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 logansdad
 
posted on November 16, 2005 05:33:43 PM new
Bear, you can use this advice as you try to create the Canadian language. If you run into trouble you can "Press '1' if you need aditional help"




Language

Looking for a sign
Nov 10th 2005
From The Economist print edition

People can communicate without agreeing on the meaning of the terms


THE birth of a new language is such a rare event that scientists who want to watch it happen generally have to make do with computer simulations. Bruno Galantucci, a cognitive scientist at Yale University in America, has developed a human alternative, based on the principle that necessity is the mother of invention. He asks pairs of strangers to play a computer game in which they have to find one another in a virtual bungalow. This requires them to communicate, but the only way they can do so is by inventing a language. The game is revealing some of the secrets of successful communication.

The two players cannot see or hear each other, but they are seated at interconnected computers. In the simplest version of the game, each player is located in one of four rooms and must find each other in one move each. These rooms are arranged in a square, and each pair of adjacent rooms is connected by a doorway. On the floor of each room is an icon—a circle, a hexagon, a flower—and, prior to the game starting, the players have a short time to explore their surroundings. (Sometimes, a player with good spatial awareness can move quickly through all four rooms and understand the layout but others do not grasp it at this stage.)

The players know there is another player in another of the rooms, and that they must both end up in the same room, but they can only ever see the room they are in. To help them guide each other to a rendezvous, they have a device on which they can scrawl symbols that appear on the other's screen. But the device works like a roll of paper that constantly scrolls downwards, preventing them from writing letters, numbers or any other commonly recognisable symbol.

The first thing Dr Galantucci discovered was how quickly reliable symbolic systems emerged. Nine out of ten pairs solved the game in three hours, having agreed on a set of three or four symbols. In a more advanced version of the game, one pair developed 16 symbols in six hours.

The languages were also very different. Dr Galantucci had expected that the pairs would build their language on elements of the icons that appear on the floors of the rooms. A few did so, but they extracted different features of the icons—the number of vertices, say, or some linear abstraction of its shape. Others adopted a numbering system for the rooms—such as one slanting line for the first room and two for the second, moving clockwise or anticlockwise through the four rooms. Another technique involved labelling the rooms by their relative position in space, by placing marks on different parts of the screen.

Some pairs solved the game in minutes, others struggled for hours and there were a few pairs who never found each other. In those cases, Dr Galantucci often saw the ideographic equivalent of a person shouting loudly in a foreign country where he does not speak the local language. Since his volunteers included Yale University post-doctoral students, he infers that building a language is no trivial task. But then what are the ingredients of successful communication?

Having observed winning pairs at play, Dr Galantucci says that communication is established as soon as one player decides to copy the symbols proposed by his co-player, rather than impose his own. At that point the pair's chances of finding each other jump. As soon as there is imitation, he says, there is a common currency. After that, it is relatively easy to attach useful information to those symbols.

Dr Galantucci is now developing the game to make it increasingly complicated by adding on extra rooms. He is also working with trios, and hopes eventually to build up to small groups—more closely mimicking the conditions in which human language evolved.

Giacomo Rizzolatti, a neuroscientist at the University of Parma in Italy who studies the origins of language, says the game is interesting because it shows the importance of imitation in language development. But he points out that the symbolic systems adopted—numerical ones, for instance—are sophisticated abstractions that would have been beyond the minds that produced the first proto-language.

One strength of Dr Galantucci's experiment that does not exist in the real world, however, is that he is able to interview his subjects afterwards. What is striking, he says, is that a pair can be successful even if a symbol represents something quite different in the virtual world to each player—as long as they agree on what they should do when confronted by it. In other words, people only need to convey a small amount of information to communicate effectively, and they can do so while holding fundamentally different ideas about how their language describes the world.


Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
----------------------------------
The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
 
 Bear1949
 
posted on November 16, 2005 05:52:15 PM new
Butt we all know there's no hope for you, LD


And I guess you've never heard of French Canadian?


FYI:

French Canadian Language Facts

French is mother tongue for more than 6,000,000 in Canada (24 percent of the total population according to 1986 census). The French-speaking population is concentrated mainly in the province of Québec. Outside France, apart from the creoles, the French of Canada, originally probably of northwestern dialect type, has developed the most individual features. Although in the 18th century Canadian French was regarded as exceptionally "pure" by metropolitan commentators, it began to diverge from Parisian French after 1760 as English influence grew stronger. Canadian French is less clearly articulated, with less lip movement and with a more monotonous intonation than standard French. Some change in consonantal sounds occurs. Vocabulary and syntax had suffered strong English influence, but since the 1950s and especially 1960s great efforts have been invested to restore the authentic character of the language.


So tell me about "Canadian" language



I gave my liberal neighbors son a book for his birthday. He went crazy trying to find where to put the batteries.
 
 dblfugger9
 
posted on November 16, 2005 05:56:33 PM new
hey bear...you around tonight? What is the name of the gun manufacturer called Lomans or something like that? Has an IL insignia?

Thought maybe you'd know.

Thanks, dbl!

 
 piinthesky
 
posted on November 16, 2005 05:58:18 PM new
Dblf, it's Llama.


 
 dblfugger9
 
posted on November 16, 2005 05:59:38 PM new
Oh, thanks so much Pi!!!



I had bought some brass belt buckles off this guy at a yard sale and one has their insignia on it. (The guy told me what it was, but that was weeks ago and now I am getting ready to list them - and all I could remember was it was a gun mfgr and he said something like loemans) ..
[ edited by dblfugger9 on Nov 16, 2005 06:14 PM ]
 
 Bear1949
 
posted on November 16, 2005 06:15:38 PM new
Can't place the name at the moment DBL. Is it an American manufacturer?

Wait, how about a Lorcin?

Does it look anything like this:



If it is I dont recall its markings.


I gave my liberal neighbors son a book for his birthday. He went crazy trying to find where to put the batteries.
 
 mingotree
 
posted on November 16, 2005 06:18:25 PM new
You can hijack with guns but it can't hide the fact that bearly thinks French Canadian is Canadian...what a dolt.

 
 Bear1949
 
posted on November 16, 2005 06:23:14 PM new
Back to your knees Monica, keep your mouth full of what you know how to do best.


I gave my liberal neighbors son a book for his birthday. He went crazy trying to find where to put the batteries.
 
 dblfugger9
 
posted on November 16, 2005 06:26:21 PM new
Hi Bear, thanks. I think its the LLama one Pi mentioned, because its a round circle with what looks like an "IL" or two fancy LL's in it. (but it really looks more like an "I" L".)

I went searching to see if I could find it, but its hard coming across that logo on google under gun manufacturers. Now somebody's probably tracking me thinking I am interested in guns! lol!!

.
[ edited by dblfugger9 on Nov 16, 2005 06:27 PM ]
 
 Bear1949
 
posted on November 16, 2005 06:41:56 PM new
DBL heres the Llama web site. The logo is on the upper right side of the page.

http://www.bersa-llama.com/cat_maxi45.html


I gave my liberal neighbors son a book for his birthday. He went crazy trying to find where to put the batteries.
 
 dblfugger9
 
posted on November 16, 2005 07:41:27 PM new
Thanks, bear!! I did see that site when Pi said LLama. I dont know if this thing is older and they've since changed their logo - all I know is what the guy told me, but it doesnt look the same does it?!



 
 Bear1949
 
posted on November 16, 2005 08:12:29 PM new
DBL, that logo doesn't look familiar to me. It may be a older Llama but I cant say I've ever seen it on one.

Sorry.


I gave my liberal neighbors son a book for his birthday. He went crazy trying to find where to put the batteries.
 
 dblfugger9
 
posted on November 16, 2005 08:14:05 PM new
thats ok, bear! Story of my life when I buy sh* to resell on ebay! hahaha!!



 
 Bear1949
 
posted on November 16, 2005 08:30:21 PM new
DBL, I've got a show this weekend & I'll look around. Bound to be some older Llamas there.

You can always update the listing.




I gave my liberal neighbors son a book for his birthday. He went crazy trying to find where to put the batteries.
 
 mingotree
 
posted on November 16, 2005 11:56:30 PM new
Oh, sorry, I thought the Op title indicated the thread would be about the self-reliant neocon , Bear, accepting help from a government agency (FEMA)

 
 dblfugger9
 
posted on November 17, 2005 07:17:28 AM new
Thanks, Bear..for thinking of me! It will be interesting to see if you see any logos like that. I will hold off listing them for a bit.

I bought a whole bunch of stuff from this guy. Supposedly his father (who just passed on) was a big time collector. He said he had the guns in the house but was selling them a different way not thru the yard sale...well duh! - I walked away from there with a whole bunch of stuff, and he didnt charge me hardly anything! (One of those, just take it outta here sales!) So if I cant sell it its not a big financial loss - and I'll just donate it to a thriftstore!

What does anything think of Belt buckles?? Are they big out west there? They are doing so-so on ebay. He had some nice western ones (I thought) Wells Fargo and all this stuff, .. and since cowboy boots are in fashion again, I thought maybe these might be coming around again too? Guess I will find out!
.
[ edited by dblfugger9 on Nov 17, 2005 07:18 AM ]
 
 Bear1949
 
posted on November 17, 2005 07:32:42 AM new
Oh, sorry, I thought the Op title indicated the thread would be about the self-reliant neocon , Bear, accepting help from a government agency (FEMA)

That shows you what happens when you try thinking Monica.


DBL, large belt buckles used to be "the thing" here in Texas. Not so much anymore. Still the rodeo / cowboy crowd still likes the big silver & gold buckles.




I gave my liberal neighbors son a book for his birthday. He went crazy trying to find where to put the batteries.
 
 mingotree
 
posted on November 17, 2005 08:57:53 AM new
Aww, Bear, are you embarrassed to be standing there with your hand out getting welfare from the government.


Ya know Bear, if you just got another better paying job you could afford to fix up your place on your own !


Go back to school, become an engineer, space or something, and get a better job!



Not very self-reliant are you for a neocon Kinda LAZY expecting the government to take care of you





:

 
 WashingtoneBayer
 
posted on November 17, 2005 09:08:54 AM new
Mingotree would you please stop using words you are quite ignorant about?

Is it to much to ask that you at least look up the words you want to use instead of just being some polly parrot?


Ron
 
 mingotree
 
posted on November 17, 2005 09:10:56 AM new
Ya, Ron, it IS embarrassing to see a neocon with his hand out getting free money from the government just like those "welfare moms"

Glad you agree....

 
 dblfugger9
 
posted on November 17, 2005 09:28:09 AM new
No, mingotree. It that if there are hand-outs to be had, they are for everybody entitled to them, not just the welfare moms!

 
 WashingtoneBayer
 
posted on November 17, 2005 09:29:22 AM new
No mingotree, unlike welfare "moms" I am sure Bear has a limited time of using any help available. Not making it a lifestyle for themselves and thier future generations.


Ron
 
 mingotree
 
posted on November 17, 2005 09:30:02 AM new
dble, I never said otherwise.

 
 mingotree
 
posted on November 17, 2005 09:32:57 AM new
""I am sure Bear has a limited time of using any help available. Not making it a lifestyle for themselves and thier future generations.""


A generalization and a "weasel"

So now the neocons decide the "rules" for how long you can get government assistance....I bet it's just as long as THEY need it


 
 WashingtoneBayer
 
posted on November 17, 2005 09:52:15 AM new
Calling welfare moms weasels is a bit harsh don't you think?

But I guess it is more appropriate than some words I have heard used about them.


Ron
 
 mingotree
 
posted on November 17, 2005 09:57:10 AM new
Great comeback, Ron, and a definite..."she won the argument, I have to say SOMETHING"



It's called a "weasel"



 
 Bear1949
 
posted on November 17, 2005 05:06:07 PM new
Monica, if Maggie had been found eligable for FEMA reembursment of hurrican related expenses would you be crying the same song? Nope.

Have any of the project leeches in NO held productive jobs and PAID into the system for over 40 years? Nope.


Don't tell me about going back to school, getting an better education & becoming more productive, I did. Have any of them? Very few and I do know one of them.

Do I need a better or bigger place to live? Nope. I'm comfortable where I am and with what I have.


Do I deserve whatever FEMA decides to give me? Dam straight.


Would I be crying and bitzhing and moaning and groaning about not getting what They OWED ME had FEMA decided against me? Nope, I'm not a demoncrat.


I gave my liberal neighbors son a book for his birthday. He went crazy trying to find where to put the batteries.
 
 mingotree
 
posted on November 17, 2005 06:08:46 PM new
As usual, bearbutt, when you try to think on your own it doesn't compute

You missed the entire point which is :

If you were as self-reliant as repugs claim people should be you wouldn't need a hand out from the government.

""if Maggie had been found eligable for FEMA reembursment of hurrican related expenses would you be crying the same song? Nope""


Of course not blunderbuss, SHE doesn't think all people are as perfect as Republicans and knows some people need help.


The rest of your post is so much blather...better try to find a nice easy C&P to copy....

 
 mingotree
 
posted on November 17, 2005 06:08:46 PM new
As usual, bearbutt, when you try to think on your own it doesn't compute

You missed the entire point which is :

If you were as self-reliant as repugs claim people should be you wouldn't need a hand out from the government.

""if Maggie had been found eligable for FEMA reembursment of hurrican related expenses would you be crying the same song? Nope""


Of course not blunderbuss, SHE doesn't think all people are as perfect as Republicans and knows some people need help.


The rest of your post is so much blather...better try to find a nice easy C&P to copy....

 
 Bear1949
 
posted on November 17, 2005 07:01:10 PM new
As if YOU would turn down the money?


RIGHT


I gave my liberal neighbors son a book for his birthday. He went crazy trying to find where to put the batteries.
 
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