honestpuck writes "Linguistics has long been an interest of mine, and one of my fields of study, and I've recently read two good books that combine linguistics with other topics. The Keys of Egypt is the tale of history's most famous decoding task, the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics and In The Beginning is the story of the King James Bible, the history, theology, politics, linguistics and technology that surrounded Bible translation and printing in Renaissance Europe and England." Read on for his combination review of two books that might inspire your curiosity, no matter how far from the usual Slashdot fare.
Hieroglyphs The Keys Of Egypt was written by husband-and-wife archaeological team Lesley and Roy Adkins. It is subtitled "The Race to Crack the Hieroglyph Code," and starts with a short chapter that introduces the eventual winner of that race, the Frenchman Jean-Francois Champollion, and mentions his most serious rival, the Englishman Thomas Young.
The book goes on to examine Napoleon's expedition to Egypt which both brought the Rosetta Stone to light and started a period of French and European fascination with ancient Egypt. These were the two catalysts for the riddle's eventual solution.
This is a well-written book that looks at the struggle and race for translation and the political and academic machinations (often both combined) that surrounded Champollion. It is essentially a biography of Champollion, who grew up and worked amid the turmoil of the Napoleonic era. The story is a compelling one and the authors have done well to make it at times fascinating.
As a genre I find that 'scientific biographies' tend to be a little overblown and flowery, the writing not quite precise -- and Keys suffers from these shortcomings. I also felt that while the book is subtitled "The Race to Crack the Hieroglyph Code" it really only focuses on Champollion, while he is the eventual winner a little more effort in examining the others involved in the effort would have improved the book.
The Bible It can be argued that the King James Bible has had as large an effect on our language today as the work of Shakespeare. 'In The Beginning' has at its core the story of biblical translation, a topic you may think anything but fascinating. McGrath has done a good job in making this a compelling book. He starts, as one may expect, with the story of Gutenberg and his first printed bibles. Before arriving at the King James he covers Martin Luther, the rise of Protestantism in Europe, Henry the Eighth, more than one hanging, and several other bible translations and translators. Along the way he manages to dispel a few myths I had held about biblical translation and the King James in particular. I always thought that it was the King James version that introduced the idea of the main body in roman type and words inserted to clarify meaning in italics, but it was actually an earlier English translation known as the Geneva Bible that first implemented this idea. After explaining the technology, theology, politics and linguistics nuances that led King James to permit (but not fund) a new translation, McGrath tells us how the translation was accomplished organizationally before examining some of the nuances of the translation itself. Some of the language in the King James was archaic even when it was published; translators had been instructed to lift from previous translations all the way back to the partial translation of William Tynsdale published 90 years earlier, and this at a time when the English language was going through the huge changes of the Elizabethan era. McGrath examines this aspect, pointing out such things as changes in verb endings and personal pronouns.
I found the book patchy. McGrath does a much better job covering the story up until the translation. It is harder to get a feel for how the translation was accomplished and how the various teams worked, and when he comes to examine some of the nuances of the translation, the text makes much harder going. If this had
>>>>If I can google up counter examples in 30 seconds, I have a hard time with the phrase "But it aint going to happen".
Wow. You got the same public domain music ANYBODY can get.
>>>>Somebody spends the time to collect, organize and provide the bandwith for these items. There is even more content in the text world (the free Wikipedia was mentioned, but there are other collections such as PlanetMath).
Math isnt copyrightable (software exempt). Yeah, it'd be nice if they got compensated for bandwidth.
>>>>So no, I don't expect the physical world will see a lot of free content, but once content is created, why *not* put some of it out on the net. I find a lot of my computer consulting business results from doing side work to "help out". The "foot in the door" method seems similar to a little fame for "open content". Heck it might even be profitable.
Do you actually beieve this tripe you spill over? Sheet music is pretty cheap for 1 or 2 instruments, but have you ever arranged a band movement doing every section (Along with harmonies of 2'nds and 3'rds)?? It is DAMNED tough. And yes, I do try to write my own music (along with transcribings). I dont publish it, as I dont think it's good. I'll give it to other musician if they ask.
Another thing is: I dont mind if a few people like and play my music for a small concert. But I want a cut if its being duplicated in a mass-musician style. Yeah, it's a variation on prisoners dilemma.
>>>On the contrary. There is a fair amount of free "sheet music" available online now, in a number of open formats. It's mostly of older (pre-1930's) music, of course, for the obvious copyright reasons. You can find both classical and traditional (folk) music.
I know there's lots of free sheet music, but playing in a jazz group, you need access to tons of numbers. Those numbers include all the way from the 1910's to now. I couldnt limit myself to just numbers in the public domain. We get paid to do songs THEY request.
>>>If the music publishers had a grain of sense, they'd do the obvious thing here. Set up web sites like the iTunes site, but for "sheet music", that charge a very small amount per page or per score.
Yeah, it makes perfect sense to us. But they dont think we matter.
>>>Encourage wireless coverage so that musicians will stop carrying around (copies of;-) books of music and pay the $0.05 per page or whatever to get it on their screen. This could quickly put an end to the illicit copying of printed books, because it's so much more convenient.
For that price, I wouldnt mind being truthful if I got another score off of somebody else. I'd report it and pay the 5c per page (or whatever). Heck, for a 1$ per song, I'd be truthful if I downloaded it from somebody else-and liked it. All I care about is a high quality digital copy with no "protections".
Sheet music => PNG, JPEG, PS, PDF Audio Music => RAW, FLAC, High VBR OGG/MP3 Video => MPEG2, associated FREE(as in gpl) codecs
As a musician in a symphony and a band, I'll say there is little to create content for free. I'll play for free, but I dont make a symphony.
I also play in a jazz quartet (when we have a gig) playing Alto sax, Tenor sax, and B(flat) clarinet. If we played for free all the time, we couldnt afford new music or repairs on our instrument. We do a gig or 2 at nursing homes (goodwill and stuff;-) but we usually like to get paid.
Also, my mom's an artist. She's not the one to do "New Age" crap. She hates that stuff. Instead, she paints on canvases up to 5 feet long and 4 feet tall. She enjoys it with all her passion, but she couldnt do that free either. Wanna know why? Look for oil-based paints at an artist shop. Now calculate how much paint/brushes/canvas/frame it'd take to do it.
Yeah, open content's nice. No royalties (sheet music), or public domain pictures would be nice. But it aint going to happen
The internet was a government/University experiemnt to even see if it was possible.
Course in those days, the network map was on a peice of paper taped to the side of the server. Now, the damned thing stagnates until "Commercial Support" catches on. And that's a catch22.
It's still DAMNED neat to have a service like this early on in IPv4Bone. I'd be willing to pay for a tunnel like this.
One is properity IR connection. The other is a headphone jack that somehow sends/receives data. And it DOES connect through a usb dongle to either type of camera.
1: First Post? 2: +5 Flamebait 3: 'n a bucket of Cowboy ONeal 4: Goatse 5: FreeBSD Dies! 6: ??? 7: PROFIT! 8: Picture of Steven King in car crash in Maine 9: Stupid 'laundry lists' like this:-)
Look at the list of complainers on "RIAA MP3 Bust" articles, or "MPAA voilating OUR RIGHTS". Those complainers are the sharers NOT liking the punishments associated with copyright infringement.
Not that I agree with the punishment strength, but it's against the law. YET everybody screams about GPL voilations.
These days, any GPL'ed work seems to be ala-carte "public domain", till you get caught. Then it's a "release half-assed source" to make developers you actually care.
Then again, how's it to take OUR OWN medicine? They're violating out copyright, as we violate others' copyrights.
Our government is incapible of becoming like Orwell's 1984. They cant even keep their system straight.
And also, what's a government office doing on the internet? Shouldnt there be a Web machine (dmz) and a firewall for interal access (if they need it)? That doesnt cost more than a 1000$.
Say that an enterprise OS would be "dummy compliant". After all, if you can afford some real sun hardware, you can easily afford classes.
It's just like Linux (structure and ideas) but using a bit different commands and flags.
Really, I'd prefer a books like that which has more meat (command list, common flags) along with SUN only stuff. How to use a GUI or text editor is about the same on all platforms.
They're counting on consumer apathy not to know what it is, let along burying it in some god-forsaken menu 4 levels deep.
For those who say that DRM is not involved in TCPA, MS (and every other x86 os) can apply signatures to damn near everything and refuse to do stuff if something's not signed. That can be applied to software that runs on it, AND network protocols.
With hardware encryption, MS could afford (as in cpu hits) to do PKI like ssh does, and only send vulnerable traffic though ssh-like tulnnels. SO MUCH FOR SAMBA. (even BitKeeper owner said he'd do this if the kernel engineers start dissassembling his program). MS could call their protocol IPNG. I'm sure they'd love to extent IPv6.
IF MS got really evil, they'd make Windows into a capibility system where users resided in lower rings. Signed programs would be placed in to the respective signed ring. And MS would tbe the ONLY ONE allowed in the master ring (Ring 0). You can already do this in software (mostly), but the TCPA hardware EASILY, and EFFECTIVELY ALLOWS THIS.
It's a signature/encryption mechanism. Wait till MS requires it ON. They could even make it so the whole fucking partition is encrypted by a software key that YOU CANT GET.
And once MS requires it, how's Linux going to fit in there? I'd figure that MS TCPA computers would have to be signed to even speak to other MS machines. We cant have traffic going out of the network that isnt validated for internal traffic.
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honestpuck writes "Linguistics has long been an interest of mine, and one of my fields of study, and I've recently read two good books that combine linguistics with other topics. The Keys of Egypt is the tale of history's most famous decoding task, the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics and In The Beginning is the story of the King James Bible, the history, theology, politics, linguistics and technology that surrounded Bible translation and printing in Renaissance Europe and England." Read on for his combination review of two books that might inspire your curiosity, no matter how far from the usual Slashdot fare.
Hieroglyphs
The Keys Of Egypt was written by husband-and-wife archaeological team Lesley and Roy Adkins. It is subtitled "The Race to Crack the Hieroglyph Code," and starts with a short chapter that introduces the eventual winner of that race, the Frenchman Jean-Francois Champollion, and mentions his most serious rival, the Englishman Thomas Young.
The book goes on to examine Napoleon's expedition to Egypt which both brought the Rosetta Stone to light and started a period of French and European fascination with ancient Egypt. These were the two catalysts for the riddle's eventual solution.
This is a well-written book that looks at the struggle and race for translation and the political and academic machinations (often both combined) that surrounded Champollion. It is essentially a biography of Champollion, who grew up and worked amid the turmoil of the Napoleonic era. The story is a compelling one and the authors have done well to make it at times fascinating.
As a genre I find that 'scientific biographies' tend to be a little overblown and flowery, the writing not quite precise -- and Keys suffers from these shortcomings. I also felt that while the book is subtitled "The Race to Crack the Hieroglyph Code" it really only focuses on Champollion, while he is the eventual winner a little more effort in examining the others involved in the effort would have improved the book.
The Bible
It can be argued that the King James Bible has had as large an effect on our language today as the work of Shakespeare. 'In The Beginning' has at its core the story of biblical translation, a topic you may think anything but fascinating. McGrath has done a good job in making this a compelling book.
He starts, as one may expect, with the story of Gutenberg and his first printed bibles. Before arriving at the King James he covers Martin Luther, the rise of Protestantism in Europe, Henry the Eighth, more than one hanging, and several other bible translations and translators. Along the way he manages to dispel a few myths I had held about biblical translation and the King James in particular. I always thought that it was the King James version that introduced the idea of the main body in roman type and words inserted to clarify meaning in italics, but it was actually an earlier English translation known as the Geneva Bible that first implemented this idea. After explaining the technology, theology, politics and linguistics nuances that led King James to permit (but not fund) a new translation, McGrath tells us how the translation was accomplished organizationally before examining some of the nuances of the translation itself. Some of the language in the King James was archaic even when it was published; translators had been instructed to lift from previous translations all the way back to the partial translation of William Tynsdale published 90 years earlier, and this at a time when the English language was going through the huge changes of the Elizabethan era. McGrath examines this aspect, pointing out such things as changes in verb endings and personal pronouns.
I found the book patchy. McGrath does a much better job covering the story up until the translation. It is harder to get a feel for how the translation was accomplished and how the various teams worked, and when he comes to examine some of the nuances of the translation, the text makes much harder going. If this had
>>>>If I can google up counter examples in 30 seconds, I have a hard time with the phrase "But it aint going to happen".
Wow. You got the same public domain music ANYBODY can get.
>>>>Somebody spends the time to collect, organize and provide the bandwith for these items. There is even more content in the text world (the free Wikipedia was mentioned, but there are other collections such as PlanetMath).
Math isnt copyrightable (software exempt). Yeah, it'd be nice if they got compensated for bandwidth.
>>>>So no, I don't expect the physical world will see a lot of free content, but once content is created, why *not* put some of it out on the net. I find a lot of my computer consulting business results from doing side work to "help out". The "foot in the door" method seems similar to a little fame for "open content". Heck it might even be profitable.
Do you actually beieve this tripe you spill over? Sheet music is pretty cheap for 1 or 2 instruments, but have you ever arranged a band movement doing every section (Along with harmonies of 2'nds and 3'rds)?? It is DAMNED tough. And yes, I do try to write my own music (along with transcribings). I dont publish it, as I dont think it's good. I'll give it to other musician if they ask.
Another thing is: I dont mind if a few people like and play my music for a small concert. But I want a cut if its being duplicated in a mass-musician style. Yeah, it's a variation on prisoners dilemma.
>>>On the contrary. There is a fair amount of free "sheet music" available online now, in a number of open formats. It's mostly of older (pre-1930's) music, of course, for the obvious copyright reasons. You can find both classical and traditional (folk) music.
;-) books of music and pay the $0.05 per page or whatever to get it on their screen. This could quickly put an end to the illicit copying of printed books, because it's so much more convenient.
I know there's lots of free sheet music, but playing in a jazz group, you need access to tons of numbers. Those numbers include all the way from the 1910's to now. I couldnt limit myself to just numbers in the public domain. We get paid to do songs THEY request.
>>>If the music publishers had a grain of sense, they'd do the obvious thing here. Set up web sites like the iTunes site, but for "sheet music", that charge a very small amount per page or per score.
Yeah, it makes perfect sense to us. But they dont think we matter.
>>>Encourage wireless coverage so that musicians will stop carrying around (copies of
For that price, I wouldnt mind being truthful if I got another score off of somebody else. I'd report it and pay the 5c per page (or whatever). Heck, for a 1$ per song, I'd be truthful if I downloaded it from somebody else-and liked it. All I care about is a high quality digital copy with no "protections".
Sheet music => PNG, JPEG, PS, PDF
Audio Music => RAW, FLAC, High VBR OGG/MP3
Video => MPEG2, associated FREE(as in gpl) codecs
Perhaps they'll learn.
As a musician in a symphony and a band, I'll say there is little to create content for free. I'll play for free, but I dont make a symphony.
;-) but we usually like to get paid.
I also play in a jazz quartet (when we have a gig) playing Alto sax, Tenor sax, and B(flat) clarinet. If we played for free all the time, we couldnt afford new music or repairs on our instrument. We do a gig or 2 at nursing homes (goodwill and stuff
Also, my mom's an artist. She's not the one to do "New Age" crap. She hates that stuff. Instead, she paints on canvases up to 5 feet long and 4 feet tall. She enjoys it with all her passion, but she couldnt do that free either. Wanna know why? Look for oil-based paints at an artist shop. Now calculate how much paint/brushes/canvas/frame it'd take to do it.
Yeah, open content's nice. No royalties (sheet music), or public domain pictures would be nice. But it aint going to happen
The internet was a government/University experiemnt to even see if it was possible.
Course in those days, the network map was on a peice of paper taped to the side of the server. Now, the damned thing stagnates until "Commercial Support" catches on. And that's a catch22.
It's still DAMNED neat to have a service like this early on in IPv4Bone. I'd be willing to pay for a tunnel like this.
Well, there's either 2 ways (2 models).
One is properity IR connection. The other is a headphone jack that somehow sends/receives data. And it DOES connect through a usb dongle to either type of camera.
Any bets that the're using a modified USB port, or using 802.11b?
.
I have a feeling these suckers'll be hacked faster than a Cue:Cat
1: First Post? :-)
2: +5 Flamebait
3: 'n a bucket of Cowboy ONeal
4: Goatse
5: FreeBSD Dies!
6: ???
7: PROFIT!
8: Picture of Steven King in car crash in Maine
9: Stupid 'laundry lists' like this
Dissappearance, why stop it? There's a lot of things we dont know about nature and ecological climates.
For all we know, this could be based on the 13000 year cycle of the earth.
"We" as in 'damn' near everybody on slashdot.
Look at the list of complainers on "RIAA MP3 Bust" articles, or "MPAA voilating OUR RIGHTS". Those complainers are the sharers NOT liking the punishments associated with copyright infringement.
Not that I agree with the punishment strength, but it's against the law. YET everybody screams about GPL voilations.
These days, any GPL'ed work seems to be ala-carte "public domain", till you get caught. Then it's a "release half-assed source" to make developers you actually care.
Then again, how's it to take OUR OWN medicine? They're violating out copyright, as we violate others' copyrights.
What a hipocritical web we weave.
"jumpsuit with a large carbon fin strapped to his back "
So, does he play 'Shark' when he gets into the water?
I was being an ass :-) I already knew how to do it.
Does the Windows extensibility allow you to change the color of the "STOP" screens? That would be innovative (just as much as the iShit^H^H^H^HLoo).
I dont know... being paid 10$ an hour for entertainment is pretty nice ;-)
Sorry, but only I get to make wide sweeping, unsubstantiated claims about DRM ;-) (look at Software archaeology, or my history)
If anything, it also reaffirms another commonly held beleif about our government:
Anything the government does is done is incomplete or not done at all.
It goes to show that somebody claimed to offer help there. They (govt) instead say "Lets wait for FEDERAL HELP. We cant waste money".
Very sad.
Our government is incapible of becoming like Orwell's 1984. They cant even keep their system straight.
And also, what's a government office doing on the internet? Shouldnt there be a Web machine (dmz) and a firewall for interal access (if they need it)? That doesnt cost more than a 1000$.
Say that an enterprise OS would be "dummy compliant". After all, if you can afford some real sun hardware, you can easily afford classes.
It's just like Linux (structure and ideas) but using a bit different commands and flags.
Really, I'd prefer a books like that which has more meat (command list, common flags) along with SUN only stuff. How to use a GUI or text editor is about the same on all platforms.
Yes, but it SHOULD BE OFF BY DEFAULT.
They're counting on consumer apathy not to know what it is, let along burying it in some god-forsaken menu 4 levels deep.
For those who say that DRM is not involved in TCPA, MS (and every other x86 os) can apply signatures to damn near everything and refuse to do stuff if something's not signed. That can be applied to software that runs on it, AND network protocols.
With hardware encryption, MS could afford (as in cpu hits) to do PKI like ssh does, and only send vulnerable traffic though ssh-like tulnnels. SO MUCH FOR SAMBA. (even BitKeeper owner said he'd do this if the kernel engineers start dissassembling his program). MS could call their protocol IPNG. I'm sure they'd love to extent IPv6.
IF MS got really evil, they'd make Windows into a capibility system where users resided in lower rings. Signed programs would be placed in to the respective signed ring. And MS would tbe the ONLY ONE allowed in the master ring (Ring 0). You can already do this in software (mostly), but the TCPA hardware EASILY, and EFFECTIVELY ALLOWS THIS.
It's a signature/encryption mechanism. Wait till MS requires it ON. They could even make it so the whole fucking partition is encrypted by a software key that YOU CANT GET.
And once MS requires it, how's Linux going to fit in there? I'd figure that MS TCPA computers would have to be signed to even speak to other MS machines. We cant have traffic going out of the network that isnt validated for internal traffic.
That's not the point. Intel, MS, AMD, MPAA, and others want MANDATORY DRM on every personal computer. And they want the KEYS.
Now, it's a choice to add (is it? look at CD rip with Windows Media Player. manditory drm). In the future, it probably wont be.
That the DMCA DOES NOT APPLY outside the USA. However, hardware Digital Restriction Management DOES.
I really dont want strong crypto keeping out of stuff that I OWN, or My CONTENT.
I'td be a neat experiemnt to create a Linux driver that emulates TCPA chips so that stupid software thinks you're auth'ed.
When people's ozone depletion increases, ozone decreases.
When Ozone decreases, people die faster.
Logical assumption: There is an equilibrium between how much ozone there is, and population of people.
Guess: It doesnt matter.
Flamebait, eh? Talk about ABUSE of moderation.
Next time, try explaining WHY I'm being flamebait. BTW, look for a paper on the PSX game "Crash Bandicoot". It was done in a modified Lisp language.