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8201

Living Room / Re: A Point About Grammar

« Last post by Renegade on March 03, 2011, 07:19 PM »

OMG I think I know... who is this sadist? 

-timns (March 03, 2011, 06:17 PM)

Answer

The second "the" is the first error.

But there is no second error, so the title is wrong. But if the title is correct, then it isn't an error, and the only error is the first error, which means there is only 1 error, which makes the title wrong because it states that there are 2 errors when there is only 1.

So, is there 1 error or are there 2 errors?

This nicely shows how some statements do not have truth values.

e.g. Green ideas sleep furiously.

There is no truth value for that. It's simply nonsense.

(Ok, there's more to the debate than that, but whatever -- it's a good enough answer.)

8202

Living Room / Re: A Point About Grammar

« Last post by Renegade on March 03, 2011, 07:11 PM »

D'oh! Of course, it's a grammatical trick:

It should be "There IS Two Errors"

-timns (March 03, 2011, 06:10 PM)

Hahahah~! Nope. Verb-number agreement demands that it be "are".

8203

Living Room / Re: A Point About Grammar

« Last post by Renegade on March 03, 2011, 06:07 PM »

I can see one of the the errors straight away.

-timns (March 03, 2011, 05:59 PM)

That right there is a clue to the other error.

-mwb1100 (March 03, 2011, 06:06 PM)

And interestingly enough, your hint is somewhat misleading, which is another hint in itself.

8204

Living Room / Re: A Point About Grammar

« Last post by Renegade on March 03, 2011, 06:06 PM »

I can see one of the the errors straight away. Anyone got any ideas about the other one?

-timns (March 03, 2011, 05:59 PM)

Hehehe! The first thing you see is straight forward. The next issue is perhaps a bit more insidious. Read very carefully again. You'll love it once you see it.

8205

Living Room / Re: Soundwave 2011 in Melbourne

« Last post by Renegade on March 03, 2011, 06:04 PM »

How about you get me the ticket, and the plane ticket I need to get over to Melbourne, and I'll go with you?

-worstje (March 03, 2011, 06:01 PM)

You'd probably be a tad late as it's today, and starting right now. (And it's raining... Oh well... Maybe Slayer will play "Raining Blood". )

8206

Living Room / Re: A Point About Grammar

« Last post by Renegade on March 03, 2011, 05:52 PM »

The clowning around is reminding me of this:



Very fun book, it is.

Little linguistic tricks and whatnot can be a lot of fun.

From "Ratspike":

I went to the pictures tomorrow,
I took a front seat at the back.
I fell from the floor to the ceiling,
And broke the front bone in my back.

I went round a straight crooked corner,
I saw a dead donkey die.
I pulled out my pistol to stab him,
And he kicked me in the eye.

8207

Living Room / Re: Soundwave 2011 in Melbourne

« Last post by Renegade on March 03, 2011, 05:46 PM »

I guess that's a no.

8208

Living Room / Re: A Point About Grammar

« Last post by Renegade on March 03, 2011, 06:53 AM »

On that topic though, one uncountable noun that has crept into being a countable noun that I find somewhat irritating is "beers". It's like "waters". It contracts "X bottles of beer" or "X glasses of beer" into "beers". It just seems like a sloppy bastardization to me.

-Renegade (March 02, 2011, 06:26 PM)

So does that mean you'd be against me buying you a beer?

-app103 (March 03, 2011, 06:12 AM)

Oddly, that seems perfectly natural. The plural contraction doesn't. So sure, you can buy me a beer anytime~!

8209

Living Room / Re: A Point About Grammar

« Last post by Renegade on March 02, 2011, 09:25 PM »

Can I just make a comment about the word "alot?"

It's not a word at all  

-timns (March 02, 2011, 09:18 PM)

My pet peeve that drives me batty is hearing people (that are supposed to be somewhat intelligent, or at the least sentient) screw up number agreement. e.g. "There is 20 posts above." Ahem... "are" perhaps?

1. Not 1. 1. Not 1. Pretty simple, or at least you'd think so.

8210

General Software Discussion / Re: DVCS ?

« Last post by Renegade on March 02, 2011, 08:52 PM »

Which integrates best with Visual Studio?

8211

General Software Discussion / Re: Any XML gui tools out there?

« Last post by Renegade on March 02, 2011, 07:46 PM »

I have that feeling of deja vu... there was a similar thread recently and I think we mentioned such things as XSLT

I bet there's a few folks who could give you a hand with setting up a stylesheet, and once it's all set up, re-use and customisation should be a piece of cake. While falling off a log.

-timns (March 02, 2011, 07:03 PM)

I don't know of any good, easy tools for XSLT development.

If the XML files are all the same type, then once you create the XSLT, you're good to go forever. However, if they are all different types, then you will need 1 XLST for each type.

But do check for XSL authoring tools as there might be something out there. I've done it by hand in the past, and don't know of any user-friendly authoring tools, but it doesn't mean they aren't out there.

8212

Living Room / Re: A Point About Grammar

« Last post by Renegade on March 02, 2011, 07:24 PM »

Either way I have heard the news folk screw it up.

-Stoic Joker (March 02, 2011, 05:52 PM)

And just why is it <pause> that news folk feel <pause> the need to inject <pause> inappropriate pauses <pause> into almost every sentence spoken??? 

-cranioscopical (March 02, 2011, 07:04 PM)

Their language buffers in their brains are too small, and they can't double buffer, so you get choppy playback.

8213

Site/Forum Features / Re: Fundraiser ONE-A-DAY Planning Calendar, Please Volunteer

« Last post by Renegade on March 02, 2011, 06:34 PM »

i vote for b -- there are lots of regex tutorials already.

-mouser (March 02, 2011, 02:33 PM)

^You c(a)n never (h)ave enough (i)nformation on (regex)~! Regu(l)ar expressions are more than just a tool... They are divine instruments deserving of praise and worship~(!) $


$1 $2$1$3$5 $4$6

8214

Living Room / Re: A Point About Grammar

« Last post by Renegade on March 02, 2011, 06:26 PM »

This just seems bizarre...

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_noun[/url]^w

I've read a LOT of books on grammar, and NEVER seen that. They have ALWAYS used "countable" to describe it.

Maybe it's an American English thing or is a newer term. Dunno.

On that topic though, one uncountable noun that has crept into being a countable noun that I find somewhat irritating is "beers". It's like "waters". It contracts "X bottles of beer" or "X glasses of beer" into "beers". It just seems like a sloppy bastardization to me.

8215

Living Room / Re: A Point About Grammar

« Last post by Renegade on March 02, 2011, 05:42 PM »

I'm curious about one thing in the original post - what's the problem with "mass nouns"?

-mwb1100 (March 02, 2011, 05:28 PM)

It's a matter of proper jargon and using the correct term. It would be like calling a hard drive a "stiff drive".

8216

Living Room / Re: A Stupid Reason to Hate Google Ads...

« Last post by Renegade on March 02, 2011, 07:34 AM »

Sigh... Such a pain...

The frustrating thing is that they KNOW what I'm interested in, and serve those kinds of ads up to me, but if I click, I'm the bad guy. Hhahahahaha~! It's kind of funny actually.

8217

Living Room / A Stupid Reason to Hate Google Ads...

« Last post by Renegade on March 02, 2011, 06:34 AM »

I'm building a site, and have Google ads there. Visiting other sites, I've clicked on a few ads, and now the ads on the site I'm working on are REALLY tempting to click on, but that's against the rules.

With some of them being only graphical ads (images), I can't tell the URL, so I can't visit them. And they're so tempting. Sigh...

Yep. A stupid reason.

8218

Developer's Corner / Re: Discussion of CMS suggestions for the DC software directory

« Last post by Renegade on March 02, 2011, 06:18 AM »

As you say -- a key part has to be that multiple people can be given permission to keep it updated -- and that authors can manage their own entries.

-mouser (March 02, 2011, 05:56 AM)

PAD would help let authors keep their own title updated.

Add in some XSLT, and wow... Smoking hot super-sexy ultra-cool stuff~!

8219

Developer's Corner / Re: Discussion of CMS suggestions for the DC software directory

« Last post by Renegade on March 02, 2011, 06:16 AM »

Ah... I thought you meant a directory wider than DC.

As for security issues in PADkit, that's why I said backend. It's a good code base to start with.

But as for 2 files? No. That's not the case.

To be honest, PAD is still a good option though. The key is the PAD extensions, where you can define whatever you want in addition to PAD. Pretty much most software developers know PAD to some degree, and there's already PADgen ready to go. All that would be required is adding in an extension, and that can be done in pure HTML. (You need to know PCRE though - Perl Compatible Regular Expressions - but those are pretty easy. No back references or groups or anything like that needed.)

So you'd have an authoring tool already done and ready to go!

(PAD really is much more powerful than most people understand, and it's entirely because it's XML.)


For just DC programs, like coding snacks, PAD could still make things easier with a defined workflow.


If you want to come up with some customizations (additions a la PAD extensions), tell me what they are and I'll see if I can come up with a PAD extension that works.

People could then just use PADgen and the DC PAD extension to author the files for you. It's a great way to off-load some work and be productive on other important things.

I have a deep love for XML and PAD. It's just amazing stuff. It would be great fun for me to come up with a DC PAD extension. (I've done a lot of work with data sets, including mucked-up data, and I'm sure I can help out here.)

Basically, don't reinvent the wheel. PAD has the infrastructure already there. Using it will save massive amounts of time.

8220

Developer's Corner / Re: Discussion of CMS suggestions for the DC software directory

« Last post by Renegade on March 02, 2011, 04:39 AM »

Renegade, thanks for the suggestion, but I think that might be way over my head. I am not a web coder and really can't handle that kind of stuff. I can handle html & css, adding plugins, ripping out or deactivating unnecessary stuff, but the moment I have to start writing any php code beyond an include, this project is unbuttered burnt toast.

Additionally, ASP has stopped distributing PADkit...

The Association of Software Professionals has temporarily stopped distributing PADKit, due to unresolved security issues, and spaming of PADKit based web sites.

A new PAD Specification and PADGen (PAD file authoring tool) have already been released.

A new PADKit may follow at a later date.

- http://pad.asp-software.org/padkit.php

I am also not looking for something that would require every app to have a PAD file in order to be included (most of the apps here don't have one), and some of the info I want to include about each app is not in the PAD specification and very specific to DC.

-app103 (March 02, 2011, 03:24 AM)

Hmmm... Not being able to code there is a problem. If you could find some help, I'd still recommend PADkit. I know that I have it laying around somewhere. I'll see if I can dig up a copy.

Regarding:

I am also not looking for something that would require every app to have a PAD file in order to be included (most of the apps here don't have one), and some of the info I want to include about each app is not in the PAD specification and very specific to DC.

I think you're missing the point of PAD. It's an XML specification, so it's trivial to modify, and even includes an extension method. PADkit would also be easy to modify there to include DC specific items.

The thing is that you could get access to a LOT of good programs, and all the information for them. The amount of work involved in creating the content would be a fraction of what it would be otherwise.

Another option is to simply use any kind of directory software for some CMS, then write something to pull in content from PAD files into the database. DNN has a repository that would work. There are others too of course. Going that route, you could easily avoid any web programming as all you'd need to do is write some software in any language (we all know you can code!) that creates the correct set of SQL INSERT statements to enter the information into the database.

8221

Developer's Corner / Re: Discussion of CMS suggestions for the DC software directory

« Last post by Renegade on March 02, 2011, 03:15 AM »

I'd recommend going with PADkit to start for some basic functionality. Rip it apart and build from there, but do yourself a favor and start with some ready code to ease the burden. It's not a CMS, but it has large sections of functionality that are useful. I'd say it would make a good start. The database and data access stuff in it would be good to plug into another CMS. Or, you could simply use PADkit on the back end and write a new data access layer for it. That would free you up to use different platforms, though you would likely still be tied to MySQL, which isn't a big deal as it's a good database and most CMSes support it.

8222

Living Room / Re: A Point About Grammar

« Last post by Renegade on March 02, 2011, 12:34 AM »

Do you find the same thing? That there's an increasing amount of content with poor grammar? It seems to be getting worse and worse. Like I said, the occasional blooper is ok, but all the time?

8223

Site/Forum Features / Re: Fundraiser ONE-A-DAY Planning Calendar, Please Volunteer

« Last post by Renegade on March 02, 2011, 12:32 AM »

Reviews are tough to do. So, got a couple questions...

* Reviews that are more task-based? e.g. You want to do X, so use Y, and do Z. etc.
* Reviews by authors? Everyone knows the strengths and weaknesses of their own software, so it's much easier to write about.

I'd like to do some, but am worried that I simply can't commit the time needed for a review that would be as thorough as I would want. e.g. Evaluating compression, encryption, imaging, video, or audio software is simply a massive task as those fields are SOOOOO well developed, that you really need to get down & dirty to say anything useful. (For example, see maximumcompression.com -- It's done very well, but the effort there is gargantuan.)

8224

Living Room / Soundwave 2011 in Melbourne

« Last post by Renegade on March 01, 2011, 09:51 PM »

Is anyone here going to Soundwave here in Melbourne?

8225

Living Room / A Point About Grammar

« Last post by Renegade on March 01, 2011, 08:43 PM »

Am I the only one that's annoyed by the seemingly decreasing quality of language in "professional" news, articles and general writing?

I really don't care about people making mistakes in forums or informal writing. A lot of people don't speak English as their first language, and that's not a problem. What I find annoying is "professional" media that simply don't know how to use English properly.

e.g.
* Statistical "outlyers". It's "outliers". Sigh...
* "mass nouns" -- They're called "countable" and "uncountable", not "mass".
* Verb agreement

The list goes on and on.

It's just jarring to get "hit" by grammar, spelling, and word choice mistakes that there really is no excuse for.

It's one thing for it to be "the odd time", but it's not. It's all the time.

Am I just super-anal? Is poor grammar really acceptable in professional media?