Re: Proposal: Debian release numbers
On Fri, Jan 10, 2003 at 09:26:40AM -0800, Craig Dickson wrote:
> [...] And I forget exactly what an "ide" is.)
The "ide" is short for "ideologicum", the public hall where the deliberations
of the Senate were inscribed in stone every day, and also for "ideologicae",
the public servants who did the scribing. The Romans counted their days
by the numbering of the ides.
In the early days of the Republic, there were only two ides (a master and
a slave), but later this was increased to four ides (two masters and two
slaves).
The rise of the Emperors brought many changes to this system. The Empire
became more bureaucratic due to the greater need for ass-covering, and
the ides were replaced with chain gangs of scribal slaves (Servitores
Capitales Scribunt). There were up to 15 SCSi in a chain, and to make
sure that off-the-record remarks remained secret, entire chains were
terminated twice every month.
The SCSi system remained popular until Rome was raided, after which the
ides were reinstated because of their lower cost.
--
Richard Braakman
to troll, v.: to explore, in an electronic forum, the subtle distinction
between being an idiot and pretending to be an idiot.
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