1 responses)

At one time, the whole of the population knew the world was flat and that was accepted... Because it was the majority and widely believed.

Yeah, no. Ancient societies (say thousands of years ago) do seem to have mostly presumed the world was flat, to the extent we have any records. Mostly though they just didn't care, why should they? But the Ancient Greeks figured out that a Flat Earth doesn't work, observations from their large and growing empire conflicted with the idea of a flat world.

The Flat Earth Myth (that Europeans didn't realise the world was round until Columbus) is just that, a myth. Crazy people insisting an ancient religious work trumps empirical observation existed in Europe at that time, as they still do today, but they weren't the majority and their ideas had little influence. Educated Europeans from e.g. 1400 would recognise a modern globe as a plausible map of the world although only those with the best knowledge of geography would fail to be surprised by how small Europe is in context.

Flat Earth Myth

Posted Nov 21, 2011 21:54 UTC (Mon) by tshow (subscriber, #6411) [Link]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes#Eratosthenes.27...