Your problem is that you only look at the 'logic; of it. The rule has more to do with psychology. Regardless of a bottle being more dangerous in many cases, people perceive a knife to be more threatening.
You do not have to hurt people to hijack a plane, you have to threaten them.
> Well, apart from the "having been hearing it" (that's true in a place without dubbing, like Holland or Swedenn, but not true in Germany or Italy, sorry for the eurocentric examples), the point is that it is quite easy to start, with English.
First of all, it does really help to look at a place where English isn't the primary language, so no issue with your 'Euro centric' example. Oh, I am Dutch myself btw, and am spending lots of time in Germany due to my girlfriend living in Berlin.
I also noticed that the number of people there who speak English beyond the level of expressing basic needs is low (realize that people do get a few years of English at school there) and the number of peopel who can have a decent conversation in English is even lower there.
(oh, and a small note, Holland is not a country, it is the name of an area (consisting of 2 provinces) in the country called the Netherlands, what you just did is like using Texas instead of the USA)
> Since there is not a lot of formal grammar to consider, it's quite easy to get a book, get a dictionary, and crawl your way page after page, learning a bit of the language structure and a lot of vocabulary in the process (I know I did it, when I was 13, with RPGs: I was lucky since GURPS was not translated, at the time!).
This is only an option when you can relate to the structure and verbs, else it is a very slow and painfull process.
In other words, don't try to learn Chinese in such a way (even if you could read the writing itself) unless you want to spend lots more time on it then needed. (and the opposite is true also, a Chinese will have a lot of trouble to make a start on English simply because of not having anythign to relate to)
As I mentioned earlier, you will find that the number of people who speak English in Germany is relatively low, and you will also find that many there find the language hard to learn. They do not get confronted with it that often, and the language simply has a different kind of grammar, one that is way more similar to for example Greek, Latin and Finnish and such then English.
That said, German has a much more regular grammar then English, which would in theory make it easier to learn. Once you got to the point of basic use, you will find it is in fact easier to go on from there... its just not as easy to get there at first.
> I think that the simplicity of a language is "how easy it is to use it".
ANd I say: define use.
Yes, English is easier when it comes to learning the basics, there is less of it. I strongly doubt English is easier when it comes to having a converstaion with some depth where expressing nuances of meanign becomes important, unless you happen to already speak another language that is rather similar.
> theres an assumption that if the world was linux then security wouldnt be a problem. i would like to see what millions of inexperienced users and a new monoculture would reveal about its security?
And there is an assumption that security doesn't matter for the average user, or at least they don't care.
Readign my previous statement, and adding this, I'd bet that a Linux monoculture would have its own security problems.
Those however will be a lot more a matter of user behavior then technically broken software.
> No, but you must admit that separating normal system user privileges from administration privileges is important for security.
And your point is? I guess that that is exactly why I go into an explanation of the issues regarding privilege escalation eh? of course it matters, but it does not make for a secure system like many Linux zealots here believe.
> All the historical facts do not coroborate your claim, Unix was designed as a multi-tasking, multiuser OS from the beginning
What I am saying is that that is more coincidence then anything else. The coincidence is that at that time it was the only more or less practical way to do it. Had it been a decade later, chances are that that would have been different.
Its nice that you seem to feel defensive about unix systems in general (and linux in particular I'd bet) but you'd do well to read my post better and think about what I am saying before replying again.
> Anecdotally, people I know (here in the US) don't want full-featured telephones. Pretty much all non-novelty phones have speed dialing features, but I honestly don't see people owning home phones with LCD displays and fancy address books like cell phones have. Most people seem perfectly happy with a AT&T trimline or cheap cordless.
Hmm, but that means no callerid either.. unless you use some seperate device for that.. it has to display somewhere I'd think.
Seperation of users does not in itself make for security.
Unix grew into being a multiuser system, and that comes with many of the things you mention. Untill relatively recent times, secure implementation of those was not really much of a concern.
DOS was aimed at Personal computers. Personal is capitalized there because it was intended for single user situations, and to run in a much smaller environment then any Unix at that time.
When you look at MS' supposed multiuser systems, you'd have to start at NT 3.x, which incidentely includes many of the same features (seperate user accounts, filesystem with permissions etc). It is not like this is news or anything, even for Microsoft.
Security depends on a lot more then this, and so far, a system that can prevent privilege escalation from user to administrator level on a mathematically provable way still has to be implemented (and most likely invented).
As long as this is the case, there will at least always be theoretical possibilities to remotely exploit a machine and get full access through a process running with normal user privileges. (It may be difficult, or practically almost impossible, but not absolutely impossible, even OpenBSD has had the situation happen, all this requires is a LOCAL root/admin exploit)
At any rate.. security has to do with mentality, translated into procedures, supported by the right tools. If you believe just picking the right tools will make you secure, you are mistaken. If you decide to be secure, and use your tools accordingly, you may find that better tools do a better job of course.
Reliable is quite relative, and with this 'new' thing, callerid got a lot less reliable then it was already.
It was never designed to be a security feature, more an informational feature.
Of course, it becomes rather tricky when emergency services start relying on it, and that is definitely something to look at.
Callerid comes standard with the (isdn) service I have, so well, not much of a choice there.. I'm not sure if I'd have bought the service if it wasn't included already, it is one of those 'nice to have' things
Rapid dial, phonebook and such have been standard features on about every phone you can buy here and in the neighbor countries (here is the Netherlands, bordering Belgium and Germany).
Those features in no way depend on your phone service. (altho displaying callerid does depend on the phone service of course, but that is the callerid part, not the phonebook part)
What is more, the ancient (early 90s) AT&T 5200 cordless phone that I brought from the USA has a (very limited) builtin phonebook (but no display, so no callerid on the handset, and no name display either of course)
But well, if you say few of the phones used on residential lines in the USA have them, I'll believe you, I can't verify it. It just really amazes me.
Now, talking about linking callerid to displaying a name from the phonebook might not be that common of course.. wouldn't surprise me since callerid reporting on pstn lines doesn't seem to be standarized that well. For an isdn phone however that is not an issue.
Anyway, any idea where this difference would come from? are there rules preventing peopel from connectign such phones or are they made artificially expensive or such? (seeing how you get those features in a cheapo 15 euro phone here already)
> Sounds to me like this has both public-safety and national-security implications.
Hmm, only when you actually count on callerid being reliable. It has been known for a logn time that it is possible to fake if you want to put in the efford.
I'd say that it does have implications, but more on a social level then anything else. Your mom trusting the callerid as her phone displays it is one thing.. the DOD counting on it as a security check however would be utter stupidity.
> Shut them down.
I agree. This makes the whole concept of callerid a farce, and has quite some social consequences.
> On mobile phones, yes the name (or in some cases a picture and/or unique ring) is retrieved from the internal address book. On land lines, few phones have internal address books to look this up in.
Uh? I haven't owned a landline phone without such a phonebook for the last 2 decades, either isdn or pstn. I would not know where to buyt one overhere either. Again.. this might be different in the USA....
> I gave my telecomm provider (not a baby bell) the exact string to appear for each extension calling from my company's PRI. They program this in to their switches and send it to switches at the destination provider which can decide whether to send it on to the destination line.
That is a nice feature. I can't order it overhere on a private telephone line tho it seems.
At any rate... this caller id spoofing might be detectable by looking at the originating exchange in an isdn trace I'd think.
> Honestly, if they were calling MY boss daily about having me pay up I'd think twice about letting the answering machine pick that up.
If they were calling my boss (if I had one, I'm self employed;) we'd meet again in court where they'll have to explain to the judge why they ignored local privacy laws.
> The telemarketing scumbags have been masking their identities for quite some time without this 'service' so I am just finishing yawning over the article, which has a few inaccuracies that I correct below.
There is a HUGE difference between hiding your number and displaying a number of choice. In many cases I will not answer calls when the number is hidden, I will usually take calls from 'known' numbers no matter what.
> The ICLID (Individual Caller ID) field is separate from the ANI field in the SS7 message. Depending on your tariffs you might or might not be able to stuff the ANI field; you almost always can stuff the ICLID field with whatever nummer you want.
So you get a decent contract and stuff both.
> What the other end displays is not always consistent across the various operating companies and carriers, so don't go strutting around like you've pulled the wool over everyone's eyes just yet.
Given that you do use both ICLID and ANI, you can change what the remote side will display, and as a result can fake the caller id as displayed by that side.
> Further, the name lookup that you see on your display is performed by the terminating switch (serving you), so you can't spoof that.
In most cases (maybe not in the USA, but that is really only like 5% of the world) this service is performed by your local TELEPHONE using its internal addressbook, not by the local exchange.
> Of course, if you spoof John Q. Smith's nummer it will usually show his name, unless he is not a subscriber of your local tephone cumpny; in that case you get nuttin and like it. Even that is subject to variations due to interexchange agreements.
It can do a couple of things: - display nothing (or unknown, unpublished, withheld) - display the number with country/state/area numbers stripped off - display the number including area code but without state and country code - any variation on the above.
It indeed won't display a name if it has no directory for looking it up (DUH)
Hmm.. I have seen an IBM system 36 print somethign very similar (in the late 70s).. it came from one of the attached disk units but the original might well have been on punch cards or tape (seeign how the particular machien happened to have both)
The idea is as follows: for each pixel, you have 3 'virtual' planes (red, green and blue) with 4 bits of color resolution, resulting in a total of 2^12 = 4096 colors.
The picture itself however is compposed of a sequence of 8 bit 'values', where each value consists of 2 parts, the first part tells the system how to interpret the 2nd part, either as a direct color value, a red 'offset', a green 'offset' or a blue 'offset'.
So for each pixel, you can either pick one of the 'base' colors or have a change of either red blue or green relative to the previous pixel.
Converting a picture into this format and gettign a good 'on-screen' result was not completely trivial, tho tools to do it with acceptable results existed since almost the dawn of the Amiga era.
> It's a big waste of our time to keep using senseless languages. Esperanto is fully developed, totally consistent, and consequently actually more expressive than languages like english.
The only slight problem wiht it is that I know exactly one person in my environment who speaks it.. most happen to speak either Dutch (I live in the Netherlands) or English or both.. and in soem cases German.
So... I'd say... add Esperanto to the list of senseless languages, if it is about communicating, it is definitely a waste of time to learn it because virtually noone speaks it.
(and yes, the idea is cool, and the language doesn't look bad at all, it is just that your argument really doesn't hold, and can easily be used against what you are arguing for)
> That and the pronounciation, mixed with local slang (changes everything) make it really difficult to grasp,
Hehehe... now, for the fun of it, try understanding Yorkshire 'English' as a non native speaker...
It is quite frustrating actually... you recognize it is kindof English and you 'should' understand it.. yet, it took me some 2 years of hearing it a lot before I could understand it without havign to put in a lot of efford;P
> English IS easy. Maybe to write perfect English can be difficult: but in NO WAY it's more difficult than German or Russian.
I can't talk about Russian (tho my girlfriend can, she is a native German, and also happens to know Spanish, Russian, French and English besides old greek and latin). From what she tells me the biggest problems with Russian are: 1. the language uses a different structure then most western languages, and 2. it is hard to get enough practise unless you live in Russia. Many RUssians will mistake her for a native speaker tho.
What I can say with regards to English is that it all depends on what you look at.
English is at first glance a relatively simple language, not that many rules to learn, many words that are already somewhat familiar (if you speak any related language), and many peopel who grow up nowadays have been hearing it for most of their life (due to TV and movies mostly)
The simplicity of English is somewhat deceptive however. The 'few rules' also result in a lot of freedom in how the language is used, and often meaning is expressed by creative use of the language, while in for example German, that is done by using the correct 'rule'.
This results in that it is often easy for people to get a basic understanding of English, and to express more basic ideas in it. TO get from there to speakign it well, including expressign all kinds of nuances in meaning is however a very big step that is very difficult to take, specifically because there are few rules to learn and most of it has to come from knowing and 'feeling'.
> yeah that's a bunch of bull. i've seen people master english and not be mistaken for a foriegner, try that in another language... it's mostly impossible.
Hrm, as a non antive speaker, I usually have no problem whatsoever to spot oyher non native speakers, even if they have been living in an English speaking country for decades. (they did master the language well, but especially when you also happen to know their native laguage, it is usually very easy to spot mistakes in grammer and in usage of expressions and link them to their native language)
Heh, I have a (female!) friend who usually takes care of my old boards and disks (takes the later apart) to use as wall decoration in her room.
My best use for some ancient IBM (PS/2 model 80) cases is as support for an improvised desk.. They would also serve well for building a safe, seeing how they are made from rather thick plated steel;)
Slashdot Mirror
My swiss army knife is used most often to open/close computer cases and as a screwdriver (again usually for something related to a computer)
> then they study it intensley for a minute trying to imagine a way that one could impale someone with 128mb of MSaccess files.
128mb of MSaccess files make for a more dangerous weapon then any knife I'd say...
Your problem is that you only look at the 'logic; of it. The rule has more to do with psychology. Regardless of a bottle being more dangerous in many cases, people perceive a knife to be more threatening.
You do not have to hurt people to hijack a plane, you have to threaten them.
Heh.. I actually know about this thing because I saw it in an advertisement... a banner ad on Slashdot (from Thinkgeek of course)
:)
So.. Slashdot now writes articles abotu its banner ads? I don't know...
It IS a fun item tho, that is for sure
> Well, apart from the "having been hearing it" (that's true in a place without dubbing, like Holland or Swedenn, but not true in Germany or Italy, sorry for the eurocentric examples), the point is that it is quite easy to start, with English.
First of all, it does really help to look at a place where English isn't the primary language, so no issue with your 'Euro centric' example. Oh, I am Dutch myself btw, and am spending lots of time in Germany due to my girlfriend living in Berlin.
I also noticed that the number of people there who speak English beyond the level of expressing basic needs is low (realize that people do get a few years of English at school there) and the number of peopel who can have a decent conversation in English is even lower there.
(oh, and a small note, Holland is not a country, it is the name of an area (consisting of 2 provinces) in the country called the Netherlands, what you just did is like using Texas instead of the USA)
> Since there is not a lot of formal grammar to consider, it's quite easy to get a book, get a dictionary, and crawl your way page after page, learning a bit of the language structure and a lot of vocabulary in the process (I know I did it, when I was 13, with RPGs: I was lucky since GURPS was not translated, at the time!).
This is only an option when you can relate to the structure and verbs, else it is a very slow and painfull process.
In other words, don't try to learn Chinese in such a way (even if you could read the writing itself) unless you want to spend lots more time on it then needed. (and the opposite is true also, a Chinese will have a lot of trouble to make a start on English simply because of not having anythign to relate to)
As I mentioned earlier, you will find that the number of people who speak English in Germany is relatively low, and you will also find that many there find the language hard to learn. They do not get confronted with it that often, and the language simply has a different kind of grammar, one that is way more similar to for example Greek, Latin and Finnish and such then English.
That said, German has a much more regular grammar then English, which would in theory make it easier to learn. Once you got to the point of basic use, you will find it is in fact easier to go on from there... its just not as easy to get there at first.
> I think that the simplicity of a language is "how easy it is to use it".
ANd I say: define use.
Yes, English is easier when it comes to learning the basics, there is less of it.
I strongly doubt English is easier when it comes to having a converstaion with some depth where expressing nuances of meanign becomes important, unless you happen to already speak another language that is rather similar.
Reading is very difficult isn't it?
I bet it takes you so much energy that you give up after a few words, and consequentely also fail to say anything relevant or usefull at all.
Ah well, whats in a name.
> theres an assumption that if the world was linux then security wouldnt be a problem. i would like to see what millions of inexperienced users and a new monoculture would reveal about its security?
And there is an assumption that security doesn't matter for the average user, or at least they don't care.
Readign my previous statement, and adding this, I'd bet that a Linux monoculture would have its own security problems.
Those however will be a lot more a matter of user behavior then technically broken software.
> No, but you must admit that separating normal system user privileges from administration privileges is important for security.
And your point is? I guess that that is exactly why I go into an explanation of the issues regarding privilege escalation eh? of course it matters, but it does not make for a secure system like many Linux zealots here believe.
> All the historical facts do not coroborate your claim, Unix was designed as a multi-tasking, multiuser OS from the beginning
What I am saying is that that is more coincidence then anything else. The coincidence is that at that time it was the only more or less practical way to do it. Had it been a decade later, chances are that that would have been different.
Its nice that you seem to feel defensive about unix systems in general (and linux in particular I'd bet) but you'd do well to read my post better and think about what I am saying before replying again.
> Anecdotally, people I know (here in the US) don't want full-featured telephones. Pretty much all non-novelty phones have speed dialing features, but I honestly don't see people owning home phones with LCD displays and fancy address books like cell phones have. Most people seem perfectly happy with a AT&T trimline or cheap cordless.
Hmm, but that means no callerid either.. unless you use some seperate device for that.. it has to display somewhere I'd think.
Ah well, fun to know.
Hmmm.....
Seperation of users does not in itself make for security.
Unix grew into being a multiuser system, and that comes with many of the things you mention. Untill relatively recent times, secure implementation of those was not really much of a concern.
DOS was aimed at Personal computers. Personal is capitalized there because it was intended for single user situations, and to run in a much smaller environment then any Unix at that time.
When you look at MS' supposed multiuser systems, you'd have to start at NT 3.x, which incidentely includes many of the same features (seperate user accounts, filesystem with permissions etc). It is not like this is news or anything, even for Microsoft.
Security depends on a lot more then this, and so far, a system that can prevent privilege escalation from user to administrator level on a mathematically provable way still has to be implemented (and most likely invented).
As long as this is the case, there will at least always be theoretical possibilities to remotely exploit a machine and get full access through a process running with normal user privileges.
(It may be difficult, or practically almost impossible, but not absolutely impossible, even OpenBSD has had the situation happen, all this requires is a LOCAL root/admin exploit)
At any rate.. security has to do with mentality, translated into procedures, supported by the right tools. If you believe just picking the right tools will make you secure, you are mistaken. If you decide to be secure, and use your tools accordingly, you may find that better tools do a better job of course.
Reliable is quite relative, and with this 'new' thing, callerid got a lot less reliable then it was already.
It was never designed to be a security feature, more an informational feature.
Of course, it becomes rather tricky when emergency services start relying on it, and that is definitely something to look at.
Callerid comes standard with the (isdn) service I have, so well, not much of a choice there.. I'm not sure if I'd have bought the service if it wasn't included already, it is one of those 'nice to have' things
THat is interesting.
Rapid dial, phonebook and such have been standard features on about every phone you can buy here and in the neighbor countries (here is the Netherlands, bordering Belgium and Germany).
Those features in no way depend on your phone service. (altho displaying callerid does depend on the phone service of course, but that is the callerid part, not the phonebook part)
What is more, the ancient (early 90s) AT&T 5200 cordless phone that I brought from the USA has a (very limited) builtin phonebook (but no display, so no callerid on the handset, and no name display either of course)
But well, if you say few of the phones used on residential lines in the USA have them, I'll believe you, I can't verify it. It just really amazes me.
Now, talking about linking callerid to displaying a name from the phonebook might not be that common of course.. wouldn't surprise me since callerid reporting on pstn lines doesn't seem to be standarized that well. For an isdn phone however that is not an issue.
Anyway, any idea where this difference would come from? are there rules preventing peopel from connectign such phones or are they made artificially expensive or such? (seeing how you get those features in a cheapo 15 euro phone here already)
> Sounds to me like this has both public-safety and national-security implications.
Hmm, only when you actually count on callerid being reliable. It has been known for a logn time that it is possible to fake if you want to put in the efford.
I'd say that it does have implications, but more on a social level then anything else. Your mom trusting the callerid as her phone displays it is one thing.. the DOD counting on it as a security check however would be utter stupidity.
> Shut them down.
I agree. This makes the whole concept of callerid a farce, and has quite some social consequences.
> On mobile phones, yes the name (or in some cases a picture and/or unique ring) is retrieved from the internal address book. On land lines, few phones have internal address books to look this up in.
Uh? I haven't owned a landline phone without such a phonebook for the last 2 decades, either isdn or pstn. I would not know where to buyt one overhere either. Again.. this might be different in the USA....
> I gave my telecomm provider (not a baby bell) the exact string to appear for each extension calling from my company's PRI. They program this in to their switches and send it to switches at the destination provider which can decide whether to send it on to the destination line.
That is a nice feature. I can't order it overhere on a private telephone line tho it seems.
At any rate... this caller id spoofing might be detectable by looking at the originating exchange in an isdn trace I'd think.
> Honestly, if they were calling MY boss daily about having me pay up I'd think twice about letting the answering machine pick that up.
;) we'd meet again in court where they'll have to explain to the judge why they ignored local privacy laws.
If they were calling my boss (if I had one, I'm self employed
> The telemarketing scumbags have been masking their identities for quite some time without this 'service' so I am just finishing yawning over the article, which has a few inaccuracies that I correct below.
There is a HUGE difference between hiding your number and displaying a number of choice. In many cases I will not answer calls when the number is hidden, I will usually take calls from 'known' numbers no matter what.
> The ICLID (Individual Caller ID) field is separate from the ANI field in the SS7 message. Depending on your tariffs you might or might not be able to stuff the ANI field; you almost always can stuff the ICLID field with whatever nummer you want.
So you get a decent contract and stuff both.
> What the other end displays is not always consistent across the various operating companies and carriers, so don't go strutting around like you've pulled the wool over everyone's eyes just yet.
Given that you do use both ICLID and ANI, you can change what the remote side will display, and as a result can fake the caller id as displayed by that side.
> Further, the name lookup that you see on your display is performed by the terminating switch (serving you), so you can't spoof that.
In most cases (maybe not in the USA, but that is really only like 5% of the world) this service is performed by your local TELEPHONE using its internal addressbook, not by the local exchange.
> Of course, if you spoof John Q. Smith's nummer it will usually show his name, unless he is not a subscriber of your local tephone cumpny; in that case you get nuttin and like it. Even that is subject to variations due to interexchange agreements.
It can do a couple of things:
- display nothing (or unknown, unpublished, withheld)
- display the number with country/state/area numbers stripped off
- display the number including area code but without state and country code
- any variation on the above.
It indeed won't display a name if it has no directory for looking it up (DUH)
Hmm.. I have seen an IBM system 36 print somethign very similar (in the late 70s).. it came from one of the attached disk units but the original might well have been on punch cards or tape (seeign how the particular machien happened to have both)
Just a short explanation of 'HAM' mode.
HAM stands for 'Hold And Modify'.
The idea is as follows: for each pixel, you have 3 'virtual' planes (red, green and blue) with 4 bits of color resolution, resulting in a total of 2^12 = 4096 colors.
The picture itself however is compposed of a sequence of 8 bit 'values', where each value consists of 2 parts, the first part tells the system how to interpret the 2nd part, either as a direct color value, a red 'offset', a green 'offset' or a blue 'offset'.
So for each pixel, you can either pick one of the 'base' colors or have a change of either red blue or green relative to the previous pixel.
Converting a picture into this format and gettign a good 'on-screen' result was not completely trivial, tho tools to do it with acceptable results existed since almost the dawn of the Amiga era.
> It's a big waste of our time to keep using senseless languages. Esperanto is fully developed, totally consistent, and consequently actually more expressive than languages like english.
The only slight problem wiht it is that I know exactly one person in my environment who speaks it.. most happen to speak either Dutch (I live in the Netherlands) or English or both.. and in soem cases German.
So... I'd say... add Esperanto to the list of senseless languages, if it is about communicating, it is definitely a waste of time to learn it because virtually noone speaks it.
(and yes, the idea is cool, and the language doesn't look bad at all, it is just that your argument really doesn't hold, and can easily be used against what you are arguing for)
> That and the pronounciation, mixed with local slang (changes everything) make it really difficult to grasp,
;P
Hehehe... now, for the fun of it, try understanding Yorkshire 'English' as a non native speaker...
It is quite frustrating actually... you recognize it is kindof English and you 'should' understand it.. yet, it took me some 2 years of hearing it a lot before I could understand it without havign to put in a lot of efford
> English IS easy. Maybe to write perfect English can be difficult: but in NO WAY it's more difficult than German or Russian.
I can't talk about Russian (tho my girlfriend can, she is a native German, and also happens to know Spanish, Russian, French and English besides old greek and latin). From what she tells me the biggest problems with Russian are: 1. the language uses a different structure then most western languages, and 2. it is hard to get enough practise unless you live in Russia. Many RUssians will mistake her for a native speaker tho.
What I can say with regards to English is that it all depends on what you look at.
English is at first glance a relatively simple language, not that many rules to learn, many words that are already somewhat familiar (if you speak any related language), and many peopel who grow up nowadays have been hearing it for most of their life (due to TV and movies mostly)
The simplicity of English is somewhat deceptive however. The 'few rules' also result in a lot of freedom in how the language is used, and often meaning is expressed by creative use of the language, while in for example German, that is done by using the correct 'rule'.
This results in that it is often easy for people to get a basic understanding of English, and to express more basic ideas in it. TO get from there to speakign it well, including expressign all kinds of nuances in meaning is however a very big step that is very difficult to take, specifically because there are few rules to learn and most of it has to come from knowing and 'feeling'.
> yeah that's a bunch of bull. i've seen people master english and not be mistaken for a foriegner, try that in another language... it's mostly impossible.
Hrm, as a non antive speaker, I usually have no problem whatsoever to spot oyher non native speakers, even if they have been living in an English speaking country for decades.
(they did master the language well, but especially when you also happen to know their native laguage, it is usually very easy to spot mistakes in grammer and in usage of expressions and link them to their native language)
> most of the western european languages have some sort of anglo-saxon background, so for me to learn them would not be hard.
Uh?
Most 'western languages', at least, if you are talkign about European ones, have at least one of the following ingredients, and are usually a mix..
- Germanic
- Latin
- Keltic.
Anglo-saxen languages in their original form derive from Germanic langauges.
Heh, I have a (female!) friend who usually takes care of my old boards and disks (takes the later apart) to use as wall decoration in her room.
;)
My best use for some ancient IBM (PS/2 model 80) cases is as support for an improvised desk.. They would also serve well for building a safe, seeing how they are made from rather thick plated steel
It would better be called the 'rescue cd'