Posts by CT 120 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Apr 2009
Thanks. It all makes sense now. Except the IT angle, as I'm not even remotely in IT, other than reading the reg in the morning to see what new security breach I need to look out for.
Oh wait, I did post a Linkydink picture of my desk with a motivational mug of coffee on it, inadvertently including my keyboard and mouse. That'll be it.
Yours sincerely, Brian Cant
After doing del *.* without changing to the A: drive once too often (i.e. once), we ended up writing a batch file 'dela.bat' with the required commands in it, and then training people to use that to wipe a floppy/stiffie. As a bonus, it was easier to type than the series of commands previously used, so not too difficult to get people to use the batch file instead.
Thanks to google maps for taking me up a steep path which started OK, but then turned into waist-high wet grass and no lighting. I'd have turned back, but I didn't want to lose the height and then have to climb again with a heavy rucksack. Wrong decision = wet trousers.
In the morning, I saw that it had saved me all of 100 metres or so, bypassing a perfectly walkable minor road.
Austria, since you asked. I'd have used the OS if it was the UK
SNCF kindly reserved us coach 12, seats 11 and 13, on the intercity train to Boulogne (don't ask). Unfortunately, the numbering in coach 12 started at 21 and went upwards, as the first compartment (presumably with seats numbered 11 upwards) had had all the seats removed to be converted to a bike compartment.
As my other half suffers from saddle soreness at the slightest mention of a bike ride, we picked some random empty seats in the next coach, expecting an interesting conversation with the inspector.
Neither sight nor sound of the inspector for the 1h30 journey, and we could have had a free ride in first class.
We picked the print-at-home option, with two A4 sheets giving a nice large barcode, rather than the app.
"At the moment, it can only deal with commas and full stops, the most common and easiest of English's punctuation marks."
If they were that easy how come so many people do without them writing enormous walls of text without so much as a pause as if their taking one deep breath and just letting out a single massive belch of their stream of consciousness ooh look a cat video ?
We had a "burster" machine, with two rotating knives to slice the tractor-feed sides off, and a device to rip off the perforated sheets and stack them neatly. Made a hell of a racket when it worked, and despite hiding it in a soundproof cupboard, we were all tuned in to the remaining noise, so that any change in tone had us running to the rescue for the frequent hiccups, slips and general paper mangling/automated origami.
Cut them some slack - PIN number is common enough. And in spoken language it might conceivably eradicate some ambiguity (PIN the number versus pin the pointy thing). Admittedly the context usually gives it away.
And we're using natural language, not a programming language, so it doesn't have to be complete:
- my car's passed its MOT --> MOT test
and it can be redundant:
- 5am in the morning --> 5 in the morning / 5am
- it's got an LCD display --> it's got an LCD
sudo killall -9 Autopilot
Excel, yes a similar problem, non-joined Arabic letters. As well as all the other problems with text in Excel not behaving like text in Word (double-clicks also select trailing punctuation etc.).
What did they use instead? There were specialist Hebrew/Arabic word processors, Mellel was/still is one.
We're on bog-standard broadband, and for the last few days, we have had web pages loading half way, then stopping, only to load instantly the second or third time you try.
Intermittent problem though - just loaded The Register instantly first time, but clicking to get to the comments section took two reloads.
- surely we need a phrase in the other language which means "something really good", and which is also slightly rude in that language. A literal translation won't carry the positive meaning of the English.
And anyway, how come a description of a dog's gentleman's parts means "something really good"?
Is it by analogy with the "bee's knees"? Which doesn't make literal sense either.
And while we're there, is it a dog's breakfast or a dog's dinner to describe something that's a bit of a mess?
I'm confused. And I'm a translator.
How many translators does it take to change a lightbulb? - Depends on the context.
Looking at the Unicode listing given in the link above:
1F638;GRINNING CAT FACE WITH SMILING EYES
1F639;CAT FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY
1F63A;SMILING CAT FACE WITH OPEN MOUTH
1F63B;SMILING CAT FACE WITH HEART-SHAPED EYES
1F63C;CAT FACE WITH WRY SMILE
1F63D;KISSING CAT FACE WITH CLOSED EYES
1F63E;POUTING CAT FACE
1F63F;CRYING CAT FACE
1F640;WEARY CAT FACE
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