Member award Polls

[Charles Link]

@Greg Bernhardt Do the polls close today?

 

[berkeman]

Greg is traveling on business this week, so the polls might stay open an extra day or two. Greg may be able to reply in the evenings to say for sure.

 

[PeroK]

I'm glad that Elon Musk didn't find out about the PF polls. I hate to think what he would have posted about us on X to about us get his favourites to win.

 

[Orodruin]

I'm glad that Elon Musk didn't find out about the PF polls. I hate to think what he would have posted about us on X to about us get his favourites to win.

It is not too late ... Let's go Elon, 3 million votes for me the last 24 hours!

 

[Stavros Kiri]

It is not too late ... Let's go Elon, 3 million votes for me the last 24 hours!

He would have requested a special forum too, 'ForumX' [with no mentors, no censorship ... !], otherwise he would sure buy PF ! ... (lol)

 

[Orodruin]

He would have requested a special forum too, 'ForumX' [with no mentors, no censorship ... !], otherwise he would sure buy PF ! ... (lol)

Well, Greg would be rich … Always something

 

[pinball1970]

@Greg Bernhardt Do the polls close today?

You have time to vote for me, Pinball1970, so you get your votes in.

 

[Orodruin]

You have time to vote for me, Pinball1970, so you get your votes in.

I suggest to keep counting in all polls where I am behind and stop the count where I am ahead!

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Well, Greg would be rich … Always something

He would have requested a special forum too, 'ForumX' [with no mentors, no censorship ... !], otherwise he would sure buy PF ! ... (lol)

Yeah, true, but PF would probably end up like Tik-Tok ... (i.e. posting all kinds of ~trash ...)

 

[fresh_42]

He would have requested a special forum too, 'ForumX' [with no mentors, no censorship ... !], otherwise he would sure buy PF ! ... (lol)

Don't make jokes. TIL we have a village named "Grönland" in Germany.

 

[Orodruin]

Don't make jokes. TIL we have a village named "Grönland" in Germany.

Wouldn’t it be funny if Germany sold it to Trump and he thought he bought the Danish autonomous territory?

 

[pinball1970]

I suggest to keep counting in all polls where I am behind and stop the count where I am ahead!

I gained two votes from my last post!

 

[fresh_42]

Wouldn’t it be funny if Germany sold it to Trump and he thought he bought the Danish autonomous territory?

That would be a masterpiece of the art of a deal!

The village is in Schleswig-Holstein, the most northern part of Germany. I have a suspicion that these people rather preferred to become Danish than American.

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Don't make jokes. TIL we have a village named "Grönland" in Germany.

I wasn't joking ... , but Trump was joking. Elon is not joking either ... (he's probably buying TikTok too [?]).

 

[mathwonk]

I am finding it challenging to learn more of this village. Google's AI summary in answer to my question is this:

AI Overview
Learn more

"Grönland" is not a village in Schleswig-Holstein, but rather the German word for "Greenland," a large island located in the North Atlantic Ocean, not part of Germany or Schleswig-Holstein.

Apparently another "victory" for AI provided information?

 

[fresh_42]

I am finding it challenging to learn more of this village. Google's AI summary in answer to my question is this:

AI Overview
Learn more

"Grönland" is not a village in Schleswig-Holstein, but rather the German word for "Greenland," a large island located in the North Atlantic Ocean, not part of Germany or Schleswig-Holstein.

Apparently another "victory" for AI provided information?

I'm afraid it is yet another example of AI failure. You can discuss whether it is a village, a settlement, a part of a bigger town, or whatever. However, ...

The street settlement Grönland (Gronlande) was first mentioned in 1293 together with the parish of Schönmoor, which today belongs to Süderau.

... was enough for me to call it a village - and laziness.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sommerland#Grönland

 

[mathwonk]

Interesting. Now, after clicking on your wikipedia link, which termed it a "Gemeinde" (community), Google answers the search for "Gronland, a community in Schleswig Holstein", with a correct map of it. Perhaps it learned the right answer from the previous click?
..........
alas, after all this, a few minutes later, this again comes up to the same search:
AI Overview
Learn more

No, Greenland is not a community in Schleswig-Holstein. Greenland is a Danish territory and Schleswig-Holstein is a German state

 

[fresh_42]

Wouldn’t it be funny if Germany sold it to Trump and he thought he bought the Danish autonomous territory?

DYK that Russia's most western point is in Switzerland? $563 \,\mathrm{m}^2$

The construction was approved by the owner of the land, the Urseren Corporation Council, and the site was ceded to the Russian Empire free of charge according to the Corporation Council's decision of October 13, 1893.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suworow-Denkmal

 

[fresh_42]

"Grönland" is not a village in Schleswig-Holstein, but rather the German word for "Greenland," a large island located in the North Atlantic Ocean, not part of Germany or Schleswig-Holstein.

Grönland is also the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish name. Kalaallit Nunaat wouldn't be understood by most people.

 

[mathwonk]

And yet some people trusted AI to control the flight of a Boeing 737 MAX.

 

[fresh_42]

And yet some people trusted AI to control the flight of a Boeing 737 MAX.

I couldn't decide whether I should laugh or cry, so I only "liked" it. The 737 was such a reliable workhorse that I still can't understand why they touched it in such a manner.

 

[phinds]

I couldn't decide whether I should laugh or cry, so I only "liked" it. The 737 was such a reliable workhorse that I still can't understand why they touched it in such a manner.

they were following the modern American corporate of "It ain't broken? Great. Let's fix it!"

 

[fresh_42]

they were following the modern American corporate of "It ain't broken? Great. Let's fix it!"

What happened to the good old "never change a winning team"? Btw., airliners (people working for LH and DE) here called the 737 "Bobby". Is that a common nickname or a German invention?

 

[DaveE]

And yet some people trusted AI to control the flight of a Boeing 737 MAX.

It wasn't AI. It was a conventional control system with well defined outputs based on it's (insufficient, IMO) inputs.

The 737 was such a reliable workhorse that I still can't understand why they touched it in such a manner.

Because the high altitude stall recovery characteristics were really different than the previous 737 variants. They didn't want to make their customers retrain pilots to get a new type rating (which is expensive), so they designed a control system that was supposed to prevent operation in an unusual flight regime that required different pilot knowledge and behavior. OK, but then they; 1) hid it, and 2) designed it poorly.

It's about money, bad management, and competition with Airbus.

 

[fresh_42]

They didn't want to make their customers retrain pilots to get a new type rating (which is expensive), so they designed a control system that was supposed to prevent operation in an unusual flight regime that required different pilot knowledge and behavior.

We have the nice word "verschlimmbessern" for that: improvement by worsening.

 

[DaveE]

We have the nice word "verschlimmbessern" for that: improvement by worsening.

perfect! Or worsening by improvement?

 

[mathwonk]

I like this example:

Also holte ich zaghaft das heilige Skript - so rein und zierlich sollte es nie wieder sein - auf meine Festplatte und begann, es Zug um Zug zu verschlimmbessern.

(So I timidly retrieved the sacred script - it should never be so pure and delicate again - onto my hard drive and began to make it worse, step by step.)

 

[fresh_42]

perfect! Or worsening by improvement?

It is constructed from "ver-bessern" = improve with putting "schlimm" = terrible/bad in the middle, a classical oxymoron: improvement with a bad outcome, literally "imterribleprove".

Your description was interesting. It showed once more that you cannot achieve conflicting goals in a single step, or go the easy way when you factually invent a new "Flugzeugmuster". Sorry, I couldn't find the English term for it. Google translates it with "aircraft model" but it is better translated by "aircraft pattern". If you take stock then the 737-Max crashed twice and the A320 landed on the Hudson. I think that bad management is the real cause.

 

[fresh_42]

I like this example:

Also holte ich zaghaft das heilige Skript - so rein und zierlich sollte es nie wieder sein - auf meine Festplatte und begann, es Zug um Zug zu verschlimmbessern.

(So I timidly retrieved the sacred script - it should never be so pure and delicate again - onto my hard drive and began to make it worse, step by step.)

German is the only language I know of, where umfahren means the opposite of umfahren (distinguished by whether it is pronounced on the first or second syllabus).

 

[mathwonk]

On the role of intonations I am reminded of a sentence in a Chinese dialect, maybe Foochow, something like "dang dang dang dang dang dang dang", which means maybe "the peasant carries the load clumsily", where each dang has a different stress and tone. I encountered it in this book by a childhood friend: https://www.amazon.com/Daughter-Drum-Mountain-remarkable-Caldwell/dp/B0CK9FMVQY?tag=pfamazon01-20

 

[Orodruin]

Grönland is also the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish name. Kalaallit Nunaat wouldn't be understood by most people.

It is almost like those languages had common roots!!!

 

[mathwonk]

In the realm of linguistic subtleties, perhaps fresh_42 will explain this one. Once as a young college student learning German in Munich from readings and tourist classes, I encountered the sentence "Leide ist deine besuch sehr kurz", (Unfortunately, your visit is very brief) by a grandmother speaking to her visiting grandchildren. That evening, trying to chat up some beautiful young girls at a cafe, who said they were visiting in town, I used it, only to see them stand straight up, greatly offended, and walk right away. Who knows why?

 

[fresh_42]

In the realm of linguistic subtleties, perhaps fresh_42 will explain this one. Once as a young college student learning German in Munich from readings and tourist classes, I encountered the sentence "Leide ist deine besuch sehr kurz", (Unfortunately, your visit is very brief) by a grandmother speaking to her visiting grandchildren. That evening, trying to chat up some beautiful young girls at a cafe, who said they were visiting in town, I used it, only to see them stand straight up, greatly offended, and walk right away. Who knows why?

I cannot see why, apart from some minor grammar mistakes. However, I cannot reconstruct the situation or time. These are occasions when mentality plays a role. E.g. I like to say that American English is very different from English English, and I do not mean the use of '-our' versus '-or' or '-ise' versus '-ize'. Amercian English takes place in the lines, English English takes place between the lines. I first wrote British English, but that would have been wrong, so I corrected it to English English, excluding Scottish English. It is complicated, even within the apparent same language. I remember a seminar in the UK held by a representative of an American company and the lady said: "American companies think it is easier to enter the European market via the UK because of the language. When I first came to England, I had to learn that I didn't understand a word."

One possible explanation of the situation with the girls is that maybe the girls took it ironically in which case it is the proposal to leave, misinterpreting the visit of the city by the visit of the location or even the duration of the dialogue. That's at least in the range of possible interpretations. An interpretation, btw., I would not have if an American would have said this to me. If an Englishman had said it on the other hand, I wouldn't be sure and very sensitive about the next sentences. Another possible explanation is, that it sounds a bit like: "Leider ist Dein Besuch sehr kurz"... with the unspoken thought: "... so that it doesn't make sense to invest any efforts as you were leaving soon anyway." Or they simply didn't like to be addressed by "Du". That depends on location and time. It's not a big thing anymore, but it is not the polite form among strangers, which would have been "Leider ist Ihr Besuch sehr kurz."

"Besuch" can be used for a lot of different things. A former girlfriend of mine even used to say that she has 'Besuch' when she meant she had her days.

 

[mathwonk]

I definitely thought it was my use of deine as opposed to seine, or apparently ihr. I.e. I think you nailed it with "Or they simply didn't like to be addressed by "Du".

Perhaps that prohibition has lessened in the subsequent 60 years?

My German instructor said that usage (du) was for use "Nur am sonntag, in glass schrank." But I used it everyday with my (male) friend.

 

[fresh_42]

Perhaps that prohibition has lessened in time?

A lot. You still cannot use it in business, but you definitely hear it more often than in earlier times. This is partly due to immigrants who have difficulties using two different forms, but more due to the adoption of English language habits. We used to have 'Treffen' and 'Verabredungen', now we have meetings and dates.

 

[mathwonk]

My instructor was ww2 vet and survivor of Stalingrad. so not from a recent generation.

 

[fresh_42]

My instructor was ww2 vet and survivor of Stalingrad. so not from a recent generation.

Coding in German means coding in English. I once coded in an IDE of a French company. Instead of "IF ... THEN ..." it was also possible to write "SI ... ALORS ..." I have never seen a compiler accepting "WENN ... DANN ...".