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Science

All Languages Linked To Common Source 318

Old Wolf writes "A New Zealand evolutionary psychologist, Quentin Atkinson, has created a scientific sensation by claiming to have discovered the mother of all mother tongues. 'Dr Atkinson took 504 languages and plotted the number of phonemes in each (corrected for recent population growth, when significant) against the distance between the place where the language is spoken and 2,500 putative points of origin, scattered across the world (abstract). The relationship that emerges suggests the actual point of origin is in central or southern Africa, and that all modern languages do, indeed, have a common root." Reader NotSanguine points out another study which challenges the idea that the brain is more important to the structure of language than cultural evolution.

Comment Seems clear to me (Score 4, Funny) 90

Apple clearly invented everything and Nokia didn't. Apple has existed since the 50's when they signed the Beetles then became a computer company in the 70's once John left the band. Nokia didn't start to exist until they invented Snake in the early 90's and coasted on that fame up until snake 2 and diminishing returns on their Snake based empire. I'm glad that lawyers exist to punish companies that aren't Apple for stealing from Apple.

Comment We're entering into the dawn of the New Word Order (Score 1) 101

'Dictionary compilers said that although the terms are associated with modern electronic communications, some are surprisingly old. The first confirmed use of "OMG" was in a letter in 1917. "Things people think are new words normally have a longer history," Graeme Diamond, the dictionary's principal editor for new words, said Friday.'"

Translation: "Harumph, whatever, people. You think we added it to our big book of words people say because people are saying them now? Hell no! Screw you and your new fangled computroid machines. We found some really sketchy old ass uses of the word to justify to ourselves that they're real words. As if we care about words people actually use. We're the Oxford dictionary, not freakin' Websters. Good day to you all" - "Golden" Graeme Diamond.

Who spells their name as Graeme? I'll tell you who. the principal editor of the Oxford fucking dictionary, that's who.

Comment Re:This isn't a high appraisal of Microsoft (Score 1) 465

You're right. I'm not trying to claim they're ethical, I'm just pointing out how bad this list is and companies in general are.

It's just a sad fact of reality that we're so used to being screwed over by these sociopathic entities that when one acts slightly less evil than another, they get put on a list of ethical companies.

business ethics in this day and age is non-existent.

Comment Re:This isn't a high appraisal of Microsoft (Score 1) 465

You missed the point. The PC won the war because there was competition and clones. Apple didn't have allow clone manufacturers and actively worked to stop them. That is why IBM and MS deserve credit for the PC. Not for the device itself, but for creating an open architecture that was adaptable by others and induced competition.

Apple is only leading the industry in marketing, as your post proves.

Comment This isn't a high appraisal of Microsoft (Score 4, Interesting) 465

It's a low appraisal of EVERYONE ELSE.

Really though, Microsoft generally doesn't lock down their OS from tinkering (aside from lack of source), and unless windows mobile 7 has changed things you have file manager access and everything in their mobile platform. Android inexplicably doesn't come with a file manager last I checked. Absurd!

And unlike Sony, they aren't sending cease and desist letters to kinect hackers.

It is thanks to Microsoft (And IBM) we have the PC after all.

And they could easily be far worse patent trolls than they currently are.

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