I'm no expert, but I think you are right, and I probably shouldn't have picked Isaiah as an example. The composition is disputed: some say three authors, some two, some one. I don't think anyone claims to know for sure.
it's already a badly translated mix of Aramaic and such.
Confusing. Yes the original composition of the Bible is a bit of a mix, with a pinch of Aramaic (although mostly Hebrew and Greek), but what do you mean it's "already [...] badly translated"? I've met people who think that the oldest Biblical manuscripts (such as Codex Vaticanus) are themselves translations of some lost original. There's no evidence for this view, and I think it's a silly notion.
The main objection is that there would be no need to translate to Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek because the original language of composition would have been the same language. All three of those languages represent common language of their day. That is, archaeology tells us that Isaiah would have composed his original in Hebrew, so there was no need to translate it into Hebrew. Daniel and Ezra are biglot books, but they must have been composed that way: what translator would take the original and translate it into a mix of two languages?
If you are saying that the Authorized Version is a bad translation, well that's debatable. They did a pretty good job for that era, but it does have its weak spots.
Maybe you are referring to the fact that the Gospels record conversations that were originally held in Aramaic -- but then it's misleading to call the Gospels "translations" (bad or good) from Aramaic. They are obviously new compositions, composed in Greek, and (with the exception of 2 Peter) written very skilfully.
Hah-ha! You've fallen into GP's trap -- he's redefined "old" to mean "early modern." Because languages change over time, and early modern definitions are forced to give way to frobble glorkle prabulax.
I raise my glass to you, RF dude. It's been years since I worried about cleaning my connectors with q-tips or thinking about KTB, but the mention of Pozar takes me back.
May your power supplies always stay well decoupled from the rest of your circuit.
Doubtless Dijkstra is one of the titans of the field. Interesting fact: the first syllable of his name sounds like "day," not "dye." Not many Americans seem to know this (not that I am assuming you are American).
I don't want schools to make the same mistake . . . teaching kids how to use Pascal, Fortran, or COBOL on Apple IIe's . ..
Yeah, all that I got out of learning Pascal on an Apple ][ was that it helped me get ready to study computer science in college, which has only led me to . . . gainful employment. </sarcasm>
Seriously, I would much rather see them "waste" time teaching programming than have them spend classroom time teaching kids how to use GUI software, which most of them can pick up on their own.
At the risk of sounding as if I support this idiotic verdict, I want to take issue with something you said:
If someone can download child sex cartoons in order to get their fix, they are less likely to download real pictures of children. * * * There is no mechanism by which viewing child sex cartoons can lead to real children being used for child pornography . . ..
That first statement there is a good hypothesis, partly because it is testable and falsifiable. Because, alternatively, it's quite within the realm of imagination that cartoons could be "gateway porn" to harder stuff: there's a sizable number of psychologists who believe in the phenomenon of "sexual addiction," which like other addictions requires increasing stimulus over time to achieve a fix. So (hypothetically) cartoons might at first deliver a fix but then prove inadequate, leading to a demand for actual exploitative images. Consequently there is conceivably a mechanism by which cartoons might lead to exploitation of real children.
This is all hypothesis. I have no idea whether the above scenario is true or not. It would have to be studied---ethically, I hope---to be sure. This is an area where EMPIRICAL SCIENCE can help us.
Last word: This was a bad verdict, regardless. I think freedom of speech is too important to be curtailed even if it does aggravate the problems of (we all agree) a tiny segment of the population.
This is not a good thing, and last fall I wrote an indignant letter to EFF about their advocacy.
Why? I refuse to give even a single nickel to these people. I hate their abuse of our legal system, I hate their despicable extortionate practices, I hate their lobbying for sweetheart legislation, I hate their hubris, and also I don't like the music they promote. I want their business model to die. I want to continue to boycott them. But this would compel me to help prop them up.
I don't care if the bill is $0.05 per month. I won't willingly pay it.
But as a graduate student---and I am doomed to remain one for the next several years---I would have little or no choice if the U decided to tack on this fee. I would try to raise a ruckus, but at the end of the day, the U holds so much more power over me, and I'm not willing to torch my career ambitions over this matter. The RIAA of course knows it. How can this therefore be called anything other than extortion, which civilized societies find reprehensible? It is NOT a good thing.
For heaven's sakes, as a university administrator, please DO NOT enact such a program unless students can easily opt out. In other words, if it isn't really a fee.
Right, whereas "curiouser and curiouser" flows like honey!
Now if you could move the stress in "interestinger" it would have a more interesting sound: although "INTerestinger" is a mess, try saying "intereSTINGer." It's kind of fun, and rolls off the tongue, even though it is pure gibberish.
Anyway, as long as we're babbling about hypotheticals, let me hit you with a favorite joke, from an old Letterman show:
"What would Abraham Lincoln be doing if he were alive today?
Choose the best answer:
A) Advising our national leadership
B) Composing his memoirs
C) Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin"
FROG STEW Step 1. Put frogs in pot .... Step 7. Turn up the temperature in the pot just a bit Step 8. Cue your agent ne provocateur frog to say, "It's just one degree warmer! Stop making a fuss! I barely can feel it! It's nothing compared to all the problems associated with $FOO $BAR and $BAZ. Everything's perfectly fine! Why the sun heats pond water every day and we are all used to that! It's not like we're going to use this water for icecubes anyway," etc. Step 9. As much as possible encourage your agent actually to believe his own rhetoric. Step 10. Repeat as necessary. Simmer until done.
Ouch! "Ideology" isn't always a bad thing, at least for those who admire, for instance, the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution. Pragmatists like Carnegie and Roosevelt have certainly caused plenty of misery and harm too, just as have ideologues. We all like working systems better than anything half-baked, but some balk at the cost, and why should they not bitch? And how can you possibly call their bitching "poison" that threatens to "cripple" you (figuratively)?
Can you reference a single incident where such a raid has taken place?
The FBI has conducted armed raids of homes in at least three states due to clicks on honeypot links to files full of "gibberish." So the above scenario (of Alice getting arrested because of Bob's browsing habits) is highly plausible, even if it hasn't happened yet.
Here's a hint: no one cares about your wireless network. No, really, they don't.
Yeah, any concern for communications privacy is just so ridiculous, you know? The NSA would never engage in domestic surveillance -- the Church committee made it illegal! They would never monitor citizens' communications. And the telecom companies themselves would be too scared to be complicit in any such activities -- 47 USC 605 forbids it, and they could be sued for a bundle! Anyway, no one ever uses the internet for anything important; it's not like the internet is connected to our finances. Well, except if you do happen to do any internet banking, it's always through an SSL connection, which is foolproof and web designers never screw that up: passwords are ALWAYS encrypted. Really there couldn't possibly ever be any reason to have any concern about communications privacy. Cough.
May I suggest that large parts of this shouldn't be in the kernel at all? That there should be independent sub-systems so that in the event of a crash or panic, the entire OS doesn't come tumbling down?
Yeah, so if the hard-disk driver crashes, or if the memory manager crashes, or graphics driver crashes, you can still use your computer---just without memory, hard disk, or a display. Riiiight.
RAY BECKERMAN: Everything I saw told me that the RIAA has gone insane. The place was full of bodies: Napster, Limewire, young children, innocent grandmothers. If I was still alive, it was because they wanted me that way.
RIAA: Where are you from, Beckerman?
RB: New York, sir.
RIAA: I worked in New York back in the old days; we pressed vinyl there. It was like heaven on earth then. Have you ever considered any real freedoms? Freedoms - from the opinions of others, even the opinions of your 'clients'? You say why..., Beckerman, why you wanted to terminate my control of the music industry? What did they tell you?
RB: They told me that you had gone totally insane and that your methods were unsound.
RIAA: Are my methods unsound?
RB: I don't see any method at all, sir.
RIAA: I never expected anyone like you. Are you a pirate?
RB: I'm a lawyer.
RIAA: You're neither. You're a monkey wrench, wrecking the beautiful engine of my protection racket.
(brief court recess)
RIAA: We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men Leaning together / Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when / We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass / Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar / Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion
I've seen horrors . . . extortion that you've seen. But you have no right to call me musical. You have a right to depose me. You have a right to do that . . . But you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for music to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what extortion means. Extortion. Extortion has a face . . . And you must make a friend of extortion. Extortion and financial terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.
RB: They were going to make me a Digg Hero for this and I wasn't subscribed to their fucking RSS feed any more. Everybody wanted me to do it, everybody except those on the take of course. I felt like they were sitting there, dreading for me to take the gravy train away. They just apparently wanted to go out like douchebags, like poor, wasted, rag-assed dinosaurs. Even the musicians wanted them dead, not that they really took their orders from musicians anyway.
if it's spelled latex, I'll pronounce it as "latex"
Pronounce it any way you like. Pronounce it as "squdgeglub" if you want to.
But if you plan to use your pronunciation for communication purposes,
you'll do well to remember that most LaTeX users call it "lah-tec."
Slashdot Mirror
That's exactly the problem.
No worries, this is just typical /. give-and-take. And, the NIV is a decent translation FWIW. Happy new year.
I'm no expert, but I think you are right, and I probably shouldn't have picked Isaiah as an example. The composition is disputed: some say three authors, some two, some one. I don't think anyone claims to know for sure.
oops, s/diglot/biglot/
Confusing. Yes the original composition of the Bible is a bit of a mix, with a pinch of Aramaic (although mostly Hebrew and Greek), but what do you mean it's "already [...] badly translated"? I've met people who think that the oldest Biblical manuscripts (such as Codex Vaticanus) are themselves translations of some lost original. There's no evidence for this view, and I think it's a silly notion.
The main objection is that there would be no need to translate to Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek because the original language of composition would have been the same language. All three of those languages represent common language of their day. That is, archaeology tells us that Isaiah would have composed his original in Hebrew, so there was no need to translate it into Hebrew. Daniel and Ezra are biglot books, but they must have been composed that way: what translator would take the original and translate it into a mix of two languages?
If you are saying that the Authorized Version is a bad translation, well that's debatable. They did a pretty good job for that era, but it does have its weak spots.
Maybe you are referring to the fact that the Gospels record conversations that were originally held in Aramaic -- but then it's misleading to call the Gospels "translations" (bad or good) from Aramaic. They are obviously new compositions, composed in Greek, and (with the exception of 2 Peter) written very skilfully.
Hah-ha! You've fallen into GP's trap -- he's redefined "old" to mean "early modern." Because languages change over time, and early modern definitions are forced to give way to frobble glorkle prabulax.
I raise my glass to you, RF dude. It's been years since I worried about cleaning my connectors with q-tips or thinking about KTB, but the mention of Pozar takes me back.
May your power supplies always stay well decoupled from the rest of your circuit.
well it was fourth, that's not so bad eh?
Doubtless Dijkstra is one of the titans of the field. Interesting fact: the first syllable of his name sounds like "day," not "dye." Not many Americans seem to know this (not that I am assuming you are American).
Nor does it mention breakfast, or shoes, as a concept. And I'm starving! And my feet hurt!
Yeesh. They've got to assume you know something before you get to page 1.
Yeah, all that I got out of learning Pascal on an Apple ][ was that it helped me get ready to study computer science in college, which has only led me to . . . gainful employment. </sarcasm>
Seriously, I would much rather see them "waste" time teaching programming than have them spend classroom time teaching kids how to use GUI software, which most of them can pick up on their own.
I thought the American dream was "get a mortgage and own property": they tried to make land-owner status accessible to everyone.
At the risk of sounding as if I support this idiotic verdict, I want to take issue with something you said:
That first statement there is a good hypothesis, partly because it is testable and falsifiable. Because, alternatively, it's quite within the realm of imagination that cartoons could be "gateway porn" to harder stuff: there's a sizable number of psychologists who believe in the phenomenon of "sexual addiction," which like other addictions requires increasing stimulus over time to achieve a fix. So (hypothetically) cartoons might at first deliver a fix but then prove inadequate, leading to a demand for actual exploitative images. Consequently there is conceivably a mechanism by which cartoons might lead to exploitation of real children.
This is all hypothesis. I have no idea whether the above scenario is true or not. It would have to be studied---ethically, I hope---to be sure. This is an area where EMPIRICAL SCIENCE can help us.
Last word: This was a bad verdict, regardless. I think freedom of speech is too important to be curtailed even if it does aggravate the problems of (we all agree) a tiny segment of the population.
This is not a good thing, and last fall I wrote an indignant letter to EFF about their advocacy.
Why? I refuse to give even a single nickel to these people. I hate their abuse of our legal system, I hate their despicable extortionate practices, I hate their lobbying for sweetheart legislation, I hate their hubris, and also I don't like the music they promote. I want their business model to die. I want to continue to boycott them. But this would compel me to help prop them up.
I don't care if the bill is $0.05 per month. I won't willingly pay it.
But as a graduate student---and I am doomed to remain one for the next several years---I would have little or no choice if the U decided to tack on this fee. I would try to raise a ruckus, but at the end of the day, the U holds so much more power over me, and I'm not willing to torch my career ambitions over this matter. The RIAA of course knows it. How can this therefore be called anything other than extortion, which civilized societies find reprehensible? It is NOT a good thing.
For heaven's sakes, as a university administrator, please DO NOT enact such a program unless students can easily opt out. In other words, if it isn't really a fee.
Right, whereas "curiouser and curiouser" flows like honey!
Now if you could move the stress in "interestinger" it would have a more interesting sound: although "INTerestinger" is a mess, try saying "intereSTINGer." It's kind of fun, and rolls off the tongue, even though it is pure gibberish.
Anyway, as long as we're babbling about hypotheticals, let me hit you with a favorite joke, from an old Letterman show:
"What would Abraham Lincoln be doing if he were alive today?
Choose the best answer:
A) Advising our national leadership
B) Composing his memoirs
C) Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin"
No one claimed it was a quote from Alice, instead it is something "Alice might have said," for instance if she ran Groklaw.
I think you might be confusing Jim Jones with Ken Kesey.
FROG STEW
....
Step 1. Put frogs in pot
Step 7. Turn up the temperature in the pot just a bit
Step 8. Cue your agent ne provocateur frog to say, "It's just one degree warmer! Stop making a fuss! I barely can feel it! It's nothing compared to all the problems associated with $FOO $BAR and $BAZ. Everything's perfectly fine! Why the sun heats pond water every day and we are all used to that! It's not like we're going to use this water for icecubes anyway," etc.
Step 9. As much as possible encourage your agent actually to believe his own rhetoric.
Step 10. Repeat as necessary. Simmer until done.
Ouch! "Ideology" isn't always a bad thing, at least for those who admire, for instance, the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution. Pragmatists like Carnegie and Roosevelt have certainly caused plenty of misery and harm too, just as have ideologues. We all like working systems better than anything half-baked, but some balk at the cost, and why should they not bitch? And how can you possibly call their bitching "poison" that threatens to "cripple" you (figuratively)?
The FBI has conducted armed raids of homes in at least three states due to clicks on honeypot links to files full of "gibberish." So the above scenario (of Alice getting arrested because of Bob's browsing habits) is highly plausible, even if it hasn't happened yet.
Yeah, any concern for communications privacy is just so ridiculous, you know? The NSA would never engage in domestic surveillance -- the Church committee made it illegal! They would never monitor citizens' communications. And the telecom companies themselves would be too scared to be complicit in any such activities -- 47 USC 605 forbids it, and they could be sued for a bundle! Anyway, no one ever uses the internet for anything important; it's not like the internet is connected to our finances. Well, except if you do happen to do any internet banking, it's always through an SSL connection, which is foolproof and web designers never screw that up: passwords are ALWAYS encrypted. Really there couldn't possibly ever be any reason to have any concern about communications privacy. Cough.
Yeah, so if the hard-disk driver crashes, or if the memory manager crashes, or graphics driver crashes, you can still use your computer---just without memory, hard disk, or a display. Riiiight.
(apologies to John H. Hartman)
RAY BECKERMAN: Everything I saw told me that the RIAA has gone insane. The place was full of bodies: Napster, Limewire, young children, innocent grandmothers. If I was still alive, it was because they wanted me that way.
RIAA: Where are you from, Beckerman?
RB: New York, sir.
RIAA: I worked in New York back in the old days; we pressed vinyl there. It was like heaven on earth then. Have you ever considered any real freedoms? Freedoms - from the opinions of others, even the opinions of your 'clients'? You say why..., Beckerman, why you wanted to terminate my control of the music industry? What did they tell you?
RB: They told me that you had gone totally insane and that your methods were unsound.
RIAA: Are my methods unsound?
RB: I don't see any method at all, sir.
RIAA: I never expected anyone like you. Are you a pirate?
RB: I'm a lawyer.
RIAA: You're neither. You're a monkey wrench, wrecking the beautiful engine of my protection racket.
(brief court recess)
RIAA: We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men
Leaning together / Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when / We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass / Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar / Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion
I've seen horrors . . . extortion that you've seen. But you have no right to call me musical. You have a right to depose me. You have a right to do that . . . But you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for music to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what extortion means. Extortion. Extortion has a face . . . And you must make a friend of extortion. Extortion and financial terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.
RB: They were going to make me a Digg Hero for this and I wasn't subscribed to their fucking RSS feed any more. Everybody wanted me to do it, everybody except those on the take of course. I felt like they were sitting there, dreading for me to take the gravy train away. They just apparently wanted to go out like douchebags, like poor, wasted, rag-assed dinosaurs. Even the musicians wanted them dead, not that they really took their orders from musicians anyway.
(The gavel falls.)
RIAA: The Extortion! The Extortion!
lol. Von Neumann advised Shannon to call his measure of information 'entropy' because, as he put it, "no one knows what entropy really is."
Pronounce it any way you like. Pronounce it as "squdgeglub" if you want to. But if you plan to use your pronunciation for communication purposes, you'll do well to remember that most LaTeX users call it "lah-tec."