Comment Re:dodged another bullet. (Score 2) 237
Links? Perhaps you meant Lynx?
Comment Re:Why not have devices get their time from GPS? (Score 1) 166
Silly! How would that channel extra funds to NIST?
http://tf.nist.gov/time/common...
Because NIST developed the "Common view time transfer using the GPS system"...
Because NIST has a finger in everything having to do with measurement?
Clearly, you'll never be a politician, son!
Internet of Things Endangered By Inaccurate Network Time, Says NIST 166
An anonymous reader writes: Current standards of network timekeeping are inadequate to some of the critical systems that are being envisaged for the Internet of Things, according to a report (PDF) by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The report says, "A new economy built on the massive growth of endpoints on the internet will require precise and verifiable timing in ways that current systems do not support. Applications, computers, and communications systems have been developed with modules and layers that optimize data processing but degrade accurate timing." NIST's Chad Boutin likens current network accuracy to an attempt to synchronize watches via the postal system, and suggests that remote medicine and self-driving cars will need far higher standards in order not to put lives at risk. He says, "modern computer programs only have probabilities on execution times, rather than the strong certainties that safety-critical systems require."
Comment Re:Paranoid, but mostly appropriate (Score 1) 90
SO...you think a medical certificate should be required to fly a 20-30 pound drone, but any schlub with a driver's license can pilot a 2 ton UPS truck on public streets to deliver packages? The medical certificate shouldn't be required for general aviation pilots, much less drone pilots - studies show it doesn't make a difference.
Obama: Maybe It's Time For Mandatory Voting In US 1089
HughPickens.com writes CNN reports that when asked how to offset the influence of big money in politics, President Barack Obama suggested it's time to make voting a requirement. "Other countries have mandatory voting," said Obama "It would be transformative if everybody voted — that would counteract money more than anything," he said, adding it was the first time he had shared the idea publicly. "The people who tend not to vote are young, they're lower income, they're skewed more heavily towards immigrant groups and minority groups. There's a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls." At least 26 countries have compulsory voting, according to the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Failure to vote is punishable by a fine in countries such as Australia and Belgium; if you fail to pay your fine in Belgium, you could go to prison. Less than 37% of eligible voters actually voted in the 2014 midterm elections, according to The Pew Charitable Trusts. That means about 144 million Americans — more than the population of Russia — skipped out. Critics of mandatory voting have questioned the practicality of passing and enforcing such a requirement; others say that freedom also means the freedom not to do something.
Comment Re:Some pedants are more pedantic than others... (Score 1) 667
Except that people don't actually interpret the sentences that way.
You're bringing logic to a syntax fight...
If it is intended to actually double negate, then emphasis is used, "I said, I don't have NO books." This lifts the word up for consideration of special usage. And it is used this way in users of both positive and negative Negative Agreement... "I don't have any books. I don't have NO books." "I don't have no books. I don't have NO books."
Otherwise, all negative words in a clause are just glomped all together. Which is why "I don't think, that he didn't do it." tends to still double negate, even without emphasis... Even people who use negative Negative Agreement, would likely say "I don't think he did it."
Comment Re:"Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt... (Score 1) 274
Oh, one can totally learn about English grammar just by studying English grammar. But in many ways as our native language we're "too close" to it. People find it difficult to learn the distinction of a noun and a verb, because we just use English grammar, we don't think ABOUT English grammar.
It's a lot like breathing. We can think about breathing, and study the way breathing works, but in the end, from our perspective we just breathe automagically.
Comment Re:Not sure about that (Score 1) 274
Discouraged by whom?
The formal register. Which unlike colloquial English has a number of stupid rules like "no double negatives" that don't actually make sense linguistically, but if you're in formal writing, you better use it, because if someone comes across it, they will immediately recognize you as lacking proper education in the formal register.
Some others immediately jump from "lack of proper education in the formal register" to "stupid" or "half-witted" or "redneck", but I do not ascribe to that opinion.
Either way, you write to your audience, and the formal English register has determined these stupid rules to be distinguishing and defining features...
Comment Re:Not sure about that (Score 1) 274
But that seems like a very formal way of writing.
Which was kind of my point. German formal writing prefers this construction, whereas in English, the formal writing rules tend to prefer extremely flat sentences... "There was a woman, who gave a striped ball. She
Thanks for the gestreiften use though. I maybe would have thought of that if I weren't intentionally seeking to construct stilted formal written German...
Comment Re:Not sure about that (Score 1) 274
I tend to prefer Glücklich for happy. But then I have learned a somewhat archaic form of German, due to the state of US textbooks...
Comment Re:Not sure about that (Score 1) 274
When the US constitution talks of "pursuit of happiness" it isn't meant "happiness" as we know it today. They had the same sort of ambiguity at the time between luck/happiness/joy
If it were being rewritten in modern English the intent was "pursuit of fortune/wealth"
Comment Re:Not sure about that (Score 1) 274
English also compounds words. We just write them with spaces in between.
"Baseball field" for one. German chooses to put the words together into one, English chooses to put a space in between them.
But either way, spoken-wise, they're a series of nouns all in a row.
Comment Re:I think computer scientists already knew this.. (Score 1) 274
$ObjectName and ObjectNumber.
When I was learning BASIC, AppleSoft BASIC only had two letters of significance in variable names... this was Apple ][e...
From there I moved on to C and Assembly from there. After I learned Assembly, everything just kind of made sense, because I could tear apart everything in assembly in my head, and know what it was doing. I stuck with C all the way until my professional career which started me in Perl, and then just recently Go.
Comment Re:Not sure about that (Score 2) 274
The more that I've studied German, the more that I have found that they express things in a very particular manner as opposed to English. The smallest example being that in formal English the passive-voice is discouraged, because it obfuscates the agent of the sentence, while in formal German, the passive-voice is encouraged, because it emphasizes on the action, which is often the more important part of the sentence.
Also, the "the left-turning truck" form ("den links abbiegenden LKW") is also very common to the point of "die den Ball mit den Streifen gebende Frau" what English would consider absurd. Basically, much deeper sentence construction than the nearly flat construction that is preferred by English speakers.
I've only now started grasping and feeling the difference... you know, like grokking it rather than just knowing that it's used... it's really cool, and interesting, and I only wish that I had more exposure to German, but with the age of the internet and German television here at home... I suppose, I'm the only one to blame...
Comment Re:"Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt... (Score 4, Interesting) 274
I have advanced learning in German as an American native-English speaker.
I now use the subjunctive properly, and a host of other things. My English is perhaps now so proper, that I speak it "better" than my parents...
