Re: [FRIAM] Spelling of Spanish Surnames
Tom In Argentina and Uruguay Y is pronounced almost like your sh in shopping. In general in Colombia there isn´t difference in the pronunciation of LL an Y. 2014-02-23 23:40 GMT-05:00 Tom Johnson t...@jtjohnson.com: Well, since we've gone this far... I have yet to land on a singular pronunciation of yo.. It can vary from the hard Y as in Joe to yo like yo-yo. My preliminary observation: the farther south one goes in LatAm, the harder/stronger the y, as in Joe. But better data is clearly needed. I wonder if linguists have done any mapping of Spanish as has been done for American usages? -TJ On Feb 23, 2014 6:50 PM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote: On 2/23/14 6:36 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote: Xavier and Xalapa come to mind. Both those xs are pronounced like h. and Mehico! FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Spelling of Spanish Surnames
Nick, Don't apologize--take the tack that Wayne O'Neil took in his lexicographic introduction to (at least the first edition of) the American Heritage dictionary: English spelling includes a *lot* of useful information about the history and otherwise-hidden relationships of our words. (I'd quote some examples but all our copies of that dictionary are on another floor and I'm too lazy at the moment.) Teach the kids that spelling is a fascinating key to hidden history! I'm sure they're smart enough to catch on to that, given the hint. Make it a game! As to blatant irrationality: English orthography is only irrational if (as you, despite my urgings, appear to continue to believe) the single measure of rationality is faithfully reflects pronunciation--meaning *your* pronunciation and not necessarily that of the guys in the next state, or the previous half-millennium. Think of all those dropped Rs that most of our fellow Massachusettsians have in their non-rhotic speech: would you really want your grandchildren to drop the rs from their spelling when and if they move to the East Coast? What about the wh digraph? In my dialect, the first sound in words like what and when is aspirated (and the written h shows that the dialect of the people who froze English spelling was, in that respect, like mine--though now that aspiration is quite rare): what/watt and when/wen are so-called minimal pairs in my speech. Witch side, in your model of rationality, whins that match? ... And so on for all the many other examples in all the many other dialects. I admit that there are cases where more phonetic spelling would elucidate facts about English grammar that are largely obscure. For instance, there are *two* verbs have in English (historically, of course, they're one verb): the auxiliary have is pronounced either v (as in I've been there) or haff (as in I have to go now), while the true verb meaning possess is pronounced havv (as in I havv three copies of the American Heritage Dictionary). Similar statements apply to used and other auxiliaries. Would *that* group of spelling reforms make you happier or sadder? Lee, I just want to be able to teach my grandchildren to write and spell without having to apologize every third sentence for the blatant irrationality of the language they are learning. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -Original Message- From: lrudo...@meganet.net [mailto:lrudo...@meganet.net] Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2014 6:57 PM To: Nick Thompson; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Spelling of Spanish Surnames Nick asks: How come other people can standardize their spellings and we can't standardize ours. Damn! Well, in the first place, the case of actual Spanish-as-she-is-spoke, including all its dialectal differences, isn't quite as clean as the official Castilian standard that Frank has cited. For instance, Galician is (I am assured) mutually intelligible with Portuguese (specifically, the dialect of Portuguese spoken in the nearby parts of Portugal), and Portuguese is famous for the difficulty of decoding the written language into (any of the many and various dialects of) the spoken language. In the second place, two desiderata are incompatible. It is evidently desirable to many, including you, Nick, to be able to have a written language that encodes the spoken language in a faithful manner. But it is also desirable to many (including, I hope, you) to be able to read texts written in one's language in earlier periods, when the pronunciation is *very* likely to have been (often, *very*) different. In one European country (I forget which one; it was either the Netherlands or one of the continental Scandinavian countries) a fairly recent spelling reform, designed to fulfil the first desideratum, reportedly made texts from even a hundred years ago totally unreadable (in their original form) by modern schoolchildren. We can at least recognize Shakespeare--and certainly Dickens!--as writing in something like our English, even if many of his rhymes and jokes don't work for us. (Busy as a bee was a better joke when busy was pronounced as we'd pronounce buzzy.) FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Spelling of Spanish Surnames
Alfredo, Unfortunately, most documents in the U.S., including newspapers, social security cards, etc., omit the accents and tildes. I suspect that the New Mexico drivers license of my friend Iván Ordóñez says Ivan Ordonez. I wonder whether the New York Times follows this tradition. Do you know, Tom? Frank Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz Santa Fe, NM 87505 mailto:wimber...@gmail.com wimber...@gmail.com mailto:wimbe...@cal.berkeley.edu wimbe...@cal.berkeley.edu Phone: (505) 995-8715 Cell: (505) 670-9918 From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Alfredo Covaleda Vélez Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2014 7:14 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Spelling of Spanish Surnames Frank The X in Ximena, for example sounds in sapnish like a J, wich is your h in hill, for example. Don´t forget the rules of the tilde and the accents. For example Chávez and Chaves have the accent in the first syllable. The Spain in América Latina, in general, has lost difference between the s and the z, and for this reason Chávez and Chaves sound the same. Something similar occurs with González and Gonzales, Both have accent in the same syllable. 2014-02-23 20:36 GMT-05:00 Frank Wimberly wimber...@gmail.com: Xavier and Xalapa come to mind. Both those xs are pronounced like h. Frank Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz Santa Fe, NM 87505 mailto:wimber...@gmail.com wimber...@gmail.com mailto:wimbe...@cal.berkeley.edu wimbe...@cal.berkeley.edu Phone: (505) 995-8715 Cell: (505) 670-9918 From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Arlo Barnes Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2014 6:23 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Spelling of Spanish Surnames Thank you. I suspected it would be something like this; it seems also this region picked up a slight excess of Xs from Mexico, which are pronounced like Js (or like Hs in English), although I must say I am at an unfortunate loss to call any to memory besides Me`xico itself. EDIT: Well, we do standardize/ise on chile, while others do not... -Arlo James Barnes FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: Spelling of Spanish Surnames
Nick needs to switch to Lojban - http://www.lojban.org/ - then his written language will perfectly match his spoken language and he will be unintelligible to all but a small fraction of the human race. The pronunciation vs. spelling problem is like the QWERTY vs Dvorak problem is like the 120Hz vs DC is like US vs metric is like…. Humans are lazy - if they have used something to the point of muscle/nerve/subconscious memory, they are reluctant to change. The only time such change happens is, interestingly, associated with Imperial central governments (metric under Napoleon, Modern German under Wilhelm and Bismarck). Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov (send NIPR reminder) On Feb 24, 2014, at 5:46 AM, lrudo...@meganet.net wrote: Nick, Don't apologize--take the tack that Wayne O'Neil took in his lexicographic introduction to (at least the first edition of) the American Heritage dictionary: English spelling includes a *lot* of useful information about the history and otherwise-hidden relationships of our words. (I'd quote some examples but all our copies of that dictionary are on another floor and I'm too lazy at the moment.) Teach the kids that spelling is a fascinating key to hidden history! I'm sure they're smart enough to catch on to that, given the hint. Make it a game! As to blatant irrationality: English orthography is only irrational if (as you, despite my urgings, appear to continue to believe) the single measure of rationality is faithfully reflects pronunciation--meaning *your* pronunciation and not necessarily that of the guys in the next state, or the previous half-millennium. Think of all those dropped Rs that most of our fellow Massachusettsians have in their non-rhotic speech: would you really want your grandchildren to drop the rs from their spelling when and if they move to the East Coast? What about the wh digraph? In my dialect, the first sound in words like what and when is aspirated (and the written h shows that the dialect of the people who froze English spelling was, in that respect, like mine--though now that aspiration is quite rare): what/watt and when/wen are so-called minimal pairs in my speech. Witch side, in your model of rationality, whins that match? ... And so on for all the many other examples in all the many other dialects. I admit that there are cases where more phonetic spelling would elucidate facts about English grammar that are largely obscure. For instance, there are *two* verbs have in English (historically, of course, they're one verb): the auxiliary have is pronounced either v (as in I've been there) or haff (as in I have to go now), while the true verb meaning possess is pronounced havv (as in I havv three copies of the American Heritage Dictionary). Similar statements apply to used and other auxiliaries. Would *that* group of spelling reforms make you happier or sadder? Lee, I just want to be able to teach my grandchildren to write and spell without having to apologize every third sentence for the blatant irrationality of the language they are learning. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -Original Message- From: lrudo...@meganet.net [mailto:lrudo...@meganet.net] Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2014 6:57 PM To: Nick Thompson; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Spelling of Spanish Surnames Nick asks: How come other people can standardize their spellings and we can't standardize ours. Damn! Well, in the first place, the case of actual Spanish-as-she-is-spoke, including all its dialectal differences, isn't quite as clean as the official Castilian standard that Frank has cited. For instance, Galician is (I am assured) mutually intelligible with Portuguese (specifically, the dialect of Portuguese spoken in the nearby parts of Portugal), and Portuguese is famous for the difficulty of decoding the written language into (any of the many and various dialects of) the spoken language. In the second place, two desiderata are incompatible. It is evidently desirable to many, including you, Nick, to be able to have a written language that encodes the spoken language in a faithful manner. But it is also desirable to many (including, I hope, you) to be able to read texts written in one's language in earlier periods, when the pronunciation is *very* likely to have been (often, *very*) different. In one European country (I forget which one; it was either the Netherlands or one of the continental Scandinavian countries) a fairly recent spelling reform, designed to fulfil the first desideratum, reportedly
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Tufte on Users (via twitter)
Perhaps I'm naive, but what is the other industry? Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov (send NIPR reminder) On Feb 22, 2014, at 6:23 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: Computer Science @CompSciFact 2h There are only two industries that refer to their customers as 'users.' -- @EdwardTufte FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Tufte on Users (via twitter)
Drugs On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 9:34 AM, Parks, Raymond rcpa...@sandia.gov wrote: Perhaps I'm naive, but what is the other industry? Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov (send NIPR reminder) On Feb 22, 2014, at 6:23 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: *Computer Science *@CompSciFact https://twitter.com/CompSciFact 2hhttps://twitter.com/CompSciFact/status/437354369248657408 There are only two industries that refer to their customers as 'users.' -- @EdwardTufte https://twitter.com/EdwardTufte FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Tufte on Users (via twitter)
Hmmm… that's true for both legal and illegal drugs. And computers have an addictive aspect, both for individual humans as well as corporate persons. Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov (send NIPR reminder) On Feb 24, 2014, at 9:47 AM, Owen Densmore wrote: Drugs On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 9:34 AM, Parks, Raymond rcpa...@sandia.gov wrote: Perhaps I'm naive, but what is the other industry? Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov (send NIPR reminder) On Feb 22, 2014, at 6:23 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: Computer Science @CompSciFact 2h There are only two industries that refer to their customers as 'users.' -- @EdwardTufte FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
Because I end up providing tech support, I suggest that they use what I use. I use the cheapest technology, with the best future, that supports my existing activity (i.e. legacy/backwards compatibility). By best future, I mean both future-proofing (i.e. it won't transition to the backwards compatibility requirement for the longest time) and the likelihood that it will continue to gain capability and improvements. Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov (send NIPR reminder) On Feb 21, 2014, at 8:50 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: Given all this, ... what would you prescribe for your family members who are not particularly expert in these matters? What computer/laptop, tablet, phone, email service, applications (assuming they need at least one of an office suite), hosting service for their new business, TV components, video services (NetFlix, Amazon, iTunes), sync service, ... I could go on. But what? They really want to know. -- Owen On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 11:36 AM, glen e. p. ropella g...@tempusdictum.com wrote: On 02/21/2014 07:35 AM, Steve Smith wrote: To make this relevant to the discussion... I don't think I could ever have come to recognize the value of such a data structure if I *hadn't* felt obliged to re-invent (re-implement?) a number of algorithms that had already been implemented by others... to differing degrees of quality. The meat of the discussion lies in the person's (or organization's) agility to change paths once prior work, or a better way regardless of its source, is brought to light. I recently had to characterize agile software development in comparison to ... what? ... large-scale, entrenched process to a CIO type who understands some of the economics, but not the technologies. Me being largely agnostic, trying to explain the two to him in an informal setting proved more difficult than I would have thought. (Shows how often I talk to those types these days.) In microcosm, the contrast isn't between engineer-types and scientist-types, but between ... I don't know... authoritarian vs. egalitarian(?) types. I've met plenty of authoritarian scientist-types and plenty of egalitarian engineer-types. I've even met some certified PEs who showed remarkable agility when shown a better way. Actually, better is loaded. More appropriate to the task at hand is better than better. -- glen ep ropella -- 971-255-2847 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: Spelling of Spanish Surnames
Ray, And Russia under the Bolshevik's, right? N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ From: Parks, Raymond [mailto:rcpa...@sandia.gov] Sent: Monday, February 24, 2014 9:30 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Cc: Nick Thompson Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: [FRIAM] Spelling of Spanish Surnames Nick needs to switch to Lojban - http://www.lojban.org/ - then his written language will perfectly match his spoken language and he will be unintelligible to all but a small fraction of the human race. The pronunciation vs. spelling problem is like the QWERTY vs Dvorak problem is like the 120Hz vs DC is like US vs metric is like.. Humans are lazy - if they have used something to the point of muscle/nerve/subconscious memory, they are reluctant to change. The only time such change happens is, interestingly, associated with Imperial central governments (metric under Napoleon, Modern German under Wilhelm and Bismarck). Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov mailto:rcpa...@sandia.gov SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov mailto:rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov mailto:dopa...@doe.ic.gov (send NIPR reminder) On Feb 24, 2014, at 5:46 AM, lrudo...@meganet.net mailto:lrudo...@meganet.net wrote: Nick, Don't apologize--take the tack that Wayne O'Neil took in his lexicographic introduction to (at least the first edition of) the American Heritage dictionary: English spelling includes a *lot* of useful information about the history and otherwise-hidden relationships of our words. (I'd quote some examples but all our copies of that dictionary are on another floor and I'm too lazy at the moment.) Teach the kids that spelling is a fascinating key to hidden history! I'm sure they're smart enough to catch on to that, given the hint. Make it a game! As to blatant irrationality: English orthography is only irrational if (as you, despite my urgings, appear to continue to believe) the single measure of rationality is faithfully reflects pronunciation--meaning *your* pronunciation and not necessarily that of the guys in the next state, or the previous half-millennium. Think of all those dropped Rs that most of our fellow Massachusettsians have in their non-rhotic speech: would you really want your grandchildren to drop the rs from their spelling when and if they move to the East Coast? What about the wh digraph? In my dialect, the first sound in words like what and when is aspirated (and the written h shows that the dialect of the people who froze English spelling was, in that respect, like mine--though now that aspiration is quite rare): what/watt and when/wen are so-called minimal pairs in my speech. Witch side, in your model of rationality, whins that match? ... And so on for all the many other examples in all the many other dialects. I admit that there are cases where more phonetic spelling would elucidate facts about English grammar that are largely obscure. For instance, there are *two* verbs have in English (historically, of course, they're one verb): the auxiliary have is pronounced either v (as in I've been there) or haff (as in I have to go now), while the true verb meaning possess is pronounced havv (as in I havv three copies of the American Heritage Dictionary). Similar statements apply to used and other auxiliaries. Would *that* group of spelling reforms make you happier or sadder? Lee, I just want to be able to teach my grandchildren to write and spell without having to apologize every third sentence for the blatant irrationality of the language they are learning. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -Original Message- From: lrudo...@meganet.net mailto:lrudo...@meganet.net [mailto:lrudo...@meganet.net] Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2014 6:57 PM To: Nick Thompson; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Spelling of Spanish Surnames Nick asks: How come other people can standardize their spellings and we can't standardize ours. Damn! Well, in the first place, the case of actual Spanish-as-she-is-spoke, including all its dialectal differences, isn't quite as clean as the official Castilian standard that Frank has cited. For instance, Galician is (I am assured) mutually intelligible with Portuguese (specifically, the dialect of Portuguese spoken in the nearby parts of Portugal), and Portuguese is famous for the difficulty of decoding the written language into (any of the many and various dialects of) the spoken language. In the second place,
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: FPI 210
Mike Hightower and others at Sandia have been predicting that water will be (perhaps already is) the critical resource at the root of social unrest and change in our era. Water is needed for life sustainment, it's needed for food production, and it's heavily intertwined with energy production. http://www.sandia.gov/energy-water/ Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov (send NIPR reminder) On Feb 22, 2014, at 6:46 AM, Sarbajit Roy wrote: I have an alternate take on this. Although I don't publicise this much, I'm presently the National Convenor of the India Against Corruption movement (the apolitical part of India's Occupy movement after it split in Nov 2012). We see definite evidence of global military-industrial-financial cartels and Govts (primarily the USA) which are fanning and actively financing such revolutions / protests on a massive scale. These protests are not indigenous but are externally created, and more than food its probably oil/energy and water pricing which are equally drivers / targets, coupled with a shortage of tillable land and farm labour prepared to work. Sarbajit Roy On 2/22/14, glen e. p. ropella g...@tempusdictum.com wrote: A Mathematical Formula Predicted Today's Worldwide Protests Over a Year Ago http://www.policymic.com/articles/82855/a-mathematical-formula-predicted-today-s-worldwide-protests-over-a-year-ago From Ukraine and Venezuela to Thailand and Syria, revolutions, protests and unrest are sweeping the globe. Are we just living in crazy times when everyone's angry at the same time, or is there more than meets the eye? While each situation has its own complexities and particulars, complex systems theorists at the New England Complex Systems Institute hypothesized that the continuing rise of high global food prices could lead to uprisings around the globe. Over a year ago, Yaneer Bar-Yam of the NECSI published a paper that charted the rise of the FAO food price index -- a UN measure that maps food costs over time -- and saw that whenever that figure rose above 210, riots broke out around the world. The hypothesis held true for 2008's economic collapse and 2011's Tunisian protests. After Bay-Yam built the model, he was able to predict the Arab Spring just weeks before it happened, and now the numbers are checking out for 2013, the year with the third highest food prices on record. -- glen ep ropella -- 971-255-2847 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Spelling of Spanish Surnames
Yes, and you always use the accent in the first syllable. 2014-02-24 11:30 GMT-05:00 Frank Wimberly wimber...@gmail.com: Alfredo, Unfortunately, most documents in the U.S., including newspapers, social security cards, etc., omit the accents and tildes. I suspect that the New Mexico driver's license of my friend Iván Ordóñez says Ivan Ordonez. I wonder whether the New York Times follows this tradition. Do you know, Tom? Frank Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz Santa Fe, NM 87505 wimber...@gmail.com wimbe...@cal.berkeley.edu Phone: (505) 995-8715 Cell: (505) 670-9918 *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Alfredo Covaleda Vélez *Sent:* Sunday, February 23, 2014 7:14 PM *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Spelling of Spanish Surnames Frank The X in Ximena, for example sounds in sapnish like a J, wich is your h in hill, for example. Don´t forget the rules of the tilde and the accents. For example Chávez and Chaves have the accent in the first syllable. The Spain in América Latina, in general, has lost difference between the s and the z, and for this reason Chávez and Chaves sound the same. Something similar occurs with González and Gonzales, Both have accent in the same syllable. 2014-02-23 20:36 GMT-05:00 Frank Wimberly wimber...@gmail.com: Xavier and Xalapa come to mind. Both those xs are pronounced like h. Frank Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz Santa Fe, NM 87505 wimber...@gmail.com wimbe...@cal.berkeley.edu Phone: (505) 995-8715 Cell: (505) 670-9918 *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Arlo Barnes *Sent:* Sunday, February 23, 2014 6:23 PM *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Spelling of Spanish Surnames Thank you. I suspected it would be something like this; it seems also this region picked up a slight excess of Xs from Mexico, which are pronounced like Js (or like Hs in English), although I must say I am at an unfortunate loss to call any to memory besides Me`xico itself. EDIT: Well, we do standardize/ise on chile, while others do not... -Arlo James Barnes FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 02/22/2014 04:32 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: On 2/21/14 8:50 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: But what? They really want to know. If they don't know what they want, why do they want it? Marcus' question is critical. Any answer I give will depend on their answer to that. On 02/21/2014 07:50 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: Given all this, ... what would you prescribe for your family members who are not particularly expert in these matters? My prescription would be for them to learn at least a little more about these matters. And I'm a big fan of learning _while_ doing. So ... What computer/laptop, tablet, phone, email service, applications (assuming they need at least one of an office suite), hosting service for their new business, TV components, video services (NetFlix, Amazon, iTunes), sync service, ... I could go on. For desktop/laptop, I'd recommend they buy one with Debian pre-installed. I've had good luck with both of these guys: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/ http://zareason.com/shop/home.php Tablets? I don't have a clue. I can't see why anyone would buy such a thing. [*] Phone? Go to a local used cell phone shop and buy the best, most recent SIM-based android phone they have. Purchase a Cricket or Simple mobile SIM card. Root the thing. Install Cyanogenmod or AOKP (Unicorns!). Email? Buy your own domain name and a virtual private server from a local hosting company ... again, have them install Debian on it for you. Pay them to set it up, if you have to. Use that for your e-mail. Applications? GNU/Debian/Gnome comes with everything you need. Use it, figure it out. Donate the money you would otherwise have spent to: http://www.spi-inc.org/ Hosting service? Again, use your own VPS. If you expect lots of traffic, then consider hiring someone who knows what they're doing and follow their advice. I have a few friends with small businesses to recommend if you don't have any. TV components? Seriously? Kill your TV and hang some local art, maybe a locally produced hologram? Watch Netflix or Hulu on your new Debian laptop. If you simply must put it on your wall, buy a wifi-enabled smart TV. If you really want something more embedded, perhaps try XMBC... maybe on a beagle or a pi? You can use duct tape to stick it to the back of the TV. ;-) I could go on. 8^) If they don't want to learn these things, then I really have nothing to say to them. There are plenty of other people who will teach them to use Cable companies, shop at Amazon, buy Apple products, etc. [*] I type something like 60 wpm. Lowering my productivity to a tablet (without a keyboard) just seems stupid. Perhaps I lack empathy? Tablets _with_ a keyboard are just laptops, as far as I can tell. -- glen ep ropella -- 971-255-2847 -- ⇒⇐ glen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: FPI 210
The IEEE noticed that peak copper is coming this century, too. 1 years we've been mining all the copper we wanted, no trouble, but sometime before 2100 the tide turns. If you think there's been a lot of copper theft lately, just wait till the prices double a few more times. But the real crunch will no doubt be some out-of-left-field interaction between resource shortages. -- rec -- On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 10:11 AM, Parks, Raymond rcpa...@sandia.gov wrote: Mike Hightower and others at Sandia have been predicting that water will be (perhaps already is) the critical resource at the root of social unrest and change in our era. Water is needed for life sustainment, it's needed for food production, and it's heavily intertwined with energy production. http://www.sandia.gov/energy-water/ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: WhatsApp ... Death of SMS?
If you want real MEGO, try keeping track of buzzword-intensive, copycat, security theatre, snake oil products. Actually, I should describe them as hydra products - when we assess one and point out the problems, it gets sold to someone higher up the corporate food chain, rebranded, and a new head is grown. Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov (send NIPR reminder) On Feb 22, 2014, at 3:14 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote: The Internet was conceived and first implemented by a small group of government and university researchers: J. C. R. Licklider, Bob Kahn, Vint Cert, and several other pioneers. (So when I hear Silly Valley Libertarians go on and on, the best I can do is laugh.) My question to this august group is: now that the momentum for innovation has moved to the private sector, are we going to see nothing but these trivial, mostly copycat apps that make your eyes glaze over? Is the private sector capable of genuine innovation? Pamela FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: FPI 210
Is this really news? I think we already know that humans are rapidly diminishing the resources of Mother Earth, the community on which our own existence and well-being depends. Enough with predictions about the coming catastrophe. Enough with the blah, blah. We're running out of time, guys. The Center for Emergent Diplomacy is taking DIRECT ACTION, as we all should. I'll be sending messages to the list soon about Bretton Woods 3.0, to be held in April, 2016, at the site of the original 1944 BW meeting. This global conference is being designed to incorporate CAS principles. Our $2m price tag is being funded by a group of young social entrepreneurs, investors in renewable energy projects. However differentiated in its modes of expression, there is only one Earth community--one economic order, one health system, one moral order, one world of the sacred. Thomas Berry, The Ecozoic Era. On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 10:30 AM, Roger Critchlow r...@elf.org wrote: The IEEE noticed that peak copper is coming this century, too. 1 years we've been mining all the copper we wanted, no trouble, but sometime before 2100 the tide turns. If you think there's been a lot of copper theft lately, just wait till the prices double a few more times. But the real crunch will no doubt be some out-of-left-field interaction between resource shortages. -- rec -- On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 10:11 AM, Parks, Raymond rcpa...@sandia.govwrote: Mike Hightower and others at Sandia have been predicting that water will be (perhaps already is) the critical resource at the root of social unrest and change in our era. Water is needed for life sustainment, it's needed for food production, and it's heavily intertwined with energy production. http://www.sandia.gov/energy-water/ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com -- Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D. President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA me...@emergentdiplomacy.org mobile: (303) 859-5609 skype: merlelefkoff FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 02/24/2014 10:12 AM, glen wrote: Email? Buy your own domain name and a virtual private server from a local hosting company ... again, have them install Debian on it for you. Pay them to set it up, if you have to. Use that for your e-mail. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/microsoft-exchange-online-email-for-business-FX103739072.aspx I know, I know, but Microsoft killed your Pappy! http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: FPI 210
Unfortunately, water is not a renewable resource - there is a limit on the amount of water on the Earth (barring minor variances). There is a lot of water on the Earth that is not potable (i.e. the oceans) and it is possible to convert that water to potable, but that conversion requires energy which needs to be produce using water. Water used in energy production need not be potable, and combined generator/desal plants on the Arabian Peninsula show how to do that - but those plants do not use renewable energy. Thus, some of the renewable energy projects need to both generate electricity and distill water. The other issue is transport of water. Water is heavy and until its cost rises, transport of water outside of natural watercourses is too expensive to be feasible. If the cost rises as locales run out of easily available local water, then the riots ensue. Albuquerque is at the limit with the transfer program from one watershed to another - pipelines are the least expensive method to move water but they lack flexibility. Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov (send NIPR reminder) On Feb 24, 2014, at 11:26 AM, Merle Lefkoff wrote: Is this really news? I think we already know that humans are rapidly diminishing the resources of Mother Earth, the community on which our own existence and well-being depends. Enough with predictions about the coming catastrophe. Enough with the blah, blah. We're running out of time, guys. The Center for Emergent Diplomacy is taking DIRECT ACTION, as we all should. I'll be sending messages to the list soon about Bretton Woods 3.0, to be held in April, 2016, at the site of the original 1944 BW meeting. This global conference is being designed to incorporate CAS principles. Our $2m price tag is being funded by a group of young social entrepreneurs, investors in renewable energy projects. However differentiated in its modes of expression, there is only one Earth community--one economic order, one health system, one moral order, one world of the sacred. Thomas Berry, The Ecozoic Era. On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 10:30 AM, Roger Critchlow r...@elf.org wrote: The IEEE noticed that peak copper is coming this century, too. 1 years we've been mining all the copper we wanted, no trouble, but sometime before 2100 the tide turns. If you think there's been a lot of copper theft lately, just wait till the prices double a few more times. But the real crunch will no doubt be some out-of-left-field interaction between resource shortages. -- rec -- On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 10:11 AM, Parks, Raymond rcpa...@sandia.gov wrote: Mike Hightower and others at Sandia have been predicting that water will be (perhaps already is) the critical resource at the root of social unrest and change in our era. Water is needed for life sustainment, it's needed for food production, and it's heavily intertwined with energy production. http://www.sandia.gov/energy-water/ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com -- Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D. President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA me...@emergentdiplomacy.org mobile: (303) 859-5609 skype: merlelefkoff FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Tufte on Users (via twitter)
I was just reading an articlehttp://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail_pr.html from 2004 in WIRED magazine about the Long Tail - the idea that most of a market is not the most popular items, but the mass of niche items that specific people will buy. In conventional brick-and-mortar stores, it is unlikely any of those niche persons to match a product you carry will find your store often enough to make it worth the effort of stocking that item, but online there is more exposure and less upfront cost. Anyway, the article referred to the pre-Long-Tail market as a hit economy - that is, that hits (as in that song was a big hit) are what drive sales, not misses. However, in light of this thread which I had read just previously to the article, I interpreted it as a 'hit' of a drug, and wondered what the post-Long-Tail economy would be in this metaphor. A drip? -Arlo James Barnes FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
Well, it's less about grudges or even disagreements about business practices or technology, and more about what you _learn_ from using a service/tool. If the objective is to learn, which I argue it should be, at least to some satisficing extent, then you want translucent tools/services. If it's too opaque or too transparent, it's difficult to learn. E.g. you won't really learn the differences between spam filters if you can't dig in and swap them in and out... or chain them together. I don't know anything about microsoft's exchange online, but my guess is that the spam and anti-malware tools have limited control surfaces exposed to the customer. The deeper point is that there is no sharp line between customer and vendor. In order to be a good customer, you have to be a bit of a vendor and vice versa. On 02/24/2014 10:36 AM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/microsoft-exchange-online-email-for-business-FX103739072.aspx I know, I know, but Microsoft killed your Pappy! http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx -- ⇒⇐ glen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] QRE: Spelling of Spanish Surnames
Credited on the InterWeb to Mark Twain: A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling: For example, in Year 1 that useless letter c would be dropped to be replased either by k or s, and likewise x would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which c would be retained would be the ch formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform w spelling, so that which and one would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish y replasing it with i and Iear 4 might fiks the g/j anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez c, y and x -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais ch, sh, and th rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. Thanks . . . tom http://www.i18nguy.com/twain.html On Feb 24, 2014, at 9:09 AM, Nick Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote: Dear Lee, G! as you used to say. And G! again. If my grand-children's teachers were to say, as they taught spelling, You think we are teaching you spelling, but actually we are teaching you the history of the English language., I might be less embarrassed. But the chaotic orthography of English is taught without humor or irony. Your point about dialects is interesting and characteristically Quixotic, but irrelevant. If there were a rational standard English, children could be taught variants, before going on trips or into history classes. No, Lee. I am not shaken. I am a fascist through and through on this. One nation; one spelling. You atavists can do your deadly work on these children beginning when they are six; before that, I get them. So, there! Nyaaah! Nyaaah! As we used to say when we were six. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -Original Message- From: lrudo...@meganet.net [mailto:lrudo...@meganet.net] Sent: Monday, February 24, 2014 5:46 AM To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'; Nick Thompson Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Spelling of Spanish Surnames Nick, Don't apologize--take the tack that Wayne O'Neil took in his lexicographic introduction to (at least the first edition of) the American Heritage dictionary: English spelling includes a *lot* of useful information about the history and otherwise-hidden relationships of our words. (I'd quote some examples but all our copies of that dictionary are on another floor and I'm too lazy at the moment.) Teach the kids that spelling is a fascinating key to hidden history! I'm sure they're smart enough to catch on to that, given the hint. Make it a game! As to blatant irrationality: English orthography is only irrational if (as you, despite my urgings, appear to continue to believe) the single measure of rationality is faithfully reflects pronunciation--meaning *your* pronunciation and not necessarily that of the guys in the next state, or the previous half-millennium. Think of all those dropped Rs that most of our fellow Massachusettsians have in their non-rhotic speech: would you really want your grandchildren to drop the rs from their spelling when and if they move to the East Coast? What about the wh digraph? In my dialect, the first sound in words like what and when is aspirated (and the written h shows that the dialect of the people who froze English spelling was, in that respect, like mine--though now that aspiration is quite rare): what/watt and when/wen are so-called minimal pairs in my speech. Witch side, in your model of rationality, whins that match? ... And so on for all the many other examples in all the many other dialects. I admit that there are cases where more phonetic spelling would elucidate facts about English grammar that are largely obscure. For instance, there are *two* verbs have in English (historically, of course, they're one verb): the auxiliary have is pronounced either v (as in I've been there) or haff (as in I have to go now), while the true verb meaning possess is pronounced havv (as in I havv three copies of the American Heritage Dictionary). Similar statements apply to used and other auxiliaries. Would *that* group of spelling reforms make you happier or sadder? Lee, I just want to be able to teach my grandchildren to write and spell without having to apologize every third sentence for the blatant irrationality of the language they are learning. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 2/24/14, 12:03 PM, glen wrote: Well, it's less about grudges or even disagreements about business practices or technology, and more about what you _learn_ from using a service/tool. If the objective is to learn, which I argue it should be, at least to some satisficing extent, then you want translucent tools/services. Well, I want to know about compilers, because I depend on compilers for my work. For me, a satisfactory understanding there is a higher bar than understanding, say, how a car works. For that I can understand enough to type the 1-800 number for AAA into my mobile phone. If I were a Formula 1 car technician or a professional driver, I'd want to know my cars inside out. I suppose learning about SMTP and IMAP and encryption protocols is at some level useful to everyone, to have a feel for what would be needed to intercept e-mail, or be defeated in doing so. Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
.aspx, so you can see the disdain before clicking ;) I liked that post, it seemed sincere - but the (extensive) comments provide more depth. You have people commenting that never use MS, always use MS, or use a mix. In each of those categories, there are various levels of animosity or lack thereof towards Microsoft, competitors. For my part, I am typing this on a 10-year old Dell running XP, and besides being rather slow, it has worked pretty well - when something starts behaving weird I kill and restart the process, and it does not seem to break anything. But support for XP is ending in a couple months, and I do not have the budget for upgrading - and this computer could not handle a bulkier system anyway. I do not program enough (read: at all, basically) to compare something like Python vs .C# or Mono vs .NET, but it is just so much nicer to learn about how my Linux system (the laptop it was on is currently dead due to hardware problems; my fault) works and how I can interface with it (bash is nice). And contrary to the title of the article, and as many pointed out in the comments, most of the ire directed towards MS is not past actions (monopoly-securing), but current things like UEFI deals (which gave me an annoying several nights a few months back) and the all-or-nothing manner in which their programs interact; because the community college here bought institutional Office licenses, their 'introduction to business computing' class is predominantly an Office course (the rest is Windows Explorer). -Arlo James Barnes FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 02/24/2014 11:27 AM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: Well, I want to know about compilers, because I depend on compilers for my work. For me, a satisfactory understanding there is a higher bar than understanding, say, how a car works. For that I can understand enough to type the 1-800 number for AAA into my mobile phone. If I were a Formula 1 car technician or a professional driver, I'd want to know my cars inside out. Obviously, there's a threshold for every person, for every domain. But I'd argue that stopping at dialing a phone as a limit for how much one knows about cars is a bit on the shy side. If that's all someone knows, then they place a very high (and costly) burden on the rest of us. For example, if they drive across a mountain pass and get a flat tire in an area with no cell signal, then if for some reason they don't show up at their destination, we (hopefully) will commit a bunch of resources like helicopters and troopers to go out hunting for them. They could save us quite a bit of money by knowing how to change a tire (as well as stocking their car with sleeping bags, water, and trail mix ;-). But, further, I hear lots of people complain about various car-related things like pushy salesmen, salesmen that treat women like idiots (or completely ignore them), confusing or untrustworthy recommendations for repair, lemons, etc. The more those customers know about the cars they drive, the _happier_ they are... with their mechanics, with their dealerships, with their current cars, ... perhaps even with their self. So, there are plenty of reasons to learn about how cars work other than for work. I suppose learning about SMTP and IMAP and encryption protocols is at some level useful to everyone, to have a feel for what would be needed to intercept e-mail, or be defeated in doing so. Personally, all I know about those things is that I'm ignorant enough to be at risk. But, I take pride in knowing what I don't know, and that I don't know it. The real trick is paying close enough attention so that you can change tack when you need to. -- ⇒⇐ glen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] QRE: Spelling of Spanish Surnames
While I certainly would not try making the US (or any Anglophone country) convert, I kinda like how post-year-20 English looks. A friend of mine made a conlang called v0tgil http://reddit.com/r/v0tgil#LookInTheSidebar, which uses some of the same alterations. -Arlo James Barnes FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 02/24/2014 01:00 PM, Arlo Barnes wrote: but current things like UEFI deals (which gave me an annoying several nights a few months back) and the all-or-nothing manner in which their programs interact; because the community college here bought institutional Office licenses, their 'introduction to business computing' class is predominantly an Office course (the rest is Windows Explorer). What's wrong with UEFI? Just turn off secure boot. Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] QRE: Spelling of Spanish Surnames
Nick: Nyaaah! Nyaaah! As we used to say when we were six. In 1968, my then-girlfriend (long since become a Mad Bomber at Los Alamos--her graduate degree was in astrophysics) provided what is has just now become fresh evidence of something-or-other relevant to this thread: having learned that expression only from books (no, she wasn't any kind of funny furriner; she was a good Irish-descended girl from Maryland, who had gone to Mt. Holyoke before graduate school at Columbia) she pronounced that as nie-ah, nie-ah. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
[FRIAM] IS: Blather about English pronunciation, WAS: QRE: Spelling of Spanish Surnames
Lee, Subject Line changed to unbend Frank's thread. Your last post is such a wonderful example of itself, I will leave it as the last word on the subject of language education and orthography. (which, come to think of it, has not very much to do with the spelling of Spanish surnames. By the way. How do you pronounce Yeah? Better, what does it rhyme with? Or does it have two pronunciations, one in the double positive expression that conveys a negative (Yeah, yeah!), another in the sentence, Ted Williams hit a home run and all the fans cried out, Yeah!? Perhaps we need a little squiggle to indicate tone, as in Chinese. So \YEAH\ would be the double negative and /YEAH/ with be the cheer. Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -Original Message- From: lrudo...@meganet.net [mailto:lrudo...@meganet.net] Sent: Monday, February 24, 2014 2:16 PM To: Friam; Nick Thompson Subject: Re: [FRIAM] QRE: Spelling of Spanish Surnames Nick: Nyaaah! Nyaaah! As we used to say when we were six. In 1968, my then-girlfriend (long since become a Mad Bomber at Los Alamos--her graduate degree was in astrophysics) provided what is has just now become fresh evidence of something-or-other relevant to this thread: having learned that expression only from books (no, she wasn't any kind of funny furriner; she was a good Irish-descended girl from Maryland, who had gone to Mt. Holyoke before graduate school at Columbia) she pronounced that as nie-ah, nie-ah. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 01:47:48PM -0700, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: On 02/24/2014 01:00 PM, Arlo Barnes wrote: but current things like UEFI deals (which gave me an annoying several nights a few months back) and the all-or-nothing manner in which their programs interact; because the community college here bought institutional Office licenses, their 'introduction to business computing' class is predominantly an Office course (the rest is Windows Explorer). What's wrong with UEFI? Just turn off secure boot. Marcus There's a certain amount of who's moved my cheese. UEFI invalidates quite a lot of hard-won knowledge, such as the use of LILO and fdisk. I have begrudgingly moved to using grub in recent years, but I'm still not as proficient as I was with LILO. I still use fdisk normally, but UEFI required the use of parted, so its back to hunt and peck through poorly written computer manuals. Sigh. My most recent experience was with buying a laptop that had Windows 8 preinstalled. I knew enough by now to know that the system is distributed on hidden partitions, so I made a careful backup of the partitions before I started. Needless to say, the UEFI change meant that those backups were useless, so I badgered the vendor (HP in this case) into shipping me the OEM install disks free of charge, which they should have supplied in the first place (like Apple do). But even after about 5 attempts (each attempt taking roughly 36 hours to reinstall Windows 8), I could not set up a dual boot machine. Windows 8 insisted on repartitioning and reformatting the hard drive (unlike earlier Windows releases), and Linux cravenly refused to resize the NTFS partitions (perhaps my Linux distro at 1 year old was too old), but the net effect is that I have given up trying to use Windows 8 for now. It's just too hard, I have better things to do with my time. If and when it becomes important, I'll try to pick up a cheap license from Microsoft, and install it in a Virtual Machine. Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 02/24/2014 04:01 PM, Russell Standish wrote: If and when it becomes important, I'll try to pick up a cheap license from Microsoft, and install it in a Virtual Machine. Isn't that the sane thing to do anyway? Secure booting into Linux? Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 03:59:41PM -0700, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: On 02/24/2014 04:01 PM, Russell Standish wrote: If and when it becomes important, I'll try to pick up a cheap license from Microsoft, and install it in a Virtual Machine. Isn't that the sane thing to do anyway? Secure booting into Linux? Not necessarily. Sometimes Linux on Windows is better, which I have done occasionally. But right now, it makes sense for me to have Linux as the native OS on my high performant hardware, and run Windows and MacOSX as virtual machines on that. Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 02/24/2014 04:27 PM, Russell Standish wrote: Not necessarily. Sometimes Linux on Windows is better, which I have done occasionally. Anyway, Apple hardware uses UEFI too, so it's a non-argument to blame Microsoft for advocating that firmware standards should progress. And the SteamOS game platform (which is Debian) initially needed UEFI to run too. Darned old-timers! Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 04:36:46PM -0700, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: On 02/24/2014 04:27 PM, Russell Standish wrote: Not necessarily. Sometimes Linux on Windows is better, which I have done occasionally. Anyway, Apple hardware uses UEFI too, so it's a non-argument to blame Microsoft for advocating that firmware standards should progress. Absolutely. Its a problem all of us face in the IT industry. An example from the Linux world is the move to systemd. Systemd actually looks like a pretty neat piece of technology, and solves a number of problems with the crufty old SysV rc.d structure, but a) It is very poorly documented b) It should have a facility where you can just chuck a shell script, or add some shell commans to be run at startup or shutdown, rc.local style. The net effect is that it takes an inordinate amount of time to do something extraordinarily simple. All vendors have this problem, both OSS and commercial. And the SteamOS game platform (which is Debian) initially needed UEFI to run too. Darned old-timers! Yes - some of us actually have stuff to do, rather than spend time relearning how to do the same things we used to be able to do :). -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Spelling of Spanish Surnames
What flame wars did the Bolsheviks settle? Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov (send NIPR reminder) On Feb 24, 2014, at 10:11 AM, Nick Thompson wrote: Ray, And Russia under the Bolshevik’s, right? N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ From: Parks, Raymond [mailto:rcpa...@sandia.gov] Sent: Monday, February 24, 2014 9:30 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Cc: Nick Thompson Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: [FRIAM] Spelling of Spanish Surnames Nick needs to switch to Lojban - http://www.lojban.org/ - then his written language will perfectly match his spoken language and he will be unintelligible to all but a small fraction of the human race. The pronunciation vs. spelling problem is like the QWERTY vs Dvorak problem is like the 120Hz vs DC is like US vs metric is like…. Humans are lazy - if they have used something to the point of muscle/nerve/subconscious memory, they are reluctant to change. The only time such change happens is, interestingly, associated with Imperial central governments (metric under Napoleon, Modern German under Wilhelm and Bismarck). Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov (send NIPR reminder) On Feb 24, 2014, at 5:46 AM, lrudo...@meganet.net wrote: Nick, Don't apologize--take the tack that Wayne O'Neil took in his lexicographic introduction to (at least the first edition of) the American Heritage dictionary: English spelling includes a *lot* of useful information about the history and otherwise-hidden relationships of our words. (I'd quote some examples but all our copies of that dictionary are on another floor and I'm too lazy at the moment.) Teach the kids that spelling is a fascinating key to hidden history! I'm sure they're smart enough to catch on to that, given the hint. Make it a game! As to blatant irrationality: English orthography is only irrational if (as you, despite my urgings, appear to continue to believe) the single measure of rationality is faithfully reflects pronunciation--meaning *your* pronunciation and not necessarily that of the guys in the next state, or the previous half-millennium. Think of all those dropped Rs that most of our fellow Massachusettsians have in their non-rhotic speech: would you really want your grandchildren to drop the rs from their spelling when and if they move to the East Coast? What about the wh digraph? In my dialect, the first sound in words like what and when is aspirated (and the written h shows that the dialect of the people who froze English spelling was, in that respect, like mine--though now that aspiration is quite rare): what/watt and when/wen are so-called minimal pairs in my speech. Witch side, in your model of rationality, whins that match? ... And so on for all the many other examples in all the many other dialects. I admit that there are cases where more phonetic spelling would elucidate facts about English grammar that are largely obscure. For instance, there are *two* verbs have in English (historically, of course, they're one verb): the auxiliary have is pronounced either v (as in I've been there) or haff (as in I have to go now), while the true verb meaning possess is pronounced havv (as in I havv three copies of the American Heritage Dictionary). Similar statements apply to used and other auxiliaries. Would *that* group of spelling reforms make you happier or sadder? Lee, I just want to be able to teach my grandchildren to write and spell without having to apologize every third sentence for the blatant irrationality of the language they are learning. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -Original Message- From: lrudo...@meganet.net [mailto:lrudo...@meganet.net] Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2014 6:57 PM To: Nick Thompson; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Spelling of Spanish Surnames Nick asks: How come other people can standardize their spellings and we can't standardize ours. Damn! Well, in the first place, the case of actual Spanish-as-she-is-spoke, including all its dialectal differences, isn't quite as clean as the official Castilian standard that Frank has cited. For instance, Galician is (I am assured) mutually intelligible with Portuguese (specifically, the dialect of Portuguese spoken in the
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
Knowing the limits of one’s own knowledge is an admirable trait, i.e. the more you know, the more you realize how much you don’t know. What really gripes me are people who seem to get some kind of perverse pleasure in their own ignorance. “Oh, that’s way too complex for me to understand” is not that uncommon an attitude when it comes to science and tech. # Gary On Feb 24, 2014, at 3:06 PM, glen g...@ropella.name wrote: Personally, all I know about those things is that I'm ignorant enough to be at risk. But, I take pride in knowing what I don't know, and that I don't know it. The real trick is paying close enough attention so that you can change tack when you need to. -- ⇒⇐ glen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
