Germans are very efficient, it's those damn Spaniards and their siestas that ruin everything. I suggest that once the USA is finished in the middle east, they bomb all European countries that have a siesta, or anything longer than a 10 minute lunch break.
My other thoughts were that perhaps Americans are simply being forced to work too hard, due to cutbacks, layoffs, and a generally crappy economy, to the detriment of their health (which no corporation wants to cover anymore) and their productivity (but no problem, there are plenty of folks looking for work, who can work longer and cheaper, everyone is expendible). Hmm...
So Macca - if those European socialists were so f@cking lazy why didn't the goddamned Aztecs or the Iroquio Nation just sail over to the United Kingdom or the Kingdoms of Spain and France and just take over in the fifteenth century??
Oh, right - that's because all that Eurotrash sailed over to the Americas, walked all over the native population and stole everything that wasn't nailed down. Jeez, maybe it's time to reinforce the lesson....
Quote:"You guys in the ships. It's a Mayflower re-enactment??"
"Not this time cabrone/Yank/chien. Did we happen to mention that we've got the bomb?".
Or the mayans, they were smart. Sure, they disappeared, to some extent, and we might too, but we're not as primative, no way...
I dunno.
Invented the zero lately? Domesticated a cereal crop? Thought up two new drug vices like cocaine AND tobacco?? Made a giant fibreglass sculpture in the shape of a shrimp!!!?!!
Thought not. USA, report to the back of the innovative nations queue !!!
Just returned from France.
Things have changed a bit, since I visited this country years back (must be 20 or so) in August: nowadays, you find notices on the shop windows, saying, they have open even in August/summer (well, a llonger lunch break than usual, and Mondays, or Tuesdays is closed or so).
Of course, quite a lot of restaurants/shops are still closed (but this is about the same amount as in Germany).
How does one invent the zero?
I disagree with the link, Walter.
ZERO AND MAYAN MATHEMATICS
The invention of zero occurred independently in two different parts of the world. The earliest known use of zero in India is in a Hindu inscription Of A.D. 876. Through Arab scholars, knowledge of zero was transmitted to Europe.
Between 300 B.C. and A.D. 300, the Mayan Indians had performed many amazing astronomical calculations, such as determining the orbit of Venus with an error of I day in 6,012 years. These results have led many archaeologists to believe that the Mayans were the first people to invent zero.
The symbol the Mayans used for zero was a shell,
Mayan merchants used a base‑20 number system. They wrote their numbers vertically, so that as one moved up the column, the numbers increased by a factor of 20. Bar and‑dot numerals were used; the dot (·) represented 1, and the bar (‑) represented 5. In our base‑10 system we write the numbers 1 to 9 and then use our zero symbol to write 10. In the based‑20 system the Mayans wrote the numbers I to 19 and then used their zero symbol to write 20.
I would be inclined to say that someone discovered zero, but not invented zero. It's like saying someone invented the speed of light or gravity.
Gravity sucks, and the speed of light is for chickenshits who are afraid to open 'er up . . .
work sucks as well
And all urawpeanhs think as I do.
A urawpeanh.
a point well taken . . . work is a four-letter word . . .
<thinking re danload's location: actually, I've stayed really just a few steps away from the Seine until this morning - which was much better than being at home
>
so is this a quible about understanding zeroness, already extant, first? Or conceptualizing zero as a clue to framing the known world?
No it's the other way around, sorry
Walter Hinteler wrote:<thinking re danload's location: actually, I've stayed really just a few steps away from the Seine until this morning - which was much better than being at home
>
Where did you stay exactly?
Hotel in Courbevoie, some café/boissons/glaces directly at the Seine: in La Roche-Gyon and St. Cloud :wink:
I live in Bois-Colombes and work in Asnières sur Seine.
It's very close to Courbevoie (both towns touch Courbevoie actually).
I could have met you in the street without knowing!
Yeah, but back to the zero thing -- since all numbers are invented (it's a notational system), zero is invented, too. If we "discovered" numbers, the important ones, like pi, wouldn't be so damn hard to work with.
Nothing existed long before zero. Someone merely identified and defined a concept that meant nothing. You can't invent the absence of something, you can only define it. same with one. Cavemen could identify a single thing from multiple things. They even had 10 fingers and 10 toes.
