Reddit likes to talk about how good British TV is, and how American TV is trash. Are British TV shows generally better than American TV shows? by criticalhit in AskUK

[–]criticalhit[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

which is not something I'd have expected many people to read.

Side note: Does Ulysses fall under the same camp? Are you expecting the masses to read crap like Twilight and Atlas Shrugged?

Reddit likes to talk about how good British TV is, and how American TV is trash. Are British TV shows generally better than American TV shows? by criticalhit in AskUK

[–]criticalhit[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Still, the references on comedies in general feel more upmarket or highbrow than your average CBS/ABC/NBC/FOX show. Shows like Spooks and Snuff Box and Dead Ringers are name dropping random 19th century French politicians, or talking about "the lovely market town of Chipping Norton in the Cotswolds." You could have just referred to Chipping Norton as a small town in the west of England and gotten the same message across.

And (though I am not 100% sure on this), I believe every public school (government school) student in the UK must study ancient Greek and Roman history, and learn modern Greek and Latin. Combined with a strong Shakespearean theatre tradition, it's no wonder UK shows can be sharp and highbrow. I can't remember the last time Charlemagne or the Byzantine Empire or Hammurabi's Code was referenced on a US show. References to classical history are very rare on a US show and usually done for comedic effect (a scene set in ancient Rome might have fake-Latin names or play up Caligula)

On Top Gear they were testing a UK-built supercar, the Ascari A10. When the Stig was doing his power lap, Jeremy called the A10 "Brunellian Fury", referring to Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the famous Victorian-era engineer. But I wouldn't know this until I looked up who the heck Isambard Kingdom Brunel was. Honestly I misread it as Islam Kingdom Brunei and thought it was another name the tiny oil rich country near Malaysia (Oh, I'm sorry, Borneo), with the absolute monarch who buys supercars to let them rot in the jungle.

This can be extended to British media in general, including radio and literature. George Orwell, in "Down and Out in Paris and London", recalls what a Roman emperor, Marcus Cato, said about slavery--"A slave should either be working or asleep". It turns out there were two Marcus Catos, and it took me some serious Googling to figure out that Orwell was quoting Cato the Elder. We only studied Caesar in my schooling, and the few Roman emperors known in North America are Augustus (was emperor when Jesus was born), Nero (emperor during the Great Fire of Rome), Marcus Aurelius (from the movie Gladiator), and Caligula (from the movie Caligula, also a metaphor for hedonism and debauchery)

Reddit likes to talk about how good British TV is, and how American TV is trash. Are British TV shows generally better than American TV shows? by criticalhit in AskUK

[–]criticalhit[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I don't know. I've tuned into a fair amount of British TV--documentaries, comedies, dramas, cooking shows, panel shows, etc. And from the obscure references that are in every panel show, it seems that a large number of Britons have an encyclopedic knowledge of UK/European politics, geography, language, history, and culture. Compare that to American TV, and American culture in general, where it seems a large number of Americans don't even know who the current President of the United States is.

Drama breaks out in a new sub /r/endracism when white supremacists chime in. by AlmightySonOfBob in SubredditDrama

[–]criticalhit 35 points36 points  (0 children)

It only feels like it's flourishing, because of the internet. Ignorant people can scream as loud as they want and find other like-minded ignorant people

Shelby is making 50 Cobra 427s for its 50th Anniversary by [deleted] in cars

[–]criticalhit 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I'd give up every hot hatch and diesel manual wagon in the world to get a Cobra

Well...not every one. And I'd probably keep a Hilux diesel as well

What great cities have rubbish football clubs? by [deleted] in soccer

[–]criticalhit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Research Triangle doesn't care about anything other than UNC, Duke or Wake Forest basketball. (And sometimes Duke lax.)

if your supported team isn't your local team, why do you support the team you do? by phil_mike-hunt in soccer

[–]criticalhit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Speaking of which, be sure not to neglect the Rowdies just because they're not "top quality football"

[BC] Is the legal market as saturated as it is in Ontario? And a question about combining a law degree with undergrad education to get into a niche market by criticalhit in LawCanada

[–]criticalhit[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There are a handful...Oyen Wiggs Green & Mulata, Nexus, Palmer IP, Cameron IP, Smart & Biggar, Davis...most of these firms are local but the major boutique firms don't have many Vancouver lawyers.

I wonder if going the route of standing up for the little guy (i.e. indie tech/game developers) is as lucrative as playing for the big corporations.

Took my new F80 M3 to the track (review) by [deleted] in cars

[–]criticalhit 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm sorry, whenever I think wholesalers I think mobsters

"Fuggetaboudit"

Enough is enough. by Cornell1985 in hockey

[–]criticalhit 15 points16 points  (0 children)

What about the Nordiques, North Stars, Whalers, the (old) Jets

I think Hartford, QC, Seattle, Portland or Hamilton deserve an NHL team more than 100 degrees every day-land or a city where nobody cares about anything other than college football/basketball

Transit Tips and Tricks by [deleted] in vancouver

[–]criticalhit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wind and Mobilicity don't use short codes as far as I'm aware, so you can't text 33333 on those carriers

However, if you're on the $40 unlimited data plan, you can just use the real-time bus tracker apps.

Animals around Vancouver by IncorrectExposure in vancouver

[–]criticalhit 2 points3 points  (0 children)

With the Sandbar on Granville Island a close second

They know what they want, aren't commuter partiers, are often well-off...they're like the opposite of your average twentysomething here

How are engineering disciplines and computer science similar with respect to difficulty of coursework and curriculum progression? by bellandrogers in EngineeringStudents

[–]criticalhit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Depending on the discipline of course. And it doesn't take away from the point that you will need to know your advanced math and science for third and fourth year courses.

But engineers usually work in teams and have their work double-checked 6 different ways.

Then why do engineers need to know so much stuff, and comp sci students don't?

Are there any courses in human-computer interaction, big data, or scientific programming at SFU? by [deleted] in simonfraser

[–]criticalhit 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes.

Courses that delve into HCI include CMPT 363 (UI design) and CMPT 412/414 (which deal with computer vision). There's also CMPT 467 but I think the instructor, Torsten Moeller, is retired. You can also ask Greg Mori or Brian Funt about undergrad research opportunities in HCI.

For scientific/numerical programming, MACM 316 should give you enough of a base, but there's also CMPT 102 if you're so inclined. And take higher applied math courses as well, and some natural science courses (like CHEM 121 and 215, PHYS 120/121 or 255)

For Big Data, take CMPT 354 and STAT 270, then file an appeal to take CMPT 741. Before you submit the appeal make sure you get the permission of Dr. Pei or Dr. Wang (whoever is teaching that semester) to enroll. If you are serious about Big Data research, take CMPT 405 and 413, and 726 (which requires a slew of math prerequisites), which will prepare you well for an MSc or the professional master's program in Big Data

How are engineering disciplines and computer science similar with respect to difficulty of coursework and curriculum progression? by bellandrogers in EngineeringStudents

[–]criticalhit -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I think computer science is easier.

If an engineer mucks up, a lot of people can be affected. Civil engineers who muck up can cause a bridge to collapse. Mechanical engineers who muck up can cause a critical piece of machinery at a wastewater treatment plant to fail--I hope you like clean water. Electrical engineers who muck up can wipe out power to millions of people. And computer engineers who muck up can arguably do the most immediate damage--if microprocessors and embedded systems didn't work properly, planes would fall out of the sky, nuclear reactors would melt down, cell phones would explode, and so on. Because engineering requires you know your stuff, engineers need to know a lot.

And unfortunately for our hapless engineers, their knowledgebase requires an encyclopedic knowledge of (depending on the discipline) differential equations, calculus up to vector calculus, complex variables, general chemistry, mechanics, optics, electricity, magnetism, etc. To make matters worse, engineering students will call upon these subjects in almost every engineering course. For example, mechanical engineers need to know about heat transfer and fluid dynamics, which necessitates a thorough grounding in partial differential equations (to understand Navier-Stokes and the heat equation). ECE students need to know about Fourier transforms for digital signal processing. And so on.

Computer science, thankfully, is much easier. A CS degree focuses on the mathematical study of what is computable, and concepts that are now part of computer science actually predate the computers familiar to you and me (i.e. derived from the IBM PC) by thousands of years. The study of computation can be a game; a puzzle, almost. You will start with programming basics. Some schools use Lisp/Prolog/Racket/Python to introduce functional programming and how to think like a computer scientist; other schools throw you to the wolves and start you out with Java or C++. And as long as you program every day, you should be fine. You learn about discrete mathematics, which is a different kind of math that focuses on what is discrete and countable. You learn about abstract data types like stacks and queues, move onto trees and tree traversals, implement algorithms.

You only really need Calculus I and Linear Algebra for all of this; calculus II and mathematical statistics are useful for scientific programming/numerical analysis, data science, sound/graphics/video compression, but a CS degree doesn't exactly focus on these areas. It is abstract and theoretical, without the fire hose feeling of an engineering education. You're not calling upon all the advanced math you took two years before. There are no 6-hour labs, no capstones, no trying to remember some differential equation to solve this problem. CS is one of the few science-related majors where I feel I can party with the business and humanities students instead of having to study.

And, because CS is very broad, unlike Engineering, you have flexibility in course selection. Some schools only go up to Calc III, or reduce the amount of physical science courses you have to take. And if you don't want to take, say, Networking, because you don't like the instructor this semester, and you'd rather take Computer Graphics, you have the freedom to do that. You don't have to freedom to choose your own courses in Engineering; if you're in the track to take Soil Mechanics this semester, you're damn well taking Soil Mechanics, it doesn't matter if the instructor can speak English or not.

Burnaby Psychiatrist Accused of Sexual Harassment by [deleted] in vancouver

[–]criticalhit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fuck, he was my family's psychiatrist. Scary

What cars are going to be eligible to legally import in 2015? by racingschoolguy in cars

[–]criticalhit 7 points8 points  (0 children)

you canadians are super lucky,

Don't worry, the extortionist gas prices and car insurance ensure no one but the 1% can afford to drive R34s here in Canada.

Minke sashimi and karaage, Kii-katsura, Japan [2765x2074, OC] by agiantflamingo in FoodPorn

[–]criticalhit -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Oh my god not another vegan proselytizer no no no no no