CIV4 warlords comes out.....

[zx1111]

Gamespot site says that Warlord exapnsion will be released on "Jul 24, 2006"

Now is about one month and 10 days from the date.

Game spot's release date are usually quite thrustworthy compared to other similar game site, I think.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civilizationivwarlords/index.html?q=civilization

 

[j_buckingham80]

Aye yay yay... Dates and the Metric system, there's a topic for discussion.

First off, we'll see when Warlords comes out, I'm expecting late July. June, I'd be surprised.

Now, for the controversal stuff. MM/DD/YYYY, makes sense, because at least in the English I speak, it is more common to say July 27th, or June 15th, than it is to say 7th July or 8th September. For readying comprehension, it actully reads better as MM/DD/YYYY, precisely because one says August 8th and not 8th August. Now, if I remember correctly (which is a long shot), the French do sometimes put the day before the month, "le premier de Octobre." for example. I do not know, how for example the 7th is spoken of in French. If, for example the French say "sept Mai", than the French make sense in writing DD/MM/YYYY. Now maybe in England, people say "the seventh of X" so they should write it DD/MM/YYYY, so it makes sense.
Note of course, that the clock system also works better under my understanding. Time is written HH:MM:SS, think of how we most commonly talk about time "Nine - Thirty-Five." We don't write time out as SS:MM:HH, which would be most consistent with the "odometer" method. Note of course, that even for the "odometer" method, the days should go YYYY/MM/DD, but it doesn't. Unfortunately, if you ask me this seems to be an example of Britain, trying to be trendy by acting all continental, when they should be proud of their heritage and language.

Metric vs. Imperial or US, is another perfect example of this. The standard system is far superior to metric in virtually every regard. First, consider how often one actually converts within a measurement, how often do we convert from feet to miles? Not very often, and it really isn't all that hard to convert. Second, the mind thinks better in terms of 1/4s, 1/2s, wholes, 2X, 4X and the like, we have a tendancy to double amounts not 10X them...So what's the point of a system that runs in 10s? 10s actually a fairly awful number it's only divisible by 5 and 2, (part of the reason metric time was never accepted), in fact 12 is a far better number because it is divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6. That's why time is still Base 12, because it works far better for actual usage. Oh well, my larger point, don't disparage the US or Imperial system, they work very well, almost every measurement is related to something human, the metric system on the other hand, is almost completely detached from the people who use it.

 

[Zhahz]

All the world uses the dd/mm/yyyy format except the USA. I believe that the USA use the different format to feel that little bit special, different or better than the rest of the world. This happens in many other things.

As an American I surely do get tired of some of you residents of near 3rd world countries bashing on us all the time. Jealous?

 

[King Flevance]

Aye yay yay... Dates and the Metric system, there's a topic for discussion.

First off, we'll see when Warlords comes out, I'm expecting late July. June, I'd be surprised.

Now, for the controversal stuff. MM/DD/YYYY, makes sense, because at least in the English I speak, it is more common to say July 27th, or June 15th, than it is to say 7th July or 8th September. For readying comprehension, it actully reads better as MM/DD/YYYY, precisely because one says August 8th and not 8th August. Now, if I remember correctly (which is a long shot), the French do sometimes put the day before the month, "le premier de Octobre." for example. I do not know, how for example the 7th is spoken of in French. If, for example the French say "sept Mai", than the French make sense in writing DD/MM/YYYY. Now maybe in England, people say "the seventh of X" so they should write it DD/MM/YYYY, so it makes sense.
Note of course, that the clock system also works better under my understanding. Time is written HH:MM:SS, think of how we most commonly talk about time "Nine - Thirty-Five." We don't write time out as SS:MM:HH, which would be most consistent with the "odometer" method. Note of course, that even for the "odometer" method, the days should go YYYY/MM/DD, but it doesn't. Unfortunately, if you ask me this seems to be an example of Britain, trying to be trendy by acting all continental, when they should be proud of their heritage and language.

Metric vs. Imperial or US, is another perfect example of this. The standard system is far superior to metric in virtually every regard. First, consider how often one actually converts within a measurement, how often do we convert from feet to miles? Not very often, and it really isn't all that hard to convert. Second, the mind thinks better in terms of 1/4s, 1/2s, wholes, 2X, 4X and the like, we have a tendancy to double amounts not 10X them...So what's the point of a system that runs in 10s? 10s actually a fairly awful number it's only divisible by 5 and 2, (part of the reason metric time was never accepted), in fact 12 is a far better number because it is divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6. That's why time is still Base 12, because it works far better for actual usage. Oh well, my larger point, don't disparage the US or Imperial system, they work very well, almost every measurement is related to something human, the metric system on the other hand, is almost completely detached from the people who use it.

Ok. I don't see what the big deal is honestly. But I must say that the European way makes more sense. Why? Glad you asked.
Because when you want to know the date, the first thing you see is the date. oh its the 8th. The American style shows you the month. This only comes in handy on the first of every month but even then the European version tells you its the first where then you refer to the month afterwords.

Its like when I started to learn spanish, the language has an awesome way to structure sentences for adjetives. (sp?) Basically, where we say Adj,Adj, Adj,Adj Noun. They say Noun, adj, adj, adj, adj. So In english you say big, long, hard, swollen forearm (see how it can be misleading) in spanish you would say forearm, big, long, hard, and swollen. This way before you start describing the object the intended audience knows what it is you are reffering to.

Same thing with the date. You want to know todays date so the first thing the European style does is tell you that. I would hope you know what month it is already.

As far as the metric system is involved. It is WAY better than standardized. It is NOT easy to break up standardized measurements. I bet you can place the average metric system user beside someone that uses the standard system and ask them to break down something and the metric guy will be done before the standard guy's hand reaches his forehead to scratch it in thought. Standard measurements arent much better than the old cubits system. To deny it is to simply hate having to change with the times.

 

[j_buckingham80]

Ah King Flevance, now it gets interesting...

I will concede that there is perhaps some benefit in seeing the harder to remember day first, however this benefit I think is neglegible given the effort required in looking one number over. However, I think having the written language match the spoken language is useful, the written word, is the act of writing down what we communicate, if we say June 7th, the way we write should match that, we should play with written language so that it doesn't match what is spoken. 7/8/05...is a shorthand for June 8th, 2005. Like I stated, in my English we don't say 8/7/05 or 8th of June, 2005. The written word should match the spoken.

As to metric vs. standard, you say it is not easy to break up standard measurements...but this is generally not true. Babylonians long thought that 12 and 60 were particularly special numbers because they were "easy" to break up, that is they're divisible by lots of other numbers, that's why there is 12 hours in a day and 60 minutes in an hour. 10 however is very difficult to break up. What do you break up 1 liter to? 1/2 liter? 5 deciliters? 50 centileters? What does each tell you? Not much. Consider on the other hand, the Cup. Where does a "Cup" come from? Why...believe it or not if you cup your left and right hand together you get a measurement close to a cup. Double it, what do you get? A Pint, double that..a quart. It flows, doubling, quadrupling, halving, you can move within the various liquid measurements quite easily.

Why sir, is Metric better than the "old cubits" system. The inches are related to lengths of fingertips, feet to feet, miles, for example was just 1000 paces. These measurements were related to you and me, they measured things important to us. What does a meter measure? One Millionth of the distance between the pole and the equator or some such? What's the advantage of that? Because dividing by 10 is easy? But again, dividing by 10 is useless. When you go to the store, compare quantities of goods...Quantities will not vary by powers of ten they'll vary by 2s, 3s, and 4s, the store doesn't sell 10 Quart sizes of milk for a reason, they have pints, quarts, 1/2 gallons and gallons for a reason it works well. How would that work in Metric? 500 ML, 1L, 2L, 4L? Isn't that convenient everything in still in liters and all our beautiful metric systems hasn't added a thing other than doing what the standard system already does which is providing doubling intervals. If we actually look at what does the measurement system do, how it actually works in real life, we can see that the standard system is genuine superior, it is...more human.

 

[Raisin Bran]

wasen't this thread about the release date of warlords and not the way the date should be written?

 

[Franks]

I find the most useful one to be the Japanese way: YYYY/MM/DD

 

[Zombie69]

I am also in favour of secession especially if they want to preserve their French culture. I did not know that they spoke French in other parts of Canada apart from Quebec though.

Quebec is the only province out of 10 which has French as the official language. Then there's New Brunswick, which has two official languages. The other 8 provinces only have English. However, like the other guy said, there are also small French speaking communities in Satkatchewan and Ontario.

Separation is dumb. If Quebec separates, i'll move to Canada.

 

[Zombie69]

So In english you say big, long, hard, swollen forearm (see how it can be misleading)

Lol. That's like the movie "Southpark, bigger, longer and uncut". You know what they're talking about!

As for time and the metric system, i agree that metric and day first are better, even though i typically use neither.

For time, i write everything as 2006/06/12, because it's the only way to make sure it's obvious for everyone, and because on a computer it helps classify by time since the order will be the same as alphabetical classification.

For measurements, well Canada switched to the metric system about 25 or 30 years ago. However, everyone kept using the imperial system because they were used to it. As a kid, i learned only metric in school, but used only imperial outside of it, because that's what everyone uses. I know how tall 5'11 is, but i have no idea about 1m51, unless i do the conversion mentally. Same for 180 lbs vs 90 kg (no idea how much 90 kg is unless i convert). The only exception is outside temperature. Everybody uses Celcius now, and i have no idea how hot 40 Farenheit is unless i convert. Oddly enough, for water temperature in pools and for oven temperatures, we only use Farenheit. Go figure.

But even though i don't use it much, i agree that the metric system is 10 times better.

 

[Zombie69]

I will concede that there is perhaps some benefit in seeing the harder to remember day first, however this benefit I think is neglegible given the effort required in looking one number over.

Actually, this advantage is greater than you think. It's like team records in sports. In North America, we use W-L-T (win-loss-tie), while in the UK they use W-D-L (win-draw-loss). For once, North America's system is much better, because you're not interested in how many ties a team as. What you want to do is compare their wins and losses in order to quickly find out if they play above .500 (another concept not used in the UK), and by how much. This is much easier to do with ties at the end, then having them between the two numbers you want to compare, which is very annoying. Plus, since we don't play boring soccer here, we don't get a tie every other game!

As to metric vs. standard, you say it is not easy to break up standard measurements...but this is generally not true. Babylonians long thought that 12 and 60 were particularly special numbers because they were "easy" to break up, that is they're divisible by lots of other numbers, that's why there is 12 hours in a day and 60 minutes in an hour. 10 however is very difficult to break up. What do you break up 1 liter to? 1/2 liter? 5 deciliters? 50 centileters? What does each tell you? Not much.

Half a liter is 500 ml (or 50 cl in France since they like using that, which we don't in Canada). Super easy, and absolutely nothing to memorize. Nothing is easier to break up than multiples of 10 when using a decimal system (which we all do). Stop thinking in fractions, a thing of the past, and start thinking in decimals. Fractions are very limited. The imperial system, for instance, can only deal with breaking things in half, and again in half, and so forth. What's a third of an inch? Can't tell. What's a third of a centimeter? Easy, 3.33 millimeters, or 3,333 microns.

Also, if you had ever tried doing physical calculations using the imperial system, having to convert for example a force applied in pounds per square inch and get calories out of it, you'd quickly realize why the metric system is a million times easier to use.

 

[King Flevance]

wasen't this thread about the release date of warlords and not the way the date should be written?

Hush, you! It comes out on 2006 on the 24th of July! LOL j/k.

I will concede that there is perhaps some benefit in seeing the harder to remember day first, however this benefit I think is neglegible given the effort required in looking one number over. However, I think having the written language match the spoken language is useful, the written word, is the act of writing down what we communicate, if we say June 7th, the way we write should match that, we should play with written language so that it doesn't match what is spoken. 7/8/05...is a shorthand for June 8th, 2005. Like I stated, in my English we don't say 8/7/05 or 8th of June, 2005. The written word should match the spoken.

I do agree that it is only a matter of only looking one number over as well. But as to how to say it in English, well who better to tell us how it is said in English than English people. ROFL. Just kidding but I had to say it. But honestly I know people that say the 8th of july and such. My mom does as a matter of fact. I may too sometimes, never thought about it. I am a hybrid I guess when I am talking about a date outside of the present-next month, I use the DD/MM/YYYY format in spoken laguage often. If it is this month, I only use the date. If it is next month I tend to use MM/DD/YYYY format when speaking. Dont ask me why because I dont know.

As to metric vs. standard, you say it is not easy to break up standard measurements...but this is generally not true. Babylonians long thought that 12 and 60 were particularly special numbers because they were "easy" to break up, that is they're divisible by lots of other numbers, that's why there is 12 hours in a day and 60 minutes in an hour. 10 however is very difficult to break up. What do you break up 1 liter to? 1/2 liter? 5 deciliters? 50 centileters? What does each tell you? Not much. Consider on the other hand, the Cup. Where does a "Cup" come from? Why...believe it or not if you cup your left and right hand together you get a measurement close to a cup. Double it, what do you get? A Pint, double that..a quart. It flows, doubling, quadrupling, halving, you can move within the various liquid measurements quite easily.

My stance is not that the number ten is 'easier' to break up. The formula is. It can be broken down to such a specific point we could measure the exact measurement of a single-celled organism using it. You could use standardized inches to do this but you would end up with a number like (1/16,937,420" )Meaning that 16,937,420 are in 1 inch. Now how many are ina foot?Whereas the metric system would be like 4 trigoquadrameters or something. Which you then take that unit and multiply by the right amount of zeros to find that there are say 400,000 in a millimeter. Ok so how many are in a meter? (add 2 more zeros. there are 40,000,000 in a meter.) the math is easier for converting.
A foot is based off of a man's foot. Who's foot? My foot is different from your foot. My friend Nick has about a cup and a half if he cupped his big ass hands. The metric system is precise compared to a guestimated amount set by ancient methods into standardized units. The idea behind the metric system breaking down is easy because it only involves adding or taking away zeros. Multiplication of units of ten is not hard compared to breakingdown units by units of 16 or 12.

 

[j_buckingham80]

King-
I'll readily concede that SI is better for scientific purposes than US. But to say that SI is better for a particular purpose is not say that it is better in all. The perfect example of this is fahrenheit v. Celsius. In science celsius can be more useful because the graident is larger between degree and water is a good element to draw from. But in measuring outdoor temperature fahrenheit is far superior. Fahrenheit was developed by taking two of the more common extremes of temperature on the earth and dividing by 100. How many place on the surface of the earth does water boil on its own. Nowhere. To use a system irrespective of its wnvironment is foolish. SI works better for science but not for the measurements of daily life.

 

[Shigga]

This thread is making me

So when does Warlords come out so I can finally ignore it "in personae"?

 

[Zombie69]

Fahrenheit was developed by taking two of the more common extremes of temperature on the earth and dividing by 100.

And what extremes are those? I'll let you know that where i'm from, temperatures often drop below -40 (that's both in Celcius and Farenheit, in case you didn't know). Is -40 Farenheit better than -40 Celcius? No!

 

[IglooDame]

This thread is making me

So when does Warlords come out so I can finally ignore it "in personae"?

Six weeks from now.

 

[Truronian]

And what extremes are those? I'll let you know that where i'm from, temperatures often drop below -40 (that's both in Celcius and Farenheit, in case you didn't know). Is -40 Farenheit better than -40 Celcius? No!

Mr. Farenheit took his body temperature as 100 (he probably had a fever) and the lowest temperature he could measure as 0.

 

[- Praetorian -]

As an American I surely do get tired of some of you residents of near 3rd world countries bashing on us all the time. Jealous?

Of course I am jealous. I live in a near third world country...or did you forget that?

Btw, thanks for proving my original point.

 

[Monker]

King-
I'll readily concede that SI is better for scientific purposes than US. But to say that SI is better for a particular purpose is not say that it is better in all. The perfect example of this is fahrenheit v. Celsius. In science celsius can be more useful because the graident is larger between degree and water is a good element to draw from. But in measuring outdoor temperature fahrenheit is far superior. Fahrenheit was developed by taking two of the more common extremes of temperature on the earth and dividing by 100. How many place on the surface of the earth does water boil on its own. Nowhere. To use a system irrespective of its wnvironment is foolish. SI works better for science but not for the measurements of daily life.

I don't think it really matters what system you use in daily life because nothing needs to be exact. You just need to have a good feel for whatever system you use. The finer gradients in Fahrenheit don't really help you out in daily life. You're not going to dress differently if it's 56 degrees F instead of 55.

But since SI makes the sciences so much easier, I think it's better to have SI as the standard. That way little future scientists become familiar with the system that they're going to have to use.

 

[Mr. Bill]

Mr. Farenheit took his body temperature as 100 (he probably had a fever) and the lowest temperature he could measure as 0.

It's funny, I just gone done with a book called "The Know-It-All" about a guy who decided to read the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica, the book volumes. He structured his book as a sort of mini-encyclopedia, pointing out little facts and dividing the chapters into letters, while also writing it as a sort of memoir. Anyhow one of the few little facts I remembered was how much he hated the way Fahrenheit came up w/ his system, cause it made no sense whatsoever, and was inaccurate. I didn't remember the exact words so I got the book out, hehe:


"For zero on his scale, Fahrenheit chose the temperature of an equal ice-salt mixture. For 30, he chose the freezing point of water, and 90 was supposed to be the human's normal body temperature.

...

"Second of all, why choose 30 for the freezing point of water in the first place? What's wrong with starting it at zero? Oh that's right. He's reserved zero for the temperature of an equal mixture of ice and salt. Huh? Where'd he come up with that one? How about an equal mixture of ice and tomato juice? Or how about one-third ice and two-thirds baking soda, with a dash of paprika?"



Dunno why I decided to use this for my first post, but I think it was to push this guy's book cause I really liked it. For the record, I think the only other bit I remember from it was that there's some sort of snail, I think, called an abalone that has five asses. Yeah.

 

[j_buckingham80]

A good description of Fahrenheit's system can be found at Wikipedia here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit

Granted, there are multiple opinions as to how Fahrenheit came about his scale but the most prominent is "There are several competing versions of the story of how Fahrenheit came to devise his temperature scale. One states that Fahrenheit established the zero (0 °F) and 100 °F points on his scale by recording the lowest outdoor temperatures he could measure, and his own body temperature. He took as his zero point the lowest temperature he measured in the harsh winter of 1708 through 1709 in his home town of Gdańsk (Danzig) (−17.8 °C). (He was later able to reach this temperature under laboratory conditions using a mixture of ice, ammonium chloride and water.) Fahrenheit wanted to avoid the negative temperatures which Ole Rømer's scale had produced in everyday use. Fahrenheit fixed his own body temperature as 100 °F (normal body temperature is closer to 98.6 °F, suggesting that Fahrenheit was suffering a fever when he conducted his experiments or that his thermometer was not very accurate), and divided his original scale into twelve divisions; later dividing each of these into 8 equal subdivisions produced a scale of 96 degrees. Fahrenheit noted that his scale placed the freezing point of water at 32 °F and the boiling point at 212 °F, a neat 180 degrees apart."

Celsius regularly returns negative temperatures in Winter, and while it happens in Fahrenheit, it is necessarily less common. (By the way regularly getting below 40 degrees is quite darn cold. So while this happens in some places, it is certainly not the modal or mean winter temperature.)

Monker, you say "I don't think it really matters what system you use in daily life because nothing needs to be exact. You just need to have a good feel for whatever system you use. The finer gradients in Fahrenheit don't really help you out in daily life. You're not going to dress differently if it's 56 degrees F instead of 55."

I think it's interesting you say "just need to have a good feel for whatever system you use." My larger point is this, imperial/US whatever, is based off of ours (humanity's) development of weights and measures, an inch was the measurement of the tip of the thumb (can you imagine an easier basis to measure something out by?), sure there were inaccuracies, but it is a human system. The mile, is 1000 paces. In terms of getting "a good feel" for whatever system you use my point is this, it is easier and more normal to get a good feel for the Imperial system, because if we had to start back from 4000 BC, it's probably very similar to the system we'd come up with again.

We probably would never come up with metric, until we got around to developing the civic "bureaucracy."