It's lamentable how the English language is mistreated these days. As the writer said the great strengths of the language are its inherent redundancy and the human ability to deduce maening from context. Contrast this with most (all?) programming languages - we'd never defend sloppy coding and demand that the compiler 'knows what we mean'.
English has been described as a living language. The language has exised and evolved for hundreds of years, it has accomodated new ideas and 'forks' (eg English and American 'strains'). Nobody is advocating a complete freeze on changes; they are advocating avoiding misuse. English remains in good health BUT like a living organism there's a limit on the amount of abuse it can absorb.
Before the flag waving starts - I'd agree that the writer's views apply both sides of the Atlantic
The UK TV licence fee is regularly moaned about on Slashdot!
For info:
In the UK you need to have a licence for each address which has a TV receiver (you can have dozens of sets in the same house and one licence if you want*)
FWIW I'm happy to pay it for TV free from adverts disrupting the shows and with greater freedom to express ideas without worrying about business withdrawing advertising revenue. And don't worry about the 'tax' aspects meaning state direction - the Beeb regularly clashes with the government of the day - as both main parties seem to complain about it, it must be reasonably neutral. (BTW I have no connection with the BBC)
Others may dislike the licence on philosophical / political / dogmatic grounds (esp if they like watching the commercial channels more) - I accept that I have to subsidise, through higher prices, the advertising 'industry' and through them the other channels.
* actually there are some restrictions (eg multiple independent occupancy of a house split into flats) but the principle holds for most cases
You mean trusted about 80% of it's up time when you are not experiencing configuration problems recompiling software or doing some other stuff that a modern OS should not have to do?
This is not my experience - my Gentoo box goes months without rebooting (the last one was forced on me by a power cut after 87 days' continual use - including rebuilding the LAN, changing my router interface, upgrade of Apache, Samba, Open Office....) - before that it ran for nearly 6 months (again only being taken down because I had to turn off the power in my house to do some repairs.
I don't know what your problem is with portage, but for me it works like a dream - perhaps you could share your issues in more detail and then the community would be in a better position to help.
If on the other hand you've decided that Gentoo really isn't for you, well that's your choice (one of the great benefits of F/OSS) - C'est la vie!
--BTW I an not connected with Gentoo in any way (other than as a satisfied user)
Little did I know that those silly brits used *square* power wall plugs instead of the European standard.
A little forward planning goes a long way;-)
So I whopped out my thrusty leatherman, unscrewed a wallsocket in the toilets, removed the wires, and taped them to my charger. I was saved
And lucky not to be electrocuted - all for the sake of a converter plug, generally available for a couple of pounds which you can use anywhere in the UK!
A few pounds vs (repeated?) risk of loss of life ? - interesting priorities !!
Don't know if NTL per se is banned - just that the IP address which is causing me to be banned is that of an NTL cache server (which I assume is a proxy through which I get my access).
Your friend may be going via a different proxy/cache - if so good luck to him;-)
If you've never played this you've missed a treat.
Played in 7 rounds (epochs) you need to gain (and keep territory; opportunities for 'stitching up' your fellow players -- great fun (lasts around 3 hours).
Other great board games (which we've played for over 12 years without tiring of them) include:
Kingmaker - England at end of 15th Century - Wars of the Roses. Great game but can sometimes drag on.
Plague - a really wacky (if slightly tasteless game of gathering corpses in Black Death Weymouth (a town on the south coast of England - the game has a passing acquaintance with real history). Whoever created it had a real sense of humour!
Brittania - Britain from romans to normans - manage your invaders / settlers to get the right areas at the right time.
Civilization -- brilliant game but a real 'all nighter!' - good mix of competition / cooperation / trading / development. Not rlated to the all time brilliant Sid meier game of the same name (but there are several similarities)
Flux - a wacky little card game where the rules, and the goal of the game change all the time
I could go on.... as a games fan I spend most Sunday nights with a group of friends, a board game, several cups of tea and many Jaffa cakes (a chocolate and orange biscuit popular in the UK) -- GREAT;-)
BTW I have no connection with the makers of any of the above. Don't know how easilyany of the above can be obtained outside the UK.
The BNC gives British English usage, not English usage.
English:- " of or relating to or characteristic of England or its culture".
Use of terms such as British English is a tautology!!.
If you're going to differentiate between the English language and that variation spoken in the US [and in many places across the globe], feel free, but at least be honest about it and refer to your [linguistic] deviations as American "English".
While not completely accurate, the real comparison would be if a newspaper stated that some restaurants had bad meat but they wouldn't report it due to the bad image this may give those businesses.
Ah, but there's the problem.... Where do newspapers, TV channels, news sites get their funding? - from adverts and sponsorship from businesses. So you report bad news about a business - not only do you risk future funding from them, you also jeopardise any other potential sources of cash as fewer people would be willing to 'risk' dealing with you.
The net result is a form of self censorship, driven to suit the needs of those who can pay (read big business or the government depending on your geographic/political position) to the detriment of the 'little guy'.
Daleks are so 20th century! - today's audience deserves some monsters that are truly horrifying and 'relevant' - such as.....
A giant talking paperclip which threatens to accumulate the stored knowledge of humankind and refuse access without a licence payment upon pain of a dreaded 'blue screen' death ray.
I do get fed up with the complaints about the licence fees. The output must be paid for in some way. Having a fee gives the BBC some independence. If it were funded through advertising we'd lose out - the output would be geared to mass markets (lowest common denominator) to attract advertisers and the BBC could not output any consumer watchdog or similar programmes as businesses would threaten to withdraw funding. We'd be stuck with what business thought we should view.
With a few notable exceptions, you just need to look at the other channels to see examples of this [there's only so many cheesy game shows you can watch].
[rant] You complain about the licence - I complain about the inflated prices in shops as companies pay for adverising on channels I don't watch! You don't have to have a TV - I do have to buy food! [/rant]
Deja vu - remember the fast CD/DVD writers counting 3 or 4 fold?
After all, with the better efficiency / less bloat effect (when compared with a certain other company's products) each line of Linux must count as 10, 100, 1000... take your pick
In the science fiction book "WASP" by Eric Frank Russell he quotes an early example of this when one person stared at the sky intently, muttering about flames - pretty soon there was a small crowd and in the end the air-force was sent up to investigate. I can't recall where it happened (in eastern Europe, I believe). The book is highly recommended (albeit slightly dated now as it was written in the days of the height of the cold war and the obvious parallels are less relevant now)
Just another example of Matt Groening's (obligatory Simpson's reference) life view that individuals are clever, crowds are stupid
As someone who practises yoga myself I'm totally in favour of this BUT... only if it isn't a passing fad, to be forgotten in a few months when the next trendy idea comes along.
If your company doesn't offer it, you could try taking a few quiet minutes at lunchtime (sitting in your car in the car park if necessary) to do some breathing and calming exercises. It's relaxing and really does help you.
Slashdot Mirror
I wish I had mod points to give this submission.
It's lamentable how the English language is mistreated these days. As the writer said the great strengths of the language are its inherent redundancy and the human ability to deduce maening from context. Contrast this with most (all?) programming languages - we'd never defend sloppy coding and demand that the compiler 'knows what we mean'.
English has been described as a living language. The language has exised and evolved for hundreds of years, it has accomodated new ideas and 'forks' (eg English and American 'strains'). Nobody is advocating a complete freeze on changes; they are advocating avoiding misuse. English remains in good health BUT like a living organism there's a limit on the amount of abuse it can absorb.
Before the flag waving starts - I'd agree that the writer's views apply both sides of the Atlantic
Sad but so very, very true !
Where have you been?
The UK TV licence fee is regularly moaned about on Slashdot!
For info:
In the UK you need to have a licence for each address which has a TV receiver (you can have dozens of sets in the same house and one licence if you want*)
FWIW I'm happy to pay it for TV free from adverts disrupting the shows and with greater freedom to express ideas without worrying about business withdrawing advertising revenue. And don't worry about the 'tax' aspects meaning state direction - the Beeb regularly clashes with the government of the day - as both main parties seem to complain about it, it must be reasonably neutral. (BTW I have no connection with the BBC)
Others may dislike the licence on philosophical / political / dogmatic grounds (esp if they like watching the commercial channels more) - I accept that I have to subsidise, through higher prices, the advertising 'industry' and through them the other channels.
* actually there are some restrictions (eg multiple independent occupancy of a house split into flats) but the principle holds for most cases
I didn't say it was a good pun ;-) but it is in the spirit of Douglas Adams.
It is meant to be a pun -- they're quite popular in British humour ;-)
This is not my experience - my Gentoo box goes months without rebooting (the last one was forced on me by a power cut after 87 days' continual use - including rebuilding the LAN, changing my router interface, upgrade of Apache, Samba, Open Office....) - before that it ran for nearly 6 months (again only being taken down because I had to turn off the power in my house to do some repairs.
I don't know what your problem is with portage, but for me it works like a dream - perhaps you could share your issues in more detail and then the community would be in a better position to help.
If on the other hand you've decided that Gentoo really isn't for you, well that's your choice (one of the great benefits of F/OSS) - C'est la vie!--BTW I an not connected with Gentoo in any way (other than as a satisfied user)
Don't worry - within minutes of use you won't have a choice: your 3 'slots' will be taken up by virus/spyware "apps" ;-)
Little did I know that those silly brits used *square* power wall plugs instead of the European standard.
;-)
A little forward planning goes a long way
So I whopped out my thrusty leatherman, unscrewed a wallsocket in the toilets, removed the wires, and taped them to my charger. I was saved
And lucky not to be electrocuted - all for the sake of a converter plug, generally available for a couple of pounds which you can use anywhere in the UK!
A few pounds vs (repeated?) risk of loss of life ? - interesting priorities !!
Don't know if NTL per se is banned - just that the IP address which is causing me to be banned is that of an NTL cache server (which I assume is a proxy through which I get my access).
;-)
Your friend may be going via a different proxy/cache - if so good luck to him
me too!
:(
I've contacted Slashdot and my ISP (NTL - whose cache server has the offending IP address).
One side effect is that I'm condemned to access Slashdot from work - clock up one more WinXP/IE6 user instead of Linux/Firefox
If you've never played this you've missed a treat.
;-)
Played in 7 rounds (epochs) you need to gain (and keep territory; opportunities for 'stitching up' your fellow players -- great fun (lasts around 3 hours).
Other great board games (which we've played for over 12 years without tiring of them) include:
Kingmaker - England at end of 15th Century - Wars of the Roses. Great game but can sometimes drag on.
Plague - a really wacky (if slightly tasteless game of gathering corpses in Black Death Weymouth (a town on the south coast of England - the game has a passing acquaintance with real history). Whoever created it had a real sense of humour!
Brittania - Britain from romans to normans - manage your invaders / settlers to get the right areas at the right time.
Civilization -- brilliant game but a real 'all nighter!' - good mix of competition / cooperation / trading / development. Not rlated to the all time brilliant Sid meier game of the same name (but there are several similarities)
Flux - a wacky little card game where the rules, and the goal of the game change all the time
I could go on.... as a games fan I spend most Sunday nights with a group of friends, a board game, several cups of tea and many Jaffa cakes (a chocolate and orange biscuit popular in the UK) -- GREAT
BTW I have no connection with the makers of any of the above.
Don't know how easilyany of the above can be obtained outside the UK.
Well said!!
Oh how I wish I had mod points right now!
I disagree - it is an adjectival noun (if you prefer an acceptable shortening of "English Language").
;-)
As Oscar Wide remarked, the UK and US are two nations divided by a common language
The BNC gives British English usage, not English usage.
English:- " of or relating to or characteristic of England or its culture".
Use of terms such as British English is a tautology!!.
If you're going to differentiate between the English language and that variation spoken in the US [and in many places across the globe], feel free, but at least be honest about it and refer to your [linguistic] deviations as American "English".
While not completely accurate, the real comparison would be if a newspaper stated that some restaurants had bad meat but they wouldn't report it due to the bad image this may give those businesses.
Ah, but there's the problem.... Where do newspapers, TV channels, news sites get their funding? - from adverts and sponsorship from businesses. So you report bad news about a business - not only do you risk future funding from them, you also jeopardise any other potential sources of cash as fewer people would be willing to 'risk' dealing with you.
The net result is a form of self censorship, driven to suit the needs of those who can pay (read big business or the government depending on your geographic/political position) to the detriment of the 'little guy'.
Daleks are so 20th century! - today's audience deserves some monsters that are truly horrifying and 'relevant' - such as.....
A giant talking paperclip which threatens to accumulate the stored knowledge of humankind and refuse access without a licence payment upon pain of a dreaded 'blue screen' death ray.
It changed when people started using centigrade (celcius).
37 degrees C = 98.6 degrees F (or 310 deg K if you prefer)
The difference is small enough to be within the bounds of normal variation.
You forgot support for:
* VTP (Virus Transfer Protocol)
* PEE (Popup Execution Enabler)
As a rough rule of thumb (in imperial units):
Take your height above the ground in feet, multiply by 1.5 and take the square root to get the visible horizon in miles.
For a six foot person this would be sqrt(6*1.5)=3miles. If they moved to 150 feet it would be 15 miles......
I do not have any connection with the BBC.
I do get fed up with the complaints about the licence fees. The output must be paid for in some way. Having a fee gives the BBC some independence. If it were funded through advertising we'd lose out - the output would be geared to mass markets (lowest common denominator) to attract advertisers and the BBC could not output any consumer watchdog or similar programmes as businesses would threaten to withdraw funding. We'd be stuck with what business thought we should view.
With a few notable exceptions, you just need to look at the other channels to see examples of this [there's only so many cheesy game shows you can watch].
[rant] You complain about the licence - I complain about the inflated prices in shops as companies pay for adverising on channels I don't watch! You don't have to have a TV - I do have to buy food! [/rant]
I know of several people in Nigeria who could do with a loan - and they could afford to repay it.
Do you think any spammer would be willing to cut me a finders percentage??
The big advert which accompanies this article is for....wait for it...Microsoft!
And they said Irony was dead!
Deja vu - remember the fast CD/DVD writers counting 3 or 4 fold?
After all, with the better efficiency / less bloat effect (when compared with a certain other company's products) each line of Linux must count as 10, 100, 1000... take your pick
In the science fiction book "WASP" by Eric Frank Russell he quotes an early example of this when one person stared at the sky intently, muttering about flames - pretty soon there was a small crowd and in the end the air-force was sent up to investigate. I can't recall where it happened (in eastern Europe, I believe). The book is highly recommended (albeit slightly dated now as it was written in the days of the height of the cold war and the obvious parallels are less relevant now)
Just another example of Matt Groening's (obligatory Simpson's reference) life view that individuals are clever, crowds are stupid
As someone who practises yoga myself I'm totally in favour of this BUT... only if it isn't a passing fad, to be forgotten in a few months when the next trendy idea comes along.
If your company doesn't offer it, you could try taking a few quiet minutes at lunchtime (sitting in your car in the car park if necessary) to do some breathing and calming exercises. It's relaxing and really does help you.