Patents and computers
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Ridcully Nov 10, 2011 6:31 PM EDT |
Everything I have seen so far in the Australian press seems to indicate that this is once again a story of a very large firm, in this case Apple, trying to block competition by using patents in a manner for which they were never intended. I think we would all agree that while correction of this matter is kept in the hands of patent lawyers, nothing will change. |
| gus3 Nov 10, 2011 6:44 PM EDT |
I disagree about leaving it to the patent lawyers. They have a lot to gain by leaving the status quo. |
| tracyanne Nov 10, 2011 6:56 PM EDT |
You better tell them in that case |
| gus3 Nov 10, 2011 9:02 PM EDT |
I just did. |
| Ridcully Nov 10, 2011 9:32 PM EDT |
I think what gus3 is getting at is that the problem needs to be taken entirely out of the hands of the patent lawyers and into some wonderful judicial group that is up with the digital age, software, patents and has absolutely no bias one way or another........I can dream. But I think gus3 is right, it is in the absolute interests of the patent lawyers to keep things as they are - otherwise their lucrative money pipeline of software patent suits is jammed almost shut. |
| tracyanne Nov 11, 2011 12:06 AM EDT |
Quoting:They have a lot to gain by leaving the status quo. I read that differently. leaving as in moving away from. |
| Ridcully Nov 11, 2011 1:51 AM EDT |
You know Tracyanne.........Ah jest hates English sometimes. LOL.......It is flippin' amazing....same words, two different interpretations.......We need a round table, comfortable chairs, a few very, very cold beers and lots of of camaraderie. In the heat here at the moment, that cold beer sounds awfully nice. |
| jacog Nov 11, 2011 4:24 AM EDT |
I don't think they speak English in Australia. |
| Ridcully Nov 11, 2011 4:33 AM EDT |
Heck Jacog, lots of "English" don't speak "English" in what might be called the traditional Oxford accent ......In the UK, try going to Wales, Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Yorkshire, various parts of Scotland and The Hebrides, and you may find yourself almost unable to comprehend what is being spoken........And Americans haven't spoken pure English for at least a century. :-) Generally speaking (sorry about that pun), the English spoken by urban Australians in the capital and larger cities is usually fairly "pure", if we can use that term, although it is not the accent of Her Majesty or Oxford. Tracyanne might like to correct me on this, as it's my personal perception. |
| tracyanne Nov 11, 2011 4:46 AM EDT |
You're probably right Rid. I do remember my father posh accent, the one he used when speaking on the phone. it was very English. In general the Australian accent has become homogenised and also much less English is sound, than it once was. Up until the 50s, maybe even the 60s Australian was consisted of at least 2 dialects 'Proper English' with the plum in the mouth accents, and 'stryne', that version of Australian spoken by Bazza Mackenzie. Now I think we all sound pretty much the same, which is a pitty. |
| BernardSwiss Nov 11, 2011 1:35 PM EDT |
Cue Professor Higgins... "Why can't the English learn to speak?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wxdCApymG0 (lyrics: http://www.guntheranderson.com/v/data/whycantt.htm) |
| zentrader Nov 11, 2011 3:09 PM EDT |
We Americans have those who pronounce "neither" as "n-eye-ther", but "seize" is not pronounced as "size", "receive" is not "rec-eye-ve" etc. as it would be in Australian or Cockney or what ever group pronounces it this way. So we are no better when it comes to learning to speak English. |
| number6x Nov 11, 2011 3:29 PM EDT |
Italy has rates of Dyslexia that are half the rates seen in English and French speaking Countries. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=scientists-... "Consider the pronunciation of mint and pint, cough and bough, or clove and love" It seems that most Italian sequences of letters form the same sound whenever they appear. There is no choice between n'ee'ther or n'eye'ther. Of course I'm not sure how many pure Italian speakers there are in Italy compared to all of the dialects available. (You should here my Sicilian father in law!) |
| Grishnakh Nov 11, 2011 3:53 PM EDT |
@Ridcully: It's no surprise that the people of Wales and Scotland don't speak with an Oxford accent, because those people are no more English than someone from Calcutta, New York, or Sydney. They're Welsh and Scottish. Wales and Scotland are not part of England; they're entirely separate countries. Of course, the whole arrangement is rather confusing because they combined are called "United Kingdom". Be careful, though, because this is not the same thing as "Great Britain", which is an island, not a nation. If you want to make your head spin, just read this mini-dissertation about the place where you'll find the most confusing postal addresses on Earth: http://www.columbia.edu/~fdc/postal/#uk |
| Ridcully Nov 11, 2011 5:50 PM EDT |
@Grishnakk.....thanks, but yes, I knew what you are indicating above and was using "generalisms" for convenience. The Welsh continue to speak their own language (plus English) and have a Celtic heritage rather than the Anglo-Saxon-Jute heritage of much of southern England and it is similar for Cornwall and Devon, again with a Celtic heritage (although in both those latter cases, the true original language is dying out and what is now spoken is, I believe, more a dialect than a separate language allied to Welsh). Scotland is even worse with Lowland Scots Germanic and Highland/Hebrides Scots is Gaelic and again Celtic. And then again you find dialects in Yorkshire which probably still contains residues of the Viking invasions. I didn't want to go down this road, just wanted to show in my posting above that if you go to the collection of lands which we call the United Kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, you will expect to find English "as she is spoke"......but England itself has "language traps for the unwary". And I haven't even explored Cockney dialect of London which is English derived but which can be almost incomprehensible to the outsider. Postscript......and thanks Grishnahk for the link......I have ALWAYS found British post codes incomprehensible, and I write often to the UK......I just utter a prayer to Mercury and hope for the best. Oh, and your list includes such UK "localities" as the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.......and they have their own languages. At least Australia has "one common language".......and just looking purely at political borders, the UK doesn't have the same in a very real and practical sense, although all the inhabitants would understand "plain English". Again I am speaking in very broad terms and senses. |
Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]
Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!