March 15th

[Selezen]

It's the IDEs of March!

Happy IDEs of March, everyone.




Sorry, had to get that one out there.

[DaddyHoggy]

Oh dear - funny - but still...

[Rxke]

Wut?



Edit to add: huh?

[CommonSenseOTB]

Happy IDEs of march Selezen!

[Rxke]

Okay I did some wekipedi-ing.

You guys actually celebrate Julius C's death ?

[Selezen]

<sigh>

If a joke has to be explained, then it ain't funny...(clicky)

[SandJ]

Okay I did some wekipedi-ing.

You guys actually celebrate Julius C's death ?

Why not? He deserved to be murdered.

He caused the deaths of countless countrymen and allies: he started a civil war.

He was a dictator: he illegally turned his army against his own capital and replaced a republic with a hereditary empire.

He dumped his first fiancée for career ends, then did not continue that career, and was a serial divorcer and adulterer thereafter.

Gaining political office through bribery, he was forever in debt, which he eventually ran away from and then re-wrote the debt laws.

He is a classic case why people in high office must not be immune from prosecution: when his consulship ended he had to run from his accusers of 'irregularities'.

He managed to turn Rome's German allies against Rome; they armed themselves in defence and he failed to stop them, thereby creating a terrible enemy to Rome.

He made a hash of invading Britain - which he did for no valid reason. His second attempt failed because of poor governership on his part in Gaul. So much for the great military hero and statesman. His solution to poor government was genocide, so adding war criminal to his record.

He invaded Rome rather than face the crimes he had committed against the state and chased the head of state across the Med to murder him.

He shagged the Pharoah's sister, murdered the Pharoah and put the sister in charge in Egypt, then continued to shag her while being married to someone else.

As dictator he did all the nasty things dictators do to line their own pockets, change the law in their favour, steal from the treasury, build edifices to themselves, rampant tax-raising, and public execution of those who complain.

He was an evil, selfish, scheming, lying, untrustworthy, callous, man who should have been dealt with at the age of 16 as originally intended.

Sadly, he understood how to use the cult of personality and so he is assumed to be some sort of hero. He was a shit.


I would not be surprised if he invented triple-ended, unbendable, non-lockable, unwieldy, confusing, cooling-system-blocking, inefficient, ribbon cables, too.

[Selezen]

He was an evil, selfish, scheming, lying, untrustworthy, callous, man who should have been dealt with at the age of 16 as originally intended.

Sadly, he understood how to use the cult of personality and so he is assumed to be some sort of hero. He was a shit.

So a through and through politician then? Thatcher, anyone?

[Smivs]

<sigh>
Nothing much has changed in the World of politics, then, has it?

[Rxke]

<sigh>

If a joke has to be explained, then it ain't funny...(clicky)

Oh, I did get the IDE thing, but as a non-native speaker, that 15th of March flew over my head.

You peeps celebrate that because of Shakespeare, who made it semi-popular in your culture.

I guess you peeps hate(d) him more than Belgians (we have other historical enemy-figures far worse than Julius C...)

[Disembodied]

You peeps celebrate that because of Shakespeare, who made it semi-popular in your culture.

I guess you peeps hate(d) him more than Belgians (we have other historical enemy-figures far worse than Julius C...)

We don't celebrate it (unless we do, and nobody told me ) ... but "beware the Ides of March" is one of those little bits from Shakespeare that people tend to remember, along with the fact that the Ides of March fell on the 15.

[SandJ]

You peeps celebrate that because of Shakespeare, who made it semi-popular in your culture.

I guess you peeps hate(d) him more than Belgians (we have other historical enemy-figures far worse than Julius C...)

We don't celebrate it at all; I was just trying to be funny.

I think Julius Caesar is held up as an interesting historical figure who is generally considered A Good Bloke by those who know little about him, and as a great general and statesman by those who know a bit more. One of those who comes under the heading of "Never mind what he was like as a man, look at what he achieved, so that makes everything OK".

I just find it a bit heart-breaking that even in these supposedly enlightened times, people can still start wars that kill 100,000s of innocent civilians and be held up as Good People for doing so. It seems to be something hard-wired into the human psyche to make social cohesion work.

[Disembodied]

I think Julius Caesar is held up as an interesting historical figure who is generally considered A Good Bloke by those who know little about him, and as a great general and statesman by those who know a bit more. One of those who comes under the heading of "Never mind what he was like as a man, look at what he achieved, so that makes everything OK".

I just find it a bit heart-breaking that even in these supposedly enlightened times, people can still start wars that kill 100,000s of innocent civilians and be held up as Good People for doing so. It seems to be something hard-wired into the human psyche to make social cohesion work.

Yes, a mixture of primate alpha-male tendencies and confirmation bias. I always liked Enrico Fermi's comment about "great generals":

During the “Manhattan project” (the making of nuclear bomb), physicist Enrico Fermi asked General Leslie Groves, the head of the project, what is the definition of a “great” general. Groves replied that any general who had won five battles in a row might safely be called great. Fermi then asked how many generals are great. Groves said about three out of every hundred. Fermi conjectured that if the chance of winning one battle is 1/2 then the chance of winning five battles in a row is 1/2^5 = 1/32. “So you are right, General, about three out of every hundred. Mathematical probability, not genius.”

(quote taken from the paper "Theory of aces: high score by skill or luck?", available here:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0607109.pdf )

[Rxke]

you are right, General, about three out of every hundred. Mathematical probability, not genius.”

(quote taken from the paper "Theory of aces: high score by skill or luck?", available here:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0607109.pdf )

Now that is pretty great, imagine Fermi saying that to Groves, esp. in that time and place...

[SandJ]

(quote taken from the paper "Theory of aces: high score by skill or luck?", available here:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0607109.pdf )

A nicely-written paper, with some unpleasant implications:
- war is even more futile than I thought;
- air aces often aren't;
- the gag in Blackadder episode "Private Plane" ("Blackadder, Baldrick and George volunteer to join the Royal Flying Corps unaware that their nickname the "Twenty Minuters" refers to their average life expectancy in the air") was not just a gag;
- the Battle of Britain was won because it was held over Britain (meaning our shot-at pilots came back but the German ones didn't);
- you may as well stop building war machines and execute your own people by lottery. Wasn't there a Star Trek episode with that scenario?

A little further research tells me Martin Middlebrooke in "Kaisers Battle" gives some stats for 56 Squadron which says 85% of aircrew were dead in 11 weeks and the average life expectancy was 3-4 weeks.

During April 1917, the Royal Flying Corps lost 245 of its 365 aircraft; at that rate your chance of surviving a 6 month tour of duty would be 11 to 1 against. Sod that!


Still, better than a 'Fugitive' in Oolite who will have a life expectancy of about 3 minutes.