Mr. Litvinenko fell ill after having lunch at a sushi restaraunt with one Mario Scaramella (now hiding in fear of his life somewhere, according to http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2462 162,00.html.
There are also reports he had tea with a Russian friend before going to lunch.
So ingestion isn't exactly far-fetched.
That's because you make the mistake of assuming that "She's dead!" is a simple sentence. Not only does it imply precedent knowledge on someone's part, which is handled differently in different languages, but it also involves the use of the copula (is), which doesn't always work the same way as it does in English. For example, the French is "Elle est morte!" (subject) (copula) (verb past). On the other hand, Japanese has "kanojo wa shindeiru" (topic) (topic marker) (verb continuative). (As an aside, this is illogical in Japanese; shinu (to die) is a "state action"; it is either on, or off. As odd as it sounds, it is impossible to be "in the process of dying" in Japanese. (You say other things, like "coming towards death", and such.)
The point of going through this in this seemingly pedantic level of detail is to show that when it comes to language, simple is rarely ever simple. We just take the construction of our native language for granted.
As someone who has studied translation (Japanese/English) at the University level, I can tell you that interpreting in real-time in a heavily context-sensitive language like Japanese or Arabic is an incredible challenge for even people who have spoken both languages for -decades-. When tiny grammatical changes can affect the entire meaning of a sentence, and voice recognition is by no means perfect, and homonyms come into play, the entire process is incredibly difficult.
On a -personal- level, as someone who studies languages and desires a career in either teaching or translation, I'm worried not so much that it's replacing the human element, but that people believe it can be used without human intervention. The difficulty of interpretation and translation (this would be the former, for the record) is related to the distance, in linguistic construction, between the two languages, and few languages are further apart than English and Arabic. The increases in accuracy of machine translation also grow logarithmically; the more development that comes out of it, the less benefit you get. What I do believe we should be doing is investing money in both language education AND language technology. I also have a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth regarding the fact that the U.S. military is discharging qualified linguists that happen to be homosexual, but then I say that as a homosexual language student that wanted to join the military when I graduated. Now I'm looking to move to Canada.
it is difficult to know what side (if any!) to take on this story. There's no inherent "funny" comment that pops to mind, no well-worn slashdot joke...this is about a very fundamental thing (who "owns" the airwaves) and I think a lot of people on slashdot, and even elsewhere, don't really have an opinion on it. Do we support what is basically anarchy on the airwaves (which, according to the article, could be even hazardous to our personal saftey, though I imagine that's at least a little hyperbole)? Do we support the underpaid, overworked people of the FCC? (So where did all the money from those fines go?) A lot of questions, and at least in my mind, no ready answers.
Yes, I confess, I noticed that as soon as I re-read the -already posted- post. This is what I get for posting to Slashdot during caffeine withdrawl. I suppose that's what I get for not using the Preview Button. Ah, well, I'll get modded way down eventually, hiding my shame from the world.
As for the MacPro case:I'm not faulting Apple's engineering feat, I just happen to think the "cheese grater" design rather uninspiring. But then, I'm one of those "hippy" college kids.
...I am a bit surprised at the stagnancy that seems to be pervading Apple's style choices. Now that we've entered the Kubrick-esque world of white (or black!) plastic and brushed aluminum, it doesn't seem like the Apple line has anywhere to "evolve" to. The MacPro's case, for example, is simply the G5 tower case with another whole in it. The user experience seems to be a bit stagnant too; while I do believe that Tiger outshines Vista, and Leopard will as well, I've yet to see anything that says that Leopard will be a major leap for the end-user. Of course, I'd love to be proven wrong...
no, mindboggling would be if I said "I hope this causes the stock to drop cause I really want the Sony experience to be part of my magical investment future." Or, better,
...more than anything like Merril Lynch is trying to get people to dump Sony stock so they can buy it up, then make a killing if the PS3 matches their REAL expectations. Or maybe I have my tinfoil hat wrapped a little tightly?
Worry not, for New Horizons, set to launch in January, will reach Pluto in Summer 2015 (it's one of the fastest spacecraft we've ever designed, and will get a gravitational slingshot boost from Jupiter.) Among other things, the New Horizons spacecraft will take the first clear pictures of Pluto.
...is that this doesn't really help all that much. It may help find some new extrasolar planets...maybe. It won't help us really image any of these planets, and that's what drives the exploratory nature of the space programs around the world; ideally, people want to be able to exploit planets beyond Earth, but in the meantime we're settling for a lot of really cool pictures. However, it's still VERY HARD to image even things at the edge of OUR solar system. Ever take a look at the -best- images of Pluto? They're absolutely terrible! We can do much better with things like X-ray inferometry, a technology that promises resolution up to 10^-7 arcseconds. Of course, it doesn't produce real-color images...but for that matter, we don't even have any good real color images of Venus. There are technologies that can give better results.
(Disclaimer: I'm a student at the University of Colorado, home of the MAXIM X-Ray Inferometer)
"The UK's IP regime is a critical component of our present and future success in the global knowledge economy."
The whole "IP IS EVIL, DESTROY IP" slant on Slashdot aside....I'm not even sure what this article is saying. This sounds, more than anything, like "come bribe us for 12 months while we 'study' IP". Maybe US the US political system has just made me too cynical.
thy servers brightly seaaaarching!
Okay...while I'm not a big fan of the rampant Google-worship, I do have to give Google kudos for their text ads, I suppose; they're much less intrusive than even the ads on Slashdot. On the other hand, I never click the Google ads -either-, so.
OMG THE KERNEL MAINTAINER USES REISER 4!!!!1111onetwoten....is about all I got out of that. Was that -supposed- to have actual information in it? Obviously a slow news day...
Slashdot Mirror
Welcome to Slashdot. Enjoy your stay.
...could you post your diet plan in your Journal or something? (I know it's OT, but $40-45 per week...hey, I'll bite :P)
Mr. Litvinenko fell ill after having lunch at a sushi restaraunt with one Mario Scaramella (now hiding in fear of his life somewhere, according to http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2462 162,00.html.
There are also reports he had tea with a Russian friend before going to lunch.
So ingestion isn't exactly far-fetched.
That's because you make the mistake of assuming that "She's dead!" is a simple sentence. Not only does it imply precedent knowledge on someone's part, which is handled differently in different languages, but it also involves the use of the copula (is), which doesn't always work the same way as it does in English. For example, the French is "Elle est morte!" (subject) (copula) (verb past). On the other hand, Japanese has "kanojo wa shindeiru" (topic) (topic marker) (verb continuative). (As an aside, this is illogical in Japanese; shinu (to die) is a "state action"; it is either on, or off. As odd as it sounds, it is impossible to be "in the process of dying" in Japanese. (You say other things, like "coming towards death", and such.)
The point of going through this in this seemingly pedantic level of detail is to show that when it comes to language, simple is rarely ever simple. We just take the construction of our native language for granted.
As someone who has studied translation (Japanese/English) at the University level, I can tell you that interpreting in real-time in a heavily context-sensitive language like Japanese or Arabic is an incredible challenge for even people who have spoken both languages for -decades-. When tiny grammatical changes can affect the entire meaning of a sentence, and voice recognition is by no means perfect, and homonyms come into play, the entire process is incredibly difficult. On a -personal- level, as someone who studies languages and desires a career in either teaching or translation, I'm worried not so much that it's replacing the human element, but that people believe it can be used without human intervention. The difficulty of interpretation and translation (this would be the former, for the record) is related to the distance, in linguistic construction, between the two languages, and few languages are further apart than English and Arabic. The increases in accuracy of machine translation also grow logarithmically; the more development that comes out of it, the less benefit you get. What I do believe we should be doing is investing money in both language education AND language technology. I also have a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth regarding the fact that the U.S. military is discharging qualified linguists that happen to be homosexual, but then I say that as a homosexual language student that wanted to join the military when I graduated. Now I'm looking to move to Canada.
...I assume you live in Canada? In the U.S., "we don't have to worry about the food being bad" would be a logical fallacy.
I think the actual mod in that situation would be -1, "The joke went over your head".
Err, wait...GoldWave? You mean the same shareware app we all used to record crappy clips of us singing like 5 years ago? That GoldWave?
as much as I'm gonna get burned a bit for this suggestion.... MOD PARENT UP!
Oh, good, not only have you changed my gender, but I have to drive a crappy 1970s car made from old Soviet tanks? Thanks.
it is difficult to know what side (if any!) to take on this story. There's no inherent "funny" comment that pops to mind, no well-worn slashdot joke...this is about a very fundamental thing (who "owns" the airwaves) and I think a lot of people on slashdot, and even elsewhere, don't really have an opinion on it. Do we support what is basically anarchy on the airwaves (which, according to the article, could be even hazardous to our personal saftey, though I imagine that's at least a little hyperbole)? Do we support the underpaid, overworked people of the FCC? (So where did all the money from those fines go?) A lot of questions, and at least in my mind, no ready answers.
In the U.S., of course. Americans tend to think their products superior to anything else.
Yes, several years ago. Try to keep up, please. Oh, by the way we're changing discussion formats again.
If you're not getting paid for your time, there's something inherently wrong with your working situation.
Yes, I confess, I noticed that as soon as I re-read the -already posted- post. This is what I get for posting to Slashdot during caffeine withdrawl. I suppose that's what I get for not using the Preview Button. Ah, well, I'll get modded way down eventually, hiding my shame from the world. As for the MacPro case:I'm not faulting Apple's engineering feat, I just happen to think the "cheese grater" design rather uninspiring. But then, I'm one of those "hippy" college kids.
...I am a bit surprised at the stagnancy that seems to be pervading Apple's style choices. Now that we've entered the Kubrick-esque world of white (or black!) plastic and brushed aluminum, it doesn't seem like the Apple line has anywhere to "evolve" to. The MacPro's case, for example, is simply the G5 tower case with another whole in it. The user experience seems to be a bit stagnant too; while I do believe that Tiger outshines Vista, and Leopard will as well, I've yet to see anything that says that Leopard will be a major leap for the end-user. Of course, I'd love to be proven wrong...
That would also imply that I -have- money and am not a broke college student.
no, mindboggling would be if I said "I hope this causes the stock to drop cause I really want the Sony experience to be part of my magical investment future." Or, better,
...more than anything like Merril Lynch is trying to get people to dump Sony stock so they can buy it up, then make a killing if the PS3 matches their REAL expectations. Or maybe I have my tinfoil hat wrapped a little tightly?
Worry not, for New Horizons, set to launch in January, will reach Pluto in Summer 2015 (it's one of the fastest spacecraft we've ever designed, and will get a gravitational slingshot boost from Jupiter.) Among other things, the New Horizons spacecraft will take the first clear pictures of Pluto.
...is that this doesn't really help all that much. It may help find some new extrasolar planets...maybe. It won't help us really image any of these planets, and that's what drives the exploratory nature of the space programs around the world; ideally, people want to be able to exploit planets beyond Earth, but in the meantime we're settling for a lot of really cool pictures. However, it's still VERY HARD to image even things at the edge of OUR solar system. Ever take a look at the -best- images of Pluto? They're absolutely terrible! We can do much better with things like X-ray inferometry, a technology that promises resolution up to 10^-7 arcseconds. Of course, it doesn't produce real-color images...but for that matter, we don't even have any good real color images of Venus. There are technologies that can give better results. (Disclaimer: I'm a student at the University of Colorado, home of the MAXIM X-Ray Inferometer)
"The UK's IP regime is a critical component of our present and future success in the global knowledge economy."
The whole "IP IS EVIL, DESTROY IP" slant on Slashdot aside....I'm not even sure what this article is saying. This sounds, more than anything, like "come bribe us for 12 months while we 'study' IP". Maybe US the US political system has just made me too cynical.
Obviously you never used Quicktime 4. *shudder* Anyone else remember that stupid knob?
thy servers brightly seaaaarching! Okay...while I'm not a big fan of the rampant Google-worship, I do have to give Google kudos for their text ads, I suppose; they're much less intrusive than even the ads on Slashdot. On the other hand, I never click the Google ads -either-, so.
OMG THE KERNEL MAINTAINER USES REISER 4!!!!1111onetwoten....is about all I got out of that. Was that -supposed- to have actual information in it? Obviously a slow news day...