Re: Pi Forums

This is to about 6 people. Many thanks for your efforts on my behalf and your replies. I'm feeling rather weary as I haven't had my after lunch nap and will be getting ready for bed after this. I'll read your replies more carefully tomorrow and hope to get the RPi connected up again. It's not easy as SWMBO gets very concerned when she sees me doing anything that requires mental or physical effort, so I try to do it very early in the morning. (I had a slight stroke recently.)

I'm a bit of a nit-picker, so I like John's comment about the spelling of "complement".

Frank

I can never aspire to be as good a writer as Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson, W. C. Fields or any number of worthy gentlefolk who despised spellling. Although the actual provenance of the genre of quotes that contain the meme "I have nothing but contempt for anyone who can spell a word only one way" is unknown, I take it as a truism. At best it demonstrates a lack of imagination.  I do believe that it is a skill [?] which will go the way of the buggywhip industry as spell checkers continue to encompass an ever increasing share of the written word.

Michael Tria wrote:

 

I can never aspire to be as good a writer as Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson, W. C. Fields or any number of worthy gentlefolk who despised spellling. Although the actual provenance of the genre of quotes that contain the meme "I have nothing but contempt for anyone who can spell a word only one way" is unknown, I take it as a truism. At best it demonstrates a lack of imagination.  I do believe that it is a skill [?] which will go the way of the buggywhip industry as spell checkers continue to encompass an ever increasing share of the written word.

The problem with a spell-checker is that it doesn't know the difference between "compliment" ("nice hat!") and "complement" (that which completes).  Newpapers nowadays no longer have spelling errors or "etaoin shrdlu" but you see phrases repeated see phrases repeated and <figure caption goes here>.

Here's my favorite Mark Twain quote regarding spelling (from memory, may be apocryphal):

Good spelling is important.  I knew a man who spent a night in a Warehouse because he couldn't spell.

Mark Twain also said (again from memory): "The man who refuses to read Good Books does nothing to distinguish himself from the man who cannot."  The quote also works if you substitute "Documentation" for "Good Books", or substitute "spell properly" for "read Good Books".

OTOH, Mark Twain also said (still from memory): "A Classic is a book everybody talks about but nobody reads".  I assume he wrote this before his own books became classics.

but you see phrases repeated see phrases repeated

For fun, try googling for "the the" at this site.

It gives something like 3,510 results.

I am far more concerned that some 3/4 of the US population can not take a percentage, than I am that many can not tell the difference in the spelling of compliment and complement. The meaning of the latter can usually be determined from context, while the former is worse than useless. This is not simply a matter of general education. I was in the office of a neurologist some months ago, and was aghast at the measurement of height. Feet and inches were read from a rule on a wall. A calculator was brought up on a PC, and the feet and inches were converted to a decimal form. The height was then determined in feet and inches by construing the decimal part of the calculated result as the inches. So a person who was 5'10" tall, was calculated to be roughly 5.8', which was then converted to 5' 8" as the height. If you found that a bit difficult to follow, I don't blame you. Even the LPN knew that this was a gross mistake, but when I mentioned it to the neurologist, he became angry almost to the point of violence, so I walked out.

A couple of days ago there was discussion of the purpose of Raspberry Pi in education for all children. Some claims were made that the box should be used to teach concepts in computer science. If a person can not take a percentage, can not see the error in converting data to data one already had, how can they learn complex concepts? I won't say that there is no value to be had in the introduction of computers, but it won't be in the more arcane reaches of computer science or even software engineering.

Another example of a gross error was made by the FBI who took years to see a mistake that should have been spotted by any first year algebra student. If A=C and B=C then A=C. As a coralary, if A<>B and B=C then A<>C. Yet the FBI claimed the that if A<>C, but a B could be found that was sort of like A and sort of like C, the A=C,  and used it for the prosecution on slug analysis and evidence of bullet lot matching. Hundreds of cases are now being retried as the result of this blunder.

I am not a good writer, gramarian or speller. I supervised many trained in the physical sciences. I prefered those who could give me a rational though poorly written paper on why something was so or not so, than a perfectly written paper which made no sense. The latter work was of no value to me or anyone else.

Michael Tria wrote:

 

I am far more concerned that some 3/4 of the US population can not take a percentage

We live in a modern version of the feudal ages, in which the "peasants" have now been renamed consumers and the "nobles" are the bankers and various other categories of world elite.

The peasants are "whipped" every bit as hard as in earlier times, but with the very clever twist that the whips look like credit cards, and instead of slashes on their backs they lose their possessions which is much more profitable.  Gloriously, the peasants are entirely free to choose the items of consumption for which they will work their entire lives to increase the wealth of the nobles, and they're told at every opportunity that this is their excellent freedom.  It's a really slick and highly efficient system of servitude.

But peasants don't need to be able to understand maths and take percentages in order to work, consume, and increase their level of debt.  Indeed, being educated would make them extremely dangerous, they might understand compound interest and the flow of resources and start questioning the social system.  That would never do.

The statistic you're seeing isn't likely to change.  The system is working perfectly for its intended purpose.

It is amazing how close to Huxley's predictions life has become. I really hope it is recommended reading for schoolgoers (but I think it may not be).

Apart from books and maths/science, something else that as an engineer can be quite interesting (because of the logical reasoning) are the judgements from old judges. It is fascinating reading sometimes, because of how well and expressively the logic is explained often. For example this one is quite famous, it is about someone who was injured in a car park (i.e. was the car-park owner liable or not). The reasoning is really well written and actually fun to read (but maybe English Literature experts would frown at that).

This snippet concerns the parking ticket, and it has an elegant description of exactly when an event ocurred:

"...a ticket which is issued by an automatic machine. The customer pays his money and gets a ticket. He cannot refuse it. He cannot get his money back. He may protest to the machine, even swear at it. But it will remain unmoved. He is committed beyond recall. He was committed at the very moment when he put his money into the machine. The contract was concluded at that time" </snip>

That is indeed a very interesting analysis and a clear line of reasoning by Lord Dennning.

Unfortunately, putting your faith in judges is a gamble even if you are the epitome of purity and innocence.  For every amazing Lord Denning there might be 500 Judge Maldennings with a lesser command of logic, or worse, with more interest in legal technicalities than in social justice, or very much worse, with more interest in approval by their peers and paymasters than in rocking the establishment's boat.  Apart from Minority Report-type raids under the direction of RIAA, MPAA and similar commercial interests, the legal system in UK does implement a reasonable semblance of justice despite human imperfections, and this probably applies to much of EU as well.

It certainly could be worse.  At least we don't have the US system where justice is just a commodity to be purchased and suing people for settlements is a business profit stream.

PS. Our skills at making topics drift are sublime.

That is indeed a very interesting analysis and a clear line of reasoning by Lord Dennning.

Unfortunately, putting your faith in judges is a gamble even if you are the epitome of purity and innocence.  For every amazing Lord Denning there might be 500 Judge Maldennings with a lesser command of logic, or worse, with more interest in legal technicalities than in social justice, or very much worse, with more interest in approval by their peers and paymasters than in rocking the establishment's boat.  Apart from Minority Report-type raids under the direction of RIAA, MPAA and similar commercial interests, the legal system in UK does implement a reasonable semblance of justice despite human imperfections, and this probably applies to much of EU as well.

It certainly could be worse.  At least we don't have the US system where justice is just a commodity to be purchased and suing people for settlements is a business profit stream.

PS. Our skills at making topics drift are sublime.