...or at least second language learning after a certain age behaves differently. Given how easily and naturally (without instruction) young children learn a second language, I wouldn't be surprised if young children learn a second language more or less the same way they learned their first. Putting it differently, it may be that the LAD is for acquiring a language, not necessarily one's first language.
Not sure what written language has to do with this. There are illiterate people in the world, and pre-literate cultures. Those people are certainly conscious (if you don't believe that, talk to them--in their language). And unwritten languages have grammars every bit as complex as ours.
BTW, the Semitic alphabet (the one that our alphabet is descended from) is attested back to 1200 BC, and there were other writing systems long before that--cuneiform, for instance, is attested prior to 3000 BC.
> I hope you realize that they want to *increase* sales, not decrease them
Right, and you increase sales of software just like they increase sales of soap back in the 1960s: by making the package say "New and Improved." New, yes; improved, well, if Microsoft says so, I'm sure they're right. After all, they're trying to increase sales.
Oooh, you've hit another of my pet peeves. I really can't tell, looking at an Office 2010 app, whether it's in focus or not. Whereas I can always tell with my other apps, like Thunderbird or Firefox; the color difference is clear.
> You seriously moved to open office rather than just learn how to use the ribbon?
I don't know about the OP, but I moved to Open Office on my home computer because I prefer the menu system. It's not that I don't know how to use the ribbon, I have to use it at work; I don't *want* to use the ribbon, because I find it makes the things I want to do harder (more keystrokes), and because it's got all kinds of junk things I don't need. (Office 2010 allows me to remove some of the clutter from the ribbon, but afaict not all.)
> Power users use keyboard shorcuts and context menus.
Not this power user, at least I don't use the context menus. They require a mouse. I prefer to find my menu item with the keyboard, and that means the main menu...which isn't there any more. Also, the Alt-Key keyboard shortcuts in each new iteration of Office seem to be different, and I find that a pain.
There are two improvements in Office 2010 over 2007, IMO: 1) I can set Paste to the default of paste text only. 99.9% if the time, that's what I want. With Office 2007, the unchangeable default was paste with original formatting, which was *never ever* what I wanted. 2) I can get rid of some (apparently not all) of the items in the ribbon that I never want, and add some I do. (Mail merge is a most-used command? How 1980s!)
Pretty pictures? What kind of nonsense is that? The ancient Egyptians invented pretty pictures, and called them hieroglyphics. Somebody speaking a Semitic language invented this thing called an alphabet, and pretty much every written language (except for Chinese and, to some extent, Japanese) use alphabetic writing now. Or we did, until the Ribbon, which brought hieroglyphics back.
"a permanent station on the dark side of the moon would already be very ambitious" Let's see, in order to be permanently on the dark side of the Moon, it would have to travel around the moon approx. once every 29 1/2 days. The diameter of the Moon is a bit over 2000 miles (2174, I think), so its circumference is around (pun intended) 6800 miles. That works out to traveling 231 miles per day in order to stay on the dark side, or must under 10 mph. Given that you want to stay in the dark all the time, this travel can't be powered by solar cells; you'll need some kind of atomic plant, and radiating off the heat could be difficult, since you can't sink it into the ground if you're always moving.
Wouldn't it be easier to set up a base on the far side of the Moon? Then you'd at least have sunlight half the lunar month.
Why not lift a bunch of modules with smaller rockets, and build the asteroid/ Mars spaceship there? I think that was von Braun's original idea.
And as for getting from Earth orbit to an asteroid or Mars, it seems like we'd do well to develop a non-chemical drive for manned exploration. Then the asteroids or Mars need not be the final destination. Whereas if you get there with chemical rockets, it's going to take forever to get to the next destination (Europa, say, or Titan).
Same thing that's on the light side. And if you don't believe that, just wait two weeks and the part of the Moon that's dark will become light. That's what the phases of the Moon are.
"And LaTeX does not handle UTF-8 very well at all." Use XeLaTeX, it comes with the TeXLive distro.
I use DocBook XML, and convert it to XeLaTex (alternatively, to plain LaTeX) using dblatex. But if you don't like XML tags, I suppose you won't like DocBook. (There are programs that effectively hide the tags, like XMLMind.)
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So you're agreeing, right?
...or at least second language learning after a certain age behaves differently. Given how easily and naturally (without instruction) young children learn a second language, I wouldn't be surprised if young children learn a second language more or less the same way they learned their first. Putting it differently, it may be that the LAD is for acquiring a language, not necessarily one's first language.
Not sure what written language has to do with this. There are illiterate people in the world, and pre-literate cultures. Those people are certainly conscious (if you don't believe that, talk to them--in their language). And unwritten languages have grammars every bit as complex as ours.
BTW, the Semitic alphabet (the one that our alphabet is descended from) is attested back to 1200 BC, and there were other writing systems long before that--cuneiform, for instance, is attested prior to 3000 BC.
Nonsense indeed. How do businesses measure that productivity?
> I hope you realize that they want to *increase* sales, not decrease them
Right, and you increase sales of software just like they increase sales of soap back in the 1960s: by making the package say "New and Improved." New, yes; improved, well, if Microsoft says so, I'm sure they're right. After all, they're trying to increase sales.
Oooh, you've hit another of my pet peeves. I really can't tell, looking at an Office 2010 app, whether it's in focus or not. Whereas I can always tell with my other apps, like Thunderbird or Firefox; the color difference is clear.
> You seriously moved to open office rather than just learn how to use the ribbon?
I don't know about the OP, but I moved to Open Office on my home computer because I prefer the menu system. It's not that I don't know how to use the ribbon, I have to use it at work; I don't *want* to use the ribbon, because I find it makes the things I want to do harder (more keystrokes), and because it's got all kinds of junk things I don't need. (Office 2010 allows me to remove some of the clutter from the ribbon, but afaict not all.)
> Power users use keyboard shorcuts and context menus.
Not this power user, at least I don't use the context menus. They require a mouse. I prefer to find my menu item with the keyboard, and that means the main menu...which isn't there any more. Also, the Alt-Key keyboard shortcuts in each new iteration of Office seem to be different, and I find that a pain.
There are two improvements in Office 2010 over 2007, IMO:
1) I can set Paste to the default of paste text only. 99.9% if the time, that's what I want. With Office 2007, the unchangeable default was paste with original formatting, which was *never ever* what I wanted.
2) I can get rid of some (apparently not all) of the items in the ribbon that I never want, and add some I do. (Mail merge is a most-used command? How 1980s!)
Pretty pictures? What kind of nonsense is that? The ancient Egyptians invented pretty pictures, and called them hieroglyphics. Somebody speaking a Semitic language invented this thing called an alphabet, and pretty much every written language (except for Chinese and, to some extent, Japanese) use alphabetic writing now. Or we did, until the Ribbon, which brought hieroglyphics back.
And what, pray tell, is wrong with dialog boxes?
Hey, watch your mouth! I happen to have a pony tail, and I *hate* the ribbon!
People aren't *comfortable* pulling down a menu? What, it takes more strength to pull down a menu than it does to pull down the ribbon?
If I'm using the keyboard, why would I want to use the mouse? The old menus gave me the shortcut keys withOUT a mouse!
That's the answer--Just say "no" to the ribbon!
Wasn't Neo a software engineer?
Mach 20? At the rate they're gaining? How long before you can make the jump to light speed?
I don't know about you, but in my case it's because it's the only TV show where a linguist was a hero.
(I'm a linguist. I'm probably not anyone's hero.)
"a permanent station on the dark side of the moon would already be very ambitious" Let's see, in order to be permanently on the dark side of the Moon, it would have to travel around the moon approx. once every 29 1/2 days. The diameter of the Moon is a bit over 2000 miles (2174, I think), so its circumference is around (pun intended) 6800 miles. That works out to traveling 231 miles per day in order to stay on the dark side, or must under 10 mph. Given that you want to stay in the dark all the time, this travel can't be powered by solar cells; you'll need some kind of atomic plant, and radiating off the heat could be difficult, since you can't sink it into the ground if you're always moving.
Wouldn't it be easier to set up a base on the far side of the Moon? Then you'd at least have sunlight half the lunar month.
Why not lift a bunch of modules with smaller rockets, and build the asteroid/ Mars spaceship there? I think that was von Braun's original idea.
And as for getting from Earth orbit to an asteroid or Mars, it seems like we'd do well to develop a non-chemical drive for manned exploration. Then the asteroids or Mars need not be the final destination. Whereas if you get there with chemical rockets, it's going to take forever to get to the next destination (Europa, say, or Titan).
Same thing that's on the light side. And if you don't believe that, just wait two weeks and the part of the Moon that's dark will become light. That's what the phases of the Moon are.
But there *were* computers in 1929. They were just people.
"And LaTeX does not handle UTF-8 very well at all." Use XeLaTeX, it comes with the TeXLive distro.
I use DocBook XML, and convert it to XeLaTex (alternatively, to plain LaTeX) using dblatex. But if you don't like XML tags, I suppose you won't like DocBook. (There are programs that effectively hide the tags, like XMLMind.)
Hi, Humpty.
Half 'n half.
"Would you please tell me how often you actually use the menubar?"
Sure. All the time.
There's this wonderful invention called "paper." And another invention called "crayons."