Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 18:44:50 +0100 (BST) From: Duncan Barclay <dmlb@ragnet.demon.co.uk> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: nik@iii.co.uk, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG, itojun@itojun.org Subject: Re: internationalization Message-ID: <XFMail.980612184450.dmlb@computer.my.domain> In-Reply-To: <199806121619.JAA08857@usr02.primenet.com>
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On 12-Jun-98 Terry Lambert wrote: >> > > The origins of Kanji as an ideogrammatic writing system owe more to >> > > the need for Imperial China to control the availability of persistent >> > > information available to Chinese Serfs in support of a feudal society >> > > than they do to their information density compared to alphabetic >> > > writing systems. >> > >> > I have absolutely nothing to add to the discussion, I just want to >> > hold up the above paragraph as a shining example of why I like these >> > mailing lists so much :-) >> >> I agree, I tend to save more of Terry's articles for the >> non-computing content than those of other people (as well as saving >> many for the computing content of course)! > > I don't know if I'm supposed to be flattered or offended... I thought > that the information density of Kanji was relevent. ;-). > It was meant as a compliment, and I do keep ypur filesystem stuff too...:-) >> Terry, how do you manage to keep all this in your head, or are you a >> more advanced version of the JKH Tcl script with AltaVista plug in? > > No one can rival Jordan... he's a much better humorist than I will > probably ever be. > > Some people watch television; I read. A lot. At one point in time, I > actually ran out of science fiction books to read at my local Carnegie > Free Library (the Weber County Library at the time), and had to start > on the history and biography sections. I think I almost read all the SiFi too when I was younger (much smaller local community library). So I started on the real science, lots of astronomy and stuff. Most was a bit too far above my head at the time (about 12 to 14). I especially remember a little white book which talked about trains and clocks and gravity etc. I could cope with the first few chapters (even now I can only get through the first few of the General Relativity chapters) but I had problem with what I thought were complex square roots. In the book the square roots in the Lorentz transforms were printed using a capital I as 1 (e.g. sqrt (I-v^2/c^2)). I had heard that I was to do with complex numbers and I was really confused...What's nice is that I bought a re-print of the same edition about a year ago. > Thankfully, more science fiction > arrived before I ran out of biographies. For scale, I personally own > around 3500 books which I have read, and very few of them overlap with > what was in the library at the time. > > I think people should read more; if you're going to be antisocial, do > it with a book instead of a television. 8-). > I have sort of started a small collection of victorian encylcopedias, great fun, and give a great historical perspective on engineering! Duncan --- ________________________________________________________________________ Duncan Barclay | God smiles upon the little children, dmlb@ragnet.demon.co.uk | the alcoholics, and the permanently stoned. ________________________________________________________________________ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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