Ah. Decisions, decisions. I just don't know who I want to see get screwed more: Microsoft, or Eolas. I haven't been this perplexed since November 2nd.
Still, I worry that this whole affair is going to cause Microsoft to step up its evil campaign to acquire bogus software patents. Does anyone know where the money goes if Eolas wins?
"Bring me the black" would be differant from "Bring me the blacks" in English. Normally I would say "Bring me the black one", just to be clear. On the other hand, for less familiar topics, English seems much more concise. Whenever I see multiple translations (on an airplane, for instance), the English always seems so be the shortest. In canada, the French translation usually seems about 33% longer. And the Inuktituk seems twice as long as that. For simple concepts, Spanish is concise, but for anything more modern or technilogical you need many more words than english.
I see your point about "negras" meaning female and many, but how often is it important to specify an object's sex?
My main point is that there are learning burdens on any language. English has exceptions in its verbs, but I think people often overlook the fact that in other languages you need to memorize a gender with each noun. Learning a single word for each noun is one thing, but learning two words is much harder, from an organizational point of view.
That's the number one most common verb. It's not a very good example. I appreciate the simplicity of Esperanto grammer, but the inventor screwed it up with gender.
The gender has nothing to do with the inherent gender of the object (cat). It's simply a way to make the phonemes flow gracefully. In English you could simply have said "Bring me the black" as well. Of what use is it to specify the gender of a pencil? La lapiz? El lapiz? How many hours do I have to spend memorizing the gender of every stupid word. Please.
And the plural is specified in the noun with a simple 's'. Except when you are using words from other languages, like latin. But you don't have to modify every adjective to reflect the gender and plurality. That's redundant.
I never said I wasn't lazy. And I never called anyone stupid. I called them whiners. I've studied many languages. Learning a few exceptions for the reletively small number of usefull verbs doesn't compare to the huge number of gender cases one has to memorize with other languages. Learning any other language is hard. People complain about English so much because it is by far the most common second language.
This argument is pretty pointless unless we decide whether we are talking about spoken English or writen English.
Screw that. I'm sick of people whining about English being hard. Our nouns have no gender. You don't have to memorize whether any given word is masculine or feminine (or neutral vs common, or whatever). You don't have to change the adjectives to fit the gender and plurality of the noun. Conjugation is simple; just add an 's' to the third person singular. Sure there are exceptions and 'strong' verbs, but that is true an any language.
I suspect that the reason people complain about english is because they are forced to learn it as a second language because, well, we won. Or because they are simply parroting what they've heard from others. Want to learn a difficult language? Try Finnish, or Islandic.
I have heard that the Vax 782 was designed so that the VMS engineers could still build the entire OS in under a day. The 782 was basically a dual processor VAX-11/780. I don't know how true it is, but it was a good story.
That was a great post, but I doubt anyone actually read it because you weren't logged onto the slashdot site. People who are only visiting Slashdot might not be aware that posting anonymously reduces the visibility rating that your comment it given. That's your right, but it seems like a waste, especially in this case.
here's an interesting factoid: Put 15 squares in a 4x4 frame at random and that state will fall into one of two subspaces; call it parity, odd or even. From there, sliding a piece is an operation that will keep the resulting state within the original subspace. So if you have a friend with one of these puzzles, and you pry out two of the pieces and swap them, you will reverse the partiy of the game and he'll never be able to solve it. I leave it to the reader to come up with usefull applications.
No, there is enough in the reserve to supply the US government to 100 years, the entire US for ~15 years, or the world for about 10 years. The world helium supply is limited and non-renewable. Just like oil. However, when oil runs out we can use solar and alcohol and biodiesel. There is no substitute for helium.
I didn't mean to come off as the Grinch. People like this guy are hardly putting a dent in the supply compared to those damn blimps that leak huge amounts of crude helium (Ne/He) into the atmosphere. I also hate those toy ballons they give to kids. It's another waste of helium and the balloons wind up in all sorts of environmentally unfriendly places.
But I think I have to make an exception for these cluster balloon guys. I think the increase in human spirit and morale far outweighs the reletively small amount of helium used. I'd love to do it myself.
Yes, it floats off into space. Where did you think it went? It's lighter than molecular O2 and N2. If you don't believe me, check the wikkipedia or google for "strategic helium reserve". I weld with the stuff and I breath the stuff when I dive shipwrecks with a closed-circuit rebreather. I have a vested interest in knowing.
of helium that could have been used by welders and divers and scientists. There is only so much left in the strategic reserves. But hurray for the human spirit.
I guess we'll need to start a new distributed computing project. Everyone who participates will allow their computer to do some processing in the background for the public good. Like Folding@Home. Otherwise we are going to be obliged to *some* sort of sponsorship, corporate, government, or otherwise.
Elaine: Hey, what time is it?
Kramer: I don't know. I don't wear a watch.
Elaine: How can you not wear a watch?
Kramer: I've never needed one before.
Elaine: How to use know what time it is?
Kramer: By the position of the sun.
Elaine: How do you know what time it is at night?
Kramer: I don't, but that's only a couple of hours anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess I knew that. I just had this crazy dream that someone might screw MS for $500Mil and then donate the money to EFF or University scholarships.
Ah. Decisions, decisions. I just don't know who I want to see get screwed more: Microsoft, or Eolas. I haven't been this perplexed since November 2nd.
Still, I worry that this whole affair is going to cause Microsoft to step up its evil campaign to acquire bogus software patents. Does anyone know where the money goes if Eolas wins?
But were the edges sealed? If not, then there's no problem. Even so, I'd like to encourage you to continue in your lawyer damning.
"Bring me the black" would be differant from "Bring me the blacks" in English. Normally I would say "Bring me the black one", just to be clear. On the other hand, for less familiar topics, English seems much more concise. Whenever I see multiple translations (on an airplane, for instance), the English always seems so be the shortest. In canada, the French translation usually seems about 33% longer. And the Inuktituk seems twice as long as that. For simple concepts, Spanish is concise, but for anything more modern or technilogical you need many more words than english.
I see your point about "negras" meaning female and many, but how often is it important to specify an object's sex?
My main point is that there are learning burdens on any language. English has exceptions in its verbs, but I think people often overlook the fact that in other languages you need to memorize a gender with each noun. Learning a single word for each noun is one thing, but learning two words is much harder, from an organizational point of view.
Soy/eres/es/etc.. How is that any simpler?
That's the number one most common verb. It's not a very good example. I appreciate the simplicity of Esperanto grammer, but the inventor screwed it up with gender.
The gender has nothing to do with the inherent gender of the object (cat). It's simply a way to make the phonemes flow gracefully. In English you could simply have said "Bring me the black" as well. Of what use is it to specify the gender of a pencil? La lapiz? El lapiz? How many hours do I have to spend memorizing the gender of every stupid word. Please.
And the plural is specified in the noun with a simple 's'. Except when you are using words from other languages, like latin. But you don't have to modify every adjective to reflect the gender and plurality. That's redundant.
Or perhaps I misunderstand you?
I never said I wasn't lazy. And I never called anyone stupid. I called them whiners. I've studied many languages. Learning a few exceptions for the reletively small number of usefull verbs doesn't compare to the huge number of gender cases one has to memorize with other languages. Learning any other language is hard. People complain about English so much because it is by far the most common second language.
This argument is pretty pointless unless we decide whether we are talking about spoken English or writen English.
Screw that. I'm sick of people whining about English being hard. Our nouns have no gender. You don't have to memorize whether any given word is masculine or feminine (or neutral vs common, or whatever). You don't have to change the adjectives to fit the gender and plurality of the noun. Conjugation is simple; just add an 's' to the third person singular. Sure there are exceptions and 'strong' verbs, but that is true an any language.
I suspect that the reason people complain about english is because they are forced to learn it as a second language because, well, we won. Or because they are simply parroting what they've heard from others. Want to learn a difficult language? Try Finnish, or Islandic.
I have heard that the Vax 782 was designed so that the VMS engineers could still build the entire OS in under a day. The 782 was basically a dual processor VAX-11/780. I don't know how true it is, but it was a good story.
Someone posted RMS's short story on Slashdot a week or so ago, but it seems topical now so I repeat it here: http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
That was a great post, but I doubt anyone actually read it because you weren't logged onto the slashdot site. People who are only visiting Slashdot might not be aware that posting anonymously reduces the visibility rating that your comment it given. That's your right, but it seems like a waste, especially in this case.
Hey, I'm new here, you insensitive clod.
here's an interesting factoid: Put 15 squares in a 4x4 frame at random and that state will fall into one of two subspaces; call it parity, odd or even. From there, sliding a piece is an operation that will keep the resulting state within the original subspace. So if you have a friend with one of these puzzles, and you pry out two of the pieces and swap them, you will reverse the partiy of the game and he'll never be able to solve it. I leave it to the reader to come up with usefull applications.
Hydrogen is far too volatile for most of the Helium applications. Helium has a complete valence shell and reacts with nothing, which is the point.
No, there is enough in the reserve to supply the US government to 100 years, the entire US for ~15 years, or the world for about 10 years. The world helium supply is limited and non-renewable. Just like oil. However, when oil runs out we can use solar and alcohol and biodiesel. There is no substitute for helium.
I didn't mean to come off as the Grinch. People like this guy are hardly putting a dent in the supply compared to those damn blimps that leak huge amounts of crude helium (Ne/He) into the atmosphere. I also hate those toy ballons they give to kids. It's another waste of helium and the balloons wind up in all sorts of environmentally unfriendly places.
But I think I have to make an exception for these cluster balloon guys. I think the increase in human spirit and morale far outweighs the reletively small amount of helium used. I'd love to do it myself.
It's not funny. When I was seven my parents were killed by an angry clown.
Yes, it floats off into space. Where did you think it went? It's lighter than molecular O2 and N2. If you don't believe me, check the wikkipedia or google for "strategic helium reserve". I weld with the stuff and I breath the stuff when I dive shipwrecks with a closed-circuit rebreather. I have a vested interest in knowing.
If you like that then there's a nice Steve Martin movie called A Simple Twist of Fate which uses this same idea.
Yes. Most of the world's helium comes from a bubble in an oil well in Texas. Once it is released it drifts off into space.
For what it's worth, according to the FAA he has the right of way. Even skydivers and birds would be expected to steer around him.
of helium that could have been used by welders and divers and scientists. There is only so much left in the strategic reserves. But hurray for the human spirit.
They didn't write the kernel. CMU did.
I guess we'll need to start a new distributed computing project. Everyone who participates will allow their computer to do some processing in the background for the public good. Like Folding@Home. Otherwise we are going to be obliged to *some* sort of sponsorship, corporate, government, or otherwise.
I've used kmail for a long time. I tried Thunderbird (just now) then decided to switch back. I like KMails PIM integration.
Elaine: Hey, what time is it?
Kramer: I don't know. I don't wear a watch.
Elaine: How can you not wear a watch?
Kramer: I've never needed one before.
Elaine: How to use know what time it is?
Kramer: By the position of the sun.
Elaine: How do you know what time it is at night?
Kramer: I don't, but that's only a couple of hours anyway.