Latin, the Enlightenment, and science
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From: Peter T. Daniels on 28 Dec 2009 17:09 On Dec 28, 4:46 pm, Ruud Harmsen <r...(a)rudhar.eu> wrote: > Mon, 28 Dec 2009 11:05:17 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels" > <gramma...(a)verizon.net>: in sci.lang: > > >What ape has "acquired language"? > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Macaques (which are monkeys, > not apes) have accents: > === > Also in recent studies, it has been found that the Japanese Macaque > can develop different accents, like humans. It was found that macaques > in areas separated by only a couple hundred miles can have very > different pitches in their calls, their form of communication. > /=== > > (But no reference is mentioned.) That's hardly news (see also .localized calls within bird species). But what does it have to do with a monkey having language?
From: Adam Funk on 28 Dec 2009 17:01 On 2009-12-28, Peter T. Daniels wrote: > On Dec 28, 5:01 am, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...(a)csuohio.edu> wrote: >> It's almost certainly a problem with Google Groups. If >> Peter would break down and get a decent news client, he'd >> not have the problem. > > Yet somehow Google Groups managed to show the letters a few minutes > later. > > None of the newsgroup-snobs has ever explained what's _wrong_ with > google groups. Not true. You just don't like the explanations. http://al.howardknight.net/msgid.cgi?ID=120829004500 http://improve-usenet.org/ > Just as the internet snobs never used to explain what was wrong with > AOL. That's good, coming from someone who regularly impugns the qualifications and right to post of people he disagrees with. > (I think it was nice of them to be constantly sending free blank > diskettes to people.) As if we didn't produce too much landfill already? -- I worry that 10 or 15 years from now, [my daughter] will come to me and say 'Daddy, where were you when they took freedom of the press away from the Internet?' [Mike Godwin, EFF http://www.eff.org/ ]
From: Peter Moylan on 28 Dec 2009 17:22 On 29/12/09 08:46, Ruud Harmsen wrote: > Mon, 28 Dec 2009 11:05:17 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels" > <grammatim(a)verizon.net>: in sci.lang: > >> What ape has "acquired language"? > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Macaque s (which are monkeys, > not apes) have accents: > === > Also in recent studies, it has been found that the Japanese Macaque > can develop different accents, like humans. It was found that macaques > in areas separated by only a couple hundred miles can have very > different pitches in their calls, their form of communication. > /=== Many animals communicate. Monkeys and apes are special only in that they have a richer set of symbols than most other animals. It's a question, I suppose, of how you define a language. In my opinion, once you have communication you have a language. Even if dogs had only one kind of bark, that would be a one-symbol language. (In practice, of course, we know that dogs do better than that.) No doubt there will always be those who will claim that if it's not a _human_ language, it's not a language. If we ever meet beings more advanced than us, they might well have the same attitude towards our own grunts and squawks. -- Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org For an e-mail address, see my web page.
From: António Marques on 28 Dec 2009 17:25 On 28 Dez, 22:01, Adam Funk <a24...(a)ducksburg.com> wrote: > On 2009-12-28, Peter T. Daniels wrote: > > None of the newsgroup-snobs has ever explained what's _wrong_ with > > google groups. > > Not true. You just don't like the explanations. > > http://al.howardknight.net/msgid.cgi?ID=120829004500 > > http://improve-usenet.org/ The first of those is far from building coherent/valid arguments and the second is simply abuse (except for its link to the first).
From: António Marques on 28 Dec 2009 17:47
On 28 Dez, 21:51, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: > On Dec 28, 2:55 pm, António Marques <antonio...(a)sapo.pt> wrote: > > > > > Peter T. Daniels wrote (28-12-2009 19:00): > > > > On Dec 28, 10:31 am, António Marques<antonio...(a)sapo.pt> wrote: > > >> Peter T. Daniels wrote (28-12-2009 12:29): > > > >>> On Dec 28, 5:01 am, "Brian M. Scott"<b.sc...(a)csuohio.edu> wrote: > > >>>> On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:40:47 +1300, PaulJK > > >>>> <paul.kr...(a)paradise.net.nz> wrote in > > >>>> <news:hh9nbf$ejq$1(a)news.eternal-september.org> in > > >>>> sci.math,sci.physics,sci.lang,alt.usage.english,alt.philosophy: > > >>>>> Peter T. Daniels wrote: > > >>>>>> On Dec 27, 3:49 pm, "Brian M. Scott"<b.sc...(a)csuohio.edu> wrote: > > >>>>>> Whatever you recently did to "fix" your encoding has > > >>>>>> resulted in blank spaces where you typed funny letters. > > >>>>> No, it's posted with Content-Type: text/plain; > > >>>>> charset="iso-8859-1" I don't think the problem was caused > > >>>>> by his last mod farther down the list of formats. > > > >>>> It's almost certainly a problem with Google Groups. If > > >>>> Peter would break down and get a decent news client, he'd > > >>>> not have the problem. > > > >>> Yet somehow Google Groups managed to show the letters a few minutes > > >>> later. > > > >>> None of the newsgroup-snobs has ever explained what's _wrong_ with > > >>> google groups. > > > >> I don't see that there is much wrong with GG from the POV of who doesn't use > > >> GG (whereas Outlook has a number of bugs, after all these years, that can > > >> disrupt other people's experience of the 'news'). The problem with GG is > > >> that it's a pain to use, though I don't know of any web interface that > > >> isn't, and the occasional weird behaviour - the inconsistency you mention > > >> above being a good example.- > > > > How is it a pain to use? I go to the url for "My Groups," it shows me > > > the list of the 5 groups I visit and whether there are any new > > > messages since last time; I click on a group name and it gives me a > > > list of the last 30 threads most recently posted to, with the number > > > of new messages since last time; I click on a thread and it opens the > > > message-tree on the left and the earliest unread message on the right.. > > > What could be a pain about that? How could some other interface do it > > > any more simply? > > > Well, compare mine. I open 'Mail & Newsgroups', it shows me there are 219 > > unread messages on sci.lang. I click on sci.lang, it opens the message-tree, > > same Not the same - GG isn't instantaneous. > > showing only unread messages. I see a lot of them are in 'Magdalenian > > different -- gg shows who/what the new messages are responding to Oh, mine can too. I just don't care for that. > > experiment (continuation)'. I press K and suddenly 'Magdalenian experiment > > (continuation)' disappears for good, lowering the number of unread messages > > to 170 (it will never appear again unless I want to). Then, I see most of > > if I never click on the Magdalenian thread, I never see more about it > tnan how many unread messages there are since the last time I visited > groups (not how many messages I've never read -- that would be in the > hundreds). I look at the thread if Panu has posted something. I'll admit it, I only don't kill some threads because there's a chance someone known may post something to it some time. I like to look at the screen and only see what I choose to. > > the messages are old and in threads that aren't likely to be interesting. I > > select them all using ctrl and shift, press R, and they're all marked as > > read. That leaves some 30-odd messages I can read sequentially by pressing > > space to advance one page at a time. All this happens instantly. And I can > > different -- I scroll through messages 10 at a time. The unread > messages are shown in full, the old ones just as headers until I click > on one (or on "Expand All," which shows all 10.) Yeah, it's not unreasonable. > > reply simultaneously to all the messages I want, save replies if they're not > > finished yet, reread how many messages I wish, and so on, not having to > > worry about anything 'going away'. And in recent times I've gone as far as > > creating some filters to automatically delete messages from certain > > uninteresting folks so I don't lose any time looking at them (I've resisted > > doing that for a long time, but alas it had to be).- > > No killfiling here. > > Regarding the minor differences identified, it seems to me GG handles > them better. You *do* seem to like it, at least. You did use a real newsreader for years before and you've had the chance to revert to it. |