Red Diesel Update - Meeting 20/11/18

[carlt]

13 minutes ago, aracer said:

??? - on the contrary it's pointless arguing with an ideologue - though it's quite amusing pointing out what they are and watching them try and deny it.

I'd say most folk willing to argue over the EU are ideologues, whichever side we're on. 

I prefer to see it as discussion rather than argument though as I have no expectation or even intention of changing anyone's mind. 

[aracer]

6 minutes ago, carlt said:

I'd say most folk willing to argue over the EU are ideologues, whichever side we're on. 

I prefer to see it as discussion rather than argument though as I have no expectation or even intention of changing anyone's mind. 

Speak for yourself, as I've pointed out a few times I'm a pragmatist and there's a distinct difference, given that like many I have just as much dislike for some aspects of the EU as the Brexit ideologues, but I recognise the advantages of putting up with them. Many Brexiteers are fond of pointing out the negatives of being a member of the EU without actually comparing properly with the alternative.

[frahkn]

8 hours ago, carlt said:

Did you sell off-shore bank accounts? 

 

I have an Orion at Alvecoat not a super yacht in Majorca, Carl.

[Athy]

On 25/12/2018 at 10:10, dmr said:

 

 

I am saddened that supporting Brexit is seen as the domain of the far right and the uneducated as I am neither. I was listening to the radio 4 program on Brexit yesterday

...though perhaps spelling did not play a leading part in your education? Doubtless this "predictive text" thingy was to blame.

[frahkn]

10 minutes ago, Athy said:

...though perhaps spelling did not play a leading part in your education? Doubtless this "predictive text" thingy was to blame.

 

Posts like this always seem sad to me but perhaps I just cannot see the humour. But, as I've said to you in the past, when the poster has "staff" under their avatar, it should not be necessary to search for a humorous 'excuse'. IMHO obviously.

[Athy]

2 minutes ago, frahkn said:

 

Posts like this always seem sad to me but perhaps I just cannot see the humour. But, as I've said to you in the past, when the poster has "staff" under their avatar, it should not be necessary to search for a humorous 'excuse'. IMHO obviously.

Yes, in some cases predictive text can make nonsense of the most sensible post. Fortunately I think it works only if one is using a mobile phone, which I don't do.

[dmr]

2 hours ago, Athy said:

...though perhaps spelling did not play a leading part in your education? Doubtless this "predictive text" thingy was to blame.

Engineer! and some would say that's not really an education.

I actually struggled at primary school as that was based upon spelling and times tables and I could do neither, still can't do the tables, but spelling has improved a bit as the spell checker is now my teacher.

At grammar skool science subjects were my thing. Could not handle French and English, but you will be pleased to know that I did a year of Latin and came top of the class. Gave that up with a "quit whilst on top" philosophy.

 

My daughter teaches little'uns and sadly it sounds like tables and spelling are still a big focus, plus a compulsory walk in the local park to stop 'em getting fat.

 

................Dave

Edited December 27, 2018 by dmr
minor corrections to pease Athy !!

[Momac]

47 minutes ago, dmr said:

My daughter teaches little'uns and sadly it sounds like tables and spelling are still a big focus, plus a compulsory walk in the local park to stop 'em getting fat.

 

Why ''sadly''?

You may have dyslexia  , which is surprisingly common and nothing to be worried about. My youngest daughter is  quite severely affected and would not be participating in a forum like this. But she manages life very well.

Also a good friend is affected but does not acknowledge it. He is really good at fixing things.

 

However it is important that those who are not affected by dyslexia do learn mental arithmetic and spelling.

 

 

 

[TheBiscuits]

1 minute ago, MartynG said:

However it is important that those who are not affected by dyslexia do learn mental arithmetic and spelling.

Reading, riting and replacing the batteries in the calculator

 

[dmr]

38 minutes ago, MartynG said:

Why ''sadly''?

You may have dyslexia  , which is surprisingly common and nothing to be worried about. My youngest daughter is  quite severely affected and would not be participating in a forum like this. But she manages life very well.

Also a good friend is affected but does not acknowledge it. He is really good at fixing things.

 

However it is important that those who are not affected by dyslexia do learn mental arithmetic and spelling.

 

 

 

During a visit to us we passed a load of "feral boaty children" who we assumed to be home educated and I was surprised that my daughter very much approved and said that they probably get a better education than she could offer.

The problem (and my sadly) is her observation that some of her children can not do maths and spelling and never will do maths and spelling. Every morning she teaches maths and spelling but does more varied and interesting stuff in the afternoon. Her non-maths kids would likely enjoy and maybe be good at the afternoon stuff but instead they are taken away to do more remedial maths and spelling. It did rather remind me of my early education.

 

...............Dave

 

................Dave

[aracer]

4 hours ago, Athy said:

...though perhaps spelling did not play a leading part in your education? Doubtless this "predictive text" thingy was to blame.

Other discussion of this comment seems to have ignored the fundamental inaccuracy. I'm fairly good at spelling and I've checked through what Athy quoted several times - the only "spelling" failure I could spot would more accurately be described as incorrect context. Though dmr could of course have simply meant he was listening to the radio using the iPlayer app ?

 

Unless of course I'm missing something and Athy would like to point out the spelling mistakes?

Edited December 27, 2018 by aracer

[Momac]

21 minutes ago, dmr said:

During a visit to us we passed a load of "feral boaty children" who we assumed to be home educated and I was surprised that my daughter very much approved and said that they probably get a better education than she could offer.

The problem (and my sadly) is her observation that some of her children can not do maths and spelling and never will do maths and spelling. Every morning she teaches maths and spelling but does more varied and interesting stuff in the afternoon. Her non-maths kids would likely enjoy and maybe be good at the afternoon stuff but instead they are taken away to do more remedial maths and spelling. It did rather remind me of my early education.

 

...............Dave

 

................Dave

I understand what you are saying.

I agree the children who do not excel at maths and  spelling should not miss out on other activities .

 

 

 

Nor should spelling and grammar be corrected on a forum.  People do have difficulties and should not be made to feel uneducated or bad about it.

[Athy]

5 minutes ago, aracer said:

 

 

Unless of course I'm missing something and Athy would like to point out the spelling mistakes?

Indeed he would.

"Program" = in a computer.

"Programme" = on radio or T.V.

DMR and I have since corresponded very amicably about this.

[aracer]

5 minutes ago, Athy said:

Indeed he would.

"Program" = in a computer.

"Programme" = on radio or T.V.

DMR and I have since corresponded very amicably about this.

Yeah, that's the only one I could see, and as I pointed out it's context rather than spelling - and certainly not one I'd ever personally pick on. Though it's interesting to note that the American spelling for both is "program" and that is also the original British spelling - like a lot of language it's something that's evolved over time. Being a software engineer and having a lot of interest in language (which might be a peculiar combination) it's an issue I'm interested in.

Edited December 27, 2018 by aracer

[Felshampo]

On 01/12/2018 at 17:40, Alan de Enfield said:

I put it down to being bought up in the 'nanny state' being told what to do from cradle to grave, no 'coming second or losing a race, no failing exams' etc "you were just not yet ready for the challenge".

With you there, its like the London marathon., you come 2056th and you still get a medal, only the first three should get medals all the rest should be disqualified. 

[Athy]

1 minute ago, Felshampo said:

With you there, its like the London marathon., you come 2056th and you still get a medal, only the first three should get medals all the rest should be disqualified. 

But what if they are not ready for the challenge of being disqualified?

[dmr]

5 minutes ago, MartynG said:

I

Nor should spelling and grammar be corrected on a forum.  People do have difficulties and should not be made to feel uneducated or bad about it.

I have mixed feelings about that. Grammar should not be corrected to make a poster look uneducated to help "win" an argument, but this is a good forum and I enjoy the fact that most posts are well written and a bit of thought has gone into them. I use other forums were the grammar is terrible and some degenerate into a sort of text speak, and it feels like no effort at all is put into the posts. It all starts to feel a bit downmarket (snob alert!)

 

We have a few posters who admit to dyslexia or other writing problems and as far as I can see the forum has been totally accepting of this.

 

............Dave

[Felshampo]

2 minutes ago, Athy said:

But what if they are not ready for the challenge of being disqualified?

Then it becomes part of their journey through life.......... 

[aracer]

7 minutes ago, dmr said:

I use other forums were the grammar is terrible

How about the spelling? ???

 

(sorry, but posts discussing spelling and grammar are fair game IMHO whatever difficulties the poster might have ? )

[dmr]

14 minutes ago, aracer said:

Yeah, that's the only one I could see, and as I pointed out it's context rather than spelling - and certainly not one I'd ever personally pick on. Though it's interesting to note that the American spelling for both is "program" and that is also the original British spelling - like a lot of language it's something that's evolved over time. Being a software engineer and having a lot of interest in language (which might be a peculiar combination) it's an issue I'm interested in.

I also write software and ponder the influence that it has on our language. Its unfortunate that myself and Athy had this conversation by PM, but the forum is a bit sensitive and volatile at the moment.

 

Here is part of the conversation:

 

Yes, exactly, but you (and I) show our age here. Most youngsters have likely never heard of a "program" and would call them "apps", though in business and engineering newspeak they would be referred to as "a code".

 

"App" is interesting and probably comes from Microsoft speak where all software was either "systems software", a utility, or an Application. (sorry for incorrect use of "either" here ?). Many of the Apps that people run on their phones are probably utilities!

 

................Dave

3 minutes ago, aracer said:

How about the spelling? ???

 

(sorry, but posts discussing spelling and grammar are fair game IMHO whatever difficulties the poster might have ? )

I was abusing the word "grammar" here as a collective term to encompass, spelling, grammar, and even writing style. ?

 

................Dave

[aracer]

5 minutes ago, dmr said:

Yes, exactly, but you (and I) show our age here. Most youngsters have likely never heard of a "program" and would call them "apps", though in business and engineering newspeak they would be referred to as "a code".

I'm not sure if you both missed my reference to the iPlayer app up there? The latter is an interesting observation though - what I might have referred to as programming (I nearly called myself a programmer) seems to be called coding in schools nowadays - I probably use that term often enough myself. In the context of apps you'd probably call yourself an app developer and that usage has also slipped across, so if not calling myself an engineer I might describe myself as a developer.

Edited December 27, 2018 by aracer

[aracer]

12 minutes ago, dmr said:

I was abusing the word "grammar" here

Were where you?

[Machpoint005]

24 minutes ago, dmr said:

Grammar should not be corrected to make a poster look uneducated to help "win" an argument,

...but (IMO) it can be corrected to avoid misunderstanding, ambiguity or nonsense. 

 

The fact is that incorrect spelling does make the writer look less well-educated. This forum has a default US English spell checker and if you want to post in "British English" you have to know when to disregard it.

 

 

 

Edited December 27, 2018 by Machpoint005
to add a bit

[dmr]

3 minutes ago, aracer said:

I'm not sure if you both missed my reference to the iPlayer app up there? The latter is an interesting observation though - what I might have referred to as programming (I nearly called myself a programmer) seems to be called coding in schools nowadays - I probably use that term often enough myself. In the context of apps you'd probably call yourself an app developer and that usage has also slipped across, so if not calling myself an engineer I might describe myself as a developer.

Was it not the case a while ago that a "coder" was a sort of low level programmer who did the actual production of the code without really understanding much about the "system" whilst a programmer had a leaning to what we might now call a "software architect" or software designer?

One of my particular interests (and rants) is the  confusion of the roles of "software engineer" and "computer scientist" (one makes software work, one makes software complicated ?).

The "bottom line" is that all words can become meaningless and a significant aim of newspeak appears to be to render words vague to the point of becoming meaningless.

 

................Dave

[dmr]

9 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

...but (IMO) it can be corrected to avoid misunderstanding, ambiguity or nonsense. 

 

The fact is that incorrect spelling does make the writer look less well-educated. This forum has a default US English spell checker and if you want to post in "British English" you have to know when to disregard it.

 

 

 

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