To be clear, the U.K. Govt website [1] allows people to submit suggestions, and the NERC are not obliged to use the highest ranking suggestion. Although personally I liked 'what iceberg' as a name Edit: added link [1] http://www.nerc.ac.uk/press/releases/2016/10-ship-naming/
> Although personally I liked 'what iceberg' as a name That's a very Culture ship name.
Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide
121–130 of 150 posts
Re: Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well for one She is a Ship not a Boat - and Maritime types get quite upset if you refer to their ship as a boat. (think Pissed off Gibbs from NCIS) I did like that "Forward Unto Dawn" (the ship in halo) was 4th at one point
RSS Pedantry
Re: Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide
#123Re: Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide
#124Although these pranks are funny they highlight a something very serious - the failure case of direct democracy. When minor issues come up for vote not everyone cares. The people who do care enough to vote can easily be trolls. As an example, imagine that a vote comes up for raising tolls from $1 to $2 on little used street. It's one of 1000 votes a month in a direct democracy. There's little chance of getting attenti…
Your conclusion assumes that direct democracy tends to affect things that have little real impact on the humans voting on them. People don't take voting seriously because voting feels less like casting a vote, and more like buying a raffle ticket. "Enter for a chance for your vote to be taken seriously." However, in small communities and towns, I think they often vote on things that are important to them and end up t…
Nope. The boat made me think of other situations.
Re: Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always thought that a direct democracy where you can by default delegate your vote to one of the elected politicians, but you override whenever you want, would be the best of both worlds (representative democracy and direct democracy). That wouldn't necessarily work on this kind of votes (names for stuff), but I think it would work well on the regular issues that politicians make decisions about.
I went to the Pirate Party conference in the UK a few years ago. This method of decision making was proposed, but issue that was recognised was that of absenteeism. What happens when Alice gives her vote to Bob, but then gets disillusioned with the entire system and disengages without de-registering her delegation. Any liquid democracy system needs a strong way of differentiating between genuine delegation and disint…
Re: Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide
#126They should run with it, the positive PR now and in the future when the RSS Boaty McBoatface docks would be worth it. It would also show a sense of humour and make it something fun.
I'm from Gothenburg, Sweden, which is a city known for its bad puns and where most larger buildings are usually referred to by silly nicknames. Last year, there was a competition to name the new swimming pool by the harbor which they put there to keep people from swimming in the rather filthy water of the nearby river. As expected, most of the names which received a lot of votes were silly puns and, you know what? Th…
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Re: Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it was "Pillar of Autumn"
I think Pillar of Autumn is the coolest name ever given to something fictional. Followed by Shadow Moses island.
Forward Unto Dawn, Shadow of Intent, Long Night of Solace, Point of No Return.
Re: Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm probably going to have my foot in my mouth pretty quickly about this but how bizarre is the Swedish language that "entrails" and "in-river" could be the same word? lol Is it a slang term of some kind?
No more bizarre than Ent Rails (you know, railways for Tolkien Ents) is the same as entrails in English. Just as you can't actually say inriver and pretend it means something in the river in English, you can't say inälv and mean something in an älv in Swedish. But as a pun it is okay, everyone gets the word play.
I think "in-river" is pretty acceptable in speech, and mildly so in writing. If you said there was an "in-river pool", I wouldn't bat an eyelash.
That said, the relation between the adjectivizing(?) morphemes "in-" and "at-" (e.g. "at-home bar") and their corresponding prepositions is weird and makes my brain hurt.
Re: Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide
#129I might be okay with that.
Re: Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think so - their name refers to the small boats and canoes they originally operated from.
Aren't submarines referred to as boats? :-) [NB Apologies, I was being silly with that original comment, as far as I know you are correct.]