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Re: Proposal: Debian release numbers



Hi,

On Sat, Jan 11, 2003 at 04:22:50AM +0200, Richard Braakman wrote:

> 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.

Just wanted to say that I thorougly enjoyed this post, including the
well matched signature. Brillant ;-))

Cheers,


Emile.

-- 
E-Advies / Emile van Bergen   |   emile@e-advies.info
tel. +31 (0)70 3906153        |   http://www.e-advies.info



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