the most amazing aspect of relativity, to me, was the fact einstein had the "guts" to challenge newton's laws of physics. he realized that the maxwell's equations were "relativistic" while newton's laws were not. instead of patching up the maxwell's equations so that the speed of light wouldn't be invariant under all reference frames, he decided that it was newton's laws that needed to fixing...
>For that matter, if (as you now claim) you genuinely were curious about the distiction between "zeitgeist" and "summary," you could have looked it up at dictionary.com
thanks for your pointer. i did check the dictionary. but dictionary gives me definitions for each word. knowing what the word means did not educate me on how to use them or how one word may be more appropriate for some uses than others.
should i be reading more? perhaps. that might be my problem...
just to clarify, i'm a non-native english speaker.
i asked an honest question and one or two posters replied kindly by explaining to me why this is better described by the word zeitgeist instead of summary. kind thanks to those posters.
others just blasted me or made fun of my "limited" vocabulary without teaching me anything. thanks for nothing for those posters.
all i was saying is, because of my experience, i personally prefer to use simpler words whenever possible. i'm also a scientist, not an english writer.
some kind poster elsewhere has explained to me why this is a zeitgeist and not a summary. that's what i wanted to know.
so excuse my ignorance.
>Should English-speaking travelers who don't know the local language use simple words and grammar when talking to locals? Of course
by the way, "of course" but a lot of them don't.
thank you. that kind of a post is more of what i was looking for, instead of "oooh, you are so stupid for not knowing what zeitgeist means!!!" or "zeitgeist is a native word, just like 'man' is because they are both german!!!"
>Because "zeitgeist" means the pulse of the times, not just a summary of some stuff. The meaning is quite different.
so "pulse of the time" is taken yearly? that sounds more like a summary/review to me...
but i understand your point. if you see a difference in nuance that i don't, then that's great and this word choice at least makes some sense. (unlike others here just blasting me while not explaining why they think one word is a better choice than others).
i'm not advocating using the simplest possible word to describe everything. i'm advocating not complicating stuff unnecessarily. perhaps it's because i lived in europe for a few years only knowing english. i worked with scientists who were required to learn english since it's the official language of the science. so i learned that some time, it more useful to sacrifice a bit of "flare" and nuance to get the point across using simpler words. and i also saw a lot of american tourists who were getting into extra crap with non-native english speakers trying to help them out in english (as a favor, i should add) because they didn't know how to simplify their communication style and made fun of them for not being fluent in english.
please, this is stupid. which word is more commonly used, summary or zeitgeist? end of story.
unless there's a nuance that cannot be conveyed by the word "summary" but can be by "zeitgeist" (which i see none in the context of describing the google article), using a "fancier" word is not really necessary, IMO. that's all i wanted to say.
>It's in the dictionary, what more do you want? My suspicion is that you're just angry because someone used a word you didn't know.
i knew what the word meant. i'm not angry. i just think the use of "marginal" words just to jazz things up is not helpful or necessary.
and, please, you knew well what i meant by "native" english word. to equate "man" and "zeitgeist" as both being "german" (thus not "native") is idiotic. the fact you had to pull up a dictionary entry to show "zeitgeist" is even there shows that. do you even doubt for a second that the word "summary" is in the dictionary? how about "man"?
that's why i asked if there's a subtle (but relevant) nuance to the word zeitgeist that is different (in the context of describing this article) from the word summary. would you care to elaborate why "zeitgeist" is a much better word to describe this google page than "summary"?
but the page is written in english. only germanic language speakers would have an extra chance of knowing the meaning of the word "zeitgeist."
if someone was reading it in japan with rudimentary english skills, he/she would stand a much better chance of understanding the word "summary" is than "zeitgeist."
my point is, someone "wasting" their time posting on a fairly narrowly focused tech-news weblog is no better than the very people he made fun of, people searching "idiotic" things on google.
yeah, ok, the bit about hunger and stuff probably wasn't needed, i just wanted a contrast, that posting on/. is a leisurely activity, at best. much the same way searching for brittney spears on google is.
let's try going metric first, which is at least partially implemented in the united states. (i.e. sciences) if americans can't even switch to the metric system, i see no reason to think something as inherent as the calender system can be switched.
what's the point of monitoring more if you don't have the system in place to make sense of the information you gathered?
there are indications that we had monitored and gathered enough intelligence to (at least) be concerned about 9/11 before that day. we weren't able to piece it together.
as long as increasing monitoring is simply about gathering more information but not about making sense of them, it seems to be nothing buy a political move to increase accountability but not the actual safety/security.
perhaps not, but how about child pornography..? i'm with you, it's ridiculous to compare p2p to a gun, but i wouldn't say "nothing."
whenever someone brings up guns as a comparison, i usually counter by pointing out the intent. gun is made for violent destruction. (could be objects, humans, animals, etc.) if it accomplishes it intended goal, some damages are done. p2p has no inherent violent or destructive nature in its intent. same goes to car. yes, car also kills. but that's not what it's designed for...
Slashdot Mirror
the most amazing aspect of relativity, to me, was the fact einstein had the "guts" to challenge newton's laws of physics. he realized that the maxwell's equations were "relativistic" while newton's laws were not. instead of patching up the maxwell's equations so that the speed of light wouldn't be invariant under all reference frames, he decided that it was newton's laws that needed to fixing...
if you had a dual, would it be more efficient to have each processor run 50% of two OS'es or each CPU running one OS?
um, don't you see how i put (NSFW) after the link?
thanks for your pointer. i did check the dictionary. but dictionary gives me definitions for each word. knowing what the word means did not educate me on how to use them or how one word may be more appropriate for some uses than others.
should i be reading more? perhaps. that might be my problem...
thanks for your pointer. it was unintended, but i can see how that came about.
give me a break.
i asked an honest question and one or two posters replied kindly by explaining to me why this is better described by the word zeitgeist instead of summary. kind thanks to those posters.
others just blasted me or made fun of my "limited" vocabulary without teaching me anything. thanks for nothing for those posters.
all i was saying is, because of my experience, i personally prefer to use simpler words whenever possible. i'm also a scientist, not an english writer.
some kind poster elsewhere has explained to me why this is a zeitgeist and not a summary. that's what i wanted to know.
so excuse my ignorance.
>Should English-speaking travelers who don't know the local language use simple words and grammar when talking to locals? Of course
by the way, "of course" but a lot of them don't.
thank you. that kind of a post is more of what i was looking for, instead of "oooh, you are so stupid for not knowing what zeitgeist means!!!" or "zeitgeist is a native word, just like 'man' is because they are both german!!!"
so "pulse of the time" is taken yearly? that sounds more like a summary/review to me...
but i understand your point. if you see a difference in nuance that i don't, then that's great and this word choice at least makes some sense. (unlike others here just blasting me while not explaining why they think one word is a better choice than others).
i'm not advocating using the simplest possible word to describe everything. i'm advocating not complicating stuff unnecessarily. perhaps it's because i lived in europe for a few years only knowing english. i worked with scientists who were required to learn english since it's the official language of the science. so i learned that some time, it more useful to sacrifice a bit of "flare" and nuance to get the point across using simpler words. and i also saw a lot of american tourists who were getting into extra crap with non-native english speakers trying to help them out in english (as a favor, i should add) because they didn't know how to simplify their communication style and made fun of them for not being fluent in english.
what did pamela anderson do this year?
unless there's a nuance that cannot be conveyed by the word "summary" but can be by "zeitgeist" (which i see none in the context of describing the google article), using a "fancier" word is not really necessary, IMO. that's all i wanted to say.
i knew what the word meant. i'm not angry. i just think the use of "marginal" words just to jazz things up is not helpful or necessary.
and, please, you knew well what i meant by "native" english word. to equate "man" and "zeitgeist" as both being "german" (thus not "native") is idiotic. the fact you had to pull up a dictionary entry to show "zeitgeist" is even there shows that. do you even doubt for a second that the word "summary" is in the dictionary? how about "man"?
that's why i asked if there's a subtle (but relevant) nuance to the word zeitgeist that is different (in the context of describing this article) from the word summary. would you care to elaborate why "zeitgeist" is a much better word to describe this google page than "summary"?
if someone was reading it in japan with rudimentary english skills, he/she would stand a much better chance of understanding the word "summary" is than "zeitgeist."
yeah, ok, the bit about hunger and stuff probably wasn't needed, i just wanted a contrast, that posting on /. is a leisurely activity, at best. much the same way searching for brittney spears on google is.
because zeitgeist is not a native english word?
do you really have to ask? (NSFW)
there are people dying of hunger out there and wars going on too.
i guess i'm missing some subtle nuance of the word?
that played and ripped fine in my Mac... so i'm curious if it's an XP thing...
let's try going metric first, which is at least partially implemented in the united states. (i.e. sciences) if americans can't even switch to the metric system, i see no reason to think something as inherent as the calender system can be switched.
what's the point of monitoring more if you don't have the system in place to make sense of the information you gathered?
there are indications that we had monitored and gathered enough intelligence to (at least) be concerned about 9/11 before that day. we weren't able to piece it together.
as long as increasing monitoring is simply about gathering more information but not about making sense of them, it seems to be nothing buy a political move to increase accountability but not the actual safety/security.
from the lack of the ring... i believe she is...
but you missed the more important question first:
is she straight?
(of course, i assumed the question to the question that comes before that: are you a male?
whenever someone brings up guns as a comparison, i usually counter by pointing out the intent. gun is made for violent destruction. (could be objects, humans, animals, etc.) if it accomplishes it intended goal, some damages are done. p2p has no inherent violent or destructive nature in its intent. same goes to car. yes, car also kills. but that's not what it's designed for...