It is clear that the problem of a Universal language would be solved if it were possible to say all that we normally say with no more words than can fit on a sheet of notepaper. The fact, therefore, that it is possible to say almost everything we normally desire to say with 850 words, makes Basic English something more than a mere educational experiment. Eight hundred fifty words are sufficient for ordinary communication in idiomatic English.
Six hundred words form a first stage a which a wide range of simple matter can be provided. By the addition of 100 words required for any general field (science, trade) and 50 for any particular specialty, a total of 1,000 enables any meeting or publication to achieve internationalism.
With this vocabulary, the style and brevity has no literary pretensions, but is clear and precise. Below the minimum 600, only Pidgin English or traveler's enquiries can emerge. Above the 1,000 maximum, we are at the level of standardizing English. Normal vocabulary hovers between the alleged 300 words of the Somersetshire farmer and the 12,000 of the average undergraduate. Most are shades of meaning that are not strictly necessary.
The 850 words can be learned in 40 hours spent during a month by a speaker of a European romance or Germanic language.
Actually, I collect old 2600 games, and 90% of them are crap, which is sorta the fun part. McDonalds would have no doubt supass other Atari spam classics like Chase The Chuckwagon, Kool-Aid Man, and Tooth Protectors.
Japan's teenagers are #1 [cnn.com] as far as their math and science skills go... which may mean they've got more geeks per capita than the U.S. will ever have!
That is not true. The CNN article clearly states that Korean teenagers scored highest on the science tests. The highest overall scores were to Finland, Canada and New Zealand.
Heart disease is also a lifestyle choice
on
This is IT?
·
· Score: 1
If you control for smoking (a "lifestyle choice") your main risk is heart disease, not cancer.
Heart disease is also a lifestyle choice, the McDonald's lifestyle.
Actually there is a verb. The phrase have found functions as the verb in that sentence.
You will notice that this is actually one sentence and one sentence fragment. The verb phrase "have found" is part of the first sentence.
The combined effort of many pc's joining Primenet in search for a new Mersenne prime may have found there fifth result. Among them many belonging to/. readers.
"Distributed computing seems once more to be succesful. The combined effort of many pc's joining Primenet in search for a new Mersenne prime may have found there fifth result. Among them many belonging to/. readers (This is not a complete sentence; there is no verb!). There is an unconfirmed claim for Mersenne prime #39 of over 3,500,000 digits, for which a considerable amount of money has been awarded. SETI looks for ET's messages, but found none sofar. Mersenne primes are used to tell ET about us. A previous found Mersenne number was used to show the advance of science on our planet in a message send into outer space. "
The idea was that it was completely obscure until one understood something magical that couldn't be documented, at which point it didn't need commenting.
How can something be impossible to document? If the person understands the problem well enough to write the code, they should be able to express the same thoughts and intentions in English comments.
Most of the time, spending a few weeks of training your new candidate in how your system works will pay off big-time when it comes to debugging, quality assurance, adding new features, and even implementing the feature you initially hired them for. Why? Because understanding the PROBLEM and the solution method is much harder than understanding the language syntax, or even most language semantics.
Few programmers want to learn a new language, especially one that is not C or C++. Working with a niche language is tar pit. You become a specialist who can't find your next job because your experience is creating a resume that won't make it past headhunters' keyword filters.
People who own slow computers are cheapskates. They are still running Windows 95 OSR1 on their beefy 486. They are not lucrative customers. People with deep pockets by fast computers and want software with new features. These people spend money. Microsoft likes money.
Why, then, do people say Linux is pretty damn efficient on your ol' 486? It's because it is free. Linux developers cannot afford to buy new computers from the money they make selling their open source software. These broke cheapskates download Linux and thus optimize for their sad computers.
Microsoft can afford to buy its engineers shiny, new computers, so they don't really care what the rest of the world does. As long as those stock options and pr0n keep comin' fast, they're happy!
Slashdot Mirror
Try Ogden's "Basic English" , which has only 850 words .
It is clear that the problem of a Universal language would be solved if it were possible to say all that we normally say with no more words than can fit on a sheet of notepaper. The fact, therefore, that it is possible to say almost everything we normally desire to say with 850 words, makes Basic English something more than a mere educational experiment. Eight hundred fifty words are sufficient for ordinary communication in idiomatic English.
Six hundred words form a first stage a which a wide range of simple matter can be provided. By the addition of 100 words required for any general field (science, trade) and 50 for any particular specialty, a total of 1,000 enables any meeting or publication to achieve internationalism.
With this vocabulary, the style and brevity has no literary pretensions, but is clear and precise. Below the minimum 600, only Pidgin English or traveler's enquiries can emerge. Above the 1,000 maximum, we are at the level of standardizing English. Normal vocabulary hovers between the alleged 300 words of the Somersetshire farmer and the 12,000 of the average undergraduate. Most are shades of meaning that are not strictly necessary.
The 850 words can be learned in 40 hours spent during a month by a speaker of a European romance or Germanic language.
Actually, I collect old 2600 games, and 90% of them are crap, which is sorta the fun part. McDonalds would have no doubt supass other Atari spam classics like Chase The Chuckwagon, Kool-Aid Man, and Tooth Protectors.
;-)
Don't forget about Swordquest: Airworld!
Who gives a shit, cockgoblin? A problem in polynomial, n>=2, time is not solvable in linear time, which is what the original poster was claimimg.
Discussing cockgoblins and polynomial equations in the same post makes my day. Thanks for the smile.
Is "harvardian" from Harvard? What does he know anyways..
I'll have to try that.
At the moment I'm running IE4, 5 and 6 concurrently
How can you have multiple versions of IE installed on the same computer? That would make my job MUCH easier!
I sue yuo!!!!
Japan's teenagers are #1 [cnn.com] as far as their math and science skills go... which may mean they've got more geeks per capita than the U.S. will ever have!
That is not true. The CNN article clearly states that Korean teenagers scored highest on the science tests. The highest overall scores were to Finland, Canada and New Zealand.
If you control for smoking (a "lifestyle choice") your main risk is heart disease, not cancer.
Heart disease is also a lifestyle choice, the McDonald's lifestyle.
And before you claim you can't get a desktop ARM based computer, my father uses two every single day.
I wonder, do you think he kicks himself every morning?
not since he died in 1994..
Releasing buggy operating systems without extensive testing sounds like a certain software company we all love to hate.
If Microsoft does not test their software, then why was Windows 2000 three years late? They were fixing bugs, bugs discovered from testing.
Don't forget that Linux NFS is perpetually broken and outdated. I believe there will be another NFS rewrite for Linux 2.5.
...) for Linux 2.5, does that mean Linux is really great or just really sucky?
With so many compete rewrites planned (VM, SCSI, VFS, NFS,
Video, would get crushed.
and you will use the video camera to take video of the inside of the box, eh?
The cover art is hella gay. Is Theo trying to save money by designing the art himself again??
Actually there is a verb. The phrase have found functions as the verb in that sentence.
You will notice that this is actually one sentence and one sentence fragment. The verb phrase "have found" is part of the first sentence.
The combined effort of many pc's joining Primenet in search for a new Mersenne prime may have found there fifth result. Among them many belonging to
Among them many belonging to /. readers.
True, the word "belong" is a verb, but in this sentence fragment, the word "belonging" is qualifying the supposed subject "many".
"Distributed computing seems once more to be succesful. The combined effort of many pc's joining Primenet in search for a new Mersenne prime may have found there fifth result. Among them many belonging to /. readers (This is not a complete sentence; there is no verb!). There is an unconfirmed claim for Mersenne prime #39 of over 3,500,000 digits, for which a considerable amount of money has been awarded. SETI looks for ET's messages, but found none sofar. Mersenne primes are used to tell ET about us. A previous found Mersenne number was used to show the advance of science on our planet in a message send into outer space. "
The idea was that it was completely obscure until one understood something magical that couldn't be documented, at which point it didn't need commenting.
How can something be impossible to document? If the person understands the problem well enough to write the code, they should be able to express the same thoughts and intentions in English comments.
Most of the time, spending a few weeks of training your new candidate in how your system works will pay off big-time when it comes to debugging, quality assurance, adding new features, and even implementing the feature you initially hired them for. Why? Because understanding the PROBLEM and the solution method is much harder than understanding the language syntax, or even most language semantics.
Few programmers want to learn a new language, especially one that is not C or C++. Working with a niche language is tar pit. You become a specialist who can't find your next job because your experience is creating a resume that won't make it past headhunters' keyword filters.
I took a pay cut when I left Worldcom for NASA but I haven't worked a single weekend or evening so far
I thought that janitors always worked nights and weekends.
XP = chi rho = "Cairo"
microdot acid
Religion/Closed development: "You'll accept what we give you. We're always right."
Science/Open development: "It doesn't work? We were wrong. Now let's get it right."
Please refer to How Do You Like Your Buns? A Comparison of Two Sandwiches .
The Old Cut : This is what a sandwich should look like. Neat. Tidy. Perhaps a little spillage around the bottom, but that extra stuff is all good.
The New Cut : Look at it. It's disgusting. It looks like somebody gutted a muskrat.
People who own slow computers are cheapskates. They are still running Windows 95 OSR1 on their beefy 486. They are not lucrative customers. People with deep pockets by fast computers and want software with new features. These people spend money. Microsoft likes money.
Why, then, do people say Linux is pretty damn efficient on your ol' 486? It's because it is free. Linux developers cannot afford to buy new computers from the money they make selling their open source software. These broke cheapskates download Linux and thus optimize for their sad computers.
Microsoft can afford to buy its engineers shiny, new computers, so they don't really care what the rest of the world does. As long as those stock options and pr0n keep comin' fast, they're happy!