Forum: Author Hangout

Thank you!

ETA: he's an idiot

He seems to believe strongly in Victorian values, including the subjugation of women. He probably puts skirts round piano legs and thinks child prostitution is entrepreneurial.

But that's veering dangerously towards politics :(

AJ

⋅ Use imperial measurements
Forward never, backwards ever!

Some imperial measurements are still legal and in common use in the UK eg pints, miles, and it makes sense to use them where applicable eg speed limits, alcohol taxation. But it is absolute stupidity of the highest order to revert to foot-poundels etc.

AJ

Only because of the resistance to change to a more logical (and easier) system.

You cave men! Using a system based on your fingers and toes for your weights and measures!

At least we Brits (accidentally) got it right some of the time with our eights and sixteens :)

AJ

Nope eights and sixteens make no sense at all. Now a base 12 system could make some sense, at least for small amounts (dividable by 1, 2, 3, and 4) but overall a decimal system for all units is way more sophisticated.

What number base do the computers use in your universe? Binary is the only sensible, although octal and hexadecimal are useful compromises to satisfy the limited intelligence of humans. :)

(Yes, I saw your smiley but decided to rant anyway)

AJ

What number base do the computers use in your universe? Binary is the only sensible,

That's a two-finger computer typist, right?

Trits (3 values per cell) are at least as good as bits mathematically, and allow for some neat tricks of fuzzy logic.

Diverging somewhat, I have significant questionnaire design and analysis experience and a lot of sympathy for 3-valued logic.

I used it for my 'chatting with God' experiment earlier this year. For example, in response to a question about gender, I offer the options male, female and other. 'God' responded with female.

AJ

Surely you mean that a 'Goddess' responded..??

Ignoring the elephant in the room - whether I was actually getting responses from God - technically you're right, but I view 'God' as encompassing all genders, just like 'man' as a shorthand for mankind.

I realise that's a deprecated position in these politically correct times. :(

AJ

I think your answers would originate (I avoided saying come) from one of four sources. Your conscience, your ego, your pride or your heart.

The test was conducted in the glare of a public forum, and although I set the questions (okay, that's a mega-opportunity to introduce bias), I had no say in the answers.

Although I'm no expert, I'm interested in the challenge of telling whether you're getting responses from a sentient entity (the Turing Test somewhat addresses the subject), you're talking to a machine or just getting random responses.

MIST (Minimal Intelligence Signalling Test) is based on binary choices and identifying inconsistencies, but it's closest to the three-valued choices I offered,

If nothing else, when a God-botherer tries to justify themselves by quoting something God 'said' in their sacred text, I can respond with, "Oh no She didn't." :)

Remind me not to visit Italy - in some provinces they're very anti what they consider to be blasphemy.

AJ

with signals gated onto it from 'tri-state' devices (0, 1, open) so there's a basis or claiming that computers already use base 3 in the hardware...

Not true. The bus lines of a computer bus have only 2 states: 0 or 1. There is no basis for a base 3 in the hardware.

What you are being confused by are the three states of the devices used to control the bus. The tri-state devices have 3 output states: (0, 1, and open). The outputs of multiple tri-state devices are connected to a single bus line, so the bus line can be controlled by the input of one of the multiple devices. When the bus is not in use, all of the tri-state devices are placed in their high impedance state (open), and a pull-up (or pull-down) resistor is used to pull the bus line's voltage level to its 0 or 1 state. In the high impedance state the tri-state devices have no effect on the state of the bus line's voltage level. When the bus is being controlled, only one of the tri-state devices is enabled and controlling the bus line at any given instant and the other devices remain in their high impedance state. The device actively controlling the bus line pulls the bus line's voltage level from its inactive voltage level to the voltage level of either its 0 state or its 1 state.

Sorry HM, but a computer doesn't work that way. Bus lines work like a light switch; to the devices reading the bus lines, the lines are either on or off. What you are thinking of as the inactive voltage level is the 0 state voltage level.

A bus line's voltage typically varies between 0 and 5 Vdc. When the voltage is above a specified value, set by the computer's design, the bus line is said to be at the 1 state. At or below that value, the bus line is said to be at the 0 state. I forget the specific voltage level at which the state typically changes, but it is about 2 Vdc.

You are correct that a computer could be designed such that a bus line could have 3 possible states. However, then the computer would be a trinary device, not a binary device.

A trinary device's bus lines would have 3 possible values for each line: 0, 1, and 2. For your binary values, 00 would be 0, 01 would be 1, and 10 would be 2.

I suspect the reason such a computer has not been built is that all of the peripheral devices are designed as binary devices, which are designed to read binary input. Everything associated with computers would have to be redesigned; assuming of course that it is possible to design things like memory devices that can store three logic states as a single bit. Of course you could store the trinary data bit values using 2 binary bits, but that would reduce the data storage capacity of the memory devices by 25%.

I started out with madnige's remark about 3 state devices driving 2 state bus lines. I then responded to HM's remark about the bus lines having 3 states, when they only have 2 states.

In the computer architecture, in common use today, the hardware implements 2-state logic. A few 3-state computers have been built, but they are not in common usage.

What you stated above is about how 3-state logic values can be referenced. I referenced the base-3 values that could be associated with the 3 states. Other labels can also be used for those states.

I don't know where you got the terms + BT, +0, +00, -0, ++, and +--. I also don't understand how your 6 terms relate to balanced ternary's 3 values.

I checked a couple of links for balanced ternary, and I can see what you are doing. As Wikipedia said, "Balanced ternary is a non-standard positional numeral system (a balanced form), useful for comparison logic." I'm not sure how useful 3-state comparison logic would be in current computing. I am not sure just how useful such a numbering system would be for expressing numeric values, which is one of the primary uses for today's computers.

Simplifying a 24-bit data bus value to a easier number to write would require the number to be expressed as either an 8-character base-27 number (3 bus lines/character) or a 6-character, base-51 number (4 bus lines/character). For base-16, we currently use 0-9 and A-F as the 16 Hexadecimal characters. We could do something similar for base-27, but base-51 would require the use of additional keyboard characters and symbols or assigning different base-10 values to upper and lower-case alpha characters.

I agree. 27 x 3 is not 51. Not sure where my mind was.

In general, any number system used by people has to be easy to understand and be easy to work with, otherwise it will not be accepted. That is probably why its ship sank.

As a general rule, what you grow up with is acceptable to you. It takes time and effort for you to adapt to something new, and if it is too difficult to adapt, it is rejected.

we would all be using 4-bit packed decimal machine arithmetic

It is not about the average user understanding the hardware and software. It's all about our ability to understand what is output and what we need to input to get that output.

What I classify as an average 'puter geek knows very little about hardware and software programming. They know a great deal about how to use the software, and they know a great deal about being hard. You overlooked a few fantasy options such as: absolutely and always. :)

Esq.

You could at least have deprived him of his full stop, to give parity with Ms and Miss ;)

AJ

But he's correct most of the time.

Haven't we done this to death?

Organisations are singular when considered as an entity but plural when considered as a collection. Your example above is an exception that proves the rule ;)

AJ

Organisations are singular when considered as an entity but plural when considered as a collection.

His rule is: "Organisations are SINGULAR"

He didn't provide for two cases of organizations — entity and collection.

entity and collection.

I agree with you. An organization is an entity and it is singular; which is what the rule refers to.

Awnlee's comment about the organization being plural is incorrect. The collective use of an organization's name occurs when a person is referring to the people who make up the organization. It is the unstated reference to people, not the organization, that requires the use of a plural verb.

His rule is: "Organisations are SINGULAR"

He didn't provide for two cases of organizations — entity and collection.

And that's where I think he's wrong.

Manchester United (the entity) is the richest football club in England.

Manchester United (the collection) are visiting a children's hospital to cheer up the patients.

AJ

Manchester United (the entity) is the richest football club in England.

Arizona Diamondbacks is an entity. As is the Yankees, Dodgers, etc. But they are plural.

You would write: The Yankees are the richest baseball team in the U.S.

Manchester United (the entity) is the richest football club in England.

Again, my grammar sucks.

Is the "is" singular because of the singular "club" rather than the team?

Grammar Girl says this:

Sports team names like Jazz, Thunder, Magic, and Heat sound singular, but most other team names are plural. Style guides generally say to treat all team names as plural even if they sound singular, but if that sounds strange to you, you can refer to the teams by their city name instead.

I apologise for my CRS. To put it bluntly, the terminology I used is a load of Sandra Bullocks.

I think I've worked it out using the countable/uncountable criteria, but I'm going to put my overheated half-braincell into neutral and switch off for the night.

AJ

Here's a quote from an article on Yahoo:

The former UK Defence Secretary has offered more insight into how Iran's Revolutionary Guard corps were able to seize a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz last month.

I would have written "was able to".

Did the writer assume "members of" before "Iran's"?

I would have written "was able to".

Did the writer assume "members of" before "Iran's"?

Good questions.

My elderly dead tree dictionary defines 'corps' as 'two or more army divisions', so perhaps in Yahoo's view that necessitates the plural.

Doesn't Yahoo have a style guide? I wonder what that says. I assume a pleb like me won't have access.

Without the word 'corps', I'd write 'was able to' because it passes the 'not reasonably countable' test. But I'm unclear about what 'corps' actually means so I'll stay neutral.

AJ

Awnlee's definition of corps was one of several possible meanings. Another meaning is "a body of people engaged in a particular activity", such as 'the press corps.'

By that definition, the Marines can't be a corps.

My elderly dead-tree dictionary couldn't possibly be wrong, could it!

Although I have to wonder whether American/British differences might be a factor - in my limited experience, Americans use the word 'corps' much more frequently than Brits.

AJ

To my surprise, Ngrams supports you. In British English 2009, 'corps' occurs slightly more frequently than in American English 2009.

My perception was based on UK vs US news broadcasts.

AJ

The oxford comma would come before the 'and', not after it.

I read it as "before." When would you put a comma after the "and"?

This guy's score was too low.

He scores too well on other criteria - he currently has six kids, the most recent named Sixtus.

But being a Catholic overrides any concerns about living in an overcrowded country (we currently have the capability to grow about half the volume of food we need to feed ourselves) on an overcrowded planet.

AJ

I have no idea. The guy who wrote that guide isn't even qualified to be a village idiot.

Not so much an idiot, but presumptuous, as he assumes everyone follows his particular style guide (which is rarely the case).

When would you put a comma after the "and"?

When starting a subordinate(?) clause.

We all sat down and, after father had spoken a blessing, started to eat.

AJ

We all sat down and, after father had spoken a blessing, started to eat.

I don't think that's a subordinate clause. In OWL's rules for commas, this s #3:

3. Use a pair of commas in the middle of a sentence to set off clauses, phrases, and words that are not essential to the meaning of the sentence. Use one comma before to indicate the beginning of the pause and one at the end to indicate the end of the pause.

I think that's what it is. You can leave out "after father had spoken a blessing" and the sentence would still make sense.

I'm going round in circles here. My example doesn't match the types of dependent clauses listed on grammar sites, but 'after father had spoken a blessing' can't survive on its own so it can't be an independent clause therefore must be a dependent ie subordinate clause.

SCREAM!

AJ

but 'after father had spoken a blessing' can't survive on its own so it can't be an independent clause therefore must be a dependent ie subordinate clause.

I never said it was an independent clause. If it were, there would need to be a semicolon before it.

I don't know the technical term for it. OWL (Purdue University's Online Writing Lab) calls ii non-essential. It could be a clause, phrase, or word. Take it out and the sentence works fine. That was always my guide to surrounding it with commas. If you don't need it (non-essential) for the sentence to be grammatically correct.

I don't know the technical term for it. OWL (Purdue University's Online Writing Lab) calls ii non-essential.

The handful of grammar sites I referenced seemed to offer a binary choice: Independent/Main or Dependent/Subordinate. To me, neither of those categorisations seems ideal.

I agree about the clause being non-essential, and surrounding it with commas - the latter aspect seems to be widely ignored on SOL.

If anyone has a definitive answer, I'd be happy for enlightenment. But I think I've achieved my aim of showing a type of context where a comma is desirable after 'and'.

AJ

The handful of grammar sites I referenced seemed to offer a binary choice: Independent/Main or Dependent/Subordinate. To me, neither of those categorisations seems ideal.

Here's another one where the commas are necessary for non-essential information in a sentence. It's called Appositives. Appositives are nouns so it doesn't apply, but it's another choice.

Appositives can be tricky, and commas are always tricky, so when faced with an appositive, you need to ask yourself: "essential or extra?" If the appositive is extra information and can be deleted without changing the meaning of the sentence, then you use commas. If it's essential, then you don't use commas.

From Grammar Girl: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/appositives

So I don't think we can give it a specific name because it applies to many different things, the only common part being it's non-essential. I'll stick with what OWL said: "to set off clauses, phrases, and words that are not essential ."

So clauses, phrases, and words.

No comma after 'and'

has nothing to do with the oxford comma. The oxford comma would come before the 'and', not after it.

In this case, this is covered by the 'guideline' that you don't use commas to separate single word clauses (ex: ", but, he wrongly considered").

The Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team is an organization and it's plural.

I have to disagree for the sentence's subject is team and team is a singular noun. 'Arizona Diamondbacks' is being used as an adjective to describe which team.

I have to disagree for the sentence's subject is team and team is a singular noun.

That sentence wasn't my example. My example was:

"The Ariznona Diamondbacks are not going to win their division."

That sentence wasn't my example. My example was:

"The Ariznona [sic] Diamondbacks are not going to win their division."

"Arizona Diamondbacks" is not an organization, it is a plural designating some multiple of "Arizona Diamondback" (pro tip: you can tell by the "s" at the end of "Diamondbacks"). "Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team", however, IS an organization, and the following sentence would be an ACTUAL application of the rule:

"The Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team is not going to win its division."

The Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team is not going

Except "team" in your sentence is the subject and "team" is singular.

According to Grammar Girl, the "s" has nothing to do with the plurality. If it were the Utah Jazz it would still be plural.

Except "team" in your sentence is the subject and "team" is singular.

According to Grammar Girl, the "s" has nothing to do with the plurality. If it were the Utah Jazz it would still be plural.

Yes, "team" is singular because "team" is the organization. "Diamondbacks" is not an organization. If used as a shorthand for the organization, it nonetheless retains its plural usage characteristics, much like the pronoun "they" does when applied in the singular to a non-binary transgender individual.

Grammar Girls "rule" for the Jazz has holes you can drive a aircraft carrier through, because "Crimson Tide", "Green Wave", and "Thundering Herd" are ALL considered SINGULAR in accepted sports journalism usage.

Grammar Girls "rule" for the Jazz has holes you can drive a aircraft carrier through, because "Crimson Tide", "Green Wave", and "Thundering Herd" are ALL considered SINGULAR in accepted sports journalism usage.

I don't think that's true because they follow the AP Style Guide which says it's plural even though it doesn't end with an "s". Here's an article:
https://www.dailywritingtips.com/are-names-of-sports-teams-and-bands-singular-or-plural/

When referring to athletic teams or similar groups, what form of verb or pronoun applies? The recent victory of the Miami Heat over the Oklahoma City Thunder in the National Basketball Association championships indirectly put this issue in the headlines.

When referring to the team by its full name, pronouns and verbs take the plural form: "The Los Angeles Lakers are going to the playoffs." When referring to the organization that manages the team, they should be singular: "The Lakers organization is downplaying the incident." When the geographical designation alone is employed, go with the singular form: "Los Angeles is leading the division."

But now that we have Heat, Jazz, Magic, and Thunder to contend with, what's the rule? The Chicago Manual of Style provides no guidance about the issue, but The Associated Press Stylebook provides a definitive answer: Nothing's changed: The Miami Heat are the new NBA champs. The Thunder lost, and they went home determined not to let that happen again.

Seems to be an NBA-specific rule then, since the 3 NCAA examples I cited are uniformly treated as singular.

I did a google search with quotes for "crimson tide are" and the first article was titled, "Sorry, Bama Fans, but the Crimson Tide Are Over-Hyped."

Then a did a second google search with, "crimson tide is". I didn't really find articles with that wording.

That last article I referenced was two parts. The first was sports teams. The second was bands. It had both as plural.

When referring to the team by its full name, pronouns and verbs take the plural form: "The Los Angeles Lakers are going to the playoffs." When referring to the organization that manages the team, they should be singular: "The Lakers organization is downplaying the incident." When the geographical designation alone is employed, go with the singular form: "Los Angeles is leading the division."

That seems to fit the 'reasonably countable' criterion.

The Los Angeles Lakers as an organisation is not reasonably countable (okay, some smartarse might know how many employees there are but definitely not a man on the Clapham omnibus), therefore use the singular.

'The Los Angeles Lakers ___ going to the playoffs' implies a relatively small number of players who shouldn't be too difficult to count, therefore use the plural.

AJ

people

The Los Angeles Lakers as an organisation is not reasonably countable

I thought it was the word "organization" that made it singular.

I guess you could even say "Lakers" is an adjective for the noun "organization."

I thought it was the word "organization" that made it singular.

There seem to be several approaches, fortunately more often ending in agreement than disagreement.

Using the 'uncountable' approach, the whole organisation is usually regarded as unreasonable to count therefore singular.

You say tomato ...

AJ