Posts made by tonyshowoff

My master thesis was on the concept of an English language academy, and I argued that America should have its own and not give a damn what Britain said about it, largely because of arguments like "whose accent?" are stupid and irrelevant, even many Indians want to speak with American accents now rather than British ones. It was more elegantly put, I just think that argument is sort of a cop out to any discussion and in the English speaking world who matters more, Britain and her countless god awful accents or America and her several god awful accents?

This isn't a new concept because originally there was an American language academy called American Academy of Language and Belles Lettres which described itself as having the purpose of establishing a unified grammar, spelling, typeset standard system for the entire country. They were biggest until the late 1820s. Thomas Jefferson was involved and years earlier Benjamin Franklin not only promoted the idea but promoted his own ideas to reform spelling to create a unique American spelling system, to be called American, not English.

I think one of the biggest mistakes made was not adopting this, because it would saved millions in education because far less time would have been used to learn spelling and more to learn essentially anything else remotely more useful. Most people who don't speak a language aside from English don't realise most languages could never have spelling bees because most things are spelled regularly, even if not perfectly. I think spelling bees are hilariously overrated and really only demonstrate that you can do what my computer can do far better. I also went into other things, unfortunately I don't have a digital form nor a scanner, but it's a boring read for probably most people.

I'm still in favour of the idea and I think that there would likely be a ruling for fewer vs less in some place in between, because Robert Baker's original suggestion is too broad and far too potentially ambiguous, because his understanding of his own generalisations were wrong. "Fewer" as a word has come into general use, but with varying meaning like "less" has, and it would be interesting to see how they could be defined and along which lines.

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

The vast majority of major languages have language academies which control rules for spelling, grammar, and usage.

Sort of. Except languages don't have owners. So anyone can claim to be an authority and make their own changes. Now, for example, France does this and uses the law, rather than fact, to declare what words in French mean. But other countries that speak French don't follow those rules and are no more or less French than the ones in France.

America had this with the Webster dictionary. It was telling a set of made up rules, rather than the Oxford dictionary defining the language as used. That's partially why American usage of English has not drifted to the extent that British or Canadian has. But it's not an authority, it was just heavily viewed as such by the same people who promoted "anything printed by a large company as proof."

Anyone can claim authority with anything, but that doesn't make their claims equally valid at all. Language academies are backed by state power, hence when states collapse like in Roumania, rules that were set can be reversed even if it's not beneficial to do so, or the Russian Revolution, French Revolution (inherited academy from the monarchy), or in Germany it went through many states but was always backed by state power.

American spelling reforms brought by Webster were not just because, they were not just because he just made up rules and people happened to follow them, in this case these massive changes made were later backed by the state under Teddy Roosevelt, and in fact more changes were made but many were undone (again by state power), some like "thru" still exist in niche places. Until Roosevelt came along there was side by side usage of things like color vs colour, the pronunciation of "ski" as "she", and so on. Ironically it was the upper classes who stuck to the old ways and the lower classes drifted towards Webster style spelling because of how cheap his dictionaries were. Another danger of not having a language academy is allowing market forces to dictate language.

English is unique in that the authority though, typically just grammar aspects, comes from house styles and claims made by authors, but that doesn't make them all equal, nor does it mean they are all valid or should be considered. Robert Baker's fewer vs less is an example of someone without understanding of language history, without understanding of current meaning and rules, who established a suggestion (not even a rule) based on his own misunderstanding of the very generalisation he was making. To say it's more valid is to invoke authority that Robert Baker's suggestion comes from some place of any authority, and it's clear it did not.

English in America and Canada have not really drifted except on the coastal areas or areas with a lot of contact with the British or French, which is why traditionally in Boston, New York, Quebec you get huge sound changes. These changes do not exist really elsewhere aside from the /au/ and /oU/ sounds in Canada which are slightly different, but that same-difference exists in parts of some northern American states.

Changes in Britain itself were due to mixing of regional accents due to sailing and the industrial revolution, in addition to the rise of educated accents to purposely create class distinction, such as "Received Pronunciation" which is dying out anyway. These were not typical, natural language drifts that often happen.

In fact it is established academies which cope with language drift, not dictionaries, because if it were up to just dictionaries we'd be in the literal situation we are now where spelling is messed up and all grammar rules aside from innate ones are based upon claims of people who just pull things out of their ass and some, but not all, prescriptive grammarians blindly believe it has authority even though it goes against 1,600 years of language use where literally nobody at all used "fewer" in such a manner and then tried to enforce it arbitrarily later saying it makes more sense even when people still didn't use it that way without hypercorrection.

It comes from no where, it has no use (in the case of less being used for fewer), and it's based on nothing of real substance. Even rules from actual language academies that fail to make since or gain use are abandoned for the most part, they are not stuck to as though they have some sort of benefit just because we want them to, especially after 248 years of spoken language largely ignoring it. English has a history of this though: making up its own history, creating ridiculous rules, and enforcing things arbitrarily when they never had use before. That's why state backed language academies are important.

What is interesting is that American English does have a de facto ruling academic body, and it is that body that defined the usage of less and fewer.

What body is this? There are only dictionaries, house styles from newspapers and magazines, and grammar books children use. If we follow these "de facto" bodies then no split infinitive should be a rule too, except that "omfg so important" rule which was hammered into children's heads in America finally has largely been dropped because like fewer vs less it's based upon an ignorant claim by an ignorant person who claimed authority to regulate grammar. It has more to do with the creator wanting to be right rather than basing it on something correct.

And once you have shown me this de facto body please show me where they establish fewer vs less rules and also explain why people who claim to follow it, don't totally follow it, only where it's most convenient to. That's mostly a rhetorical request because such data is not likely easily available if available at all.... because there is no language academy that tracks such things.

Yes, but the general rule is that most people in any situation are wrong.

Then you're building a constructed language and dialect. I don't think anything is wrong with this in and of itself but that distinction has to be made. In fact I think there is some valid ideas with that which I will discuss in a follow up post.

That the median speaker uses basic words incorrectly doesn't make it good usage or proper language.

Defined by whom? Anyone and we just pick what we like best? That's what seems to be the approach to the grammarians writing English grammar books anyway.

Using English properly, and using "you" often confuses locals here.

I find it hard to believe people are confused by "you", unless it's you plural, unless that's what you meant and probably is.

Context is important, but isn't enough to overcome basic misunderstandings in the language.

And yet show me a single example anywhere where someone has been confused or mislead by using "less" rather than "fewer." I think my sitcom example stands, however unscientific and silly it may be.

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

Or in other words "Nobody actually speaks this way, I think they should" and since that time most people still say "less" just as they did then.

Actually, most people you'd want to talk to speak this way.

I've yet to see any proof there's a connection between education and whether or not someone uses less vs fewer "correctly" without overt hypercorrection. In fact there are many really advanced grammarians who point out it's totally arbitrary, because it's an issue of prescriptive grammar vs descriptive grammar. I actually went to a debate between two different Oxford professors (can't remember the college(s) or their names other than one was a woman and the other an old man) where they each argued both sides of fewer vs less, but that wasn't the debate issue, it was about prescriptive vs descriptive grammar.

To my surprise it was the older man who was in favour of descriptive grammar, but then again the woman also claimed that English spelling impacts the lexicon and without a complex spelling system English would have less words and less meaning, a statement I was surprised to hear because it's so stupid. I don't think this has an impact either way on the argument, I'm just still so baffled at how utterly idiotic someone can be and still be an Oxford professor.

All language rules, in all languages, are made up by someone and then become accepted convention.

No they are not. Essentially all rules, except literary rules, are created by the evolution of language and by the speakers themselves. If we ignore writing, aside from "ain't", there are very few aspects of spoken grammar which ever need to be taught to anyone who is a native speaker. Children learn the rules with totally incomplete information. English speaking nations like to think children would never be able to speak properly without an education in grammar, but this creates a huge logic problem for language in general. The best way to learn advanced grammar is to read books.

But in English, correctly using less vs fewer is common and is one of the more obvious dividers between those that know how to speak and those that do not.

The vast majority of major languages have language academies which control rules for spelling, grammar, and usage. English has never had this so rules are made up by random people, often with little understanding of history. As I demonstrated, Robert Baker himself said he just thought it was better and sounded more correct, and if 248 years later we still need to hypercorrect people on the usage it shows that there's no innate confusion with mixing them up. Not only that, the rule is based upon his own misunderstanding of both "less" and "few" and how he thought people should speak.

If I say "There were 10 less than yesterday" and we're talking about weight then it makes sense, if we're talking about countable items, it still makes sense. Most people actually speak this way. Very few people say "10 items or fewer" because it sounds hypercorrected and silly.

That doesn't mean fewer has no use, it certainly does, the question is whether or not less can carry the weight of both, and they can, because in all Germanic languages except English the word "less" exists in various forms, but "fewer" does not. And English functioned quite well without Robert Baker making up the rule in 1770.

I have seen stats on usage taken amongst college educated individuals or professors (I don't recall), in the "fewer vs less" argument, only about 50% of them even knew of the distinction, and only about 20% actually used it. I don't have that information anymore and was trying to see if I could find it online and I can't so it doesn't prove anything and it's based on my word alone. I wish I had it because it had a lot of other weird stats too.

And it is not arbitrary.

Actually it totally is, there are few rules which are as arbitrary as this one. It's a rule that is trying to base itself on class, just as you demonstrated, the implication one is uneducated by saying "10 items are less". There are few rules like this in spoken language, the biggest certainly is "ain't", which even when I was in University, a professor actually argued with me that "ain't ain't in the dictionary" and, no, she was not an English professor, but it is a common myth because it's considered such wrong use.

I myself don't typically say "ain't", except sarcastically or joking way, mostly because it doesn't fit right and I didn't use it when learning English. Having said that, "ain't" actually did evolve within English and was brought to America by Protestants, primarily to the South East, hence its use there.

The struggle against it is related to class, but it's an issue that originates back in Jolly Ol' England, where language was a function of class, and in America that was not the case until primarily the mid-1800s when newspapers began using bad spelling and bad grammar as a means to communicate someone was stupid, uneducated, or poor primarily to demean politicians. It's a very British view of language indeed.

If someone literally makes up a rule based on his personal opinion and then finally by the end of the 19th century some people start taking it up as a real rule rather than ignoring it, it is arbitrary. If less can be stated as "less" or "fewer" and it still makes equal sense, then the distinction is arbitrary.

Here's my biggest and best trump card I wish I would have thought of when writing essays about language at university, because while it's not proof of anything, it's so goofy but sort of an interesting thought about language:

The mere fact there's absolutely no jokes, good jokes or terrible sitcom jokes, based on someone confusing the meaning of something because "less" was used rather than "fewer" shows it's not something built into the function of the language but tacked on.

Fewer people means a small number in head count.

Less people means a small volume, like in weight or displacement.

Less people than yesterday, I weigh less than I did before. They're both perfectly fine statements and they're what most people would use.

They aren't interchangeable unless you don't want the ability to communicate clear meaning.

Who does that though? As someone who has learned English as a second language I can't say I've ever been confused by someone using the wrong one nor has the meaning been misunderstood. Context is more important than word meaning when it comes to language, in other words nobody would understand children or foreigner language learners at all until they were great at the language.

And the thing is, it's a convention I also even use, but without thinking about it, I don't hypercorrect to the point where I am saying "10 items or fewer" or "at fewest 10 people like dirt flavoured chicken wings." I certainly fall into the descriptive grammar camp where usage in spoken language has an impact on the importance of language. There are cases now where "fewer" is in use even amongst those who were not forced to learn how to speak properly.

That does not mean that more information is made available if I say "10 items or fewer" rather than "10 items or less" and within language aside from hypercorrection, only when there's an issue that even context clues cannot solve are rules, arbitrary or evolutionary, are adopted. There's no chance in hell that "less" won't also always mean "fewer", primarily because it's a word like "set" or "run" that is heavy with meaning and context, unless there's contact with another language or English creates a language academy and sets a rule. If a rule is created that can be backed up by linguists based on logic and use and there isn't a huge gulf between general use and hypercorrection then I'll stop bitching about it.

@mlnews said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

Fewer

https://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/youtube-rewind-14.jpg?quality=85&strip=info&w=600

Assuming you're talking about less vs fewer, if so you're breaking the rule, and if not then who cares I am going to keep going anyway!

That's just a nonsensical grammar rule like "no split infinitives" that disregards history and instead promotes the opinion of a single person as absolute fact, when they themselves had little understanding of their own language. Less, originally spelled læs has been used since at least the 9th century in all context that both less and fewer are now used. Fewer originated later in the 14th century as an extension of "few" which just meant "a little bit" or "small amount" of whatever, which is a meaning it still obviously has.

So this is a situation where a wanna-be know-it-all named Robert Baker in 1769/1770, much like Samuel Johnson but so unnotable he doesn't even have a Wikipedia article, wrote in his book Reflections on the English Language (page 47) that: "This word is most commonly used in speaking of a number; where I should think Fewer would do better. No fewer than a Hundred appears to me not only more elegant than No less than a Hundred, but more strictly proper."

Or in other words "Nobody actually speaks this way, I think they should" and since that time most people still say "less" just as they did then. Others follow a rule made up by someone who pulled it out of his butt, much like the most strict "rules" of English, they are nonsensical and nobody actually speaks that way without hypercorrection, which is counter to natural language.

Even so, hardcore hypercorrectors often break this rule all the time without thinking about it by saying "at least X" rather than "at fewest X", so have you seen Star Wars at least 10 times? No, you saw it at fewest 10 times! Sounds wonderful, natural, and correct doesn't it? Much like "Boldly to go where no man has gone before", which is following the "no split infinitive" rule.

No who is the know-it-all, Robert?!

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@Donahue said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

tattoo?

OMG, someone has to get this as a tattoo for MangoCon!

If someone adds a battle axe in your hand, I'll get it.

Edit: I am not joking, I need something to distract from my other tattoos that send the "wrong message" within my favourite country.

@scottalanmiller said in Is there a Free to Use Java 11 Option?:

@Donahue said in Is there a Free to Use Java 11 Option?:

that's not what I meant. I know the end customer always pays the piper in the end. But I feel like if an app relies on a newer version of java, won't it be bundled into the install?

Java cannot be bundled. Java has to be deployed separately. Always has been that way. Think of Java like MS SQL Server, only typically free. The customer has to deploy it as a requirement. And now the customer might have to pay for it.

Reality is far different... well at least on Windows... and actually not that far... just... everyone shut up and listen to what I have to say!

A lot of people do bundle it. AOL bundled all of their Java based products with Java binaries if they were to run on Windows at all. For example AIM 1.1.19 was written in Java and has JRE 1.1.5 within the install path and that is used regardless of any Java version installed. AIM Enterprise Server as well, but I don't recall that JRE version, but it ran the installer that was packed rather than just having it bundled in the path.

And there are other examples I've seen over the years, a lot of times it's a matter of dealing with JRE changes over time, having to worry about whether the machine has the right version installed, and also having to deal with a separate installer if they don't and all that comes it with. It may be less common now in an era with better installers, but back when Java apps for client-side client-server environments were vastly more common, straight up static bundling happened, and it was not upgradable. It's a bad way to do it, but it was done.

Even so, in the modern era, some Java based things like PhpStorm and all related products in that family will also install their compatible version of JRE when you install. It just unpacks the installer and runs it quiet in the background. A lot of people try to uninstall JRE, including some IT people, primarily because of huge security issues in recent years. Again a reason to not rely on the client to install it.

I imagine it's all because relying on the customer to not only install JRE but the correct version is more complex than just installing the right version of MS SQL Server, because you can have incompatibility issues between even minor versions, even though that defeats the purpose of major/minor versioning in the first place.

Tons of apps which use python also install python, but the same argument can be used for it being the customer responsibility. Yet like with Java, these installers may not even use standard paths or even edit the PATH system variable to execute the binary, like some sort of third party version of "not invented here" syndrome.

I predict that if older versions require paid licensing the apps won't pass on the cost, they'll just violate the license and do like PhpStorm and install whatever they need. How will Oracle check? I've never met a Java programmer, at least of my experience level and years, that really cared about the licensing scheme or requirements, except when speaking in public and pretending we care, or using it as a way to complain about Sun or later Oracle. There may be some corporate exceptions to this because of liability, but on a personal level, rather than a corporate one, I can't think of anyone I've known that cared or even looked into caring.

@Emad-R said in Is there a Free to Use Java 11 Option?:

@scottalanmiller

Dude Java is not irrelavant

Especially in the Linux server world, check stuff like Apache Solr. KillBill and Jenkins.

I think all will be fine with OpenJDK

If you install OpenJDK you can run production code off it, but you're not supposed to, especially if it's a commercial application. I just do it anyway because I refuse to deal with complex and ridiculous license schemes. If it takes more than 10 seconds to read about and understand your licensing system and also deal with it, it's too complex and I don't care.

I'm being mildly facetious... or am I?

@scottalanmiller said in Is there a Free to Use Java 11 Option?:

Basically, if you have apps running on Java today, how are you licensing them?

I do have them, and I don't pay for it at all. Bring it on Larry Ellison.

@scottalanmiller said in What did you have for lunch or dinner today?:

@jmoore said in What did you have for lunch or dinner today?:

@tonyshowoff Right! To all of that. I don't care if its a local pronunciation or not, if its obviously a word from a different language then respect that language and don't look like an idiot.

I'm from Covington, NY where we mispronounced our own language!

Actually that may not be true. Studies show that American English is closer to the English at the time of the establishment of the colonies than British English is, by quite a margin. And many things that we say that don't sound like "proper English" are actually us keeping the language more stable while Britain went off and developed new ways to say things recently.

I studied English language history at University as a minor, including learning Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English. Contrary to what most people think, Shakespeare spoke Early Modern English, as is "Ye Olde" which is pronounced "The Old". American English is actually closer to the English spoken by Shakespeare or at least in his time since we can't know for sure exactly what he sounded like. Most of the differences from American and the billions of British accents happened in the 18th and 19th centuries. So when in Shakespeare In Love you hear RP, East London, and Cockney accents, these are basically as accurate giving them 1920s Chicago gangster accents...nyaa see, copper! I'll get into more about it in a second...

@Dashrender said in What did you have for lunch or dinner today?:

How do you record something like that? phonic diagrams?

Well, this is a bit more complex, but the most evident thing to see is how in Britain, essentially all accents are non-rhotic, meaning they don't pronounce R at the end of a word unless the next word starts with a vowel. If English was always spoken this way, or was spoken this way prior to standardisation of spelling by noted crazy person Samuel Johnson, then words like "there" would be spelled more like "thea". A few minor American accents also have this feature, and both share in another bizarre feature of adding -r where a word actually ends in a vowel, this is more obvious in many English accents where they'll say "Africar" instead of "Africa."

English is also a Germanic language, and like all Germanic languages it went through a series of changes that the Grimm Brothers (among others) noted happened, and through this we can work backward to see how different accents and Germanic languages themselves were pronounced by the resulting changes. They changed at different paces and in some places changes which happened in some either didn't happen in others or are continuing to happen today. It's not as easily noticed because unlike English, all other Germanic languages have updated their spelling as their languages changed -- many English language scholars and general users think complex spelling makes their language unique and adds words to the language which is not only stupid but the exact reverse of how words are added.

English would have just as many words if there were more consistent spelling, and ironically you don't see many people other than Samuel Johnson arguing all the dozens of meanings of the words "set", "run", etc all need different spellings, but that's the logic. English speaking intellectuals often have and in the past certainly had a huge complex with their language, often denying it was a Germanic language at all, in fact I've heard English speakers claim their language comes from Latin.

But this isn't just a rant about spelling reform, rather it's an example of how we can see how words were pronounced to an extent. A simple example is "gh" which was at one time pronounced like the "ch" in German or similar to the "ch" in how Scottish people say "loch". Knowing this shows how words like "light" in English are directly related to words like "licht" in German. However during the Great Vowel Shift, which happened to some degree in all Germanic languages but to the highest degree in English, when long vowels (long as in duration, "long" and "short" vowels in English tend to mean "front" and "back" vowels in all other languages on the entire planet; so short i as in feet, was pronounced twice as long as long i feed. It's subtle in English but matters in Old English and in many other languages.). Most Germanic languages updated this, so Ice, spelled "is" before the French changed it, which was pronounced something like "Ees" in English in German, they updated it to "Eis" in German. This means that while they're pronounced the same, they spelling is vastly different.

And believe it or not the messed up spelling, created by several events other than the Great Vowel Shift, for example the Norman invasion of England, they added silent letters where English previously had no silent letters at all. This is because of their spelling rules. So for example English did not use the letter "v" as a consonant, instead "f" was used, so "Love", "Have" were spelled "Luf" and "Haf" (depending on conjugation). The Norman French didn't do this, so they changed those to "v", but in Norman French spelling rules words cannot end in "v", so an "e" was added, and a U and V were the same letter, so if a vowel version of "V" (now written U) was next at a consonant version of "V" (still written "V") they wrote it as O, so Luf becomes Love. This same rule applies with N and M, so "cum" became "come", really it was spelled like that.

We can use this as well to understand a bit about how English was pronounced, at least in areas where Norman French monks where.

Samuel Johnson who created the first notable English dictionary also added a lot of letters, and prior to him English was a bit more free floating, which helped show accent differences to a degree. Johnson was one of these people who had a huge complex about English being a Germanic language and never stopped hating it. He made up false etymologies, such as saying that "island", "aisle", "debt" were all originally from Latin, they weren't, so he changed their spelling it look more like similar Latin words, intentionally adding false etymology, making that stupid "complex spelling shows etymology and thus meaning" argument really nonsense... as though children learning to read also speak Ancient Greek, Latin, and Norman French. Nevertheless, these words were spelled "iland", "il", and "dett" before they were changed.

And finally, people, primarily monks early on but later writers, also described the sounds of their languages and accents, either intentionally or in some cases by making fun of the way other people spoke, this was especially common in Ancient Greece. By making comparisons to other languages and certain words we are able to make out even more details we can confirm with all the other stuff. So while we can't know exactly, precisely how English was spoken, we can say with pretty good certainty how the writer heard it, and that means British English is really the least English in the history of English since the Norman invasion.

There's even more insanity than that, but that's the basics, and while Shakespeare would have been more comfortable with how many Americans spoke (so long as they're not on the east coast with all the contact with the British) rather than his own countrymen, though it wouldn't have been exactly the same, the primary difference would have been that perhaps, though unproven, Shakespeare pronounced -ng simply as -n, but many Americans do that too.

@JaredBusch said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

Elf on the Shelf is totally fucking stupid.

Agreed, It seems to me to sort of send the message you should only be good if you're being watched.

@jmoore said in What did you have for lunch or dinner today?:

@scottalanmiller I have, unfortunately. Just like in Kentucky, the town of Versailles is always called Versales. People should know better.

Once when looking at a map of Connecticut with someone from Connecticut, I pointed out Versailles saying something like "Maybe if we go through Versai", and he said "What?", I repeated it pointing specifically at the name, and he said "Oh, it's pronounced Versales." I just said "Yeah, I don't think so."

I ran into a very similar problem in Kansas, there's several places pronounced strangely, like El Dorado, they pronounce "El Doraydo" and will constantly incorrect you if you pronounce it correctly. And there's an area of Wichita called Delano, as in Franklin Delano Roosevelt. You guessed it, how everyone else in the world says it is wrong, it's "Duh-layno"

Then again there's a lot about Kansas I don't understand, like how the highways have the most inexplicably short merging lanes where people slam on brakes, every time I've driven into Kansas from another state the first thing I've noticed is the long lines to exit because of merging lanes, on top of they put stop lights at the top of cloverleaf interchanges to make sure that you are able to defeat the entire purpose of them existing, not to mention the merge lines on those tend to be no more than a car length or two.

In addition to... people stop and begin to turn without being in turning lanes, or stop abruptly and turn into parking lots from roads as slow as humanly possible as though the street will explode if they go over 1mph. And instead of saying "You're welcome" they just say "Yeah" or "Uh-Huh". One weirder thing I noticed is a strange number of people, but by no means even a majority, but a small enough minority to where it stands out to me, when they say Good bye on the phone, and only the phone, they'll say "mmmm bye"... a lot of sex shops next door to churches. One way signs pointing two different directions when there's a median, this one is just needlessly stupid.

And finally the belief that everyone in almost every state has: the weather changes so much if you just wait 5 minutes it'll be different, that's what makes our state unique even though almost every other damn state says that.

@scottalanmiller said in What did you have for lunch or dinner today?:

@jmoore said in What did you have for lunch or dinner today?:

@scottalanmiller I have, unfortunately. Just like in Kentucky, the town of Versailles is always called Versales. People should know better.

That's because that's the local name, though. That's different. Paella is always paella because it is not a local name. But if you made the city of Paella, Kentucky and they pronounced the town pay-ella, that would be correct, but eating paella there would be eating "pie-aya" in "pay-ella".

Most British people pronounce it with L instead of Y sound, sort of like how they pronounce the H in Herbs. Even though they're only some 30 km or whatever from Spain and France. 90% of all Spanish speakers pronounce LL like the semi-vowel "Y" (or J if you are familiar with and of most languages other than English and French), exceptions are Spanish in Chile which in some cases does pronounce it like an L, and some other small areas of South America that pronounce it like ZH weirdly, and parts of Spanish speaking in the Philippines. It's ironic too because some Brits also go out of their way to use the non-Catalan pronunciation of Barcelona (like Barthelona).

Youtube Video

@mlnews said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

https://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/parents-just-trying-to-make-it-through-christmas-without-killing-someone-25-photos-8.jpg?quality=85&strip=info&w=600

I don't care much for Elf on the Shelf thing, it's weird in the sense it's almost like some sort of secret police. My wife says it reminds her of the Stasi.

@xisco said in What did you have for lunch or dinner today?:

I had "paella" for lunch

The question is, do you pronounce it as though it's roughly Spanish or pronounce it like a daft Englishman and say "pie-ela", maybe with their "taycos" and "hherbs"

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@Obsolesce said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

meanwhile we pretend to care about "STEM" careers yet do essentially nothing to help interest children in them.

What do you do in your home schooling to interest your children in STEM careers?

For us, we do nothing. They get exposed to STEM naturally like anyone should in school (by getting math, science, programming, etc.) but we don't want to push them to STEM, that's a weird American thing that isn't healthy and universities are starting to panic about. My kids aren't interested in STEM, pushing them to it would not do them any favours. They want to work in other areas, and we have way too many kids in STEM stuff now.

STEM has basically become a catch all for just "the basics" now. It's supposed to mean tech or science fields, but doesn't at all anymore. It's all marketing BS. And it's also become very wrong that America sees STEM education as the only valuable education, rather than looking at the jobs we need to fill and skills people need for them.

Most careers don't use STEM education. And most STEM programs don't teach STEM.

That's what I was trying to say but I'm ain't so good with the langages.

@Obsolesce said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

meanwhile we pretend to care about "STEM" careers yet do essentially nothing to help interest children in them.

What do you do in your home schooling to interest your children in STEM careers?

Roughly 75% of the stuff my children study is related to science in some way, a little less in technology, because it's everywhere and learning it is trivial unless it's lower than the face value of it but typically most of the time when a politician or teacher says "STEM" they mean "learn to use it" not "learn to make it".

The topics also include other things, they work on their reading and writing, for example in something my daughter did yesterday: she read about a chemistry experiment, then she wrote down all of the items she needed, what she planned to do, and what the predicted outcome she expected, and then of course later wrote all that happened -- and that's just a single example.

Maths as well fall into this because of measuring whatever compounds, lengths of time, and so on. We throw things into the mix by doing things like suggesting what can be done to double the size of the experiment, such as if it were making home made flash powder, because with some experiments it's not as simple as just doubling everything up.

I hate the word "STEM" because it's nonsensical, commercialised, political garbage. Starting from the end, if someone does not like maths, they simply don't, and most people don't ever learn to like it at all. Maths is a tool used in science and engineering. You use it when you have to, otherwise why focus on it? You don't get magical results by more people learning to do mathematical problems without any practical use for it.

Next, engineering is super vague, well we start them with legos and go on to building things, and also repairing broken electronics, or just taking really old things apart and seeing how they work -- when they were younger I created little shoe boxes of different things they could wire together with batteries and experiment with, like "snap circuits" but better and cheaper.

My daughter started off interested in building things with Maccano and whatever else, but as she got older, drifted more toward chemistry and electronics. We didn't force her to, we didn't ask her to, we didn't speak the benefits of more women or even men going into "STEM" fields, we just presented her with science and various engineering things and she found her own way, we present all of our children with the full range of not just "STEM" but also art, history, etc.

For a little while we thought maybe she would be an artist because she spent so much time drawing, painting, and writing, but again as she got a bit older she just lost interest in those things.

There's more to it and more goes on, and I have more children than that, but at risk of creating a huge manual, that's the gist of it. We just provide them with ways to learn about the world and technology in creative ways, without turning into some boring ass maths game or trying to shoe horn them into stuff they don't like.

We do supplement with other things to make sure they're rounded out, that's the other 25% and they really tend to find it boring, and that's stuff like typical maths and reading education, etc, you know, what schools basically do 100% of the time with massive gaps of nothing happening at all since primary education is calculated based on how long you spend in school.

We don't really teach grammar, sure as hell don't teach rote memorisation of spelling in English, as that's a new concept and from American and English schools it's clear that teaching grammar and spelling doesn't improve anyone's language, what does is reading and writing, end of story. The concepts come up naturally though with arbitrary things like apostrophes and of course that's all taught, but having studied the history of the English language and even learned Old English while in University, I can tell you that boring the hell out of kids with learning about gerunds and made up rules about "split infinitives" doesn't help. Reading teaches these things more and how they work.

As far as interest in technology goes, I've been of the mind for years: if you use a computer or smart phone and you've never had the drive to write programs, then you won't be a good programmer, or even if you are, you'll hate doing it. Not to sound pretentious and it's not a direct analogy, but it's like trying to force art on people, if they never draw or write, nor have the urge to do it, then it's pointless and you only get less appreciation for these things in the end.

We do provide them with opportunities to be interested in those things and nurture them if they follow that (as I explained above with my daughter and art) but we also make sure they follow through with things they start, and if/when they move onto something new, we work within whatever it is to teach primary subjects. We also challenge them to try out new things, allow them to make mistakes (except with chemistry where it could be dangerous, naturally), or accidentally cause a LED to smoulder as my daughter did last spring, and in fact blowing the whole works of her project by wiring something backward, even though I saw her do it, I didn't tell her. She now checks more often than if I had.

Learning new things is about seeing what doesn't work and being able to apply their knowledge, and is more important than simply repeating back what's said to you, something that the US and UK used to be very good at, now they're the literal opposite.

There's also history and religious study which I didn't include in this, and no I am not saying they're the same subject, but that's a bit harder to be creative with. I can include history of art or electronics or chemistry, talk about pioneers of it, what they did, and also about the countries they came from and the history of those countries, but history like maths is one of those things: if you dislike it, you probably always will, though history can be a lot more interesting, funny, horrifying, and strange than maths.

Three times a week I also spend an hour or two going over various history topics and sometimes we watch documentaries or whatever, depends on their age and so on. It's vastly more history than I think the average American or English student gets anymore due to the huge focus to maths and reading. Religious study comes up basically whenever.

Overall, "STEM" as some "here's what we must do" concept is garbage to me, it's sort of like how some school I used to live near in the US had some class on teaching kids to use tablets, that's just stupidity. Schools used to push scientific and technological topics really hard, now they don't, and spend almost no time on it but just pretend they're pushing people toward "STEM".

The fall in these types of careers in the west has more to do with huge cultural shift (more women were in STEM careers in the 60s, 70s, and 80s than today when they're trying to push it) and just laziness and lack of foresight in the entire educational system. Since they're not fighting the USSR anymore, all they care about is "better reading, so memorise more spellings, take more tests, do more homework, memorise more maths, learn nothing new, never apply your knowledge, and one day we'll win!" They think trying to promote "STEM" without any framework to do it in other than saying to do it, will somehow creative magic, but it was investment in these things and getting kids interested in it that helped. Science kits, building things, etc really has given way to sitting and staring at a screen or building things in a virtual world which is at least somewhat creative.

We limit screen time to about 1 hour per day, unless we're watching a movie together or something. Our kids do not have phones or tablets or anything like that. They do have cousins who are the most boring kids in history because that's literally all they do, sit and stare at a screen, and I'm not saying they're boring, my children think they're boring.

And this isn't a full time job either, because you can follow similar plans with all the kids and work in similar ways, and get materials online or wherever and suit them to your needs. School is overall around 3 - 4 hours per day, but they spend about another 3 - 4 on their own doing things related, reading, writing, building stuff, various projects, whatever.

@mlnews said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

https://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/you-know-the-school-system-is-bad-copy.jpg?quality=85&strip=info&w=600

American schools are funny. My daughter once got detention (for talking during some silent reading thing) when we were living in New York, and I told her to just not go, what can they do? I mean it's American public schools in the 21st century, they're basically powerless babies. So she didn't, and then they gave her more, and I said don't go. Finally they called me to tell me that she was suspended for two days for skipping detention, and I said "so the worst punishment you could think of was to give her a vacation?"

When I was in school they'd beat the hell out of me, that still didn't make me really any more of a good student. I think I hated literally every damn minute of school aside from chasing skirt or eating lunch; not because I hate learning, I love it, I just hate the way schools are organised and make learning something worth hating.

University was different, since I was paying for it personally I cared more. If you think this means I'd make my daughter go to detention in a private school, such as an English-language private school in Moscow, think again, detention is a joke. If my kids do something bad enough, I'll hit punish them myself, almost forgot I was talking to a lot of people raised on Dr. Spock (who gave a lot of great, terrible advice leading to many deaths over the years and continues to, now he promotes veganism).

We now home school as of a couple of years ago, my kids know more than their peers probably because a lot of school today is just wasting time, especially schools based on American and UK learning methods (since America copied the UK with no child left behind), that is to say: nothing matters but maths and reading, and we'll do the bare minimum to teach them that so we all don't get in trouble, meanwhile we pretend to care about "STEM" careers yet do essentially nothing to help interest children in them. I know that's not an option thought for most people, though, and some kids need brutal, rigid structure.

I don't associate with really any other home schooling parents, aside from SAM I guess, because so many nut jobs and weirdos homeschool their kids, or "unschool" them, i.e. teach them basically nothing. I mean what could go wrong being taught by a crazed shell shocked father who studied nuclear science and programs for a living now?

My wife does most of the teaching, for reasons which may be apparent.

@JaredBusch said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Didn’t make it. Got too tired so taking a nap while I continue my drive.... ZzZzZz

FTFY

@scottalanmiller said in How far will bitcoin and other cryptos fall?:

@IRJ said in How far will bitcoin and other cryptos fall?:

@Harry-Lui said in How far will bitcoin and other cryptos fall?:

0 is the answer, eventually. Could be 1 year from now, 5 years from now, 20 years from now, etc.

That's a true statement. With the exception of precious metals, every currency will eventually be 0.

Precious metals are the same. Only precious because we randomly say so. It's so arbitrary to associate some metals as having crazy value. Almost identical to paper money. It's worth a lot, only because someone says so.

That runs contrary to the terrible logic of metal backed currencies though, such as claims that gold/silver/whatever has always had value to mankind/been precious which is #1 not true and #2 not universal, this lack of seeing gold as super precious, rare, and valuable was one of the ways the Spanish got over on the Natives of South America.

Nevertheless, metals do have value in that they have industrial use. It's extraordinarily primitive and backward to hoard it to put another currency in front if it, and ironically, that doesn't stop inflation or any other problems, both the arbitrary price change in the value of metals hurting the currency and over printing of currency which happens every time metal backed currency is in use. The reason is because there's far more value in the world than there are precious metals to back them unless you arbitrary pretend even more so that the metals are worth more than they really are. This didn't work for Spain when tons of gold flooded in and it sure doesn't work for rapidly expanding industrial economies of today.

Plus the weird idea that Steven Schiff kept pushing was "bitcoin will never be used because it's not backed by anything," which is like saying the US Dollar won't be used because of Nixon finally removing any metal backing it had. He promotes extremely pre-capitalist views of monetary policy. Under such a nightmare of gold backed dollar you'll have cars and milk either having the same value or having to create new micro-cent values to deal with the fact there's vastly far more value than metal. This in addition to any industrial purpose gold, silver, etc have will be basically removed and the available uses will be so expensive as to cause the average person to not be able to afford items with it, and interest rates will explode because nobody will want to loan due to the hugely retracting value vs currency.

If you want a monetary system fiat is the only way to go. How you manage it is a totally different story, there's no reason to suggest that Keynesian economics is linked with it, even though that's a leap often made to a crazy degree.

I just think about the mad over pricing of gold some years ago, if the currency were backed by gold at that time, the purchasing value of it would have gone up, until gold prices went down either the banking system would have to pretend it didn't happen which is extremely dangerous or they would have to retract value of everything in return.

As for bitcoin and other coins go, yeah people pump and dump and the instability basically makes it a casino, but that's not what most people I know, including myself use it for, it's used to near-instantly convert currency and/or purchase things, and very little time is spent as bitcoin. I never would keep any more stable hard currency as bitcoin. I think people in the west often lack the experience of dealing with two currencies at the same time, one stable and one unstable, the idea that one which is unstable is useless or a scam is missing its use, especially when it comes to dealing with states (governments) and grey/black markets. There's also black market currency values as well but that's not really relevant to bitcoin.

I remember a time when depending on what items you bought or services rendered, you paid either in a hard currency (typically USD, later also EUR, sometimes GBP) or just regular currency (like roubles or whatever). The services and items aren't the same anymore, but the double use is plenty useful. Perhaps bitcoin won't last into the future in the same way, but it or something else like it will continue to exist much like p2p or torrents in order to deal with both legal and illegal exchanges of money, and sometimes it's not illegal because of illict drugs or crime, but because of dictatorships, because of embargoes, and so on.

... I was kind of all over the place there.

tl;dr the rise and fall of the price doesn't matter with bitcoin so long as you are just using it as a way to quickly convert currency either to move money or buy items/services otherwise unavailable. If you sit on it, it's basically like playing slot machines.

@nadnerB Like all cats, bet it just walked away like nothing happened