The flexibility of English certainly has helped it maintain itself as a "lingua franca". English will continue to develop over time.
However, there are benefits to changing the language only when necessary. The Tamil Tirukural http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirukural is still readable to native speakers of Tamil two thousand years later. Meanwhile, English speaking lands have gone through several languages in that time (Latin -> Celtic languages -> Anglo-Saxon / Old English -> Modern English). Today, reading Shakespeare with any comprehension is difficult, and that is only ~400 years old.
Even if there is no dumbing down of the language, a constantly changing language complicates our understanding of the past, and our ancestors understanding of us.
Seriously "A pallet is a wooden or plastic platform that can be picked up using a forklift; palletized cargo is cargo placed on a pallet, which is how Newegg's inventory is shipped to them." is considered a story?
Maybe Anand didn't work at a grocery store in high school... His surprise at the cardboard compactor and explanation of a pallet smacks of George Bush, Sr.'s surprise at the UPC scanner at a grocery store circa 1990.
Personally, I read Anandtech frequently - it is a good publication. If the tour smacks of commercialism, then blame slashdot for posting it. Yesterday's article about battery life and the Core Duo directly and immediately credited Toms Hardware with finding the problem, and I would say Toms Hardware is one of Anand's main competitors.
Where do you live? My rural Illinois community (~5k) has scores (maybe hundreds) or people on disability (=monthly stipend + free healthcare/free psychiatric care) for various problems, including psychiatric illness. Don't think its a panacea. People are often alone, apart from family help and resources, and the psychiatric care is certainly not the most personalized.
In my wife's village, family may help, but psychiatric illness is still stigmatized. If you are unable to work, then you must depend on relatives who are not always happy about the situation. Your spouse and children will suffer, with likely no college or even high school in the cards for your children. Some families may differ...in fact, my wife's village is quite progressive - there is no dowry at all in their village, and most people have at least a high school education.
Stigma aside, there are few psychiatrists, almost no money, and transportation costs (even in the cities) are high for the working poor and outright impoverished. India is certainly not the worst off countryin the world, but when all the chickens died in Martalli two years back, and scores of people had respiratory illnesses, did that rate a bleep in the local press (eg, the state capital)? Not a peep, and I was there when it happened.
Its not that the press is muffled, or the public health officals uncaring, its just that they are spread thin in poor countries. Lots of things get underreported...not just mental illness. In the US, on the other hand, this would get unending play on CNN. Mental illness is practically a topic de jure for Oprah.
I believe that you are wrong to assume that poor, agrarian societies are by nature less stressful. They are very stressful places to live, especially when food is dear, healthcare unavailable, and few jobs are to be found. I think people in America still think of rural places like the town in "Newhart". They should spend some time in the Peace Corps, or somesuch experience...
I found this curious, so I did a search for Chitimacha on http://www.pubmed.gov/ and received an empty result.
The following term was not found and ignored: Chitimacha.
See Details.No items found.
Pubmed stores academic medical and psychiatric studies for the last several decades. I wonder where this information about no depression in the Chitimacha comes from. A little googling found this article http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article ?AID=/20051128/NEWS01/511280306/1002, which seems to paint the Chitimacha as pretty regular folks. Their tribal clinic even does depression screening.
Please post these sources. Reading the newsletters from the Chitimacha website leads me to believe their small tribe (about ~200 accordin o the wikipedia) still has some minor crime and marital problems to report on a monthly basis. No proof of mental illness, but they don't sound like self-actualized buddhas either - just normal folks.
In the first world, people have the time to pursue treatment or take disability for psychiatric illnesses and conditions, such as ADHD. In the third world, people do not have the time, money, or resources to discover their depression, schizophrenia, or ADHD.
In the first world, treatment is low-cost, and encouraged by a more open outlook regarding psychiatric illness. Additionally, a diagnosis may lead to benefits like a longer testing time for a medical student with ADHD, or a monthly stipend for a treated schizophrenic. Add in a heaping of advertisement for medications (at least in the US) like Strattera and depression meds.
In much of the third world, stigma still hangs over psychiatric illness. In addition, there is no money and little resources for treatment. Getting a label of depression or ADHD may very well nix your chances for a college position, where in the US it might mean that you get longer to take a test.
I speak Kannada with my wife (Who is from around Bangalore, India). Trying to uderstand her physical symptoms in Kannada can be a confusing prposition sometimes. The literal meaning of the words can be quite bizarre compared to what she is trying to convey...for example, just consider the Englishg phrase "I'm out of shape" and you can probably think of a score more. Now consider doing the same regarding psychiatric symptoms. When people talk about pychiatric illness, they often have difficulty describing their symptoms in their own native language.
Attempting to compare mental illness accross different cultures, which may be separated by different customs, languages, and religions is fraught with pitfalls. Before acting on or making judgements about degrees of mental illness between cultures, consdier first - how can they guarantee me that that Czech's definition of depression is the same as the Rwandan, the Tamil, the Korean, the Soliga, the Scots, etc.
Reminds me of Mark Twain's quote regarding statistics...
Honestly, in order to make sure that you can code a 99213, or maybe even a 99214, a doctor has to do a fairly complete exam and then document it. Cynicism aside, it is also a good idea to give a patient a general look over. When our 10-30 year old slashdotters come in the the doc for the runs, that's the only time I have a chance to notice that skin cancer on their cheek, high blood pressure, or whatever. I can also make sure I told you to quit smoking, even if it is just a total waste of time.
With all that excessive documentation going on, docs are dictating more and more, leading us to look for cheaper (Indian) transcriptionists! Call a friend in Bangalore who knows some of these transcriptionists, get some customer service reps and a secure ftp server, and you'll be in business! tumba cebaginde!
While they could add more rail, they are completely deficient in roadways. Having lived in Bangalore previously, and travelled there frequently since, I can attest that the roads outside the main cities are terribly inadequate. The well maintained Mysore-Bangalore highway was still only two lanes, linking a city of 8 million with another city of 500k - 1 million. Here in Illinois, my town of 5k is linked to the next town (2k) with a better two lane highway.
They continue to improve their railways, but the roadways are *completely* inadequate to their needs.
Interesting question - would a race of beings / being capable of interstellar travel have anything to learn from us as a species?
I don't think it is what they would want from us, but what resource they might want from the Earth. Just imagine they come looking for something useless to us at our technological level (eg., 'dilithium crystals' or whatnot). Maybe they would just want our oxygen to replenish their stock on quick trips. Perhaps they could use our sun as a gravity sling for massive slow moving cargo ships, disrupting the planets' orbits. My point is that they might not care a hoot about us, but that in the process of using our resources bring great harm to the Earth and humanity. I wonder if a big gun on the moon will help us in the gravity sling situation...
The only realistic comparison of technology mismatch I can summon is the appearance of Europeans in the Americas. They certainly had the technology to move small amounts of people (a few hundred or less) in a boat, and impressive military technology (armor, cavalry, handguns). They wwere nonetheless outmatched by the weaponry and mases of the Aztecs... As it happens, it was the disease brought by the Europeans and the Aztecs own superstition that undid them.
The Europeans prevailed in many smaller conflicts in the Americas in a similar way. The native Americans did not maximize their own natural advatages...often because they lacked the proper advantage.
While native American populations were decimated, even wiped clean (Hispanola, Cuba), many other populations suffered through the Europeans and eventually threw off their yoke. In many places, this was because of good organization and a fairly strong, entrenched civilization (Asia).
In other words, we may stand a fair chance against "aliens"...at least in the short term. Would an instant hostile response be appropriate? I think that is the question really being raised. Canada is hoping to preempt trigger-happy America.
Aliens trying to take advantage of us and our resources seems much more likely than simple trying to wipe us out. Just as people tramp through the Amazon looking for gold, unmined by the natives, we may find oursevles cought up in the search for some resource we have been diregarding. The results maybe nearly as bad as attempted genocide, however.
Well, after years of nothing from the seti project, I am not inclined to join Canada in its search. Why not instead look for resources in the asteroid belt?
I don't think I have heard so much Finnish in my life before. With all the one-word put downs during the battle, you could be well armed to start a bar fight in Helsinki after watching this.
The subtitles are a riot...I have read elsewhere that they are a play on words at times...more written for the Finnish audience than the outside world. There are several more subtitles in the works...maybe someone will come out with an American or UK English version of the movie.
One last send-up for Satu Helio, the lovely Ivanovitsa. Actually, this movie was full of great looking ladies...this makes it look like being a geek in Finland has its rewards!
Not meaning to troll, but I don't think we had google in 1990. I still remember irc with number channels (the Finns had their own numbered channel back then). Your only internet search would have been a '/' on 'nn' or maybe on gopher (I think 1990 predates gopher, too).
Of course, maybe you got the year wrong...ahhh the memories, though!
Because the draw to their hardware is the software and easy user environment. Everyone is going to prefer using the software on their low-cost dell and homebrew boxen over snazzy looking, overpriced hardware.
If they could get past the issue of drivers, maybe they ought to be selling this like windows, though. After all, their OS is leaps ahead of Win XP in usability...they could charge for the software. They could require system vendors to demonstrate conpatibility before getting an "Apple Compatible" logo (costing ~$30/system on top of the software). They may not overwhelm Windows, but I would bet they could get up to 10+% of the market
We also have an old P3 650 laptop that I picked up cheap. It runs web pages with Flash fine. There are lots of sites that our daughter visits on her own. The cBBC site is her favourite. She loves Dora on the NickJr site. There are sometimes free games on the fronts of magazines - these are normally Flash based too and run fine on the old thing. She coped with the mouse fine but struggled a little with double-clicking on the touch pad.
We also have a P3-600 PC which I now have up in my 3 year old's bedroom. It only has linux right now, and with gcompris and childsplay, there is some educational value to it, appropriate to his age. With flash, we can access web sites like Thomas the Train, and the Tamil Virtual University http://tamilvu.org/, which has some children's material. Growing up in rural Illinois, he's not going to learn Mom's language in school!
Other benefits to the linux pc for kids - working logo language (KLogo), which may come in handy later as an intro to programming (although I only used BASIC on my VIC 20 as a kid), and of course the whole office suite for later...although by then the hand-me-down will probably be this Barton 2500. =)
On the original question, we are leaning towards getting a VSmile, because the game console and portable game player use the same cartridges. I agree with everyone else that books, drawing, and above all socialization are most important at this age. However, when we get on that long flight to Bangalore next spring, I hope we have a few things for the boys to do!
Having forgotten the password to my bank account's online access, I walked into my bank and asked to get a new password. Somewhat to my surprise, they didn't ask me for ID or even my account number. I would like to think it is because I am one of the few doctors in my small town, but if so, the lady at the desk wouldn't have asked my name, then how to spell it! Not only is my account visible, but so is our practice's bank accounts...I hope your bank's security is better than mine!!
The developers of the gambas project might not appreciate the trashing of their [open source] effort...while visual basic wasn't exactly the pinnacle of software development, a ton of software that regular folks could use was written in it.
The idea of VB is great, the implementation was the problem.
I can see people walking right into doors now. We all know those nasty bosses who would "show you the door" mainly by just deactivating your RFID access.
Maybe they're about ready for Windows Vista Community Edition, complete with several ready-to-run programs, such as Office Vista Community Edition You could d/l it all by a bittorrent plugin in IE...
This reminds me of when I was living in India back in 1996. In an effort to find good sites for village resevoirs for irrigation, India used its new space satellites to find appropriate spots. Low and behold, many of the best sites held actual remains of previous resevoirs, which had been abandoned centuries before!
My bad...my comments come from just recently formatting a FAT32 partition. Win2k wouldn't let me format a FAT32 partition larger than ~32GB...it would only allow NTFS. Leave it to MS to sabotage their own functionality...
When my great, great, great....grandfather came to the States ~1720, he left very little records. His "last will and testament" is still available to be read in the local county records. The language is touching (probably written by some long-dead lawyer given that my ancestor didn't speak English and couldn't spell his own last name), but it is a real interesting view into our family's history.
Granted, people didn't set out to write blogs on their offtime in 1720, so what they might have left seems pretty important. Believe me, some of this prattle we're producing is going to be read by our kids. All my confused politics of the early 90's is right there on usenet ("Google groups" for you young-uns!) for my kids to look through in a few years.
I sure hope that in 2090 they can defeat our puny drms! After all, dvd encryption was defeated in just a few years! Alas, the way copyrights are going these days, most of these copyrights will probably stay in effect until the original owners could care less, losing the information forever, like many of the old films of the 30's and 40's.
Slashdot Mirror
However, there are benefits to changing the language only when necessary. The Tamil Tirukural http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirukural is still readable to native speakers of Tamil two thousand years later. Meanwhile, English speaking lands have gone through several languages in that time (Latin -> Celtic languages -> Anglo-Saxon / Old English -> Modern English). Today, reading Shakespeare with any comprehension is difficult, and that is only ~400 years old.
Even if there is no dumbing down of the language, a constantly changing language complicates our understanding of the past, and our ancestors understanding of us.
Personally, I read Anandtech frequently - it is a good publication. If the tour smacks of commercialism, then blame slashdot for posting it. Yesterday's article about battery life and the Core Duo directly and immediately credited Toms Hardware with finding the problem, and I would say Toms Hardware is one of Anand's main competitors.
In my wife's village, family may help, but psychiatric illness is still stigmatized. If you are unable to work, then you must depend on relatives who are not always happy about the situation. Your spouse and children will suffer, with likely no college or even high school in the cards for your children. Some families may differ...in fact, my wife's village is quite progressive - there is no dowry at all in their village, and most people have at least a high school education.
Stigma aside, there are few psychiatrists, almost no money, and transportation costs (even in the cities) are high for the working poor and outright impoverished. India is certainly not the worst off countryin the world, but when all the chickens died in Martalli two years back, and scores of people had respiratory illnesses, did that rate a bleep in the local press (eg, the state capital)? Not a peep, and I was there when it happened.
Its not that the press is muffled, or the public health officals uncaring, its just that they are spread thin in poor countries. Lots of things get underreported...not just mental illness. In the US, on the other hand, this would get unending play on CNN. Mental illness is practically a topic de jure for Oprah.
I believe that you are wrong to assume that poor, agrarian societies are by nature less stressful. They are very stressful places to live, especially when food is dear, healthcare unavailable, and few jobs are to be found. I think people in America still think of rural places like the town in "Newhart". They should spend some time in the Peace Corps, or somesuch experience...
Please post these sources. Reading the newsletters from the Chitimacha website leads me to believe their small tribe (about ~200 accordin o the wikipedia) still has some minor crime and marital problems to report on a monthly basis. No proof of mental illness, but they don't sound like self-actualized buddhas either - just normal folks.
In the first world, people have the time to pursue treatment or take disability for psychiatric illnesses and conditions, such as ADHD. In the third world, people do not have the time, money, or resources to discover their depression, schizophrenia, or ADHD.
In the first world, treatment is low-cost, and encouraged by a more open outlook regarding psychiatric illness. Additionally, a diagnosis may lead to benefits like a longer testing time for a medical student with ADHD, or a monthly stipend for a treated schizophrenic. Add in a heaping of advertisement for medications (at least in the US) like Strattera and depression meds.
In much of the third world, stigma still hangs over psychiatric illness. In addition, there is no money and little resources for treatment. Getting a label of depression or ADHD may very well nix your chances for a college position, where in the US it might mean that you get longer to take a test.
I speak Kannada with my wife (Who is from around Bangalore, India). Trying to uderstand her physical symptoms in Kannada can be a confusing prposition sometimes. The literal meaning of the words can be quite bizarre compared to what she is trying to convey...for example, just consider the Englishg phrase "I'm out of shape" and you can probably think of a score more. Now consider doing the same regarding psychiatric symptoms. When people talk about pychiatric illness, they often have difficulty describing their symptoms in their own native language.
Attempting to compare mental illness accross different cultures, which may be separated by different customs, languages, and religions is fraught with pitfalls. Before acting on or making judgements about degrees of mental illness between cultures, consdier first - how can they guarantee me that that Czech's definition of depression is the same as the Rwandan, the Tamil, the Korean, the Soliga, the Scots, etc.
Reminds me of Mark Twain's quote regarding statistics...
Honestly, in order to make sure that you can code a 99213, or maybe even a 99214, a doctor has to do a fairly complete exam and then document it. Cynicism aside, it is also a good idea to give a patient a general look over. When our 10-30 year old slashdotters come in the the doc for the runs, that's the only time I have a chance to notice that skin cancer on their cheek, high blood pressure, or whatever. I can also make sure I told you to quit smoking, even if it is just a total waste of time. With all that excessive documentation going on, docs are dictating more and more, leading us to look for cheaper (Indian) transcriptionists! Call a friend in Bangalore who knows some of these transcriptionists, get some customer service reps and a secure ftp server, and you'll be in business! tumba cebaginde!
They certianly picked a cute scientist to model thir buckyballs. Why wasn't she working in my lab in college? =(
While they could add more rail, they are completely deficient in roadways. Having lived in Bangalore previously, and travelled there frequently since, I can attest that the roads outside the main cities are terribly inadequate. The well maintained Mysore-Bangalore highway was still only two lanes, linking a city of 8 million with another city of 500k - 1 million. Here in Illinois, my town of 5k is linked to the next town (2k) with a better two lane highway.
They continue to improve their railways, but the roadways are *completely* inadequate to their needs.
I don't think it is what they would want from us, but what resource they might want from the Earth. Just imagine they come looking for something useless to us at our technological level (eg., 'dilithium crystals' or whatnot). Maybe they would just want our oxygen to replenish their stock on quick trips. Perhaps they could use our sun as a gravity sling for massive slow moving cargo ships, disrupting the planets' orbits. My point is that they might not care a hoot about us, but that in the process of using our resources bring great harm to the Earth and humanity. I wonder if a big gun on the moon will help us in the gravity sling situation...
The only realistic comparison of technology mismatch I can summon is the appearance of Europeans in the Americas. They certainly had the technology to move small amounts of people (a few hundred or less) in a boat, and impressive military technology (armor, cavalry, handguns). They wwere nonetheless outmatched by the weaponry and mases of the Aztecs... As it happens, it was the disease brought by the Europeans and the Aztecs own superstition that undid them.
The Europeans prevailed in many smaller conflicts in the Americas in a similar way. The native Americans did not maximize their own natural advatages...often because they lacked the proper advantage.
While native American populations were decimated, even wiped clean (Hispanola, Cuba), many other populations suffered through the Europeans and eventually threw off their yoke. In many places, this was because of good organization and a fairly strong, entrenched civilization (Asia).
In other words, we may stand a fair chance against "aliens"...at least in the short term. Would an instant hostile response be appropriate? I think that is the question really being raised. Canada is hoping to preempt trigger-happy America.
Aliens trying to take advantage of us and our resources seems much more likely than simple trying to wipe us out. Just as people tramp through the Amazon looking for gold, unmined by the natives, we may find oursevles cought up in the search for some resource we have been diregarding. The results maybe nearly as bad as attempted genocide, however.
Well, after years of nothing from the seti project, I am not inclined to join Canada in its search. Why not instead look for resources in the asteroid belt?
I don't think I have heard so much Finnish in my life before. With all the one-word put downs during the battle, you could be well armed to start a bar fight in Helsinki after watching this.
The subtitles are a riot...I have read elsewhere that they are a play on words at times...more written for the Finnish audience than the outside world. There are several more subtitles in the works...maybe someone will come out with an American or UK English version of the movie.
One last send-up for Satu Helio, the lovely Ivanovitsa. Actually, this movie was full of great looking ladies...this makes it look like being a geek in Finland has its rewards!
Not meaning to troll, but I don't think we had google in 1990. I still remember irc with number channels (the Finns had their own numbered channel back then). Your only internet search would have been a '/' on 'nn' or maybe on gopher (I think 1990 predates gopher, too).
Of course, maybe you got the year wrong...ahhh the memories, though!
Because the draw to their hardware is the software and easy user environment. Everyone is going to prefer using the software on their low-cost dell and homebrew boxen over snazzy looking, overpriced hardware.
If they could get past the issue of drivers, maybe they ought to be selling this like windows, though. After all, their OS is leaps ahead of Win XP in usability...they could charge for the software. They could require system vendors to demonstrate conpatibility before getting an "Apple Compatible" logo (costing ~$30/system on top of the software). They may not overwhelm Windows, but I would bet they could get up to 10+% of the market
We also have a P3-600 PC which I now have up in my 3 year old's bedroom. It only has linux right now, and with gcompris and childsplay, there is some educational value to it, appropriate to his age. With flash, we can access web sites like Thomas the Train, and the Tamil Virtual University http://tamilvu.org/, which has some children's material. Growing up in rural Illinois, he's not going to learn Mom's language in school!
Other benefits to the linux pc for kids - working logo language (KLogo), which may come in handy later as an intro to programming (although I only used BASIC on my VIC 20 as a kid), and of course the whole office suite for later...although by then the hand-me-down will probably be this Barton 2500. =)
On the original question, we are leaning towards getting a VSmile, because the game console and portable game player use the same cartridges. I agree with everyone else that books, drawing, and above all socialization are most important at this age. However, when we get on that long flight to Bangalore next spring, I hope we have a few things for the boys to do!
Having forgotten the password to my bank account's online access, I walked into my bank and asked to get a new password. Somewhat to my surprise, they didn't ask me for ID or even my account number. I would like to think it is because I am one of the few doctors in my small town, but if so, the lady at the desk wouldn't have asked my name, then how to spell it! Not only is my account visible, but so is our practice's bank accounts...I hope your bank's security is better than mine!!
The developers of the gambas project might not appreciate the trashing of their [open source] effort...while visual basic wasn't exactly the pinnacle of software development, a ton of software that regular folks could use was written in it.
The idea of VB is great, the implementation was the problem.
Despite 3D audio acceleration, Creative's new chip just won't improve your vi viewing experience.
I can see people walking right into doors now. We all know those nasty bosses who would "show you the door" mainly by just deactivating your RFID access.
Maybe they're about ready for Windows Vista Community Edition, complete with several ready-to-run programs, such as Office Vista Community Edition You could d/l it all by a bittorrent plugin in IE...
The joy of /. is not the timely news (even anandtech.com one ups /. frequently). The fun is in the funny and occasionally insightful comments.
Even the occasional "In Soviet Russia, AYBABTU..."
The trouble is that the picture was 6 months old, and the bat was stolen four months ago. =(
This reminds me of when I was living in India back in 1996. In an effort to find good sites for village resevoirs for irrigation, India used its new space satellites to find appropriate spots. Low and behold, many of the best sites held actual remains of previous resevoirs, which had been abandoned centuries before!
My bad...my comments come from just recently formatting a FAT32 partition. Win2k wouldn't let me format a FAT32 partition larger than ~32GB...it would only allow NTFS. Leave it to MS to sabotage their own functionality...
When my great, great, great....grandfather came to the States ~1720, he left very little records. His "last will and testament" is still available to be read in the local county records. The language is touching (probably written by some long-dead lawyer given that my ancestor didn't speak English and couldn't spell his own last name), but it is a real interesting view into our family's history.
Granted, people didn't set out to write blogs on their offtime in 1720, so what they might have left seems pretty important. Believe me, some of this prattle we're producing is going to be read by our kids. All my confused politics of the early 90's is right there on usenet ("Google groups" for you young-uns!) for my kids to look through in a few years.
I sure hope that in 2090 they can defeat our puny drms! After all, dvd encryption was defeated in just a few years! Alas, the way copyrights are going these days, most of these copyrights will probably stay in effect until the original owners could care less, losing the information forever, like many of the old films of the 30's and 40's.