One of the newly displayed student works is a 3ft x 3ft canvas uniformly covered in brown, medium grit sandpaper.

Something about it rubs me up the wrong way

If you're talking about Alastair Reynolds, Mali, the civilisations did originate from earth, of course.

Aaa argh.

Am at work do, but as I'm presenting an award at 9.30 in front of 700 people I can't drink until after that..... Dinner is going to be loooooong

Yes. But Living 1.456 AU from my home star would annoy me.

Aaa argh.

Am at work do, but as I'm presenting an award at 9.30 in front of 700 people I can't drink until after that..... Dinner is going to be loooooong

Also, I think I have been conditioned. Every time I read a post of yours in the evening I want port and cheese.

Aaa argh.

Am at work do, but as I'm presenting an award at 9.30 in front of 700 people I can't drink until after that..... Dinner is going to be loooooong

Why would you want to present an award sober?

(The latest in my long line of 'why would you want to X sober?' questions)

The kind of conditioning I can get behind.

Yes. But Living 1.456 AU from my home star would annoy me.

Also you realise the AU is the *mean* distance between the earth and the sun? It's very rarely exactly 1.

Yes, but what relevance would the mean distance between a sun and a planet I am 60 years flight time away from have for me? I would use the local sol and its bodies.

It's called SI for a reason.

What would be immersion breaking is me jumping up and down on your kneecaps while you're trying to read the book. Characters using standard measurements from their species' home planet is not.

What would be immersion breaking is me jumping up and down on your kneecaps while you're trying to read the book. Characters using standard measurements from their species' home planet is not.

It would make more sense to use AU as a variable unit. Have 1AU be the distance from sun to 'inhabited planet' in system. In Interstellar space they use km as a local distance, and light minutes hours and years.
You do not understand this reasoning as I have thought about how they would use their centuries of thinking to come to my conclusion.

In Interstellar space they use km as a local distance

But the metre was initially defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole, so why use this kind of measurement and not AU?

Precisely.

Or not, as the case may be.

My eyeballs are literally running down my face because of how dull you all are.

Wait....


Not literally.

literally
ˈlɪt(ə)rəli/
adverb
in a literal manner or sense; exactly.
"the driver took it literally when asked to go straight over the roundabout"
synonyms: verbatim, word for word, line for line, letter for letter, to the letter; More
informal
used for emphasis while not being literally true.
"I have received literally thousands of letters"

You can't change the english language by updating an online dictionary, FFS. You'll be saying impact can be used as a verb, next.

John 1

Or here in the UK Megadrive 1.1

You ruined my post which was going to be

Where do you think words come from? Language changes and evolves all the time.

You can't change the english language by updating an online dictionary, FFS. You'll be saying impact can be used as a verb, next.

The dictionary needs to be updated because the usage has changed in the real world no the other way round.

The dictionary was updated because the usage has changed in the real world.

You can't change the english language by updating an online dictionary