[gentoo-user] Checksum error

[gentoo-user] Checksum error

[meino.cramer]

Hi,

I am currently doing a python-updater run. While the rebuilding
of the several packages the process failed with

    >>> Downloading 'http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/berkeley-db/db/update/4.7.25/patch.4.7.25.4'
    --2009-10-11 10:57:48--  http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/berkeley-db/db/update/4.7.25/patch.4.7.25.4
    Resolving www.oracle.com... 80.157.150.10, 80.157.150.33
    Connecting to www.oracle.com|80.157.150.10|:80... connected.
    HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
    Length: 5647 (5.5K) [application/octet-stream]
    Saving to: `/usr/portage/distfiles/patch.4.7.25.4'
    
    100%[====================================================================================================================>] 5,647       --.-K/s   in 0.04s
    
    2009-10-11 10:57:48 (135 KB/s) - `/usr/portage/distfiles/patch.4.7.25.4' saved [5647/5647]
    
    ('Filesize does not match recorded size', 5647L, 5500)
    !!! Fetched file: patch.4.7.25.4 VERIFY FAILED!
    !!! Reason: Filesize does not match recorded size
    !!! Got:      5647
    !!! Expected: 5500
    Refetching... File renamed to '/usr/portage/distfiles/patch.4.7.25.4._checksum_failure_.B3kSP2'



How can I proceed?

Have a nice weekend!
Best regards,
mcc


-- 
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unless it's absolutely neccessary. - Send simply Text.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
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Re: [gentoo-user] Checksum error

[Dale]

meino.cramer@gmx.de wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am currently doing a python-updater run. While the rebuilding
> of the several packages the process failed with
>
>     >>> Downloading 'http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/berkeley-db/db/update/4.7.25/patch.4.7.25.4'
>     --2009-10-11 10:57:48--  http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/berkeley-db/db/update/4.7.25/patch.4.7.25.4
>     Resolving www.oracle.com... 80.157.150.10, 80.157.150.33
>     Connecting to www.oracle.com|80.157.150.10|:80... connected.
>     HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
>     Length: 5647 (5.5K) [application/octet-stream]
>     Saving to: `/usr/portage/distfiles/patch.4.7.25.4'
>     
>     100%[====================================================================================================================>] 5,647       --.-K/s   in 0.04s
>     
>     2009-10-11 10:57:48 (135 KB/s) - `/usr/portage/distfiles/patch.4.7.25.4' saved [5647/5647]
>     
>     ('Filesize does not match recorded size', 5647L, 5500)
>     !!! Fetched file: patch.4.7.25.4 VERIFY FAILED!
>     !!! Reason: Filesize does not match recorded size
>     !!! Got:      5647
>     !!! Expected: 5500
>     Refetching... File renamed to '/usr/portage/distfiles/patch.4.7.25.4._checksum_failure_.B3kSP2'
>
>
>
> How can I proceed?
>
> Have a nice weekend!
> Best regards,
> mcc
>
>
>   

You may want to re-sync.  Sometimes that works and is easy enough to do.
I guess files sort of cross paths and don't match.  Otherwise, check man
emerge.  There is a way to redigest the file.  Only do this if you trust
the source tho.  The reason for that check is to make sure you get a
unaltered file.

You could also try downloading from a different server too.  Could be
that the file is bad or corrupt in some way.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Checksum error

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Sonntag 11 Oktober 2009, meino.cramer@gmx.de wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am currently doing a python-updater run. While the rebuilding
> of the several packages the process failed with
> 
>     >>> Downloading
>     >>> 'http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/berkeley-db/db/update/4.
>     >>>7.25/patch.4.7.25.4'
> 
>     --2009-10-11 10:57:48-- 
>  http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/berkeley-db/db/update/4.7.25/pat
> ch.4.7.25.4 Resolving www.oracle.com... 80.157.150.10, 80.157.150.33
>     Connecting to www.oracle.com|80.157.150.10|:80... connected.
>     HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
>     Length: 5647 (5.5K) [application/octet-stream]
>     Saving to: `/usr/portage/distfiles/patch.4.7.25.4'
> 
>    
>  100%[=====================================================================
> ===============================================>] 5,647       --.-K/s   in
>  0.04s
> 
>     2009-10-11 10:57:48 (135 KB/s) -
>  `/usr/portage/distfiles/patch.4.7.25.4' saved [5647/5647]
> 
>     ('Filesize does not match recorded size', 5647L, 5500)
>     !!! Fetched file: patch.4.7.25.4 VERIFY FAILED!
>     !!! Reason: Filesize does not match recorded size
>     !!! Got:      5647
>     !!! Expected: 5500
>     Refetching... File renamed to
>  '/usr/portage/distfiles/patch.4.7.25.4._checksum_failure_.B3kSP2'
> 
> 
> 
> How can I proceed?
> 
> Have a nice weekend!
> Best regards,
> mcc
> 

sometimes upstream changes a packet without renaming it
sometimes a dowload is just corrupted.
sometimes a dev screwed up

what you can do:
remove the file, retry.
resync, remove the file and retry

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Albert Hopkins]

On Sun, 2009-10-11 at 11:58 +0200, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> sometimes upstream changes a packet without renaming it

This got me thinking. I've been hearing the word "packet" used a lot
lately to describe software.  I always think "is this a new thing or did
they mean 'package'?

I tried doing my own investigation.  Googling "software packet" returns
mostly software about network monitoring.  Googling "software package"
returns just what you'd expect.  Yet I've heard a few people lately
describe software as a "packet".  Did these people phonetically mis-hear
"package" as "packet"? Is this something new?  Sometimes I think to
correct these people but perhaps I'm the one who needs correcting?

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Sonntag 11 Oktober 2009, Albert Hopkins wrote:
> On Sun, 2009-10-11 at 11:58 +0200, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > sometimes upstream changes a packet without renaming it
> 
> This got me thinking. I've been hearing the word "packet" used a lot
> lately to describe software.  I always think "is this a new thing or did
> they mean 'package'?
> 
> I tried doing my own investigation.  Googling "software packet" returns
> mostly software about network monitoring.  Googling "software package"
> returns just what you'd expect.  Yet I've heard a few people lately
> describe software as a "packet".  Did these people phonetically mis-hear
> "package" as "packet"? Is this something new?  Sometimes I think to
> correct these people but perhaps I'm the one who needs correcting?
> 

Paket = packet
Paket = package

too lazy to remember which one is what.

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Justin]

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Albert Hopkins wrote:
> On Sun, 2009-10-11 at 11:58 +0200, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>> sometimes upstream changes a packet without renaming it
> 
> This got me thinking. I've been hearing the word "packet" used a lot
> lately to describe software.  I always think "is this a new thing or did
> they mean 'package'?
> 
I would say it is about just to many germans who are translating german
words literally into english and as the the german word for package is
"Paket" they come up with packet.


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Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Albert Hopkins]

On Sun, 2009-10-11 at 13:18 +0200, Justin wrote:
> I would say it is about just to many germans who are translating
> german
> words literally into english and as the the german word for package is
> "Paket" they come up with packet.

Oh wow I did not know that.  See I knew it had to have some reasonable
explanation.  Thanks for the education.

-a

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 11 October 2009 13:22:48 Albert Hopkins wrote:
> On Sun, 2009-10-11 at 13:18 +0200, Justin wrote:
> > I would say it is about just to many germans who are translating
> > german
> > words literally into english and as the the german word for package is
> > "Paket" they come up with packet.
> 
> Oh wow I did not know that.  See I knew it had to have some reasonable
> explanation.  Thanks for the education.


Well, at least now we know that English contains at least one word that is 
less ambiguous than the German equivalent.

I would not have thought it could be done.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Mick]

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On Sunday 11 October 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Sunday 11 October 2009 13:22:48 Albert Hopkins wrote:
> > On Sun, 2009-10-11 at 13:18 +0200, Justin wrote:
> > > I would say it is about just to many germans who are translating
> > > german
> > > words literally into english and as the the german word for package is
> > > "Paket" they come up with packet.
> >
> > Oh wow I did not know that.  See I knew it had to have some reasonable
> > explanation.  Thanks for the education.
>
> Well, at least now we know that English contains at least one word that is
> less ambiguous than the German equivalent.
>
> I would not have thought it could be done.

Packet in English is almost always correctly used to denote a format of 
network transmitted data (in the context of a conversation about IT and 
computers) which is routable:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_(information_technology)

The word packet also has other meanings like: a 'small amount of', a 'package 
of' and can be used in the context of money (one's salary or earnings), 
crisps, condoms, chewing-gums, etc.

Therefore the word packet can be ambiguous in English too, if the context in 
which it is mentioned is not known.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 11 October 2009 17:50:37 Mick wrote:
> On Sunday 11 October 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > On Sunday 11 October 2009 13:22:48 Albert Hopkins wrote:
> > > On Sun, 2009-10-11 at 13:18 +0200, Justin wrote:
> > > > I would say it is about just to many germans who are translating
> > > > german
> > > > words literally into english and as the the german word for package
> > > > is "Paket" they come up with packet.
> > >
> > > Oh wow I did not know that.  See I knew it had to have some reasonable
> > > explanation.  Thanks for the education.
> >
> > Well, at least now we know that English contains at least one word that
> > is less ambiguous than the German equivalent.
> >
> > I would not have thought it could be done.
> 
> Packet in English is almost always correctly used to denote a format of
> network transmitted data (in the context of a conversation about IT and
> computers) which is routable:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_(information_technology)
> 
> The word packet also has other meanings like: a 'small amount of', a
>  'package of' and can be used in the context of money (one's salary or
>  earnings), crisps, condoms, chewing-gums, etc.
> 
> Therefore the word packet can be ambiguous in English too, if the context
>  in which it is mentioned is not known.

Yes, I know all that. You missed the in-joke :-)

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Peter Humphrey]

On Sunday 11 October 2009 15:55:47 Alan McKinnon wrote:

> Well, at least now we know that English contains at least one word that is
> less ambiguous than the German equivalent.
>
> I would not have thought it could be done.

English contains many ambiguities, but if you know the current idiom they all 
disappear, or at least recede. The difficulty is in keeping up with the 
idiom. Personally, I prefer to rely on what I've known for the last 60 years 
or so and to hell with the trendies.

Things like "its" = "belonging to it"; "it's" = "it is".

-- 
Rgds
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[KH]

Justin schrieb:

> I would say it is about just to many germans who are translating german
> words literally into english and as the the german word for package is
> "Paket" they come up with packet.
> 

Hi,
This is OT:

I am sure I don't have the best English and I do a lot of faults. But in 
Germany *everybody* believes to speak English. Pleas correct things like 
packet / package. Bad translation can cause a lot of problems. (Also one 
can easily see if some news is only translated from English or if the 
network has a man down wherever.) Porsche for example told their 
employees not to use English for their work. Person A translated 
something from German into English and person B had to do it vis versa 
and half of the content was lost somewhere on the way.

Anyway this will become very OT ...

kh

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[KH]

Peter Humphrey schrieb:
> The difficulty is in keeping up with the
> idiom. Personally, I prefer to rely on what I've known for the last 60 years 
> or so and to hell with the trendies.
> 
> Things like "its" = "belonging to it"; "it's" = "it is".
> 

Hi,

how old are you? How is the oldest person on the list? But this is OT, too.

kh

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[KH]

KH schrieb:
> Peter Humphrey schrieb:
>> The difficulty is in keeping up with the
>> idiom. Personally, I prefer to rely on what I've known for the last 60 
>> years or so and to hell with the trendies.
>>
>> Things like "its" = "belonging to it"; "it's" = "it is".
>>
> 
> Hi,
> 
> how old are you? How is the oldest person on the list? But this is OT, too.
> 
> kh
> 
To correct myself (shame on me). Who is the oldest ...

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Neil Walker]

Mick wrote:
> Packet in English is almost always correctly used to denote a format of 
> network transmitted data (in the context of a conversation about IT and 
> computers) which is routable:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_(information_technology)
>
> The word packet also has other meanings like: a 'small amount of', a 'package 
> of' and can be used in the context of money (one's salary or earnings), 
> crisps, condoms, chewing-gums, etc.
>
> Therefore the word packet can be ambiguous in English too, if the context in 
> which it is mentioned is not known.
>   


Errrm ...... no ambiguity there.  That is just an illustration of it's use:
a packet of [data] [money (common use "pay packet")] [data] [crisps]
[condoms],
[chewing gum] [etc..]


Be lucky,

Neil
http://www.neilwalker.ws

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Philip Webb]

091011 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> Paket = packet ; Paket = package

Oh dear ! -- English calls such words 'false friends' !
My German-English dictionary (Langenscheidt) suggests E 'package' = G 'Pack',
while E 'packet' = G 'kleines Pack' or 'Päckchen'.

In English, a 'packet' calls to mind something in an envelope, eg a letter;
'package' brings a picture of something tied up with string, ie a parcel.
In computer English, a 'package' is eg Gentoo's 'app-arch/bzip2-1.0.5-r1';
a 'packet' is a fragment of a file sent through the Internet,
different packets possibly taking different routes to their destination,
where they are reassembled into the complete file.

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___,   Philip Webb
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|   Cities Centre, University of Toronto
TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'   purslowatchassdotutorontodotca

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Philip Webb]

091011 Philip Webb wrote:
> E 'packet' = G 'kleines Pack' or 'Päckchen'.

Sorry, typo : that sb 'kleines Paket' or 'kleine Pack'.

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___,   Philip Webb
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|   Cities Centre, University of Toronto
TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'   purslowatchassdotutorontodotca

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Peter Ruskin]

On Sunday 11 October 2009, KH wrote:
> KH schrieb:
> > Peter Humphrey schrieb:
> >> The difficulty is in keeping up with the
> >> idiom. Personally, I prefer to rely on what I've known for the
> >> last 60 years or so and to hell with the trendies.
> >>
> >> Things like "its" = "belonging to it"; "it's" = "it is".
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > how old are you? How is the oldest person on the list? But this
> > is OT, too.
> >
> > kh
>
> To correct myself (shame on me). Who is the oldest ...

I'm 71 ... is that old enough?

-- 
Peter
========================================================================
Gentoo Linux: Portage 2.2_rc44			kernel-2.6.30-gentoo-r4
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+	gcc(Gentoo: 4.3.2-r3
KDE: 3.5.9					Qt: 3.3.8b
========================================================================

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 11 October 2009 19:02:07 Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Sunday 11 October 2009 15:55:47 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > Well, at least now we know that English contains at least one word that
> > is less ambiguous than the German equivalent.
> >
> > I would not have thought it could be done.
> 
> English contains many ambiguities, but if you know the current idiom they
>  all disappear, or at least recede. The difficulty is in keeping up with
>  the idiom. Personally, I prefer to rely on what I've known for the last 60
>  years or so and to hell with the trendies.
> 
> Things like "its" = "belonging to it"; "it's" = "it is".
> 

English is a mess. As a language it's worse than a pig's breakfast and makes 
almost no sense whatsoever to non-native speakers. Mind you, it makes about as 
much sense to native speakers as well :-) I had to take 5 years of Latin study 
in high school to understand how my own mother tongue works. Sad indictment 
for a language wouldn't you say?

I heard once that Perl is modelled after English. Pah! I reckon that's BS - 
Perl makes much too much sense for that. Brainfuck is the one modelled after 
English :-)

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 11 October 2009 22:40:31 Peter Ruskin wrote:
> On Sunday 11 October 2009, KH wrote:
> > KH schrieb:
> > > Peter Humphrey schrieb:
> > >> The difficulty is in keeping up with the
> > >> idiom. Personally, I prefer to rely on what I've known for the
> > >> last 60 years or so and to hell with the trendies.
> > >>
> > >> Things like "its" = "belonging to it"; "it's" = "it is".
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > how old are you? How is the oldest person on the list? But this
> > > is OT, too.
> > >
> > > kh
> >
> > To correct myself (shame on me). Who is the oldest ...
> 
> I'm 71 ... is that old enough?

Oh dear. I used to call myself an old codger. At a mere sprightly 44, do I now 
have to downgrade myself to "still wet behind the ears"?

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Dale]

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Sunday 11 October 2009 22:40:31 Peter Ruskin wrote:
>   
>> On Sunday 11 October 2009, KH wrote:
>>     
>>> KH schrieb:
>>>       
>>>> Peter Humphrey schrieb:
>>>>         
>>>>> The difficulty is in keeping up with the
>>>>> idiom. Personally, I prefer to rely on what I've known for the
>>>>> last 60 years or so and to hell with the trendies.
>>>>>
>>>>> Things like "its" = "belonging to it"; "it's" = "it is".
>>>>>           
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> how old are you? How is the oldest person on the list? But this
>>>> is OT, too.
>>>>
>>>> kh
>>>>         
>>> To correct myself (shame on me). Who is the oldest ...
>>>       
>> I'm 71 ... is that old enough?
>>     
>
> Oh dear. I used to call myself an old codger. At a mere sprightly 44, do I now 
> have to downgrade myself to "still wet behind the ears"?
>
>   

I'm 42 so I got your back.  lol

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 11 October 2009 23:25:02 Dale wrote:
> >>> To correct myself (shame on me). Who is the oldest ...
> >>>       
> >>
> >> I'm 71 ... is that old enough?
> >>     
> >
> > Oh dear. I used to call myself an old codger. At a mere sprightly 44, do
> > I now  have to downgrade myself to "still wet behind the ears"?
> >
> >   
> 
> I'm 42 so I got your back.  lol
> 
> Dale

Hehe, you can join me in the lucky crowd - people who went to school when 
Pluto was still a planet :-)

But I'm not giving up the nic I use everywhere except mailing lists:

splog: snarky pedantic lazy old git

My 12 year-old figured that out and reckoned it was ahuge joke, so he told his 
mum (my ex). She was decidedly not ... amused 

:-)


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[KH]

Peter Ruskin schrieb:
> On Sunday 11 October 2009, KH wrote:
>> KH schrieb:
>>> Peter Humphrey schrieb:
>>>> The difficulty is in keeping up with the
>>>> idiom. Personally, I prefer to rely on what I've known for the
>>>> last 60 years or so and to hell with the trendies.
>>>>
>>>> Things like "its" = "belonging to it"; "it's" = "it is".
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> how old are you? How is the oldest person on the list? But this
>>> is OT, too.
>>>
>>> kh
>> To correct myself (shame on me). Who is the oldest ...
> 
> I'm 71 ... is that old enough?
> 
To use a trendy idiom: That's cool.

That is a body of acquired knowledge.

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[KH]

Alan McKinnon schrieb:
> On Sunday 11 October 2009 23:25:02 Dale wrote:
>>>>> To correct myself (shame on me). Who is the oldest ...
>>>>>       
>>>> I'm 71 ... is that old enough?
>>>>     
>>> Oh dear. I used to call myself an old codger. At a mere sprightly 44, do
>>> I now  have to downgrade myself to "still wet behind the ears"?
>>>
>>>   
>> I'm 42 so I got your back.  lol
>>
>> Dale
> 
> Hehe, you can join me in the lucky crowd - people who went to school when 
> Pluto was still a planet :-)
rofl
but same for me and I am only 28.
> 
> But I'm not giving up the nic I use everywhere except mailing lists:
> 
> splog: snarky pedantic lazy old git
> 
> My 12 year-old figured that out and reckoned it was ahuge joke, so he told his 
> mum (my ex). She was decidedly not ... amused 
> 
> :-)
> 
> 
rofl
Thanks for that mail. Maid me smile for minutes.

kh

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Mike Edenfield]

On Mon, 2009-10-12 at 00:04 +0200, KH wrote:
> Peter Ruskin schrieb:
> > 
> > I'm 71 ... is that old enough?
> > 
> To use a trendy idiom: That's cool.

I believe the current trendy idiom (with the identical meaning) is
"That's hot".

Thus portraying exactly the problem with our language. :x

--K

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Sonntag 11 Oktober 2009, Dale wrote:
> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > On Sunday 11 October 2009 22:40:31 Peter Ruskin wrote:
> >> On Sunday 11 October 2009, KH wrote:
> >>> KH schrieb:
> >>>> Peter Humphrey schrieb:
> >>>>> The difficulty is in keeping up with the
> >>>>> idiom. Personally, I prefer to rely on what I've known for the
> >>>>> last 60 years or so and to hell with the trendies.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Things like "its" = "belonging to it"; "it's" = "it is".
> >>>>
> >>>> Hi,
> >>>>
> >>>> how old are you? How is the oldest person on the list? But this
> >>>> is OT, too.
> >>>>
> >>>> kh
> >>>
> >>> To correct myself (shame on me). Who is the oldest ...
> >>
> >> I'm 71 ... is that old enough?
> >
> > Oh dear. I used to call myself an old codger. At a mere sprightly 44, do
> > I now have to downgrade myself to "still wet behind the ears"?
> 
> I'm 42 so I got your back.  lol

wow, from your posts I had you sorted at '24 - max, probably 21' ...

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Philip Webb]

091011 Mike Edenfield wrote:
> On Mon, 2009-10-12 at 00:04 +0200, KH wrote:
>> Peter Ruskin schrieb:
>>> I'm 71 ... is that old enough?
>> To use a trendy idiom: That's cool.
> I believe the current trendy idiom (with the identical meaning)
> is "That's hot". Thus portraying exactly the problem with our language.

The word 'cool' dates from the 1960s -- yes, I'm old enough to remember -- ,
but since the invention of Global Warming, 'hot' has taken over ...

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___,   Philip Webb
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|   Cities Centre, University of Toronto
TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'   purslowatchassdotutorontodotca

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Dale]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> On Sonntag 11 Oktober 2009, Dale wrote:
>   
>> Alan McKinnon wrote:
>>     
>>> On Sunday 11 October 2009 22:40:31 Peter Ruskin wrote:
>>>       
>>>> On Sunday 11 October 2009, KH wrote:
>>>>         
>>>>> KH schrieb:
>>>>>           
>>>>>> Peter Humphrey schrieb:
>>>>>>             
>>>>>>> The difficulty is in keeping up with the
>>>>>>> idiom. Personally, I prefer to rely on what I've known for the
>>>>>>> last 60 years or so and to hell with the trendies.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Things like "its" = "belonging to it"; "it's" = "it is".
>>>>>>>               
>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> how old are you? How is the oldest person on the list? But this
>>>>>> is OT, too.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> kh
>>>>>>             
>>>>> To correct myself (shame on me). Who is the oldest ...
>>>>>           
>>>> I'm 71 ... is that old enough?
>>>>         
>>> Oh dear. I used to call myself an old codger. At a mere sprightly 44, do
>>> I now have to downgrade myself to "still wet behind the ears"?
>>>       
>> I'm 42 so I got your back.  lol
>>     
>
> wow, from your posts I had you sorted at '24 - max, probably 21' ...
>
>
>   

I'm a kid at heart.  LOL  Because of health issues, I feel about 70 or
so.  http://psoriasis.org  I have most of the things that go with it. 
Going to the Dr is a battle.  I have to sign a AMA to go home.  They
usually bring that after the Dr sees me and I am signing out.  I'm like
that little train, 'I think I can, I think I can.'

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Peter Humphrey]

On Sunday 11 October 2009 21:40:31 Peter Ruskin wrote:

> I'm 71 ... is that old enough?

Too much for me - I'm only 66. Working on it though.

-- 
Rgds
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Peter Humphrey]

On Sunday 11 October 2009 20:21:29 Philip Webb wrote:
> 091011 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > Paket = packet ; Paket = package
>
> Oh dear ! -- English calls such words 'false friends' !
> My German-English dictionary (Langenscheidt) suggests E 'package' = G
> 'Pack', while E 'packet' = G 'kleines Pack' or 'Päckchen'.
>
> In English, a 'packet' calls to mind something in an envelope, eg a letter;
> 'package' brings a picture of something tied up with string, ie a parcel.
> In computer English, a 'package' is eg Gentoo's 'app-arch/bzip2-1.0.5-r1';
> a 'packet' is a fragment of a file sent through the Internet,
> different packets possibly taking different routes to their destination,
> where they are reassembled into the complete file.

More generally, I think of a packet as a unit of something - soap powder, 
data, correspondence - while a package is a bundle of things - programs, 
Christmas presents, packets of sweets.

No doubt that doesn't accord with any dictionary, but it seems to work.

-- 
Rgds
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 12 October 2009 10:09:52 Dale wrote:
> I'm a kid at heart.  LOL  Because of health issues, I feel about 70 or
> so.  http://psoriasis.org  I have most of the things that go with it. 
> Going to the Dr is a battle.  I have to sign a AMA to go home.  They
> usually bring that after the Dr sees me and I am signing out.  I'm like
> that little train, 'I think I can, I think I can.'
> 
> Dale
> 
> :-)  :-) 
> 

I feel your pain, Dale. My girlfriend has mild eczema and it drives her crazy. 
I can only imagine what dealing with psoriasis must be like.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Dale]

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Monday 12 October 2009 10:09:52 Dale wrote:
>   
>> I'm a kid at heart.  LOL  Because of health issues, I feel about 70 or
>> so.  http://psoriasis.org  I have most of the things that go with it. 
>> Going to the Dr is a battle.  I have to sign a AMA to go home.  They
>> usually bring that after the Dr sees me and I am signing out.  I'm like
>> that little train, 'I think I can, I think I can.'
>>
>> Dale
>>
>> :-)  :-) 
>>
>>     
>
> I feel your pain, Dale. My girlfriend has mild eczema and it drives her crazy. 
> I can only imagine what dealing with psoriasis must be like.
>
>   

I am disabled from it.  I had a "in law" relative once that didn't
understand it and made some comments about me being disabled from it.  I
just raised my shirt a little.  No one else in that family has said a
negative thing about it since. 

I think the pecking order for skin is, eczema, dermatitis then
psoriasis.  I sometimes get the first two backwards tho.  One affects
the first layer of skin, the other affects the top two layers and
psoriasis affects all three.  I usually explain it this way, psoriasis
comes from the inside not the outside.

It has cost me a lot tho.  Living on disability sucks, no kids since I
don't want to pass this on to them, and lets not mention dating.  If the
skin doesn't bother them, the income part does. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 12 October 2009 12:13:19 Dale wrote:
> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > On Monday 12 October 2009 10:09:52 Dale wrote:
> >> I'm a kid at heart.  LOL  Because of health issues, I feel about 70 or
> >> so.  http://psoriasis.org  I have most of the things that go with it.
> >> Going to the Dr is a battle.  I have to sign a AMA to go home.  They
> >> usually bring that after the Dr sees me and I am signing out.  I'm like
> >> that little train, 'I think I can, I think I can.'
> >>
> >> Dale
> >>
> >> :-)  :-)
> >
> > I feel your pain, Dale. My girlfriend has mild eczema and it drives her
> > crazy. I can only imagine what dealing with psoriasis must be like.
> 
> I am disabled from it.  I had a "in law" relative once that didn't
> understand it and made some comments about me being disabled from it.  I
> just raised my shirt a little.  No one else in that family has said a
> negative thing about it since.

All disabled folks have funny stories to relate :-)

I work at an ISP and there's 1 (yes, just one) disabled bay on our entire 
parking level. A disabled colleague uses it but there's a special kind of 
idiot in the building that things his SUV is shaped like a wheelchair (guess 
where he parks).

What he didn't know is that my colleague works in Security. He's the firewall 
admin, the VPN admin, the packeteer admin and all sorts of other admins too. 
It real funny, every day Mr. Special parks in the disabled bay, his internet 
doesn't work.....

We're still waiting for the penny to drop. It's hasn't yet :-)

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Dale]

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Monday 12 October 2009 12:13:19 Dale wrote:
>   
>> Alan McKinnon wrote:
>>     
>>> On Monday 12 October 2009 10:09:52 Dale wrote:
>>>       
>>>> I'm a kid at heart.  LOL  Because of health issues, I feel about 70 or
>>>> so.  http://psoriasis.org  I have most of the things that go with it.
>>>> Going to the Dr is a battle.  I have to sign a AMA to go home.  They
>>>> usually bring that after the Dr sees me and I am signing out.  I'm like
>>>> that little train, 'I think I can, I think I can.'
>>>>
>>>> Dale
>>>>
>>>> :-)  :-)
>>>>         
>>> I feel your pain, Dale. My girlfriend has mild eczema and it drives her
>>> crazy. I can only imagine what dealing with psoriasis must be like.
>>>       
>> I am disabled from it.  I had a "in law" relative once that didn't
>> understand it and made some comments about me being disabled from it.  I
>> just raised my shirt a little.  No one else in that family has said a
>> negative thing about it since.
>>     
>
> All disabled folks have funny stories to relate :-)
>
> I work at an ISP and there's 1 (yes, just one) disabled bay on our entire 
> parking level. A disabled colleague uses it but there's a special kind of 
> idiot in the building that things his SUV is shaped like a wheelchair (guess 
> where he parks).
>
> What he didn't know is that my colleague works in Security. He's the firewall 
> admin, the VPN admin, the packeteer admin and all sorts of other admins too. 
> It real funny, every day Mr. Special parks in the disabled bay, his internet 
> doesn't work.....
>
> We're still waiting for the penny to drop. It's hasn't yet :-)
>
>   

I don't have the little thing so that I can park in the disabled parking
spot, yet anyway.  I do think it is funny that the guy can make him pay
for parking where he is not supposed to tho.  Down here, they write
tickets and you get to pay a good size fine for that. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 12 October 2009 18:01:49 Dale wrote:
> > All disabled folks have funny stories to relate :-)
> >
> > I work at an ISP and there's 1 (yes, just one) disabled bay on our
> > entire  parking level. A disabled colleague uses it but there's a special
> > kind of idiot in the building that things his SUV is shaped like a
> > wheelchair (guess where he parks).
> >
> > What he didn't know is that my colleague works in Security. He's the
> > firewall  admin, the VPN admin, the packeteer admin and all sorts of
> > other admins too. It real funny, every day Mr. Special parks in the
> > disabled bay, his internet doesn't work.....
> >
> > We're still waiting for the penny to drop. It's hasn't yet :-)
> >
> >   
> 
> I don't have the little thing so that I can park in the disabled parking
> spot, yet anyway.  I do think it is funny that the guy can make him pay
> for parking where he is not supposed to tho.  Down here, they write
> tickets and you get to pay a good size fine for that. 
> 
> Dale

I live in the deep south of darkest Africa and we do things differently here 
:-)

The cops can't be bothered with tickets so it's up to property owners to 
police the bays. A mate used to manage a supermarket, and had the usual big 
sign that non-disabled people parking in the bays would have their wheels 
clamped and would have to pay a donation to the disabled society to have them 
unclamped.

One day an idiot refused to pay. So he tried to drive off anyway. In a brand 
new Mercedes. Caused about ZAR15,000 damage to his wheel arches rather than 
admit he was wrong and cough up ZAR200 :-)

Darwin gets them all in the end :-)

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[pk]

Alan McKinnon wrote:

> What he didn't know is that my colleague works in Security. He's the firewall 
> admin, the VPN admin, the packeteer admin and all sorts of other admins too. 
> It real funny, every day Mr. Special parks in the disabled bay, his internet 
> doesn't work.....

BOFH![1] ;-)

[1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/bofh/

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Neil Walker]

Dale wrote:
> Living on disability sucks,
So why do you?

> If the skin doesn't bother them, the income part does.

You really don't have to be living like that if you don't
want to. It's entirely your choice. Drop me an email at
neil-at-neiljw.net if you want to change things. :)


Be lucky,

Neil
http://www.neiljw.com

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 12 October 2009 21:03:48 pk wrote:
> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > What he didn't know is that my colleague works in Security. He's the
> > firewall admin, the VPN admin, the packeteer admin and all sorts of other
> > admins too. It real funny, every day Mr. Special parks in the disabled
> > bay, his internet doesn't work.....
> 
> BOFH![1] ;-)
> 
> [1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/bofh/

Then you should come work where I work. You'll get to read the motds I put on 
the main access server :-)


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

[gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-10-12, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:

> One day an idiot refused to pay. So he tried to drive off
> anyway. In a brand new Mercedes. Caused about ZAR15,000 damage
> to his wheel arches rather than admit he was wrong and cough
> up ZAR200 :-)
>
> Darwin gets them all in the end :-)

Unforutunately, they often succeed in reproducing before
getting, um, shall we say "selected against with sufficient
prejudice."

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! Is this an out-take
                                  at               from the "BRADY BUNCH"?
                               visi.com            

[gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-10-11, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:

> English is a mess. As a language it's worse than a pig's
> breakfast and makes almost no sense whatsoever to non-native
> speakers. Mind you, it makes about as much sense to native
> speakers as well :-) I had to take 5 years of Latin study in
> high school to understand how my own mother tongue works. Sad
> indictment for a language wouldn't you say?

At least we mostly got rid of the whole gender mess and only
have to worry about objective/subjective case for a few cases.
During a mostly futile attempt to learn German, I had occasion
to read Mark Twin's essay on Germain articles.  IIRC, plotting
out all of the combinations for "the" takes something like a 
3x9 grid 

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! What I want to find
                                  at               out is -- do parrots know
                               visi.com            much about Astro-Turf?

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Montag 12 Oktober 2009, Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2009-10-11, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> > English is a mess. As a language it's worse than a pig's
> > breakfast and makes almost no sense whatsoever to non-native
> > speakers. Mind you, it makes about as much sense to native
> > speakers as well :-) I had to take 5 years of Latin study in
> > high school to understand how my own mother tongue works. Sad
> > indictment for a language wouldn't you say?
> 
> At least we mostly got rid of the whole gender mess and only
> have to worry about objective/subjective case for a few cases.

which makes english a horrible, horrible language.

> During a mostly futile attempt to learn German, I had occasion
> to read Mark Twin's essay on Germain articles.  IIRC, plotting
> out all of the combinations for "the" takes something like a
> 3x9 grid

it is always hard to go from chaos to order.

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Peter Humphrey]

On Sunday 11 October 2009 22:18:04 Alan McKinnon wrote:

> English is a mess. As a language it's worse than a pig's breakfast and
> makes almost no sense whatsoever to non-native speakers. Mind you, it makes
> about as much sense to native speakers as well :-)

Even allowing for the smiley, this isn't true. English makes perfect sense to 
me.

-- 
Rgds
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Peter Humphrey]

On Monday 12 October 2009 20:37:07 Grant Edwards wrote:

> At least we mostly got rid of the whole gender mess and only
> have to worry about objective/subjective case for a few cases.

I don't understand either of these two statements.

-- 
Rgds
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Peter Humphrey]

On Monday 12 October 2009 20:58:14 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

> > At least we mostly got rid of the whole gender mess and only
> > have to worry about objective/subjective case for a few cases.
>
> which makes english a horrible, horrible language.

Which does? Getting rid of the mess, or having to worry about case?

-- 
Rgds
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 12 October 2009 21:58:14 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> On Montag 12 Oktober 2009, Grant Edwards wrote:
> > On 2009-10-11, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > English is a mess. As a language it's worse than a pig's
> > > breakfast and makes almost no sense whatsoever to non-native
> > > speakers. Mind you, it makes about as much sense to native
> > > speakers as well :-) I had to take 5 years of Latin study in
> > > high school to understand how my own mother tongue works. Sad
> > > indictment for a language wouldn't you say?
> >
> > At least we mostly got rid of the whole gender mess and only
> > have to worry about objective/subjective case for a few cases.
> 
> which makes english a horrible, horrible language.

Spot on fella, spot on.

If anyone disagrees with you, have them write C without parentheses. Yup, 
that's what English tries to do. Then we have our fancy professors who try and 
tell you that "will" as in "will speak" is a word. It isn't.

The proof: define "will" in that sense, and do it in such a way that someone 
unfamilar with verb tenses can get it. It can't be done :-)

What you *can* do is show how "will speak" and "have spoken" are different. 
But then you have defined not two words, but one compound verb. Which is how 
Latin and German work after all...

Another idiocy: "I will speak", what does that mean? Future tense? Someone 
being emphatic? Something else?

> > During a mostly futile attempt to learn German, I had occasion
> > to read Mark Twin's essay on Germain articles.  IIRC, plotting
> > out all of the combinations for "the" takes something like a
> > 3x9 grid
> 
> it is always hard to go from chaos to order.
 
I truly pity foreigners trying to learn English. But at least English is 
willing to absorb any idea or word from any other language and just use it 
(unlike say, French). In theory you could pollute English with decent German 
grammar and slowly deprecate the idiocies over time. Might take a few hundred 
years though...
-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 12 October 2009 22:13:53 Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Monday 12 October 2009 20:37:07 Grant Edwards wrote:
> > At least we mostly got rid of the whole gender mess and only
> > have to worry about objective/subjective case for a few cases.
> 
> I don't understand either of these two statements.
> 

Latin, as taught, has the concept of gender attached to nouns, as in:

girl	puella	(feminine)
boy	puer	(masculine)
war	bellum	(neuter)

Well, that's how it is taught. I seriously doubt the Romans had any such 
concept. What it is, is nouns that end in soft, hard and neutral sounds. The 
Romans developed 5 classes of noun, a specific noun fell into one of these 
classes and the word got modified in consistent ways depending on how it was 
used. The format was quite rigid. Feminine concepts usually have soft sounds, 
the first classes of Latin noun was the soft one and hey presto! according 
middle ages to professors, all nouns in that class are therefore feminine in 
gender. So you get "mensa" (a table) which is somehow supposed to be a female 
object. That's nonsense - it ends in a soft sound, end of story.

English retains only one remnant of this - plurals. We usually just stick an 
"s" on the end. Sometimes it's an "i", an "en" and sometimes we just leave it 
off altogether. All very random and arbitrary whereas Latin had consistency.

The subjective|objective case means the form of the word changes depending if 
it's the subject or object in the sentence. English does this with word 
position. "The boy kicked the ball." The subject is boy and the only way to 
tell is the it's before the verb. Which is a stupid idea actually. You should 
be able to modify "ball" to show that it's indeed the object. Then you could 
do this: "ball the boy kicked" which emphasises that it's the ball that was 
kicked. [English has a few cases of this, I learned them 30 years ago and 
completely forget all examples right now].

The only way to do this last in English is to say "the ball was kicked by the 
boy" which is a completely different sentence altogether (change of voice). Or 
you could use this horrible horrible hack: "the boy kicked the ball (and I 
should point out that it is indeed the ball he kicked and not the dog)"

Like I said earlier in this thread, if English were a coding language it would 
be BrainFuck or intercal

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 12 October 2009 21:31:35 Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2009-10-12, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> > One day an idiot refused to pay. So he tried to drive off
> > anyway. In a brand new Mercedes. Caused about ZAR15,000 damage
> > to his wheel arches rather than admit he was wrong and cough
> > up ZAR200 :-)
> >
> > Darwin gets them all in the end :-)
> 
> Unforutunately, they often succeed in reproducing before
> getting, um, shall we say "selected against with sufficient
> prejudice."

This has got to be the most rapidly off-topic going thread I've seen this 
whole year :-)

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 12 October 2009 22:13:26 Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Sunday 11 October 2009 22:18:04 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > English is a mess. As a language it's worse than a pig's breakfast and
> > makes almost no sense whatsoever to non-native speakers. Mind you, it
> > makes about as much sense to native speakers as well :-)
> 
> Even allowing for the smiley, this isn't true. English makes perfect sense
>  to me.
> 

Come live and work with me for a week. I'll show you the average English 
native speaker that lives outside of the British Isles. You can even listen to 
them.

I dare say you are an exception to the norm, someone who in days gone by would 
have been called "an educated man" or perhaps "a man of letters"?

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Montag 12 Oktober 2009, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Monday 12 October 2009 20:58:14 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > > At least we mostly got rid of the whole gender mess and only
> > > have to worry about objective/subjective case for a few cases.
> >
> > which makes english a horrible, horrible language.
> 
> Which does? Getting rid of the mess, or having to worry about case?
> 

the lack of genders makes english an incomplete mess.

[gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-10-12, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:

> The subjective|objective case means the form of the word
> changes depending if it's the subject or object in the
> sentence. English does this with word position.

Pretty much only the personal pronouns have retained different
objective/subjective cases (I/me, he/him, she/her, who/whom,
we/us, they/them).  Thee/thou were only recently been replaced
by "you" for both singular objective and subjective in very
formal english writing. Since English has evolved to primarily
use position to determine subject/object relationships, having
different noun cases is redundant.  The nominative plural "ye"
has also gone away and been subsumed by "you", however there is
actualy information loss there, since there is no positional
way to distinguish between the singular and plural "you".  Of
course in the southern US, the singular is "you" and plural is
"you all" or "y'll". Except for people who use "y'all" as
singular and "all y'all" as plural.

> "The boy kicked the ball." The subject is boy and the only way
> to tell is the it's before the verb. Which is a stupid idea
> actually.

It's probably just a result of my having grown up with a
positional verses notational language (is notational the right
word?), but the positional syntax seems a lot simpler to me.

IIRC, many of the changes in English as it evovled from its
Germanic roots have come from it being learned by a succession
of "invaders" (Vikings, Normans, etc.). That generally results
in the simplification of a language's grammar and syntax but an
odd admixture of actual words.  For a good example of the
latter, the words for an animal and the culinary name for the
flesh don't match up in English.  The animal is referred to by
the older English word (pig, cow, calf, sheep, deer), but what
you eat is referred to by the French words that came in with
the Normans (pork, beef, veal, mutton, venison).  The people
that dealt with the animals were peasants who spoke English.
The people that ate the flesh were Normans who spoke French.

> You should be able to modify "ball" to show that it's indeed
> the object.

That seems to be an entirely "subjective" value judgement.  Why
should one be able to do that?  [Good pun, eh?]

> Then you could do this: "ball the boy kicked" which emphasises
> that it's the ball that was kicked.

I give up, why doesn't "the ball the boy kicked" work?

> [English has a few cases of this, I learned them 30 years ago
> and completely forget all examples right now].
>
> The only way to do this last in English is to say "the ball
> was kicked by the boy" which is a completely different
> sentence altogether (change of voice). Or you could use this
> horrible horrible hack: "the boy kicked the ball (and I 
> should point out that it is indeed the ball he kicked and not
> the dog)"
>
> Like I said earlier in this thread, if English were a coding
> language it would be BrainFuck or intercal

Don't pretty much all programming languages use position to
differente the meanings of references to variables?

For example, in an assignment statement, the position of the
two names is significant in all programming languages I can
think of: i := j is never the same as j := i.  You don't modify
the variable names to show whether it's the target of an
assignment or a reference.  Except I guess in shel-like
languages (e.g. Perl), where you have to use a prefix
"dereference" operator to disambiguate between variable
references and string literals.

Are there any programming languages that use positionally
independent notation?  The only thing I can think of is named
parameters:

     funcname(paramA = 1234.5, paramB = "asdf")

Even in that example, the position of the funcname is
significant, as is the position of the parameter names/values
in relation to the "=" operator).

It's the same in mathematics for many/most operators i - j and
j - i aren't the same thing.  The position of the variable
relative to the operator tells you want's going on.  While a +
b is equal to b + a, that's a property of the particular
operator. 

OK, this is waaay off topic now...

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! Hello.  I know
                                  at               the divorce rate among
                               visi.com            unmarried Catholic Alaskan
                                                   females!!

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Arttu V.]

On 10/12/09, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday 12 October 2009 21:31:35 Grant Edwards wrote:
>> On 2009-10-12, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > One day an idiot refused to pay. So he tried to drive off
>> > anyway. In a brand new Mercedes. Caused about ZAR15,000 damage
>> > to his wheel arches rather than admit he was wrong and cough
>> > up ZAR200 :-)
>> >
>> > Darwin gets them all in the end :-)
>>
>> Unforutunately, they often succeed in reproducing before
>> getting, um, shall we say "selected against with sufficient
>> prejudice."
>
> This has got to be the most rapidly off-topic going thread I've seen this
> whole year :-)

Don't worry -- come next year, and we'll top this one! Yarrr! :D

-- 
Arttu V.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[KH]

Grant Edwards schrieb:
[snip]
> 
> It's the same in mathematics for many/most operators i - j and
> j - i aren't the same thing.  The position of the variable
> relative to the operator tells you want's going on.  While a +
> b is equal to b + a, that's a property of the particular
> operator. 
> 
> OK, this is waaay off topic now...
> 

a+b=b+a is a definition which does not have to be this way. It can be 
seen (in reality) but it can not be proofed (in math).

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 12 October 2009 23:22:29 Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2009-10-12, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:

[snip]

> > "The boy kicked the ball." The subject is boy and the only way
> > to tell is the it's before the verb. Which is a stupid idea
> > actually.
> 
> It's probably just a result of my having grown up with a
> positional verses notational language (is notational the right
> word?), but the positional syntax seems a lot simpler to me.

Let's assume "notational" is a word, I know what you mean. If it's not a word, 
we just made it one :-)

I fully understand where you're coming from, English is my native tongue too, 
and I deal with positionality (is that a word?) fluently. But I also see it's 
flaws, some of them are quite gross. You have no way to denote emphasis other 
than by saying so or using modified font glyphs; in a compound sentence using 
an unqualified pronoun is usually ambiguous. Example:

Joe went to school with Bill and he passed his classes.
Joe went to school with Bill, and he passed his classes.

Who does "he" refer to in both? I'll bet there's some complex rule that does 
define the convention, and I'll also bet very few people know what it is.

[snip]

> > You should be able to modify "ball" to show that it's indeed
> > the object.
> 
> That seems to be an entirely "subjective" value judgement.  Why
> should one be able to do that?  [Good pun, eh?]

Yup, good pun :-) 

Change what I said to "I think it would be a good idea to modify "ball""
 
> > Then you could do this: "ball the boy kicked" which emphasises
> > that it's the ball that was kicked.
> 
> I give up, why doesn't "the ball the boy kicked" work?

If I tell you "ball" is the objective case and "the boy" is the subjective 
case, can you see where I'm going? It's still the boy that kicked the ball but 
the position denotes emphasis, not case. If English could do this (it can't) I 
would have added information and retained full precision.

As a geek, I can see the attraction of this. But as a user of the language, I 
can see I have zero chance of it ever happening

[snip]

> > Like I said earlier in this thread, if English were a coding
> > language it would be BrainFuck or intercal
> 
> Don't pretty much all programming languages use position to
> differente the meanings of references to variables?

Hmmm, yes they do. But they have no need to change the order - there's no 
extra information you could convey by doing that (with current languages at 
least). Human languages have different needs in this regard.

> OK, this is waaay off topic now...

yes, you are right about that too :-)

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

[gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-10-12, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:

> I fully understand where you're coming from, English is my
> native tongue too, and I deal with positionality (is that a
> word?) fluently. But I also see it's flaws, some of them are
> quite gross. You have no way to denote emphasis other than by
> saying so or using modified font glyphs; in a compound
> sentence using an unqualified pronoun is usually ambiguous.
> Example:
>
> Joe went to school with Bill and he passed his classes. Joe
> went to school with Bill, and he passed his classes.
>
> Who does "he" refer to in both? I'll bet there's some complex
> rule that does define the convention, and I'll also bet very
> few people know what it is.

I'm not sure I see how having nominative/subjective cases for
nouns solves the problem in that case.  I guess it would allow
for a rule that the pronoun would always refer to the closest
preceding referrent.

In English, the "solution" for the situation is to say either

   Joe went to school with Bill and passed his classes.

      or

   Joe went to school with Bill who passed his classes.   

The former uses "and" without a second subject to indicate the
parallel structure where a single subject performed two actions
(both with an object):

              
          / verb object
 Subject <
          \ verb object

          
The latter solution uses a single subject-verb-object construct
where the object includes a clause "who passed his classes" to 
modify that object.  The tricky bit in that is that even though
it's part of the main sentence's object, "who" is the subject
of the modifying clause, so it's the subjective case.

At least that's what I think Mrs. Russell from McDowell high
school would have said 30 years ago...

>> I give up, why doesn't "the ball the boy kicked" work?
>
> If I tell you "ball" is the objective case and "the boy" is
> the subjective case, can you see where I'm going? It's still
> the boy that kicked the ball but the position denotes
> emphasis, not case.

Ah, yes I see.  So you can then use position to imply whether
the statement is attempting to answer the question "what was
kicked?" or "who kicked the ball?"

-- 
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Neal Hogan]

>>
>> If I tell you "ball" is the objective case and "the boy" is
>> the subjective case, can you see where I'm going? It's still
>> the boy that kicked the ball but the position denotes
>> emphasis, not case.
>
> Ah, yes I see.  So you can then use position to imply whether
> the statement is attempting to answer the question "what was
> kicked?" or "who kicked the ball?"

I haven't been following, but looked because I was curious what was
going on in this thread that was OT to begin with . . . . ~3 days ago.

Is this a comedy sketch?

>
> --
> Grant
>
>
>
>

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Alan McKinnon]

On Tuesday 13 October 2009 01:28:13 Neal Hogan wrote:
> >> If I tell you "ball" is the objective case and "the boy" is
> >> the subjective case, can you see where I'm going? It's still
> >> the boy that kicked the ball but the position denotes
> >> emphasis, not case.
> >
> > Ah, yes I see.  So you can then use position to imply whether
> > the statement is attempting to answer the question "what was
> > kicked?" or "who kicked the ball?"
> 
> I haven't been following, but looked because I was curious what was
> going on in this thread that was OT to begin with . . . . ~3 days ago.
> 
> Is this a comedy sketch?

Nope, just a bunch of bored geeks showing off with clever facts and silly (but 
true) observations. We do this about once a month.

Tomorrow morning most of us will go back to trying to figure out how to get 
x.org to work everywhere, either with or without hal. 

As for me it's 2:24 local time, I really tried but made no progress 
architecting my central syslog work project tonight, so I'm going to bed. 

:-)

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

[gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-10-13, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:

> Nope, just a bunch of bored geeks showing off with clever
> facts and silly (but true) observations. We do this about once
> a month.
>
> Tomorrow morning most of us will go back to trying to figure
> out how to get x.org to work everywhere, either with or
> without hal.

Which we also seem to do about once a month. ;)

-- 
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Peter Humphrey]

On Monday 12 October 2009 21:17:47 Alan McKinnon wrote:

> In theory you could pollute English with decent German grammar and slowly
> deprecate the idiocies over time.

Is that the sort of decent grammar that insists on putting all adverbs before 
their verbs, or that inserts a comma between a verb and its object?

-- 
Rgds
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Alan McKinnon]

On Tuesday 13 October 2009 10:03:13 Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Monday 12 October 2009 21:17:47 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > In theory you could pollute English with decent German grammar and slowly
> > deprecate the idiocies over time.
> 
> Is that the sort of decent grammar that insists on putting all adverbs
>  before their verbs, or that inserts a comma between a verb and its object?

There's nothing wrong with either of those things, a language is built by 
convention after all. If you know the convention, you can use the language. 
And German has no need to use the English conventions.

But German is consistent. English is not consistent.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[KH]

Alan McKinnon schrieb:

> 
> But German is consistent. English is not consistent.

I am not so sure about German being consistent. As a fact often a lot of 
information is lost during translation. This is more likely the main 
problem.

kh

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Joerg Schilling]

KH <gentoo-user@konstantinhansen.de> wrote:

> Alan McKinnon schrieb:
>
> > 
> > But German is consistent. English is not consistent.
>
> I am not so sure about German being consistent. As a fact often a lot of 
> information is lost during translation. This is more likely the main 
> problem.

Let me try to be precise:

The english language is using a context sensitive semantics, the german language
is not. If gettext() based translations are used with Enlish as base lanuage, the 
need for knowing the exact context us the string use is needed. If you use 
German as base language, this kind of problems is not present.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       js@cs.tu-berlin.de                (uni)  
       joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Dale]

Neil Walker wrote:
> Dale wrote:
>   
>> Living on disability sucks,
>>     
> So why do you?
>
>   
>> If the skin doesn't bother them, the income part does.
>>     
>
> You really don't have to be living like that if you don't
> want to. It's entirely your choice. Drop me an email at
> neil-at-neiljw.net if you want to change things. :)
>
>
> Be lucky,
>
> Neil
> http://www.neiljw.com
>
>
>   

It's a lot more complicated than that. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Peter Humphrey]

On Monday 12 October 2009 21:13:26 I wrote:

> Even allowing for the smiley, this isn't true. English makes perfect sense
> to me.

Since then my ISP's been playing silly beggars and cocked up my mail delivery 
so that I received nothing at all. It's fixed now but anything sent to the 
list meanwhile I haven't seen. Sorry for this, but it really wasn't my fault 
this time.

-- 
Rgds
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:42:17 +0000 (UTC), Grant Edwards wrote:

> > Tomorrow morning most of us will go back to trying to figure
> > out how to get x.org to work everywhere, either with or
> > without hal.  
> 
> Which we also seem to do about once a month. ;)

With less success :(


-- 
Neil Bothwick

[---- Printed on recycled electrons ----]

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What is a "packet"? Was: Checksum error

[Dale]

Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:42:17 +0000 (UTC), Grant Edwards wrote:
>
>   
>>> Tomorrow morning most of us will go back to trying to figure
>>> out how to get x.org to work everywhere, either with or
>>> without hal.  
>>>       
>> Which we also seem to do about once a month. ;)
>>     
>
> With less success :(
>
>
>   
+1  It still doesn't work here.  I tried again the other day.  No joy
whatsoever.

Dale

:-)  :-)