Actually, if you want to sound like a native English speaker from America, you're going to need to misspell more words and use poorer grammar.;-)
Seriously, your story is fascinating and from your short paragraph it appears to me that you have been successful in assimilating our language. I guess this is another example that shows English really is the "lingua franca" of the Internet.
Fourty-year-olds in programming now grew up on punch-cards, BASIC, and COBOL.
Are you talking to us from 1993? I'm almost 45. My first job was programming C and shortly after that I moved on to C++, which is mostly what I've written in my career.
A computer from 20 years ago would likely be running Windows 3, and would be easily recognizable to a modern user minus its lack of a web browser... and the browsers became common not too long after.
Software development will always keep changing. Competent people will be able to change right along with it and incompetent people won't. Of course, since too many managers are happy to commoditize employees and ignore any real metrics on their ability to get things done well, I imagine that software development will get worse, not better. This isn't a function of the programmers so much as it is the fact that we as a society are losing the ability to manage.
I often think the same way and I hope you're right. Nonetheless, there are many advances being made. Even something so relatively mundane as laparoscopic surgery. I had my appendix removed about 12 years ago and came out of the hospital after two days with a couple of band-aids. To this day it still amazes me what they can accomplish without cutting huge holes in people.
I am very optimistic that mankind on the verge of major revolutions in medicine, particularly in the areas of the immune system. This isn't based on any expertise or anything, just a gut feeling from seeing the advances that are being made. I am hopeful that many terrible diseases will be conquered or brought under control in the next few decades, just like there were in the mid-20th century with the advent of antibiotics. But this is just a general sense of optimism and not something I would count on or plan for.
But I also believe we have a long way to go in many ways. So many medical claims are frequently contradicted by further studies which are themselves contradicted shortly thereafter. Tell me again, is coffee good for you this week or not? Half the world thinks thimerisol causes autism and half the world thinks it's benign. And let's not get started on the health effects of EM radiation...
Oh, and I'm glad to hear your wife is recovering and I sincerely hope she remains OK.
No, my argument is valid. My argument is that it's useful to consider ways around problems that aren't going away. Neither censorship or illegal use of guns are going away in at least some parts of the world. It's right to find ways to deal with either problems rather than wish they didn't exist.
The parent wrote off the discussion by claiming there shouldn't be censorship in the first place.
One of the biggest mistakes ever made on the Web was Netscape's initial looseness in rendering bad HTML, which Microsoft followed with IE. Because bad code was allowed at first, it was implicitly encouraged and ultimately made things much worse for us in the long run and we still pay for it 20 years later. Of course, Microsoft trying to hijack the standards, and being very careless with their implementations, made things that much worse.
But I think if people had been more strict from the start we'd be better off today.
Of course all this is moot. IE6 still roams the countryside in tattered rags moaning for "BRAINS!"
My grandmother was diagnosed with cancer around 1980 or so. They gave her 6 months to live, but she soldiered on for 5 years, with an indomitable attitude and relentless good cheer and a wicked sense of humor. Eventually, she made it her dream to get her and my grandfather and their two sons and their families together for a big beach trip to Florida. We had that beach trip in the summer of 1985 and it was a wonderful vacation we all cherish in our memories. She finally passed away a couple months later.
While not a "broken heart" situation, I always believed that her will to see this plan through gave her much strength, and once it was over, she could accept the inevitable. Our minds can't completely control our bodies, but I'm convinced they do much more than we tend to believe. Either that or someone needs to patent "placebo" because it's potent stuff.
Your info strikes a chord with me. Over the years, I have found myself recognizing much more when words are clearly of Latin or Greek derivation and yes, it tells you a lot about meaning, spelling and how to construct different forms of the word.
I have found knowing a smattering of many languages to be very helpful in terms of general English comprehension, as well as allowing me to get the gist of some Web sites that aren't in English. I took a fair bit of Spanish in school, and am pretty proficient at reading and writing it, except for being years out of practice, plus a year of high school French. If I could devote my life to study, I would love to improve those and acquire German, Latin and Greek. But there's too much work to do and family to take care of, and well, Slashdot...
But I do have a first-year Latin book that I periodically take a look at...
The problem is that someone who is stupid enough to do this is stupid enough to not acknowledge his culpability when something goes wrong. The problem is that is your boss won't listen to reason, you don't have much recourse without leaving your job.
Well said. This so-called Health Care Reform was nothing but paying off special interests. And add to that all the naked bribes to get its support from certain Senators and the unions. It is the most corrupt and dysfunctional piece of legislation ever written in this country.
I've got 200-300 items in my Netflix queue. Who cares whether I can see the latest WB picture now or a month from now... it will probably be next year before I get around to it anyway.
This kind of marketing only works if your customers are crazed, slobbering idiots and you'll only do it if you hold your customers in utter contempt. I won't deny that there may be Warner Brothers movies I want to see, but what's the rush? I've got other things to do and other things to watch.
I utilize Netflix primarily to catch up on all those classics I never saw. I watched "On the Waterfront" the other week and loved it. If the movie is good today, it will be good in a month or a year... or 50 years.
There are a hundred years' worth of good movies that are available today.
Of course I know you need electrolysis to get the H2 out of H2O. I misunderstood the parent post. You need electricity to "generate" hydrogen and then went on to say that the only natural sources of hydrogen are petrochemicals. Clearly the latter sentence isn't true, as stated. What he _meant_ is that those are the only natural source of hydrogen _that doesn't require electricity to liberate_. I know plenty of basic chemistry.
I believe the El-Al airline would beg to differ with that assessment. The difference is, they aren't afraid to hurt the feelings of crybabies to enforce security. We in the U.S. are.
Slashdot Mirror
Which probably was cheaper than paying the insurance premiums.
Well, unless you have a serious problem, it _has_ to be.
Actually, if you want to sound like a native English speaker from America, you're going to need to misspell more words and use poorer grammar. ;-)
Seriously, your story is fascinating and from your short paragraph it appears to me that you have been successful in assimilating our language. I guess this is another example that shows English really is the "lingua franca" of the Internet.
Fourty-year-olds in programming now grew up on punch-cards, BASIC, and COBOL.
Are you talking to us from 1993? I'm almost 45. My first job was programming C and shortly after that I moved on to C++, which is mostly what I've written in my career.
A computer from 20 years ago would likely be running Windows 3, and would be easily recognizable to a modern user minus its lack of a web browser... and the browsers became common not too long after.
Software development will always keep changing. Competent people will be able to change right along with it and incompetent people won't. Of course, since too many managers are happy to commoditize employees and ignore any real metrics on their ability to get things done well, I imagine that software development will get worse, not better. This isn't a function of the programmers so much as it is the fact that we as a society are losing the ability to manage.
This is America. We don't solve problems; we put band-aids on them.
I don't know if things are that different between the U.S. and Europe, but I would side with you. I would have no tolerance at all for cheating.
I often think the same way and I hope you're right. Nonetheless, there are many advances being made. Even something so relatively mundane as laparoscopic surgery. I had my appendix removed about 12 years ago and came out of the hospital after two days with a couple of band-aids. To this day it still amazes me what they can accomplish without cutting huge holes in people.
I am very optimistic that mankind on the verge of major revolutions in medicine, particularly in the areas of the immune system. This isn't based on any expertise or anything, just a gut feeling from seeing the advances that are being made. I am hopeful that many terrible diseases will be conquered or brought under control in the next few decades, just like there were in the mid-20th century with the advent of antibiotics. But this is just a general sense of optimism and not something I would count on or plan for.
But I also believe we have a long way to go in many ways. So many medical claims are frequently contradicted by further studies which are themselves contradicted shortly thereafter. Tell me again, is coffee good for you this week or not? Half the world thinks thimerisol causes autism and half the world thinks it's benign. And let's not get started on the health effects of EM radiation...
Oh, and I'm glad to hear your wife is recovering and I sincerely hope she remains OK.
No, my argument is valid. My argument is that it's useful to consider ways around problems that aren't going away. Neither censorship or illegal use of guns are going away in at least some parts of the world. It's right to find ways to deal with either problems rather than wish they didn't exist.
The parent wrote off the discussion by claiming there shouldn't be censorship in the first place.
One of the biggest mistakes ever made on the Web was Netscape's initial looseness in rendering bad HTML, which Microsoft followed with IE. Because bad code was allowed at first, it was implicitly encouraged and ultimately made things much worse for us in the long run and we still pay for it 20 years later. Of course, Microsoft trying to hijack the standards, and being very careless with their implementations, made things that much worse.
But I think if people had been more strict from the start we'd be better off today.
Of course all this is moot. IE6 still roams the countryside in tattered rags moaning for "BRAINS!"
But if censorship isn't going away... and it isn't... then you have to look ways to deal with it. His premise is odd, but seems valid.
You response is like saying, "Why bother talking about all these laws to prevent gun violence? Wouldn't it be better if there simply were no guns?"
My grandmother was diagnosed with cancer around 1980 or so. They gave her 6 months to live, but she soldiered on for 5 years, with an indomitable attitude and relentless good cheer and a wicked sense of humor. Eventually, she made it her dream to get her and my grandfather and their two sons and their families together for a big beach trip to Florida. We had that beach trip in the summer of 1985 and it was a wonderful vacation we all cherish in our memories. She finally passed away a couple months later.
While not a "broken heart" situation, I always believed that her will to see this plan through gave her much strength, and once it was over, she could accept the inevitable. Our minds can't completely control our bodies, but I'm convinced they do much more than we tend to believe. Either that or someone needs to patent "placebo" because it's potent stuff.
Your info strikes a chord with me. Over the years, I have found myself recognizing much more when words are clearly of Latin or Greek derivation and yes, it tells you a lot about meaning, spelling and how to construct different forms of the word.
I have found knowing a smattering of many languages to be very helpful in terms of general English comprehension, as well as allowing me to get the gist of some Web sites that aren't in English. I took a fair bit of Spanish in school, and am pretty proficient at reading and writing it, except for being years out of practice, plus a year of high school French. If I could devote my life to study, I would love to improve those and acquire German, Latin and Greek. But there's too much work to do and family to take care of, and well, Slashdot...
But I do have a first-year Latin book that I periodically take a look at...
Don't mind the offtopic mod, some of us got it.
True, but He never published the details of how He did it.
Wow. You didn't get a single thing right about "global warming" and you get extra credit for misspelling "global". That's a whole lot of fail.
The problem is that someone who is stupid enough to do this is stupid enough to not acknowledge his culpability when something goes wrong. The problem is that is your boss won't listen to reason, you don't have much recourse without leaving your job.
Well said. This so-called Health Care Reform was nothing but paying off special interests. And add to that all the naked bribes to get its support from certain Senators and the unions. It is the most corrupt and dysfunctional piece of legislation ever written in this country.
The entire 3rd movie was nothing but a cry for help by Lucas!
Based on the 4th, 5th, and 6th movies, he didn't get any.
I've got 200-300 items in my Netflix queue. Who cares whether I can see the latest WB picture now or a month from now... it will probably be next year before I get around to it anyway.
This kind of marketing only works if your customers are crazed, slobbering idiots and you'll only do it if you hold your customers in utter contempt. I won't deny that there may be Warner Brothers movies I want to see, but what's the rush? I've got other things to do and other things to watch.
I utilize Netflix primarily to catch up on all those classics I never saw. I watched "On the Waterfront" the other week and loved it. If the movie is good today, it will be good in a month or a year... or 50 years.
There are a hundred years' worth of good movies that are available today.
I can wait.
It wasn't, but that just makes it all that much funnier.
Of course I know you need electrolysis to get the H2 out of H2O. I misunderstood the parent post. You need electricity to "generate" hydrogen and then went on to say that the only natural sources of hydrogen are petrochemicals. Clearly the latter sentence isn't true, as stated. What he _meant_ is that those are the only natural source of hydrogen _that doesn't require electricity to liberate_. I know plenty of basic chemistry.
It's almost as if China owns us, economically, and Europe owns us, technologically. What do we have left?
American Idol?
Hydrogen is a great way of storing energy but impossible to generate without electricity and the only natural available source is in oil/gas reserves.
Too bad there's no hydrogen in the oceans... oh, wait...
No one cares about the U.S. Constitution any more... it fell out of copyright.
Well from what I've seen in the news, etc, if the hurricane levels your house and it gets covered with debris, then yes.
I believe the El-Al airline would beg to differ with that assessment. The difference is, they aren't afraid to hurt the feelings of crybabies to enforce security. We in the U.S. are.