Well, perhaps it doesn't make any sense to you -- fine, don't learn it. I find it fascinating that I could read serious novels in Esperanto without a dictionary after a couple of months of study. I've studied German for several years and I still can't read anything non-trivial without a dictionary.
Oh, please. All anyone can learn from that "ranto" is that the author doesn't like Esperanto. There are no facts on the page, only opinions. He thinks it's an ugly language. Well, courses for horses.
It amazes me that someone would actually moderate a link to a pointless troll rant like that to +3.
Is "virulent" the word you really want to use? Do you believe that English is extremely poisonous or venomous? Many French speaking Canadians may think so, but this doesn't seem to be what you mean to say. Perhaps you meant to say "virile" (characterized by energy and vigor).
Yes, I'm being annoying, but the irony of a mis-use of of English in support of English was just too much for me.:-)
Esperanto certainly does "cover the whole problem space of human to human communications" I'm reading a nice translation of "The Lord of the Rings" in Esperanto right now, which would be impossible if Esperanto didn't cover the space. But then, Pascal also covers the entire problem space of human to computer communications (Pascal is Turing-complete, as is almost every other programming language).
The success of languages, whether human or computer, has little to do with their intrinsic merit, but the forces supporting them. English is popular simply because it is the language of the United States, which is the most powerful country in the world at present. C/C++ is popular because it is the native language of UNIX, and Microsoft has spent quite a bit of money promoting it under Windows, as well. Esperanto and Pascal simply lack powerful friends.
I understand where you are coming from -- certainly the UNIX culture (as much as I like it) isn't very friendly to the masses, but "normal" people have used computers since the days when Microsoft was only known for its implementation of BASIC. Most Apple ][ and Commodore 64 users weren't "hackers" -- just people who wanted to do word processing, spreadsheets, and games. Exactly the same sort of tasks that Windows users perform today. Microsoft didn't create this market in any way shape or form.
I'm a Debian user too, and while I like to see.debs,.RPMS work just fine after converting with alien, so really what's the problem? I mean it's practically like pulling teeth to get some companies (even those with a history of UNIX support) to support any form of Linux -- why antagonize them further by demanding that the extra effort to support obscure distributions be handled by the company rather than the user?
Well, the synthesizer isn't just for cheesy rock music -- check out Vangelis' soundtracks for "Blade Runner" or "Chariots of Fire" or Wendy Carlos' soundtrack for "Tron". These are far more creative than the tired orchestral soundtracks by John Williams and his ilk, IMHO.
What I've never understood is how Compuserve/Unisys could get away with patenting what is just a implementation of the work of Lempel and Ziv, Did they get a cut of the proceeds? How exactly does one get a patent for something that is available in the published literature?
Also, first person voice-over narration is a somewhat standard element in film noir detective movies.
Absolutely! The thread that tied Deckard to Marlowe and Spade was lost in the director's cut, to its detriment, IMHO. It has nothing to do with "dumbing things down" -- the original Chandler and Hammett novels which the noirs were based on were written in the first person.
Well, other reptiles have internal fertilization, as do birds. So unless someone is willing to claim that unlike all other birds and reptiles, dinosaurs had external fertilization, they must have had sexual intercourse. Hardly seems open to controversy.
While you talk about not "minding getting off your ass and returning a movie", I assume you mean not minding getting into your car (and sitting on your ass there) and driving to the video store. I don't own a car, and for that reason I prefer to do as much as my shopping as possible via the Web. While I too have serious doubts about the feasiblity of downloading movies with today's bandwidth, there are other reasons besides laziness to want to access movies without having to leave home.
Well, the idea that all applications have to look the same is the invention of Apple in the early Mac years (and least until Aqua they seemed to have a unwritten rule which said they all had to look ugly, too). I've always thought this is akin to saying that all movies have to star Tom Hanks so that people know who the hero is. I *like* diversity in applications and movies.
There is a reason for the similarity -- they draw on the same source material -- the Siegfried legend of Nordic mythology. Read Lin Carter's "Tolkien: A Look behind 'The Lord of The Rings'" for a full description. Another similarity of course is the sword that was broken and forged again -- Nothung (Wagner)/ Narsil (Tolkien).
However, I've read that Tolkien had very little respect for Wagner's version of the legend.
I'm responding to something marked "Funny", but actually there are real applications for DNA compression. For example, exons are less compressable than introns. This could have applications in gene finding (Sequencing genomes just gives you a series of bases, gene finding programs help interpret the sequence by finding areas that encode proteins)
Well, it really seems that points 2) and 5) are largely in place not because the equivilent US technology is not capable of doing the job but because buying Russian equipment helps the Russian economy, and the West doesn't want to see Russia go back to a controlled economy. Plus, it keeps Russian engineers employed doing peaceful things, and not tempted to accept job offers in places like Iraq
Can you give us any details, such as what company made this viewer? While certainly several companies have announced that they are planning such products, I haven't seen any actual products shipping by anyone.
Look -- the human race isn't going to leave Earth for someplace else. Ever. Face it. We maybe could run a few Moon and Mars bases at a tremendous cost and stock them with photogenic astronauts for public entertainment (which really is, after all, the purpose of all the manned NASA misions to date), but colonizing the galaxy as proposed by so much bad science fiction just won't happen. Faster than light space travel is impossible (it is only wishful thinking to believe that Einstein was wrong), and the only alternative, generation ships, wouldn't be boarded by any sane person. Because many of science fiction fans have an almost religious belief in space travel, I think it is extremely brave for a science fiction author like Sterling to say what he did.
Well, he *does* have a point. A lot of the marketing for Iridium focused on the satellites themselves, as if objects in space were cool in and of themselves, rather than simply a mechanism for better phone service. Similarly, NASA's publicity focuses on space shuttles, (nonexistent) space stations, and the like as if these, rather than the scientific knowledge to be gained by using them, were of interest.
Absolutely. I've never understood the "Look I'm a vandal so I'm a cool insightful rebel" attitude. There is a lot of hype about the net, granted, but why not write a book about it? Stoll's "Silicon Snake Oil" was not bad, but it really was written too early to focus on the current situation.
Well part of it is that English speakers are so used to broken English that generally we look beyond it (okay, a small irritating fraction likes to correct grammar on the Net, even when it is clear that the poster is a non-native speaker)
Maybe I've just had bad experiences with German forums, but when I post in my imperfect German I sometimes get flames when I forget which prepositions take the dative and which the accusitive. I don't think the people are any more unfriendly than English speakers -- they just aren't used to seeing bad German.
So what is the problem? Thes planets do move form place to place without a fixed home.
Yeah, and they probably beg for spare change to buy drugs too. Clearly they are in an interstellar slum -- otherwise they'd be given a free bus ticket to somewhere else so as not to lower property values.
Er, Thomas Huxley, a "obnoxious pseudo-scientist" -- hardly -- he was probably the most important 19th century biologist next to Darwin himself. And it is a quite recent development that it was okay for religious people to consider the Bible merely allegorical rather than divine truth. There really was a conflict between science and religion. Scientists were persecuted and even in some cases executed by religious officials.
As for cults, the only objective difference between them and religions is size. Consider: in the 19th century Mormonism was considered a cult by most Americans, but now that it is more popular it is considered a religion. Heck, in Roman times, normal Christianity was considered to be a cult.
Yes, although I fully agree that Project Gutenberg was revolutionary, given a choice today between a PG pure ASCII edition lacking formatting and figures on one hand and someone else's nicely formatted HTML book (and in many cases, this is an actual, not a theoretical, choice) on the other, I'll take the HTML version. And in most cases, the HTML edition was done totally independently of the PG edition.
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Well, perhaps it doesn't make any sense to you -- fine, don't learn it. I find it fascinating that I could read serious novels in Esperanto without a dictionary after a couple of months of study. I've studied German for several years and I still can't read anything non-trivial without a dictionary.
Oh, please. All anyone can learn from that "ranto" is that the author doesn't like Esperanto. There are no facts on the page, only opinions. He thinks it's an ugly language. Well, courses for horses.
It amazes me that someone would actually moderate a link to a pointless troll rant like that to +3.
Is "virulent" the word you really want to use? Do you believe that English is extremely poisonous or venomous? Many French speaking Canadians may think so, but this doesn't seem to be what you mean to say. Perhaps you meant to say "virile" (characterized by energy and vigor).
:-)
Yes, I'm being annoying, but the irony of a mis-use of of English in support of English was just too much for me.
Esperanto certainly does "cover the whole problem space of human to human communications" I'm reading a nice translation of "The Lord of the Rings" in Esperanto right now, which would be impossible if Esperanto didn't cover the space. But then, Pascal also covers the entire problem space of human to computer communications (Pascal is Turing-complete, as is almost every other programming language).
The success of languages, whether human or computer, has little to do with their intrinsic merit, but the forces supporting them. English is popular simply because it is the language of the United States, which is the most powerful country in the world at present. C/C++ is popular because it is the native language of UNIX, and Microsoft has spent quite a bit of money promoting it under Windows, as well. Esperanto and Pascal simply lack powerful friends.
I understand where you are coming from -- certainly the UNIX culture (as much as I like it) isn't very friendly to the masses, but "normal" people have used computers since the days when Microsoft was only known for its implementation of BASIC. Most Apple ][ and Commodore 64 users weren't "hackers" -- just people who wanted to do word processing, spreadsheets, and games. Exactly the same sort of tasks that Windows users perform today. Microsoft didn't create this market in any way shape or form.
I'm a Debian user too, and while I like to see .debs, .RPMS work just fine after converting with alien, so really what's the problem? I mean it's practically like pulling teeth to get some companies (even those with a history of UNIX support) to support any form of Linux -- why antagonize them further by demanding that the extra effort to support obscure distributions be handled by the company rather than the user?
Please don't confuse the GPL and Stallman's views with a proper (legal) distribution of proprietary intellectual property.
Charming. You've just implied that the GPL is improper and illegal. Not a very diplomatic way to attact Linux users to your operating system.
Well, the synthesizer isn't just for cheesy rock music -- check out Vangelis' soundtracks for "Blade Runner" or "Chariots of Fire" or Wendy Carlos' soundtrack for "Tron". These are far more creative than the tired orchestral soundtracks by John Williams and his ilk, IMHO.
What I've never understood is how Compuserve/Unisys could get away with patenting what is just a implementation of the work of Lempel and Ziv, Did they get a cut of the proceeds? How exactly does one get a patent for something that is available in the published literature?
Also, first person voice-over narration is a somewhat standard element in film noir detective movies.
Absolutely! The thread that tied Deckard to Marlowe and Spade was lost in the director's cut, to its detriment, IMHO. It has nothing to do with "dumbing things down" -- the original Chandler and Hammett novels which the noirs were based on were written in the first person.
Well, other reptiles have internal fertilization, as do birds. So unless someone is willing to claim that unlike all other birds and reptiles, dinosaurs had external fertilization, they must have had sexual intercourse. Hardly seems open to controversy.
"God Awful?" Well, K.C. Munchkin certainly was better than the 2600 version of Pac-Man...
While you talk about not "minding getting off your ass and returning a movie", I assume you mean not minding getting into your car (and sitting on your ass there) and driving to the video store. I don't own a car, and for that reason I prefer to do as much as my shopping as possible via the Web. While I too have serious doubts about the feasiblity of downloading movies with today's bandwidth, there are other reasons besides laziness to want to access movies without having to leave home.
Well, the idea that all applications have to look the same is the invention of Apple in the early Mac years (and least until Aqua they seemed to have a unwritten rule which said they all had to look ugly, too). I've always thought this is akin to saying that all movies have to star Tom Hanks so that people know who the hero is. I *like* diversity in applications and movies.
There is a reason for the similarity -- they draw on the same source material -- the Siegfried legend of Nordic mythology. Read Lin Carter's "Tolkien: A Look behind 'The Lord of The Rings'" for a full description. Another similarity of course is the sword that was broken and forged again -- Nothung (Wagner)/ Narsil (Tolkien).
However, I've read that Tolkien had very little respect for Wagner's version of the legend.
I'm responding to something marked "Funny", but actually there are real applications for DNA compression. For example, exons are less compressable than introns. This could have applications in gene finding (Sequencing genomes just gives you a series of bases, gene finding programs help interpret the sequence by finding areas that encode proteins)
Well, it really seems that points 2) and 5) are largely in place not because the equivilent US technology is not capable of doing the job but because buying Russian equipment helps the Russian economy, and the West doesn't want to see Russia go back to a controlled economy. Plus, it keeps Russian engineers employed doing peaceful things, and not tempted to accept job offers in places like Iraq
Can you give us any details, such as what company made this viewer? While certainly several companies have announced that they are planning such products, I haven't seen any actual products shipping by anyone.
Look -- the human race isn't going to leave Earth for someplace else. Ever. Face it. We maybe could run a few Moon and Mars bases at a tremendous cost and stock them with photogenic astronauts for public entertainment (which really is, after all, the purpose of all the manned NASA misions to date), but colonizing the galaxy as proposed by so much bad science fiction just won't happen. Faster than light space travel is impossible (it is only wishful thinking to believe that Einstein was wrong), and the only alternative, generation ships, wouldn't be boarded by any sane person. Because many of science fiction fans have an almost religious belief in space travel, I think it is extremely brave for a science fiction author like Sterling to say what he did.
Well, he *does* have a point. A lot of the marketing for Iridium focused on the satellites themselves, as if objects in space were cool in and of themselves, rather than simply a mechanism for better phone service. Similarly, NASA's publicity focuses on space shuttles, (nonexistent) space stations, and the like as if these, rather than the scientific knowledge to be gained by using them, were of interest.
Absolutely. I've never understood the "Look I'm a vandal so I'm a cool insightful rebel" attitude. There is a lot of hype about the net, granted, but why not write a book about it? Stoll's "Silicon Snake Oil" was not bad, but it really was written too early to focus on the current situation.
Well part of it is that English speakers are so used to broken English that generally we look beyond it (okay, a small irritating fraction likes to correct grammar on the Net, even when it is clear that the poster is a non-native speaker)
Maybe I've just had bad experiences with German forums, but when I post in my imperfect German I sometimes get flames when I forget which prepositions take the dative and which the accusitive. I don't think the people are any more unfriendly than English speakers -- they just aren't used to seeing bad German.
So what is the problem? Thes planets do move form place to place without a fixed home.
Yeah, and they probably beg for spare change to buy drugs too. Clearly they are in an interstellar slum -- otherwise they'd be given a free bus ticket to somewhere else so as not to lower property values.
Er, Thomas Huxley, a "obnoxious pseudo-scientist" -- hardly -- he was probably the most important 19th century biologist next to Darwin himself. And it is a quite recent development that it was okay for religious people to consider the Bible merely allegorical rather than divine truth. There really was a conflict between science and religion. Scientists were persecuted and even in some cases executed by religious officials.
As for cults, the only objective difference between them and religions is size. Consider: in the 19th century Mormonism was considered a cult by most Americans, but now that it is more popular it is considered a religion. Heck, in Roman times, normal Christianity was considered to be a cult.
Yes, although I fully agree that Project Gutenberg was revolutionary, given a choice today between a PG pure ASCII edition lacking formatting and figures on one hand and someone else's nicely formatted HTML book (and in many cases, this is an actual, not a theoretical, choice) on the other, I'll take the HTML version. And in most cases, the HTML edition was done totally independently of the PG edition.