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No, my licence is fine, and has been since the start of the century. I'm a slow learner sometimes, and it took me a while to change my behaviour to get one that the government hadn't written something derogatory on ...
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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OriginalGriff wrote: and has been since the start of the century
1920 to 2020 is a century as well 
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Well, technically it's a hundred years, but a century starts when the 3rd digit changes.
It's linked to the 100 year anniversaries of JC's birth allegedly ...
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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OriginalGriff wrote: It's linked to the 100 year anniversaries of JC's birth allegedly ...
So basically what you are saying is: centuries are fictional? 
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I'm staying well away from that one in the Lounge!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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A century is any 100 years like a decade is any ten years.
Now - what I think you mean is when it's prefixed by the word "the" which then does link it to the actual change in the third digit. Kapish?
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Merriam-Webster agrees with me whole-hardheartedly. Even with the less useful Cambridge version, the first definition agrees with claim.
I did see your birth-day surprise - but as I've heard it, even for those who are believers it turns out that the year '0' isn't zero at[^] all by this reckoning.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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There are differing opinions aobut that, as reflected e.g. in Wikipedia: Century[^]
In Norwegian, "hundre år" is any 100 year period, while a "århundre" is e.g. the 1900s. So at least half of the problem is solved. A few formalists insist that the 21st century/århundre didn't start until 2001 (yet you didn't see any of them celebrating the new century one year after all the others  )
(This conflict is similar to the use of 'general': To a mathematician, something a 'general' rule is unconditionally, always, valid. To common man, 'general' means 'as a main rule'. If I say that "Generally, Bergen has more rain than Oslo", a mathematician will protest: "Last week, Oslo har far more rain - in Bergen the sky was blue. It isn't a general rule that Bergen has more rain". I guess the same holds true in English: 'General' may either imply 'universal' or 'overall'. Except to mathematicians, of course.)
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The reason that 2001 is held to be the start of the 21st century is that there was no year 0. It just goes from 1 B.C. to 1 A.D. Therefore, the 1st century wasn't concluded until the end of 100 A.D, and the 19th century wasn't concluded until the end of 2000.
"Oslo har far more rain". That's a good typo in either language!
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Obviously the early calendar makers were VB fans.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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I have tried to ask believers if they think Jesus was born in year 1 BC or 1 AD. It sure would have been nice if there had been a year 0 for him to be born in!
As a maths inclined person, I have problems with accepting that years are not numbered by a dense sequence of integral numbers. You are probably aware that astronomers insist on a year 0, so before year 1, they disagree with the churches (Astronomical year numbering - Wikipedia[^]).
In our office building, we have a similar problem: The elevator goes from floor 1 to floor -1 with no intermediate floor 0. To ease our mathematical minds, we have agreed that there is a floor zero, but it is virtual. For the elevator, being a real world object, it is not possible to stop at a virtual entity, so it goes directly past floor 0. (With floor 0 being virtual, it also goes by virtual time; that is why we don't notice that we are passing it on the travel time from floor 1 to -1.)
I am not sure a year 0 would have changed anything. If you ask an average person to list the ten first whole numbers, he will start at "one, two, three ... ten"; he wouldn't go from zero to nine.
Funny enough: We count age from base zero, while (assuming that I have not been lied to), in e.g. Korean culture, age is counted from base 1: Your first year, you are 1 (lunar) year old. When you have lived for 12 moons, you turn 2 years old; you are in your second year. If you as an Korean about his age, not only must he multiply by the lunar/solar year fraction, but also correct for the off-by-one base. If we had considered our year number to represent the age of Jesus - 1 AD is a year after he was born, the year he was one years old, then he would have completed 100 years at year 100 (provided that he had followed in the tracks of guys like Adam and Moses, living for a few hundred years - he didn't, but that doesn't affect the principle). If you turn 100, we celebarte your anniversary when your age turns from 99 to 100, not when it turns from 100 to 101.
A common joke is how to distinguish between a computer amateur and a computer pro: The amateur considers 256 a round number. The pro consider 255 a round number, because he is counting from base zero.
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That's ridiculous! How else are you supposed to test whether your eyesight's OK? 
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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Anyone who drives slower than me needs to get the pickle out, and anyone who drives faster than me is a maniac!
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problem is they let kids drive way too early, grannies drive far too long
and every second vehicle is the size of a bus despite rarely carrying more then 3 people.
pestilence [ pes-tl-uh ns ] noun
1. a deadly or virulent epidemic disease. especially bubonic plague.
2. something that is considered harmful, destructive, or evil.
Synonyms: pest, plague, CCP
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Quote: despite rarely carrying more then 3 people.
Make that "...more than 1 person" and you have the US standard of traffic.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Plus, the ones on either side are elephanting fools 
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, navigate a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects! - Lazarus Long
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You've just run into (or is it over?) the difference between private enterprise and the government. 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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In the interest of balance, can you justify those charges?
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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The last time I checked, in the UK it's the government who has to justify the charges. I'm pretty certain this applies even in Wales.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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This lounge is a very colourful place, I haven`t posted here anything since I have been around but time spent here is definitely not wasted.
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Hear hear 
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fearless_ wrote: time spent here is definitely not wasted
I know of at least one member who spends time on here while wasted
I think one of his foul-mouthed wasted rants finally got him banned though 
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I don`t always step into to check the topics and comments but it`s always fun to watch the topics that show up on the main page.
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fearless_ wrote: time spent here is definitely not wasted
I guess we all come here for different reasons.
The Daily News and Lounge are part of my morning routine. I also visit when switching tasks or when I'm stumped and need to step away from a problem. If that doesn't work, then it's off to the woodshed.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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