Mostly right, but wrong about new languages evolving. The whole reason separate languages evolved in the first place was geographical isolation
of human societies. In the increasingly globalized world that you made reference to, this is no longer a factor. Thus, no new languages.
Oh, I just love ACs strolling by and categorically claiming things they don't seem to know much about... kind of like random people walking up to me and telling me that I'm doing something wrong. Something, for instance, I had learned quite a lot, and they have no experience whatsoever.
Even in the increasingly globalized world, local communities are not at all likely to die out. Even in a globalized world, you live with your family, not with the whole fscking world. You work with a certain, finite number of people. You know a finite number of people, and associate with but a fraction of them.
And no, the "jargons" that still spring up with a handful of new vocabulary terms only understood by the "in-crowd" do not constitute new languages.
Of course they do not.
They constitute potential bases for future languages. I'm talking about centuries, not years.
All natural languages are most certainly NOT equally complex. Even Chomsky's concept of grammatical deep-structures has been challenged with the discovery of some languages spoken by small tribes which do not seem to follow the "universal" qualities of language.
Luckily for me, then, that it is not what I was talking about.
First of all, Chomsky's theories - especially the early ones - are a mathematical idealization of language which seems to work fine right until the point you consider, say, some Slavonic language (I'm a native speaker of one, so I needn't go any farther than that).
Additionally, languages differ in their number of synonyms. Some languages have incredibly large lexicons due to huge numbers of synonyms and the "verbing" of nouns, as in English. In fact, such "verbing" is gives English similar flexibility to character-based languages in which one character represents one idea, complete with its own set of assumptions and social significance.
I did not say that all languages are equally complex in all aspects; what I'm saying is that it all averages out.
You win some, you lose some.
Currently, I'm a part of the small team of translators/linguists in charge of (finally) translating WordNet into Croatian; I'm perfectly aware of the problems with synonyms.
As for the verbing of nouns, yes, it's nice and practical. Most of the time. And easy to play with. Most of the time. But damned inconvenient when you're trying to convey a single meaning with as little possibility to be misunderstood.
Proper French is a vastly simplified language in comparison to many other languages due to the fact that it is governed by a mostly coherent set of rules. Latin was, at one time, also sleek and simple, until irregularizations made it hard to follow the conventions.
I don't speak French, so I'll skip that part; however, what you're saying about Latin is simply false.
I don't recall any irregularizations from my Latin classes; rules of the language did get updated from time to time, but that's normal language development. And Ancient Latin was, in some respects, a downright mess. I'd have to ask a colleague of mine about the details, though.
I think the reference is to the RULES of the language are hardest to learn (since they don't always apply in English).
The rules are what I was talking about. Duh.
There is no natural language that I know of that has rules without exceptions. Which, considering the usual development of such exceptions, is no wonder at all - exceptions to language rules are just the remains of the old and forgotten ones.
The lexicon in each language is just as complex. Every language needs to be able to describe a ball, a house, a car, etc. So from that perspective, you are correct. But when the grammer of the language is full of rules and exceptions and exceptions to the exceptions, it is more difficult than a language that is more straight forward with rules (rule, that's it, no exceptions).
For FSM's sake, I hope English is not your first language; I'm sick and tired of explaining linguistics to the illiterate in my own language, thank you so very much.
Now that I've dissed your spelling, let me go on. Every language only needs to express things and concepts relevant to its speakers. These may or may not coincide with things and concepts in other languages; however, culturally relativistic as it may sound, I don't think you can prove that one culture/society/linguistic community is more refined or consistently uses more complex concepts than some other linguistic community.
I've always preferred objective subjects over subjective subjects. It's right or it's wrong. I did poorly when English (grammer) turned into English (regurgitate the professors interpretation of the meaning of some passage).
Unless you actually surpassed the literacy of your teachers, I don't think you did very well in English grammar, either. But I feel I'm starting to flame you, which is not really my intent.
I can see how, if you are unfamiliar with the rules, you would find English difficult to master, especially when those rules differ from the first set you learn for the same reason that I preferred objective classes.....right or wrong is very apparent.
If you are not familiar with the rules, you would find any game difficult to master; language is no different in that respect, save for the fact that it is much more complex, and you play all day.
Learning language involves much more than learning grammar (BTW that's how it's spelled); you need to learn lexical (semantic) subtleties, what to say and when to say it, what not to say and why... these can be much more tedious, especially since comprehending pidginized grammar is not that difficult a task for native speakers - you can communicate fairly even with poor knowledge of grammar.
And by the way: right and wrong in natural languages are not always apparent. What is more, sometimes you can't even reach a definite conclusion. Sometimes it just depends.
For the life of me, "the wagon red" makes a lot less sense than "the red wagon", but I can see how learning one first would make the other seem odd.
Well, both make perfect sense to me, though they mean different things.
However, this is one of the problems that get sorted out on their own, through a bit of practice. Imagine learning Hungarian, which has postpositions instead of prepositions, so you say things like "I am a tree and a car between" when you want to say "I am between a tree and a car". Yet, believe it or not, it only takes a short while to get used to it. Same goes for languages like German, where you have to wait until the end of the sentence just to hear the verb and put it all into place.
Languages are all internaly consistent, though it may take a while to discover. The rest is just practice.
will the computer send the appropriate message to software vendors? Would this technology have been able to cause clippy to die a horrible death? Would the detection of boredom and frustration and other mental states actually be translated to something useful? Will it help use make sense of the 'load letter' error? Will see see reports on CNN stating that 79.35% of Exchange users are confused, thus leading to the conclusion that the more intelligent you the more likely you use Thunderbird?
I don't know.
I just hope no-one will think up a way to deliver commercials using this technology.
That would be a vicious cycle indeed: you're bored; let's get you some ads; you look even more bored; let's get you *more* ads...
Since you're an AC, I can't contact you more directly; please, send me an e-mail: if Hebrew is your native tongue, I have a few questions not exactly related to this topic.
Even when language is being used for communication, it must first be used for cognition. You can't properly communicate what you don't yourself understand.
I'm fairly certain that politicians of the world would disagree.
Myself, I still think the communication vs. cognition is a chicken vs. egg kind of problem, as they reinforce each other - and the fact that language is primarily spoken (and, fairly recently, written) suggests the high importance of communication.
Just remember, there is a reason English is one of the hardest languages to learn.
I call bullshit on that one.
I have said it before, I will repeat it FSM knows how many times until I die, and I still won't get the message across to the uneducated masses: There. Is. No. Hardest. Language. To. Learn.
Not one. Not two. Not few. Not many. All natural languages are equally complex, as they are all designed to describe everything we come in contact with - therefore, they are all just as complex as the world that surrounds us.
Some people have trouble with certain subtleties of English; some have problems with some of the most fundamental concepts of my native Croatian; others find German impossible to learn, and don't get me started on Finnish, Hungarian, Chinese or !Xu (which you probably cannot even pronounce).
It's all about what you're used to; a language similar to your native one is easier to grasp than a completely unfamiliar one.
The fact that languages evolve wouldn't bother me at all if it weren't for the way they evolve...to cater to the most common misuse.
More specifically, it seems that many of the changes in language arise from the inability of a large enough people to grasp the original meaning or proper usage. This is extremely annoying for those people who have learned things correctly to the extent that it is second nature, only to see people getting it wrong becoming the norm.
I see the same trend in both my native language (Finnish) as well as English. The fact that language "evolution" makes linguistically challenged people who were wrong right instead of correcting them is extremely discouraging.
Yeah, well, why do you think it's called evolution?
To put it more clearly: in language, the environment you have to adapt to are other speakers of the language.
Therefore, if a majority of people do not use a word properly, the language will adapt to their needs and their use will become proper. Just like a biological organism adapts to its environment, thus a language will adapt to its speakers. And that, of course, means the majority, just like in biology.
We few, who like languages, do not fear grammar and prefer to use proper words in proper contexts, are a linguistical niche. We will not become extinct, but the majority will disregard us just the same.
At least we don't stand out that much that people would want to hunt us down.
On the other hand, I most certainly would love to hunt down certain translators and beat their heads in with dictionaries, grammars and similar weapons I am proficient with;) But I digress.
Anyway, while I'm still digressing: I hope I'll be able to enrol in a Finnish course. I took an Estonian course last semester, though I didn't really make the most of it... ah, well...
Oh well, at least "alot" has not become a word...yet?
Yep, 'yet' is the proper wording, for it may come to that.
As language adapts, it changes - mutates - in various ways, and - luckily, I'd say - not all changes take.
That's why the predictions of imminent demise of the English language due to the disastrous influence of internet, 1337-speak etc. all proved to be... exaggerated. On the other hand, when I see what's happening to my native tongue, Croatian, in public usage, I am less confident... then again, I'm not exactly surprised by any of it, and certain things I even find amusing. We'll see how it plays out in the end, though.
As for language extinction...I think it's a somewhat different phenomenon than changes in languages widespread enough to continue to exist. More specifically, it's a side-effect of cultural assimilation. As much as I like the many benefits that the large-scale organization of societies brings, I can't help but be saddened by the homogenization it brings.
Think of it as more of a pendulum: now it swings one way, but soon enough it will swing back.
For instance, the Roman Empire brought on a certain level of homogenization. Many languages were lost in that period, and I know linguists enough who'd sell their own grandmothers to gain more insight in some of them. When it collapsed, though, quite a number of new languages emerged from its ruins.
On the other hand, I wouldn't want to push the role of representing "living history" to me on anyone against their will.
That would probably be counter-productive.
What we need, actually, is to record all languages that we can - and I don't mean just grammar and lexicon, but the semantics as well; thus if, in some future world, people wish - for whatever reason - to resurrect one of the extinct languages, they may do so. Although they probably won't wish to do so, at least some things about those languages will remain noted and remembered. And greatly valued, though just by the weird few.
It will evolve and change with the times. For example, my English book listed the following rule: No colons after the verbs "is, are, was and were". When I pointed it out to my college professor examples that broke this rule all over the place, her response was, "Well, that's changing". wtf, changing? How can it be a rule if it can change, I wondered. Moral of the story. English is what a bunch of high-brows says it is.
Well, unless you're proposing that rules cannot possibly ever change, I don't understand your gripe.
When I started learning English some 20 years ago, I was taught the "shall-will-will" future tense. However, my teacher told me back then that by the time I grew up, it would probably be "will-will-will". And guess what, she was right - I haven't noticed the "old" future tense being used much lately.
Another English teacher recently told me that one British author of foreign language teaching books predicts that the -s in 3rd person singular is also bound to disappear, probably in the next 20-50 years.
Language evolves.
Better yet, languages evolve. And though as a linguist I'm a bit saddened by language extinction, it is a normal process - some languages will die out, but eventually many more will develop, though most probably as jargons. It is an inevitable consequence of globalization, and can no longer be stopped.
I really don't know why it's so incredibly hard to only substitute text delimited with spaces or newlines...
I mean, I understand people's need (or want, at least) for graphical smilies - beyond the basic few, most text smilies are quite geeky and specialized; I just don't understand why it's so incredibly difficult to parse them properly.
Oh, another pet peeve: smilies in nicknames. For instance, as soon as the person you're talking to in MSN uses a custom smiley face, Pidgin parses every subsequent occurence of that (sub)string as that smiley - not just within other words, as I'm informed MSN does too, but within nicknames as well. Mightily annoying.
Re:%75 as effective as a prescription 3% the price
on
Science vs. Homeopathy
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
How exactly does behavioral therapy or physiological analysis "resolve" a problem? If your wife left you, will therapy bring her back? No, only the way you feel can be addressed. The fundamental problem will never be resolved. I would be thoughtful before taking a drug like Prozac, but I'm not swayed by the unscientific protestant-ethic-based theory that solving a problem should be hard or time-consuming.
If your wife left you, that is no longer a problem.
The way you feel about it is the problem. The way you act because of that is the problem.
Whatever problems you had before she left you are gone.
Well, you're probably still broke, or even more broke because she also took all your money when she left, and have probably lost a friend or a gardener as well, but I digress.
Anyway, therapy (which I consider only a substitute for friends who'll talk to you - and, more importantly, listen to you; I've had both and friends are both better and cheaper) resolves a problem by first showing you it is not the immediate problem at all.
"Fundamental" problems tend to occupy your attention, so you don't see the real, immediate problems. Problem is (I'm using that word way too much now), if suddenly your fundamental problem was resolved, i.e. your wife came back, your immediate problems would seem to have disappeared altogether. However, whatever led to her leaving in the first place remains unresolved, and your new feelings for her would never be the same anyway.
Basically, save for foing back in time and preventing certain things to happen, there is no solving those fundamental problems.
There's just dealing with the consequences.
Problems are only solved in maths. In life, they are dealt with.
If the license file explicitly states that the software may be distributed under either license, at the user's choice, then this is actually the logical and obviously desired consequence.
It doesn't state that the code may only be distributed under both licenses simultaneously. The user may choose one to distribute it under - and that means the user can choose the GPL. Alone.
Since I've not read the license file, this is only an interpretation of what's been said here.
I would actually like a text processor with some of vim's characteristics.
I'm not sure how such an interface would work with other parts of an office suite, though I suspect some useful improvements could be made for the table calculation program...
Anyway, text entry and text formatting should be done in different modes; styling-as-you-type could be done by auto-replacing custom style tags; and any interface could do with a command line in the bottom - be it vim-like command line, or something as rudimentary as Firefox's search command line.
The main problem is that I can't code but the simplest of things (school-level stuff), and in my current occupation, I'm not likely to learn or have time to learn much more in order to at least start a project. So consider this just a rant.
Well, however you phrase it, I'm obviously not turning to Vista until this issue is reasonably well cracked, as I only keep Windows for a few games that don't work under Wine.
I guess IBM didn't learn their lesson in donating questionably patented code to the open source community after the SCO incident, or they really like playing the wolf in sheep's clothing card against companies that deserve the wrath of pulling the IP card. It should be interesting to see what happens with this since Microsoft wouldn't really be able to attack by proxy in the event they decide to take action.
Well, IBM has surely been seriously harmed by the SCO incident. As you can see, IBM has become a penny stock company, they are ridiculed across Slashdot... they're finished.
The kind of lawyers IBM has, I'd be amazed to watch MS try and take them on. I'd even make popcorn. (Especially since I'm quite certain that, having the kind of lawyers they have, they'd made pretty sure they were in the clear beforehand.)
Slashdot Mirror
of human societies. In the increasingly globalized world that you made reference to, this is no longer a factor. Thus, no new languages.
Oh, I just love ACs strolling by and categorically claiming things they don't seem to know much about... kind of like random people walking up to me and telling me that I'm doing something wrong. Something, for instance, I had learned quite a lot, and they have no experience whatsoever.
Even in the increasingly globalized world, local communities are not at all likely to die out. Even in a globalized world, you live with your family, not with the whole fscking world. You work with a certain, finite number of people. You know a finite number of people, and associate with but a fraction of them.
And no, the "jargons" that still spring up with a handful of new vocabulary terms only understood by the "in-crowd" do not constitute new languages.Of course they do not.
They constitute potential bases for future languages. I'm talking about centuries, not years.
All natural languages are most certainly NOT equally complex. Even Chomsky's concept of grammatical deep-structures has been challenged with the discovery of some languages spoken by small tribes which do not seem to follow the "universal" qualities of language.
Luckily for me, then, that it is not what I was talking about.
First of all, Chomsky's theories - especially the early ones - are a mathematical idealization of language which seems to work fine right until the point you consider, say, some Slavonic language (I'm a native speaker of one, so I needn't go any farther than that).
Additionally, languages differ in their number of synonyms. Some languages have incredibly large lexicons due to huge numbers of synonyms and the "verbing" of nouns, as in English. In fact, such "verbing" is gives English similar flexibility to character-based languages in which one character represents one idea, complete with its own set of assumptions and social significance.I did not say that all languages are equally complex in all aspects; what I'm saying is that it all averages out.
You win some, you lose some.
Currently, I'm a part of the small team of translators/linguists in charge of (finally) translating WordNet into Croatian; I'm perfectly aware of the problems with synonyms.
As for the verbing of nouns, yes, it's nice and practical. Most of the time. And easy to play with. Most of the time. But damned inconvenient when you're trying to convey a single meaning with as little possibility to be misunderstood.
Proper French is a vastly simplified language in comparison to many other languages due to the fact that it is governed by a mostly coherent set of rules. Latin was, at one time, also sleek and simple, until irregularizations made it hard to follow the conventions.I don't speak French, so I'll skip that part; however, what you're saying about Latin is simply false.
I don't recall any irregularizations from my Latin classes; rules of the language did get updated from time to time, but that's normal language development. And Ancient Latin was, in some respects, a downright mess. I'd have to ask a colleague of mine about the details, though.
The rules are what I was talking about. Duh.
There is no natural language that I know of that has rules without exceptions. Which, considering the usual development of such exceptions, is no wonder at all - exceptions to language rules are just the remains of the old and forgotten ones.
The lexicon in each language is just as complex. Every language needs to be able to describe a ball, a house, a car, etc. So from that perspective, you are correct. But when the grammer of the language is full of rules and exceptions and exceptions to the exceptions, it is more difficult than a language that is more straight forward with rules (rule, that's it, no exceptions).For FSM's sake, I hope English is not your first language; I'm sick and tired of explaining linguistics to the illiterate in my own language, thank you so very much.
Now that I've dissed your spelling, let me go on. Every language only needs to express things and concepts relevant to its speakers. These may or may not coincide with things and concepts in other languages; however, culturally relativistic as it may sound, I don't think you can prove that one culture/society/linguistic community is more refined or consistently uses more complex concepts than some other linguistic community.
I've always preferred objective subjects over subjective subjects. It's right or it's wrong. I did poorly when English (grammer) turned into English (regurgitate the professors interpretation of the meaning of some passage).Unless you actually surpassed the literacy of your teachers, I don't think you did very well in English grammar, either. But I feel I'm starting to flame you, which is not really my intent.
I can see how, if you are unfamiliar with the rules, you would find English difficult to master, especially when those rules differ from the first set you learn for the same reason that I preferred objective classes.....right or wrong is very apparent.If you are not familiar with the rules, you would find any game difficult to master; language is no different in that respect, save for the fact that it is much more complex, and you play all day.
Learning language involves much more than learning grammar (BTW that's how it's spelled); you need to learn lexical (semantic) subtleties, what to say and when to say it, what not to say and why... these can be much more tedious, especially since comprehending pidginized grammar is not that difficult a task for native speakers - you can communicate fairly even with poor knowledge of grammar.
And by the way: right and wrong in natural languages are not always apparent. What is more, sometimes you can't even reach a definite conclusion. Sometimes it just depends.
For the life of me, "the wagon red" makes a lot less sense than "the red wagon", but I can see how learning one first would make the other seem odd.Well, both make perfect sense to me, though they mean different things.
However, this is one of the problems that get sorted out on their own, through a bit of practice. Imagine learning Hungarian, which has postpositions instead of prepositions, so you say things like "I am a tree and a car between" when you want to say "I am between a tree and a car". Yet, believe it or not, it only takes a short while to get used to it. Same goes for languages like German, where you have to wait until the end of the sentence just to hear the verb and put it all into place.
Languages are all internaly consistent, though it may take a while to discover. The rest is just practice.
I don't know.
I just hope no-one will think up a way to deliver commercials using this technology.
That would be a vicious cycle indeed: you're bored; let's get you some ads; you look even more bored; let's get you *more* ads...
:shudder:
Since you're an AC, I can't contact you more directly; please, send me an e-mail: if Hebrew is your native tongue, I have a few questions not exactly related to this topic.
Even when language is being used for communication, it must first be used for cognition. You can't properly communicate what you don't yourself understand.
I'm fairly certain that politicians of the world would disagree.
Myself, I still think the communication vs. cognition is a chicken vs. egg kind of problem, as they reinforce each other - and the fact that language is primarily spoken (and, fairly recently, written) suggests the high importance of communication.
I'm going very offtopic here, but how familiar exactly are you with Hebrew? I might have a question or two... (mail is also an option, though)
I call bullshit on that one.
I have said it before, I will repeat it FSM knows how many times until I die, and I still won't get the message across to the uneducated masses: There. Is. No. Hardest. Language. To. Learn.
Not one. Not two. Not few. Not many. All natural languages are equally complex, as they are all designed to describe everything we come in contact with - therefore, they are all just as complex as the world that surrounds us.
Some people have trouble with certain subtleties of English; some have problems with some of the most fundamental concepts of my native Croatian; others find German impossible to learn, and don't get me started on Finnish, Hungarian, Chinese or !Xu (which you probably cannot even pronounce).
It's all about what you're used to; a language similar to your native one is easier to grasp than a completely unfamiliar one.
Wow.
Exaggerate it a bit, and you'll at least sound Jamaican to the untrained ear.
More specifically, it seems that many of the changes in language arise from the inability of a large enough people to grasp the original meaning or proper usage. This is extremely annoying for those people who have learned things correctly to the extent that it is second nature, only to see people getting it wrong becoming the norm.
I see the same trend in both my native language (Finnish) as well as English. The fact that language "evolution" makes linguistically challenged people who were wrong right instead of correcting them is extremely discouraging.
Yeah, well, why do you think it's called evolution?
To put it more clearly: in language, the environment you have to adapt to are other speakers of the language.
Therefore, if a majority of people do not use a word properly, the language will adapt to their needs and their use will become proper. Just like a biological organism adapts to its environment, thus a language will adapt to its speakers. And that, of course, means the majority, just like in biology.
We few, who like languages, do not fear grammar and prefer to use proper words in proper contexts, are a linguistical niche. We will not become extinct, but the majority will disregard us just the same.
At least we don't stand out that much that people would want to hunt us down. ;) But I digress.
On the other hand, I most certainly would love to hunt down certain translators and beat their heads in with dictionaries, grammars and similar weapons I am proficient with
Anyway, while I'm still digressing: I hope I'll be able to enrol in a Finnish course. I took an Estonian course last semester, though I didn't really make the most of it... ah, well...
Oh well, at least "alot" has not become a word...yet?Yep, 'yet' is the proper wording, for it may come to that.
As language adapts, it changes - mutates - in various ways, and - luckily, I'd say - not all changes take.
That's why the predictions of imminent demise of the English language due to the disastrous influence of internet, 1337-speak etc. all proved to be... exaggerated. On the other hand, when I see what's happening to my native tongue, Croatian, in public usage, I am less confident... then again, I'm not exactly surprised by any of it, and certain things I even find amusing. We'll see how it plays out in the end, though.
As for language extinction...I think it's a somewhat different phenomenon than changes in languages widespread enough to continue to exist. More specifically, it's a side-effect of cultural assimilation. As much as I like the many benefits that the large-scale organization of societies brings, I can't help but be saddened by the homogenization it brings.Think of it as more of a pendulum: now it swings one way, but soon enough it will swing back.
For instance, the Roman Empire brought on a certain level of homogenization. Many languages were lost in that period, and I know linguists enough who'd sell their own grandmothers to gain more insight in some of them. When it collapsed, though, quite a number of new languages emerged from its ruins.
On the other hand, I wouldn't want to push the role of representing "living history" to me on anyone against their will.That would probably be counter-productive.
What we need, actually, is to record all languages that we can - and I don't mean just grammar and lexicon, but the semantics as well; thus if, in some future world, people wish - for whatever reason - to resurrect one of the extinct languages, they may do so. Although they probably won't wish to do so, at least some things about those languages will remain noted and remembered. And greatly valued, though just by the weird few.
Well, unless you're proposing that rules cannot possibly ever change, I don't understand your gripe.
When I started learning English some 20 years ago, I was taught the "shall-will-will" future tense. However, my teacher told me back then that by the time I grew up, it would probably be "will-will-will". And guess what, she was right - I haven't noticed the "old" future tense being used much lately.
Another English teacher recently told me that one British author of foreign language teaching books predicts that the -s in 3rd person singular is also bound to disappear, probably in the next 20-50 years.
Language evolves.
Better yet, languages evolve. And though as a linguist I'm a bit saddened by language extinction, it is a normal process - some languages will die out, but eventually many more will develop, though most probably as jargons. It is an inevitable consequence of globalization, and can no longer be stopped.
I really don't know why it's so incredibly hard to only substitute text delimited with spaces or newlines...
I mean, I understand people's need (or want, at least) for graphical smilies - beyond the basic few, most text smilies are quite geeky and specialized; I just don't understand why it's so incredibly difficult to parse them properly.
Oh, another pet peeve: smilies in nicknames. For instance, as soon as the person you're talking to in MSN uses a custom smiley face, Pidgin parses every subsequent occurence of that (sub)string as that smiley - not just within other words, as I'm informed MSN does too, but within nicknames as well. Mightily annoying.
If your wife left you, that is no longer a problem.
The way you feel about it is the problem. The way you act because of that is the problem.
Whatever problems you had before she left you are gone.
Well, you're probably still broke, or even more broke because she also took all your money when she left, and have probably lost a friend or a gardener as well, but I digress.
Anyway, therapy (which I consider only a substitute for friends who'll talk to you - and, more importantly, listen to you; I've had both and friends are both better and cheaper) resolves a problem by first showing you it is not the immediate problem at all.
"Fundamental" problems tend to occupy your attention, so you don't see the real, immediate problems. Problem is (I'm using that word way too much now), if suddenly your fundamental problem was resolved, i.e. your wife came back, your immediate problems would seem to have disappeared altogether. However, whatever led to her leaving in the first place remains unresolved, and your new feelings for her would never be the same anyway.
Basically, save for foing back in time and preventing certain things to happen, there is no solving those fundamental problems.
There's just dealing with the consequences.
Problems are only solved in maths. In life, they are dealt with.
Ah. So if Microsoft tries to patent Google, IBM could still patent Microsoft? ;)
<troll>Well, it could hardly be worse.</troll>
Sorry, I don't see a problem.
If the license file explicitly states that the software may be distributed under either license, at the user's choice, then this is actually the logical and obviously desired consequence.
It doesn't state that the code may only be distributed under both licenses simultaneously. The user may choose one to distribute it under - and that means the user can choose the GPL. Alone.
Since I've not read the license file, this is only an interpretation of what's been said here.
Unilke the Windows installer, at least you can download the source code and see for yourself exactly what it does.
Only if you choose to do so from within the installer.
Ooops.
I meant pigeon. As a Pidgin (ex Gaim) user (and pidgins, BTW, are not dialects), I had a Freudian typo.
I would actually like a text processor with some of vim's characteristics.
I'm not sure how such an interface would work with other parts of an office suite, though I suspect some useful improvements could be made for the table calculation program...
Anyway, text entry and text formatting should be done in different modes; styling-as-you-type could be done by auto-replacing custom style tags; and any interface could do with a command line in the bottom - be it vim-like command line, or something as rudimentary as Firefox's search command line.
The main problem is that I can't code but the simplest of things (school-level stuff), and in my current occupation, I'm not likely to learn or have time to learn much more in order to at least start a project. So consider this just a rant.
Don't you have that in the developed world?
In Croatia, people can pay for their parking by mobile phone: the amount is simply added to their bill (or deducted from their prepaid account).
Well, however you phrase it, I'm obviously not turning to Vista until this issue is reasonably well cracked, as I only keep Windows for a few games that don't work under Wine.
Well, IBM has surely been seriously harmed by the SCO incident. As you can see, IBM has become a penny stock company, they are ridiculed across Slashdot... they're finished.
The kind of lawyers IBM has, I'd be amazed to watch MS try and take them on. I'd even make popcorn. (Especially since I'm quite certain that, having the kind of lawyers they have, they'd made pretty sure they were in the clear beforehand.)
Well, MS Office supports ODF.
Actually, they actually helped create it, if my memory serves me right.
So what's the problem, then? MS Office sucking compared to the competition? ;)
Well, they did want to use pidgeons, but Google already patented those...