That makes me wonder, would a collision of that magnitude have altered the planets orbit enough to make it unstable? I find it hard to believe that that big of an event would leave mars in a nearly earthlike orbit. Then again, IANAP ( I Ain't No Astro-Physicist)
I agree about RPGs being the best form of gaming for conveying both plot progression and social commentary. For example, Morrowind has gotten wonderful reviews from everyone. Most of the people I know say it's a great hack'n'slash game, it's visual candy & the plot is original & thick enough to keep them interested. However, if you take the time to read many of the books that are in the game, you will run across a lot of content that can be taken as commentary on today's society (Although it could be taken as commentary on ANY society as well). Books are not the only thing in RPGs that make them a better medium for this. In a quality RPG you will have major and minor plot lines. If you lose interest in a certain story arc, you can always find another one. This is perfect for conveying social commentary because it doesn't FORCE the story to become a commentary. Several of the story arcs can convey moral/social issues without making the game boring for those of us whom enjoy killing some data-structures.:)
This isn't really true: I'm a nice mix of all the stuff that you just mentioned. As far as I know, I'm 25% persian, 25% tork, 25% kurd and 25% Lor. And I'm very sure that this is not a new phenomenon. It's pointless to isolate people based on what they think their parent's ethnicity was.
i agree with you. and i really don't like nationalist/racist people. but if we wanted to just look at this historically, then there is a lot of evidence pointing to a common ancestry between many of the peoples of europe and the early settlers of the persian platue. Hitler was simply using this as an excuse to take over the western areas of russia. This was really simply a resource grab. He's an asshole, don't get me wrong!;o)
ah yes.. okay.. i try not to think of super-shrub. which is hard... considering i'm an american. hmf. he bugs me. i mean.. just on a personal manorism level. all twitchy and stuff.
yes, but I wouldn't say Farsi is obscure. And you probably didn't mean it that way anyways;o)
I understand your viewpoint, but you are missing the point really. I mean, the people that implemented farsi KDE are not part of the core KDE team, are they? If they decided to go and implement farsi localization of KDE, and then they got it included into the main release of KDE, then it was very little work as far as the core KDE developers are concerned right? If someone wants to go and work on Klingon KDE, then they should go right ahead, and when they are done they can submit it to the main KDE development tree. It does hurt anyone if someone decides to localize a piece of software for a certain languange.
I'm really agreeing with you as far as the "major languages" are concerned. The main development team should focus on those languages. But we're talking about a separate group here. This is analogous to someone taking an encryption program, adding an additional crypto-engine to it, and then getting that additional engine re-integrated into the release version of that program. It's what's great about open source!
My paternal grandfather is Azeri, and yes: it is refered to as Tork. But Azeri still know Farsi, and it's still the language of education and government. The only exception is of course poetry. When a poet writes something in Azeri it makes little sense to translate that to Farsi. It would ruin it. Just like translating Farsi poems to english ruins them.
Please don't worry about the AnonC's comments. I agree with you that the "licence" is literaly meaningless. However, if you think about it the following way, it might make sense why it's important for "free as in freedom" software to be released in a form that suits to iranian needs:
1) It allows iranian software developers to contribute a very large pool of knowledge to the world by improving and implementing new software. And since these "licenses" are meaningless in Iran, the writer of that software can write whatever he wants on the top of that source code. It's meaningless like you said. But that header will not be meaningless to the western world. In effect it's as if Iran is sort of influencing the mindset of western software development by mandating that there be no copyrights inside of the country. If you were developing some advanced software program (bio-tech, medical, etc etc etc) then wouldn't you like to know that the world will be allowed to take advantage of the advances you have made to the field? Or would you rather have some group own it.
2) By creating a common pool of knowledge it brings the people of Iran even closer to the west. This can only be good because it will cause a tighter union of beliefs between the two groups. And this is the first step to truely uncensored communication and understanding between the two groups of people. I only wish that truely "localized" releases of software will be created for all areas of the world.
Hey theolein, that's a good summary of the situation. And about the loan words: In different areas of the country the use of these words varies. And the government is actively reviving the Farsi of old. Attempting to re-introduce pure persian roots for words. Also there have been several "modern" words that have been introduced which take their roots from pure farsi.
um... the alphebet is:
Alef, Be, Pe, Te, Se.....
"B" (pronounced like Barbara) is the second letter of the alphabet dude. We use B a lot in Farsi words: for example: "baraadar" means brother. And that word goes back 3k+ years.
Farsi is a superset of Arabic, there's not subtraction.
I am Iranian and I speak Farsi. This is actually a hot debate, even within Iran!!! What do we call our language? Well, the main problem with "Persian" is that it harkens back to the days of "Persia" and this is not politically good. When one says anything like Pers-blah it brings to mind the western rule/view of Fars/Pars/Persia/Iran/Aria. Look, the land of today's Iran has been ruled by a wide range of people. It is not a land of set constants. Just like when the country decided to change it's international name from Persia to Iran, the name of the language must also adapt. Both Persian and Farsi are fine! If you say either people will know what you are talking about. The problem with Persia/Persian is that it is a greco-nized version of the ancient name of the persian empire: It sounds somewhere in between Pars and Fars. Depending on what dialect is being spoken it can be pronouced eitherway. For example: one of the current provinced of Iran is "Fars". This is the cultural-center of what used to be the old persian empire. I know this all sounds weird, but really, the only iranians that don't like the word "Farsi" are the really uptight ones that want the monarchy re-established in Iran.. They usually also want the name of the country to be changed back to Persia. But those are very extreme people. Most people don't give a crap.
You make some interesting observations. However, why should a group of developers be limited in their ability to persuade other developers from supporting a particular language? For example: If I really liked um... pre-french vietnamese?.. yeah.. and I went around to all the different software developers and convinced them that it's a good idea to support it, then what's the problem? I mean, does that really bother you? I can see how it would bother you if it meant they didn't implement your language-of-choice. But I would argue that maybe you need to go and advocate your language then? (please excuse the bad grammar in this paragraph)
Anyways. I am not bashing your opinion because I think it's very valid. Why not just focus on Arabic for all those middle eastern countries? Well, the main problem with Farsi is that it is a weird written language. For all Arabic loan-words the character-set is identical to Arabic. However, for native words Arabic poses several limitations. It lacks four basic sounds that are required to correctly write Farsi:
G: 'gaf' as in English groove
Ch: 'che' as in English change
P: 'pe' as in English push
zh: 'je' as in French John
So, inorder to accurately transcribe literature or everyday writings, the Arabic script can't be used. Farsi or 'Arabic+4' needs to be implemented within the actual language support of the software. Iranians have been using Farglish and Arabic to write in Farsi for a while now. Farglish is simply latinized Farsi. This poses more problems. The truely sad part is that people cannot transcribe the classic works of poetry and epic stories into digital format. Hopefully with this release of KDE, more of the literary works of Persia will be available on the net for free.
I had 2 girlfriends before I turned 7, and we played doctor on a regular basis. What's your point? If you are trying to imply that I gave up some part of my social life by starting to program at a young age, then you don't know me.:oP
Trash-80 anyone?
on
First Computers
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
My first 'puter was a Tandy TRS-80. It had 8 colors! I hooked up a radio-shack tape recorder as a storage device. I wrote a 10k line Tangrams program! And I was 8 years old. Beat that! (Okay, so my dad helped with the program.. but still!)
I wonder if Saddam will be allowed to reveal information about where/when he got the chemical/biological weapons that he used against his own people and the people of Iran. Of course, the trial will be in Iraq, conducted by officials that are trying to please the current US occupiers in order to gain higher influence on the end nature of the control of power in Iraq. Please do forgive my grammatical errors, I was in Iran during his use of said weapons. Too bad the role of... other major world powers... is not going to be revealed by this trial.
The only real way to get an honest trial is at the ICC.
Three bomb drops should get rid of the gate. Are you having problems getting three shots before the canons get you? If you get the gate open, then both of you have to get on the platform to open the goal.
If that doesn't work then I dunno. Goodluck;)
Heck yeah! Cookie & Cream is a great game. Even if you are playing it alone, you can have the controller split in half so you can play both characters from the same controller. Talk about nuts. After a while you get used to it, and then the greattasticness starts.
"Some consider". Well, I dun think so. I mean, if we really wanted to know, we'd have to setup situations where babies are born and the first thing they see is a non-human nurturer. and then the majority of their growing years would have to be spent in the company of said species. If and only if after all that the child still recognizes human faces better then animal faces, then there might be something to the theory. But I don't see anyone trying that experiment anytime soon.
Although I don't agree with orthogonal's view, I do have a response for your question. There are plenty of gamers out there who are in the upper-middle and upper classes. I don't know what percentage of gamers are also doctors, but I suspect that gamers have at least one doctor within their personal circle of friends. I suggest that these gamers suggest to their doctor-friends to provide free services for children in inner-cities and low-income neighborhoods. The forementioned gamers might even go as far as to actively HELP their friend in their pro-bono (spelling?) services. And taking time out of your own life to help people gets MUCH more of a positive response then simply spending some money to get gifts for someone.
PS: I'm a hypocrite because I've NEVER done the above. But now that I wrote it down I think I will do just that.
Slashdot Mirror
That makes me wonder, would a collision of that magnitude have altered the planets orbit enough to make it unstable? I find it hard to believe that that big of an event would leave mars in a nearly earthlike orbit. Then again, IANAP ( I Ain't No Astro-Physicist)
I agree about RPGs being the best form of gaming for conveying both plot progression and social commentary. For example, Morrowind has gotten wonderful reviews from everyone. Most of the people I know say it's a great hack'n'slash game, it's visual candy & the plot is original & thick enough to keep them interested. However, if you take the time to read many of the books that are in the game, you will run across a lot of content that can be taken as commentary on today's society (Although it could be taken as commentary on ANY society as well). Books are not the only thing in RPGs that make them a better medium for this. In a quality RPG you will have major and minor plot lines. If you lose interest in a certain story arc, you can always find another one. This is perfect for conveying social commentary because it doesn't FORCE the story to become a commentary. Several of the story arcs can convey moral/social issues without making the game boring for those of us whom enjoy killing some data-structures. :)
Does anyone think any of the savings will be passed down to consumers?
hmm.. infinity band? I can't say I've heard of that, but I have heard of InfiniBand. Is that what they are using?
This isn't really true: I'm a nice mix of all the stuff that you just mentioned. As far as I know, I'm 25% persian, 25% tork, 25% kurd and 25% Lor. And I'm very sure that this is not a new phenomenon. It's pointless to isolate people based on what they think their parent's ethnicity was.
If you really want to discuss this then don't post as Anonymous Coward. And I'm not even Muslim you dumbass. I don't approve of any theocracy. bitch.
i agree with you. and i really don't like nationalist/racist people. but if we wanted to just look at this historically, then there is a lot of evidence pointing to a common ancestry between many of the peoples of europe and the early settlers of the persian platue. Hitler was simply using this as an excuse to take over the western areas of russia. This was really simply a resource grab. He's an asshole, don't get me wrong! ;o)
ah yes.. okay.. i try not to think of super-shrub. which is hard... considering i'm an american. hmf. he bugs me. i mean.. just on a personal manorism level. all twitchy and stuff.
yes, but I wouldn't say Farsi is obscure. And you probably didn't mean it that way anyways ;o)
I understand your viewpoint, but you are missing the point really. I mean, the people that implemented farsi KDE are not part of the core KDE team, are they? If they decided to go and implement farsi localization of KDE, and then they got it included into the main release of KDE, then it was very little work as far as the core KDE developers are concerned right? If someone wants to go and work on Klingon KDE, then they should go right ahead, and when they are done they can submit it to the main KDE development tree. It does hurt anyone if someone decides to localize a piece of software for a certain languange.
I'm really agreeing with you as far as the "major languages" are concerned. The main development team should focus on those languages. But we're talking about a separate group here. This is analogous to someone taking an encryption program, adding an additional crypto-engine to it, and then getting that additional engine re-integrated into the release version of that program. It's what's great about open source!
yes, farsi does the same thing, the "1" in 1000 will be on the left even in farsi.
My paternal grandfather is Azeri, and yes: it is refered to as Tork. But Azeri still know Farsi, and it's still the language of education and government. The only exception is of course poetry. When a poet writes something in Azeri it makes little sense to translate that to Farsi. It would ruin it. Just like translating Farsi poems to english ruins them.
hehe.. I was thinking about mentioning that. yeah.. it's right to left. ;)
How is this "(Score:2, Funny)"? WTF?
Please don't worry about the AnonC's comments. I agree with you that the "licence" is literaly meaningless. However, if you think about it the following way, it might make sense why it's important for "free as in freedom" software to be released in a form that suits to iranian needs:
1) It allows iranian software developers to contribute a very large pool of knowledge to the world by improving and implementing new software. And since these "licenses" are meaningless in Iran, the writer of that software can write whatever he wants on the top of that source code. It's meaningless like you said. But that header will not be meaningless to the western world. In effect it's as if Iran is sort of influencing the mindset of western software development by mandating that there be no copyrights inside of the country. If you were developing some advanced software program (bio-tech, medical, etc etc etc) then wouldn't you like to know that the world will be allowed to take advantage of the advances you have made to the field? Or would you rather have some group own it.
2) By creating a common pool of knowledge it brings the people of Iran even closer to the west. This can only be good because it will cause a tighter union of beliefs between the two groups. And this is the first step to truely uncensored communication and understanding between the two groups of people. I only wish that truely "localized" releases of software will be created for all areas of the world.
Hey theolein, that's a good summary of the situation. And about the loan words: In different areas of the country the use of these words varies. And the government is actively reviving the Farsi of old. Attempting to re-introduce pure persian roots for words. Also there have been several "modern" words that have been introduced which take their roots from pure farsi.
um... the alphebet is:
Alef, Be, Pe, Te, Se.....
"B" (pronounced like Barbara) is the second letter of the alphabet dude. We use B a lot in Farsi words: for example: "baraadar" means brother. And that word goes back 3k+ years.
Farsi is a superset of Arabic, there's not subtraction.
I am Iranian and I speak Farsi. This is actually a hot debate, even within Iran!!! What do we call our language? Well, the main problem with "Persian" is that it harkens back to the days of "Persia" and this is not politically good. When one says anything like Pers-blah it brings to mind the western rule/view of Fars/Pars/Persia/Iran/Aria. Look, the land of today's Iran has been ruled by a wide range of people. It is not a land of set constants. Just like when the country decided to change it's international name from Persia to Iran, the name of the language must also adapt. Both Persian and Farsi are fine! If you say either people will know what you are talking about. The problem with Persia/Persian is that it is a greco-nized version of the ancient name of the persian empire: It sounds somewhere in between Pars and Fars. Depending on what dialect is being spoken it can be pronouced eitherway. For example: one of the current provinced of Iran is "Fars". This is the cultural-center of what used to be the old persian empire. I know this all sounds weird, but really, the only iranians that don't like the word "Farsi" are the really uptight ones that want the monarchy re-established in Iran.. They usually also want the name of the country to be changed back to Persia. But those are very extreme people. Most people don't give a crap.
You make some interesting observations. However, why should a group of developers be limited in their ability to persuade other developers from supporting a particular language? For example: If I really liked um... pre-french vietnamese?.. yeah.. and I went around to all the different software developers and convinced them that it's a good idea to support it, then what's the problem? I mean, does that really bother you? I can see how it would bother you if it meant they didn't implement your language-of-choice. But I would argue that maybe you need to go and advocate your language then? (please excuse the bad grammar in this paragraph)
Anyways. I am not bashing your opinion because I think it's very valid. Why not just focus on Arabic for all those middle eastern countries? Well, the main problem with Farsi is that it is a weird written language. For all Arabic loan-words the character-set is identical to Arabic. However, for native words Arabic poses several limitations. It lacks four basic sounds that are required to correctly write Farsi:
G: 'gaf' as in English groove
Ch: 'che' as in English change
P: 'pe' as in English push
zh: 'je' as in French John
So, inorder to accurately transcribe literature or everyday writings, the Arabic script can't be used. Farsi or 'Arabic+4' needs to be implemented within the actual language support of the software. Iranians have been using Farglish and Arabic to write in Farsi for a while now. Farglish is simply latinized Farsi. This poses more problems. The truely sad part is that people cannot transcribe the classic works of poetry and epic stories into digital format. Hopefully with this release of KDE, more of the literary works of Persia will be available on the net for free.
I had 2 girlfriends before I turned 7, and we played doctor on a regular basis. What's your point? If you are trying to imply that I gave up some part of my social life by starting to program at a young age, then you don't know me. :oP
My first 'puter was a Tandy TRS-80. It had 8 colors! I hooked up a radio-shack tape recorder as a storage device. I wrote a 10k line Tangrams program! And I was 8 years old. Beat that! (Okay, so my dad helped with the program.. but still!)
I wonder if Saddam will be allowed to reveal information about where/when he got the chemical/biological weapons that he used against his own people and the people of Iran. Of course, the trial will be in Iraq, conducted by officials that are trying to please the current US occupiers in order to gain higher influence on the end nature of the control of power in Iraq. Please do forgive my grammatical errors, I was in Iran during his use of said weapons. Too bad the role of ... other major world powers ... is not going to be revealed by this trial.
The only real way to get an honest trial is at the ICC.
Three bomb drops should get rid of the gate. Are you having problems getting three shots before the canons get you? If you get the gate open, then both of you have to get on the platform to open the goal. If that doesn't work then I dunno. Goodluck ;)
Heck yeah! Cookie & Cream is a great game. Even if you are playing it alone, you can have the controller split in half so you can play both characters from the same controller. Talk about nuts. After a while you get used to it, and then the greattasticness starts.
"Some consider". Well, I dun think so. I mean, if we really wanted to know, we'd have to setup situations where babies are born and the first thing they see is a non-human nurturer. and then the majority of their growing years would have to be spent in the company of said species. If and only if after all that the child still recognizes human faces better then animal faces, then there might be something to the theory. But I don't see anyone trying that experiment anytime soon.
Although I don't agree with orthogonal's view, I do have a response for your question. There are plenty of gamers out there who are in the upper-middle and upper classes. I don't know what percentage of gamers are also doctors, but I suspect that gamers have at least one doctor within their personal circle of friends. I suggest that these gamers suggest to their doctor-friends to provide free services for children in inner-cities and low-income neighborhoods. The forementioned gamers might even go as far as to actively HELP their friend in their pro-bono (spelling?) services. And taking time out of your own life to help people gets MUCH more of a positive response then simply spending some money to get gifts for someone.
PS: I'm a hypocrite because I've NEVER done the above. But now that I wrote it down I think I will do just that.