Anyway...

Allow Them To Stay!!

2010-10-05T22:20:00.002+13:00

Sital and Usha Rand have been living in New Zealand for 11 years, and have 3 children. If they go back to India, they will have to live in a slum as they are in the Dalit (untouchable) caste.

Their children are all NZ citizens and cannot have Indian citizenship.

They are being deported.

If they are not allowed to stay, I will never vote for John Key again. If our immigration system can allow this, it is fucked up.

Stack Exchange - English Language and Usage

2010-08-11T18:57:00.002+12:00

I have recently joined a new site named just as the title of this post. It is in private beta for 60 days, so I will post a link to it (in this post, and another) when it comes out of private beta.

This site is much like a forum in that people ask questions, and they get answered. The main differences are that people get reputation points for good answers and good questions, and questions are displayed in order of how good they are, not chronologically. This leads to some very interesting dynamics in the way questions are answered and discussions are formed.

Thus far, the top points seem to be dominated by linguists, developers and an English teacher. The very top person is a French programmer, as of course, the French speak better English than the English do.

I was dragged (well voluntarily), into a discussion about whether it was acceptable to use the word "that" when beginning an adjective clause when talking about people. E.g. "There were 5 people who were on the plane" opposed to "There were 5 people that were on the plane". Most people tended to stay out of it, but a prescriptive grammar book came to the rescue, mentioning that "that" should never be used in reference to people, and only that who(m) should be used.

Of course, I had to disagree, after all, what are people, if not things! (I kid, I kid). The fact is, I very often say "that" when I could say "who", and I often hear other people do the same thing. In fact, I see that construct in newspapers, books, and magazines. I could not accept that I was to be prescribed into using "who" all the time.

My original post was despised, shot down, neglected, and scorned (I exaggerate, it simply had one comment saying that I hadn't proven anything). So after doing some programming, I spent an hour looking for a good source. Found two books that agreed with me, quoted them, and now, over six hours later, my post has one up-vote.

Such is life :-)

I enjoy life.

Spelling Mistakes that Can't Be Fixed

2010-07-15T14:03:00.007+12:00

In all programming languages, the basic commands are always in English. Any library that is distributed internationally (for instance, the windows libraries which allow programs to create text boxes, buttons, windows, menus, etc.), has all its functions written in English.

So every programmer in the world, has to use English commands whether or not they actually know any English. Many companies around the world even enforce rules that their programmers should write their own functions with English names and comments. Though this is not always the case.

Well, when you're programming, anyway.

But for any large international company, they have no choice but to have this rule. Therefore, you'll have Korean programmers in Korea writing code with English comments, English function names, English variable names, etc.

For the uninitiated, a "variable" is, simply a value which can change, and this value must be given a name. For instance: BillGatesAge = 10. This will change on his 11th birthday, and so on. This is similar to a variable in mathematics.

So, if a Chinese programmer is writing a program, that says "hello" in Chinese, they would have to write something like this (C#):
Console.WriteLine("你好");
OR in C
printf("你好");

There probably will come a time, where one can choose a programming language, and a symbol language. But this time has not come, so everyone must use English. Whiteness - the gift that just keeps giving.

And because most native English speakers can't seem to be able to spell anymore, and because a lot of things are written by non-English speakers, there is a high chance that somewhere, I library name, or a command will be misspelt, and used by millions around the world before it has a chance to be fixed. At which point it cannot be fixed. Well, not completely.

Of course! A dictionary!

In the Microsoft dot Net libraries, there is a list of values called Keys. This gives a name to each key. On Korean keyboards, there is a key which switches between Hangeul (Korean writing) and Latin (English writing). In the enumeration, this key is called both HangulMode and HanguelMode. This is because the "correct" English spelling of the word is "Hangul", but when writing Korean in Latin, it should be written as "Hanguel". I personally always go with "Hangeul".

Anyhow, from the looks of it, when that was originally written, it must have been a Korean, or at least someone that knew a bit of Korean, who named it "HanguelMode", which is actually a misspelling of "HangeulMode". Later on, after it has been released, someone must have said "Hey! Wayddaminute! It should be 'HangulMode'", and, because it was already in use, they just added the extra name. So it's got two names, and neither of them is the official - revised - Korean spelling of Hangeul. In Hangeul, Hangeul is spelt: 한글. ㅎ=h, ㅏ=a, ㄴ=n, ㄱ=g, ㅡ=eu, ㄹ=l or r.

And to add insult to insult (no injury here, move along!), the same enumeration (list of values) has the value for the key which is used to accept an IME input named "IMEAceept". Yes, I can aceept that, but it is not a very easy thing to aceept. Every single time I ever need to know that the accept IME key has been pressed, I have to aceept the fact that it is spelt incorrectly. Likewise, this has been fixed at a later date, so I actually see two available names for that key: IMEAceept, IMEAccept. Luckily, that is not the alphabetical order, so auto-complete will usually get the one spelt correctly. There must be quite a lot of code out there using this name, so Microsoft can't just remove the misspelling. It will stay there for a very long time.

The misspellings will be deprecated eventually, I'm sure.

Opening Doors - Body Language

2010-07-07T15:56:00.016+12:00

The 1940s - when men could be nice to women without having their heads bitten off.

It used to be that opening the door for a female was what any self-respecting (and woman-respecting) gentleman would naturally do. Not only would he do this, but it was required of him. If a man were to ignore this little piece of social protocol, people, especially "ladies", would think him rude, uncouth, and obnoxious. It was also quite common for anyone to simply open the door for anyone that was following him/her, whether or not the other person was male or female.

However, opening a door for a woman in this day and age, at least in New Zealand, tends to send mixed messages to women. Personally I quite often open doors for people who are behind me, whether or not they are female. Whenever I open it for a man, or a child, they will go through, and most of the time they will thank me. However with females, it quite often occurs that the woman will refuse to go through the door.

On Tuesday ¹(yesterday), I was catching the elevator to my office, just as the door was closing, I saw a woman walking into the lobby, so I stuck my foot into the closing doors, which caused them to automatically reopen - one day this trick will clobber my foot, I'm sure; this is a lot easier than hunting for the open door button, which seems to be in a different location on every elevator, and I have failed to open the door by hunting for it in the past. This woman (probably about 40) was very grateful and said "thank-you" quite profusely when she entered, and when she left the elevator on her floor.

In contrast to this; about two weeks ago, I did the exact same thing at the same time of day in the same place, but with a different 40 something year old woman. This woman just stared at me as if I were committing some crime and did not enter the elevator. So I let the doors close. She then pressed the up button which caused the doors of the lift to open again, and then she entered. I thought she was being very, very immature.

The funny thing is I have only ever been thanked when I have held the lift open for a man, but women often don't say anything, and sometimes will refuse to enter at all. What can I say? Men are more respondent to kindness than women?

Of course, many women are probably thinking, "oh, he opened the door for me because I'm a woman. That means that he is obviously a male-chauvinist pig. How DARE he do that!!! I will refuse to enter through that door while he is holding it open."² Well, at least that is all I can assume. She could have been thinking "Ha! I'm gonna waste his time by letting the doors close and then opening them again!! Haha, he will be annoyed!". But it is much more likely to be along the lines of the former example. Either way, it just seems like stupidity to me.

Victoria University - where you go to get your head bitten off by women if you happen to be a polite male.

When I was at University I ended up giving up on opening doors for white girls altogether. It was so common for me to receive a harsh word, or have them stop in their tracks, that I just found it wasn't worthwhile at all. I ended up opening doors for males, or for girls who were not white (e.g. Asians, Africans, Middle-Eastern, etc.) I found that opening the door for Africans and Polynesians usually got me a quite nice expression of gratitude, whereas Asians and Middle Easterners would tend to go through, sometimes with a smile or a "thank you", sometimes not. But never, except from a white girl, have I ever been treated like some kind of devil just because I held a door open for them.

These days, I tend to not worry about it anymore. If a white woman so chooses to be upset about me opening a door, I don't care. Let her think what she will. At least for everyone else, it is a sign of respect and kindness towards fellow humans.

¹ Notice how I have the comma outside of the brackets (parentheses), as I mentioned in a previous post.

² Note how I have the full-stop (period) inside the quotes. This is because the full-stop belongs to that sentence.

Punctuation Inside Quotes

2010-07-06T14:40:00.005+12:00

There is a general style rule when using quotes, that punctuation such as commas should always go inside the quote. Searching on Google, I found the following at Grammar Book:

Periods and commas always go inside quotation marks, even inside single quotes.

So I immediately went to a random article on Stuff, which happened to be about a free trade deal with South Korea. I searched for ," which was found 6 times, then I searched for ", which wasn't used at all.

In the article, quoting John Key, a section read:
"... we've got a plan to go forward," Mr Key said.

Personally, I think it is a very silly rule to put punctuation inside quotes when it does not belong to the quote (which it never does). So if I were to own my own newspaper, or blog, I would have written it like this:
"... we've got a plan to go forward", Mr Key said.
Which I think is much more logical.

This follows the rule:
The man said "hi." Then we talked for a bit, before he said "bye."
And this follows the way that I think it should be written:
The man said "hi". Then we talked for a bit, before he said "bye".
If I had it my way (which I do on my blog, ha!), I would only put punctuation inside quotations if it really did belong, for instance, if the quotation was a sentence. If I said "I am going to do things any way I like." while standing up, I would put a period inside the quotes. But if I quoted the first half of the sentence, I would put the quote outside because whenever I want to, I can "do things".

The fact is, a lot of copy writing rules seem to be a bit silly, and it doesn't make things any easier to read by putting punctuation together with quotes when it doesn't really belong. With that said, if I were to write an article for a newspaper, I would go ahead and put all that non-belonging punctuation inside quotes, because, as a writer for that newspaper, it would be my job to follow their style guide.

I just checked Jared's blog, Along The Lion, and he had used ," in every conceivable place, except one, where he must have slipped up and written ", when he wrote “I intend to complete the planning for the light rail system in my first term as mayor, to begin laying rails in my second term, and to see the system complete by 2020”, said Celia Wade-Brown. This slip-up is perfectly excusable in my book, because I think that is the logical way to do it.

If anyone actually reads this, I would like to hear your opinion on the matter.

Decline of the swear word

2010-05-11T07:03:00.002+12:00

It used to be that if someone uttered the F word, or the B word in good company, people would gasp and be shocked. If someone had said "You're a f***ing idiot" to someone in NZ 25 years ago, they could expect to be either punched in the face or receive a heavy back-hand slap. Now they're more likely to have that person ignore it or simply repeat the insult, or return with some other foul-mouthed reply.

If one had uttered the S word or the B word at school, they could probably expect a caning from the teacher. Now they'd likely receive a "watch your mouth!" or simply be ignored by the teacher.

If you did something to really annoy someone, or offend them deeply, they could let you know very easily. A simple "fu** off" would get the message across that whatever you had done or said was simply not to be done or said ever again. Now you could expect to receive a "fu** off" in good cheer, for instance if you bought something especially cheap:
"Man! I got this Louis Vuitton bag for $5!!!"
"Fuck off!"
"Naa! Honest!"

This same conversation 25 years ago (in general middle class society, I think in lower classes, swearing has had a pretty mundane effect for quite a while:
"Man! I got this Louis Vuitton bag for $5!!!"
"Fuck off!"
*WHAM* (replier gets whacked in the face)

We simply have to face the facts. The overuse of swearing has lead to a great fall in the effectiveness of swearing. A simple F word no longer carries the hate and anger that it once did. It is no longer possible to offend a large number of people simply by uttering a few common phrases. Now swear words exist in the every day speech of many societies, it is simply not shocking anymore. Most people no longer get offended, unless you let of a whole stream of them, and even then, many people would simply think one a little unintelligent, rather than getting angry or upset.

Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is up to you to decide. But in my personal opinion it is a bad thing, because swearing used to play a very effective role, and now most swearwords have simply become common adjectives/adverbs in the common lexicon.

Google indexes fastest at 11 days

2010-04-26T17:07:00.005+12:00

After putting up the website for my new company, Kiwiware, it has taken 11 days for the website to be listed in Google search. It is however second ranked when searching for "Kiwiware", and the first ranked is kiwiware.com, which is not even a proper website.

I find it interesting that a website which says "this domain is for sale" would be the top result. I guess there are still some hickups in the ranking algorithms :-)

Anyway, a little about the new company. We are doing development at the moment which will be presented to potential customers once prototypes are completed. I cannot say at the moment what we are developing, but I should be able to say before the end of the year. Anyway, it involves electronics, PCs and networking. It is also a niche industry, where thus far there aren't any visible competitors with products developed solely for what we are developing for. Sorry to be so cryptic...

Update - 27 April 2010

As of 10:41 (NZST), kiwiware.co.nz now ranks #1 on a search for "Kiwiware" on Google. Having just checked Bing and Yahoo, I see that it is indexed on neither.

Update - 1 May 2010

Just checked Bing and Yahoo at 9pm today, and Kiwiware is now indexed as #1 on Yahoo. Bing still does not have it in their index.

Update - 10 May 2010

Bing still does not have Kiwiware indexed. This does not bode well for my impression of Bing!!

Foreign Learners

2010-04-25T19:14:00.003+12:00

A few days ago I was having a discussion with my project management lecturer. He mentioned that a test we had just taken had in the past consisted of many questions asking for the definitions of words and acronyms related to project management. He said that these questions had been taken out because people weren't very good at answering them. After that I said "Kiwi students?" and he replied, saying "Yes. International students tend to memorise everything and ace that part of the test."

I had asked this, because I suspected that because most international students are Chinese or Indian, and I suspect that most of their education revolves around rote learning. This means, that in situations where rote learning succeeds (such as memorising formulae, definitions etc.) they would do exceptionally well. Whereas I suspect that Western students would do a lot better when problem solving, guessing, and intuition are needed (such as research, completing complex assignments, reports, essays etc.).

Of course, I have no data to back that up, though it is an interesting question... What kind of situations do different learning environments tend towards helping? I personally think that rote learning can be useful for a lot of things, e.g. knowing one's times tables can be very important. But I don't see how memorising thousands of mathematical equations can be useful. As long as one understands algebra and basic calculus, and statistics, it should be pretty easy to find fomulae that one needs on the internet. Of course, if one's major is mathematics, perhaps they should memorise more, but otherwise, it's pretty useless.

I have no conclusion, so I will write but this: think about it.

New Kiwiware Website

2010-04-15T12:52:00.003+12:00

Recently, my father and I have started a new company called Kiwiware, which is of course to do with electronics and software (me being a programmer and all). We actually started the company in 1999 or 1998, but haven't done much. Well, we've done a few contract jobs here and there, but nothing really substantial.

Recently we have had a job to do, which requires considerable investment, so we have hired office space and re-vitalised the domain name. Which involved trying to get a UDAI from Paradise which took a LOT of time. Then we had to host it somewhere.

Yesterday I attempted to purchase hosting with NZWebHost, and it told me that it had rejected the credit card purchase. So I tried to make the purchase two more times, and both times, the purchase was rejected. Giving up (because it was after business hours), I instead went to KiwiWebHost, which is more expensive, where the purchase was accepted.

However, this morning, the transaction had gone through for NZWebHost, and the account had been activated. I contacted NZWebHost via their 0800 number, and told them what had happened. Within one hour, they had refunded the money, closed the account, and apologised. I was very impressed with this quick and helpful service, so, in lieu of being able to host with them, I decided to write up what happened on this blog. The problem they had was with a new credit card system they have recently installed.

Of course, I have no idea how good their hosting actually is, but I can say that their service is excellent, which causes me to recommend them highly.

English: KNB (Know Nothing Buzzword)

2009-10-12T22:55:00.005+13:00

OK, it seems my sickness has completely left me... although I had several false positives before it rebounded again, and again... Lovely.

KNB (know nothing buzzword) is an acronym I have coined to describe the over-proliferation of buzzwords in modern society. The Americans started it several decades ago, and now the filth has spread throughout the business world, the technology world, and the journalism world. Among other worlds I assume.

It seems to be that people like to use buzzwords to give the appearance that they know what they are talking about, when in fact, they don't. I'm going to take the liberty to include catch-phrases in this definition. For instance "going forward".

I was listening to a humourous essay written and read by an Irish poet a couple of weeks ago (sorry I forgot his name) which was about the over-use and pointlessness of the term "going foward". This also applies to the term "moving forward". I've noticed whenever there is a business discussion and a major point is raised which questions the validity of some high-powered executive's idea, instead of discussing the issue, s/he will utter the term "going forward" and start blurting about some unrelated issue in order to divert attention from his/her stupid idea.

It can be useful of course, if discussions become rhetorical, or vitriolic, in which case it is certainly necessary to move forward. However, it is often used simply because someone is uncomfortable with the fact that they are indeed, completely incorrect.

Now, I just want to make a point about the difference between a buzzword, and a jargon word. Jargon is actually a collection of words belonging to a specific field with a fully defined meaning. Buzzwords tend to undescribe something that is ill defined, makes no sense, and isn't really a new thing anyway. You can read Wikipedia's explanation of a buzzword if you wish. Of course, the neutrality of the article is disputed, and it needs cleaning up among other issues. That's one of the things I like about Wikipedia: it is quite open when something is wrong and needs fixing... Getting it fixed, however, is another issue.

There are lots of other lurrrvely examples. For instance "leverage". "We need to leverage this technology to improve the synergy within our enterprise to empower our people to move onto the next-generation paradigm". This is the kind of sentence that one will hear from CEOs and other executives, but really, it means bugger all. I would love to leverage the use of an M4 Carbine (in coordination with the Lower Hutt Police and the SAS) to empower the English language to make a paradigm shift towards best practices.

By the way, I use state-of-the-art technologies to write this blog. Having moved on from pen and paper to a keyboard.

Personal: Sick

2009-10-11T21:16:00.003+13:00

Arrgh... Been down with flu for last couple of weeks. It was really bad on days 2-4, then it just lingered. THANK YOU, Maria, for looking after me :-)

In other news, despite having crusaded against Twitter ever since I closed my account a while ago, I have reopened it... if you can't beat them, join them! I do still wonder, however... does Twitter have the capability to be useful for ME??? I'll give it a trial, but still... I can't see why I need to be updated quickly... BBC News and Google News are more than good enough for me most of the time... as for knowing what my friends and family are up to... nothing beats Facebook.

Poem: Thankfulness

2009-09-27T11:21:00.002+13:00

A child looks at his plate in disgust
He heaves it at the wall and demands another
Far away a child is starving
His world is a mess, all is unjust
He remembers his last meal
And wishes for another.

A woman complains her salary is too low
Jealous of people with 20k more
Far away a woman is walking
Dragging six children on through the snow
Looking for shelter, and maybe some food
Blisters and pain she must ignore.

A man is pulled over and swears at the cop
For receiving a ticket for driving too fast
Far a way a peasant looks up from the field
And watches a car go over the hilltop
Smiling as he loads wheat on a cart
Happy the harvest has come at last.

Be thankful for your job, your food, and your car
Do you deserve it, do you deserve more?
Think of the people thankful to live
And think of the luxuries which you enjoy
Think of the generations which built it up
It's not all your work, not even half
So smile, and work, be glad that you live

Poem: Love

2009-09-26T10:01:00.000+12:00

Love

Love is everlasting and never ends
Though conflicts appear and friendships are lost
Families are broken and suffering arises
Love doesn't care, all things it transcends
Whatever the causes it tries at all cost
To cover the wounds and heal the scars
Just look to the sky and look at the stars
And listen to what your love advises

Word: Honeypot

2009-09-25T14:55:00.003+12:00

This is a word which has been used in computer technology for quite a long time, and I quite like it. I think its use should be spread...

Basically, "honeypot" is a metaphor which refers to an isolated computer that is setup to attract attacks, whether via hacking or viruses. Researchers use these computers to find out about new viruses, or hacking methods, and to find ways to prevent them.

The metaphor basically refers to a pot of honey, which can be used to attract bees, wasps and other insects to trap them. This is the same in the computer world, they are used to trap viruses, or hackers.

Outside of computing, there is no reason not to use this word to refer to other similar situations. For instance, anti-narcotics undercover police will often infiltrate gangs by pretending to be buyers. They will express an interest in the product, come along to "buy" it, and then arrest the perpetrators for the crime of soliciting drugs. Similarly, the term could refer to a situation where a naval ship dresses up as a merchant ship to attract pirate attacks, and therefore capture then arrest/disarm the pirates.

Recently, my camera was stolen from my bag which I had left near some seats at WelTec for about five minutes. This led me to the idea (which I probably WILL NOT implement) which would be to leave a bag somewhere, watch from a hidden location, and then catch thieves in the act of trying to steal my stuff. That would be a honeypot.

Poem: Nice Wellington

2009-09-23T09:46:00.001+12:00

Nice Wellington

The Wellington wind wildly blows
Gusts of cold, pervading the land
Going outside for a little peace
In vain, everyone knows
Outside, shivering in the cold we stand
One wishes to be on the beaches of Nice.

Well, I bet there are probably hundreds of poems written about windy Wellington, but it's all I could think about today, so there you go.

I haven't yet been to Nice, which is a lovely coastal city on the blue coast in the south-east of France. But it sure would be a lot better than Wellington on yet another windy day.

Buzzword: Real Time Web

2009-09-22T16:52:00.007+12:00

Disclaimer: I know that in English we normally consider something like "real-time Web" to be three words, or a phrase, but I have taken the liberty to call the whole thing a word. Deal with it... Or write a comment explaining why I shouldn't do it :-)

Yet another techno-writer-know-nothing buzzword.

Intended Meaning

Other than the fact that it's just some silly phrase pulled out of the nether regions of some hairy guy somewhere in the United States probably meant to wow potential customers, rather than be an accurate name; it nonetheless does describe a concept.

This concept, is that "real time" information is presented and sorted as soon as it is created. So it's talking about things like Twitter where status updates become immediately available to thousands of people. According to Wikipedia, the "real-time Web is the concept of searching for and finding information online as it is produced.".

Of course, up until the phrase was nefariously produced from the garbage of someone's mind, "real-time" meant REAL TIME. That is, it describes computer systems that are very very accurate, to the microsecond, or millisecond. Of course, the so-called "real-time web" describes things that are quite fast, but not really real-time (i.e. it takes more than a few seconds to update anything).

As a side note, having the Web in real-time seems rather pointless to me. I don't need to know that Sally's toilet refuses to flush the instant it doesn't flush. I'm happy to know that within a few hours, or at least, before I go to her house on an empty stomach. Of course, if I was visiting her house, she would probably be so kind as to inform me prior to my arrival, that her toilet was out of order. But really, I don't actually care to begin with.

Wait a Minute!

Now, back to the definition of real-time. In computer science, as I said, real-time systems are usually very very accurate. Not only that, but they have to perform tasks before certain deadlines. For instance, in an Ethernet network, data comes through a switch very very quickly. The bits have to be processed very very accurately, otherwise the data will be completely garbled. In this sense, the Internet has a lot of real-time systems, just to allow it to exist.

Another example of real-time computing is ABS brakes (automatic breaking system). The computer here has to monitor the traction in real-time in order to break at exactly the right moment. It cannot be off by a mere millisecond, or the car will skid (or go out of control).

Now, these annoying people that talk about this new-fangled real-time Web just don't have a clue what they are talking about. They completely misunderstand the concept of real-time. It is NOT real-time. Sure, there is quick notification, and quick response, by HUMAN standards. But none of it is mission critical, and Jack doesn't really care if it takes 25s for him to find out about the condition of Sally's toilet.

In other words, having the Web in real-time would be utterly pointless to begin with. Besides, who is at their computer watching the Web 24/7 just so they can have information "IN REAL TIME!!! ZOMG"

A much better term for the concept of quickly updated information would, in my opinion, be something like "quick-response Web" or "obsessively-voyeuristic Web" or something like that. Actually, OVW has a ring to it...

Now, another thing that annoys me about this word (probably the largest reason) is that it describes something that a lot of people consider all new and novel. The point is, there has been quickly updated and available information on the Web ever since the Web was made public. It just wasn't obsessively obsessed about by obsessive people. For instance, there have been chat rooms, and there have been other Internet protocols, like MSN, ICQ etc. which have allowed instant communication (not real-time) for donkey years.

So, really, there is nothing all that new about it. It's just a lot more impersonal than it once was, and encourages people to write a whole load of crap that they for some insignificant reason wish the world to know about.

Word: Textbook

2009-09-21T17:41:00.004+12:00

I noted in a previous post that "textbook" was a rather silly word.

I do however like that word, despite its redundancy. I mean, we have books, which are usually bound bunches of paper with lots and lots of text. Therefore, saying "text"+"book" is kind of silly when you think about it: all books have text (with the exception of [picture/colouring in] books).

Of course, the "text" in it does add meaning to the "book" part. A book, could be anything with text, whereas a textbook is a book about an academic subject, usually written directly for students, and often for a particular course (i.e. Universities such as MIT and Hawaii University have written their own textbooks for their courses).

So, really the "text" in "textbook" doesn't mean "text" at all. It just looks and sounds like "text", but does not mean "text". Here it means "course material". So to expand out the word "textbook" into fully qualified English, we would say "course-material book". Certainly, many people actually do call them "course books" which is a much more sensible name for a textbook.

Personally, however, I really do like that word, and this is largely due to the fact that it is a bit of a misnomer. Therefore, I will continue to use this wonderful word, to talk about those books, which, to be honest, have been the bane of my life.

English: Plurals I

2009-09-19T08:10:00.001+12:00

This is going to be a multiple piece essay on plurals in English. Plurals in English are very complex, more than most people give them credit for. I have heard that they are complex in Russian, too, but having not studies Russian, I wouldn't know.

In English, plurals are usually simply the singular noun with an 's' appended. E.g.

Car	-->	Cars
Bed	-->	Beds
Bottle	-->	Bottles

This is all very nice, and if all words were like this, things would be simpler for native learners, and much easier, especially, for foreign learners of English. However, as with other word modifications, pluralising in English has many exceptions (irregular forms). There are also some other regular forms, one is simply to have the same word for both plural and singular.

Dice is an interesting case. Most people talk about "1 dice" or "2 dice". At school, I was taught to say "1 die", "2 dice", "3 dice". But from a descriptive perspective, "dice" is both the singular and the plural form. For many words, where this is accepted practice, even by ivory tower academics, e.g.

Sheep	-->	Sheep
Fish	-->	Fish
Won (Korean currency)	-->	Won

Then, of course we have irregular pluralisations like

Ox	-->	Oxen
Die	-->	Dice
Mouse	-->	Mice
Cow	-->	Cattle (but can be regular, cows)
(Wo)man	-->	(Wo)men

And of course, there are a whole lot more ways to pluralise different nouns.

Then of course, there are abstract nouns, which cannot be pluralised, i.e. they are uncountable. E.g.

Faith
Love
Innocence
Faith

My next post will talk about the different types of nouns (collective, countable, uncountable, proper, concrete, abstract, etc.). Some nouns can fit into more than one category, while others are mutually exclusive.

Buzzword: Augmented Reality

2009-09-18T08:00:00.004+12:00

Jeremy (Je Suis Un Robo) pointed a term out to me yesterday. This is of course, Augmented Reality, or AR.

I first heard this term a few weeks ago, so probably after Jeremy noticed it. Anyway, I thought it was a slightly silly term because it really doesn't mean anything, and some of the things it points out have existed for a while.

A quick search on Google confirms that this word exists on the Internet at least 2.2 million times. It seems that it is already too late to prevent its existence.

However, it is not too late for me to scorn anyone who uses it :-). But don't worry, I don't scorn anyone (unless they burn down my village and rape my fields, but that's another story).

OK, so let's tear this word apart. Firstly, let's take the definition of "reality". Well, reality is simply something that exists, i.e. it is not in the imagination. Seeing as any technology that exists is not simply imaginary, that makes the "reality" part of the term redundant, but still useful (i.e. we know it's not augmented imagination, which is something TV seems to do [and sometimes the opposite]).

Then we have "augmented". To augment is to make something greater in size, quantity or extent. I would go further to say that it means to make something better, or more useful as well. I.e. to augment my studies, I might decide (for some really stupid reason) to actually read my textbook (which is another stupid word if you think about it).

OK, so "Augmented Reality" looks like it should mean "something that makes your reality better". Right, like having a girlfriend. That would make my reality better than being single (though other people might have a different opinion). So really, I've been augmenting my reality since I was born. Right... so everything we do, achieve, learn, make, etc. augments our reality. So what does this term exist for?

According to Wikipedia, AR "is term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with-, or augmented by virtual computer-generated imagery - creating a mixed reality. The augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements.".

Now, that really is a load of cobblers. A hacked together definition which doesn't really mean anything.

But basically, what they are talking about, is that AR is any computing technology which visually changes the real world environment. So chrome hubcaps are not AR, but they would be if they had a computer chip in them. Really, it's just a word to make something that has existed since the beginning of computers, sound all modern, new, and interesting. What it really achieves is help twist logic into insignificant pieces. Or more succinctly, it floccinaucinihilipilificates our language.

Taking the term literally, "Augmented Reality" would mean to me to be anything which enhances our reality. So, the wheel, being a technology (they were invented by humans), is a fine example of AR. It allows us to travel from place to place much faster, while carrying much more stuff (food, humanlings, water etc.). This allows us to live longer and have bigger families while travelling from place to place, where we haven't yet hunted mammoths into extinction.

I'm sick of all these terms, about "new and exciting stuff" which is nothing more than a simple increment on previously available technology. It's like calling a fork with 4 prongs and excitingly new improvement on a fork with 3 prongs. I.e. anyone could have come up with it, it's not new and exciting, and it certainly doesn't deserve a new name.

Now please wait while I go and augment my reality with a cigarette.

Poem: Caring

2009-09-17T17:39:00.007+12:00

And another poem... I might edit it later if I feel like it, but here it is in all its raw glory.

I Care

I care, more than you'll ever know
When you hurt, I suffer
When you cry, it freezes my soul
And your anger is a horrid blow.
Sometimes I am your buffer,
A container for your feelings,
And your leftover peelings.

And sometimes I do something wrong
Something I don't even realise
How much it can hurt.
But you should know how long
I think about the ties
That are sometimes breaking
And the new one's we're making.

So if it looks like I'm blind
It's because I really am.
So explain and let me know
Because I can't read your mind
Don't let our feelings jam
Or jar and collide with great force.
Let us discuss and fix at the source.

Heh, and a Haiku version as well (I'm not going to do this everytime, but it was pretty easy for this one.

Don't always blame me
Please don't blame yourself either
Just tell me what's wrong.

Buzzword: Web 2.0

2009-09-08T08:00:00.008+12:00

Yesterday I tried to convince myself to write "e-diary" instead of "blog". Unfortunately, I have failed in this grand crusade of valour, and succumbed to the language of the Internet. Well, slightly.

Now, there is one term which has been around for a couple of years which really annoys me. This horribly dastardly term is of course "Web 2.0", and there is another one coming up called "Web 3.0". These are complete misnomers for a variety of reasons:

The Web does not have version numbers. It simply doesn't. The Web exists. It like saying "Human 2.0" just because we worked out new ways not to cause conflict with each other.
Secondly, there is no proper definition as to what "Web 2.0" actually is. There are a bunch of services that have appeared recently, such as Twitter, Facebook, Digg, etc. which linguistically challenged people have decided to give this horrible term to. However, almost all of these are based on technologies that have been around for decades.
Thirdly, it simply just sounds stupid. That's a good enough reason in itself not to use a term. It's like the term "going forward" which has slunk its way into the vocabulary of MBAs. "Going forward" is of course simply a dismissive term said by business people when they have no idea what they're talking about and want to move onto something else.

It would be in the benefit of all humankind if we were to stop making use (or rather, making abuse) of this term. There is no such thing as Web 2.0.

Update: 10 September 2009

A more detailed argument

We have to remember that the Web was invented by Tim Berners Lee whilst he was working at CERN, a nuclear research organisation in Switzerland. So in my opinion, I consider him, and the W3C to be the final authority on anything with the word "Web" in it.

So for the record, Tim Berners Lee has said that he thinks "Web 2.0 is, of course, a piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it means" while he was being interviewed by Scott Laningham of IBM. Scott is a podcast editor for developerWorks, which is a department of IBM.

Now, the term "Web 2.0" was coined by Darcy DiNucci in an article entitled "Fragmented Future" in 1999. However, this term did not come into common usage until 2003, and I myself didn't hear about it until 2004/2005. At the time, I just assumed it was another stupid term that would drop out of common usage.

Unfortunately, the term did not drop out of common usage, and has been espoused by bloggers aplenty and newspapers with technology writers who don't know anything about, or really understand technology in any depth. Technology writers are getting better, I admit, but every so often, I see articles on Stuff, BBC, Time etc. which completely miss the point. This becomes even worse when articles are about science.

As Alexander Pope said in "An Essay on Criticism" in 1709, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Which is true. It basically means, that people who don't fully understand a subject area, are bound to make very silly mistakes, and completely misunderstand the point, unless they thoroughly investigate the issue.

Now, journalists are very good at investigating political and business issues, as they have been doing that for hundreds of years now. However, technology changes so fast, with new terms and science appearing all the time, that they don't have time to keep up, without a dedicated team, and with the current decline in newspapers, this situation will probably get worse.

But that is beside the point. The point is that "Web 2.0" was a term invented by people who don't understand technology. Those that do understand, such as Tim Berners Lee, abhor such silly terms. I know many programmers, and web developers who also dislike this term quite a lot.

But the uninitiated would still like to use this term, and thus, it has been plastered unseemingly in the most prestigious of publications, including Time Magazine.

Poem: Life

2009-09-07T19:42:00.011+12:00

OK, something at last to write in my e-diary (blog? what blog?)

This is something I've always known, but haven't quite had time to practise. Practice? Who needs to practise? Who needs to have practice?

Life

Life is there to live
There is no reason to take
But many reasons to give
We can walk a thousand miles
And give out ten thousand smiles

Or we could run fast until we're old
Earning, working, taking, forsaking
Until we have built mountains of gold
Which we can sit upon as we die
Look at all we have built, and cry

Is it not better to slow down?
Take the time to stop at a lake?
Or stop and take in a small town?
Practise being peaceful and calm,
And take your true love in your arm.

We don't have much time,
For hurrying while time is flying:
Waste your life to earn a dime.
Or you can live without being stressed
And you will be truly blessed.

Haiku Version?

Slowing down your pace
Life becomes worth it again
The future is now.

I now do keep a written diary. Yep, I use this thing called a book, bound with leather. I have another interesting device, known as a "pen". It allows me to write things down without a computer!!

9:11 PM

Just realised that my poem adds punctuation after the first two stanzas. It was an accident, but I will keep it like that anyway...

Fresh Start

2009-04-08T19:32:00.002+12:00

Time to delete my blog. It was mostly about politics, and I don't want it to be about politics, so I have deleted all my posts - I couldn't be bothered sieving through them.

I hope there's nothing important that I wrote about that I'll now forget! My fault for not keeping a written diary I suppose.