Tenser, said the Tensor - Comments

Comment by language hat on "Defended"

language hat — 2009-07-07T08:04:09-07:00

"OK, so I haven't posted since May..."

Comment by Owlmirror on "Defended"

Owlmirror — 2009-07-06T09:11:18-07:00

Congratulations!

Don't forget to fix the info in the little "about" box.

Tenser, said the Tensor is the blog of a ~~graduate student in~~ Doctor, yes, that's right, a Doctor of linguistics. It's about language, science fiction, computers and technology, comics, anime, and other geekery.

Comment by Owlmirror on "It's Like Christmas in X"

Owlmirror — 2009-07-05T14:51:15-07:00

I am surprised that you didn't mention that 31 oct(al) == 25 dec(imal), making Christmas in October the obvious choice for math/computer nerds.

Comment by Karl Loeffler on "Toktru, Masen?"

Karl Loeffler — 2009-07-02T10:47:57-07:00

Pretty sure "dak" comes from French "d'accord," which basically translates as "OK" (granting of consent). Kids (and some adults) say "d'acco-d'ac" the way we would say "okey-doke." Teens just say "d'ac."

Comment by Lance on "Defended"

Lance — 2009-06-28T21:55:34-07:00

Congrats! (Is there a link so we can all read it and be suitably impressed?)

Comment by Pious Agnostic on "Defended"

Pious Agnostic — 2009-06-27T18:22:58-07:00

Is Mrs. Dr. The Tensor related, by any chance, to Dr. Mrs. The Monarch?

Comment by Pete Bleackley on "Defended"

Pete Bleackley — 2009-06-18T03:41:22-07:00

What to Bob the Builder and Vlad the Impaler have in common?

Same middle name.

Comment by Matt on "Defended"

Matt — 2009-06-15T04:53:33-07:00

I just noticed! Congralations!

Comment by ingram on "German Directness"

ingram — 2009-06-11T23:06:03-07:00

having been to the "DE" three times on deployment I can tell you that there are different style or slang of deutsch! What maybe correct in one region of Deutschland, will be unknown in the other region. Tensor did get the right deutsch words for their meanings... at least in the rhineland pfalz area of Germany.

Comment by Vanwall on "Defended"

Vanwall — 2009-06-11T22:16:29-07:00

Congrats Dr. Tensor! Do you get any Initials of Rank after your moniker, like DSO, MC, KGB, WTF? And, um, gee, Doc, I hate to mix cocktail parties with displays of previous scars, but can you fix my dangling participles?

Comment by Patrick Gage Kelley on "Defended"

Patrick Gage Kelley — 2009-06-09T21:03:54-07:00

Congratulations! As a fellow PhD student (well, a past fellow - you are now no longer a student, thus ahead of me) who hopes to be in the same place someday. Also, I do hope as Dr. Tensor you will be able to continue/resume posting!

Comment by Octopus Grigori on "My Favorite German Words"

Octopus Grigori — 2009-06-09T14:08:57-07:00

Two I like.

1) Glove = der Handschuh

2) birth control pill = die Antibabypille

Comment by The Ridger on "Defended"

The Ridger — 2009-06-09T09:51:18-07:00

Heartiest congratulations! All is forgiven - nay, explained and washed away!

Calloo callay!

Comment by Peter da Silva on "Pottery Recordings"

Peter da Silva — 2009-06-09T04:50:46-07:00

In the collection "In Alien Flesh" by Benford there's a postscript to "Time Shards" where he says that the article you reproduced here is what gave him the idea for the story.

"... Otherwise, things are pretty much on the up-and-up. I got the notion while reading a paper in the Proceedings of the IEEE (1969, pp 1465-1466) where Richard Woodbridge first discussed the possbility. The method has been tried since, and it works..."

Comment by corey on "Defended"

corey — 2009-06-03T02:55:17-07:00

congratulations!

- from a long-time reader who felt the urge to post only for this occasion ;)

Comment by zzz on "My Favorite German Words"

zzz — 2009-05-31T19:21:56-07:00

My favourite is regenbogen (ray-gen-bow-gen). It means rainbow :)

Comment by language hat on "Defended"

language hat — 2009-05-31T06:19:23-07:00

Congratulations! (It's been so long your comment system has forgotten my personal info!)

Comment by Francis Bond on "Defended"

Francis Bond — 2009-05-30T15:10:55-07:00

おめでとうございます。

Comment by Mertseger on "Defended"

Mertseger — 2009-05-29T15:45:27-07:00

Congratulations! 263 pages! Truly Piled High and Deeper. de Broglie's was 4 pages long and got him the Nobel Prize. (http://www.davis-inc.com/physics/broglie/broglie.shtml).

Comment by dveej on "Defended"

dveej — 2009-05-29T13:17:37-07:00

Congratulations, Dr!

Re: the "the" appended to your ... name: have you read To Live Forever by Jack Vance? It's a great short story and amusingly relevant to the whole idea constellation of academic degrees, social status of those who earn them, and how to address them. Check it out!

Comment by Trochee on "Defended"

Trochee — 2009-05-29T12:11:58-07:00

yay!

Comment by Erin on "Defended"

Erin — 2009-05-29T08:40:51-07:00

Congratulations, Herr Doktor The Tensor!

Comment by pc on "Defended"

pc — 2009-05-29T05:34:18-07:00

Congrats!!!

Comment by includedmiddle on "Defended"

includedmiddle — 2009-05-28T20:22:31-07:00

Congratulations! But "Dr. The Tensor" sounds like a request to fudge the results.

Comment by mph, Ph.D. on "Defended"

mph, Ph.D. — 2009-05-28T18:24:17-07:00

Congratulations. "Welcome to the community of scholars," as they say.

Comment by paula on "Wild Kingdom"

paula — 2009-05-17T20:27:04-07:00

yes, the song stuck for years - but I also memorized the phone number advertised with it .... by the way they stupidly changed that number -I know it still today 1-800-228-9800, what do I do with it ? I can't seem to forget it matter how much I try! Thanks Mutual of Omaha-

Comment by DLP Home Projector on "DLP TV"

DLP Home Projector — 2009-04-28T11:06:06-07:00

Considering the age of this post, this comment may be a bit late, but here goes:

Blu-Ray won the HD war for home video. Earlier model LCD and DLP projectors both had their own problems. With LCD projectors there was a "screen door" effect due to the distance between the pixels. DLP projectors occasionally had a rainbow blur that happened. For the most part these problems have been cleared away.

Comment by Chloe Jaide on "Trill Instructions"

Chloe Jaide — 2009-04-23T03:39:43-07:00

I've been able to do an alveolar trill without practice or effort (lucky me). I'm Australian, so I wasn't born into it, but after hearing it in a song I tried it. A few minutes later I annoyed the hell out of siblings by letting loose a loud trill.

I don't really know how I do it, but I've found that if you try to force it it comes out really hoarse and jarbled. If you fail at first, just remember to keep it relaxed. Stop for a while if you become too frustrated. None of my family can get it right though.... Ah well, I'm pretty special (rolls eyes at self)

Comment by Japanese words on "Fold the Exalted Dog"

Japanese words — 2009-04-14T09:12:47-07:00

I can eat glass actually comes out much more like "may I eat the glass?"

Comment by Ellen on "My Favorite German Words"

Ellen — 2009-04-07T21:18:17-07:00

Machig which means mushy is the best word. It enhances any sentence instantly!

Comment by Mike on "Wild Kingdom"

Mike — 2009-03-30T22:35:48-07:00

I always heard it as:

Mutual of Omaha--it's people you can count on when the going's rough.

Now, I don't know for sure whether it was "it's" or "is," but there was definitely something in there between "Omaha" and "people." Funny thing is, I got online to search to be certain whether it said "going's rough" or "going's tough." Brilliant writer! He stuck that line in my head over thirty years later!

That was a great show, too.

Comment by Drukarzun on "Tobes"

Drukarzun — 2009-03-30T12:15:26-07:00

I always envisioned "Tobes" as roughly synonymous with "Gates" but now I must admit Rich's comment above on Etobicoke is compelling.

Comment by A-C on ""Song to the Siren""

A-C — 2009-03-29T08:41:53-07:00

Thanks for this wonderful discussion on such a powerful song. I really enjoyed reading it.

Just for Clarification, it's Fable, not Sable who does the other mix. (according to my searches at least)

Comment by Mr Dee on "1920 x 1200 Wallpapers"

Mr Dee — 2009-03-24T11:08:23-07:00

A great site where you can find lots of wallpapers is http://www.sharewallpapers.org (They have more than 100,000!) and lots with 1920x1200

Comment by Patrick G on "Toward and Towards"

Patrick G — 2009-03-11T21:11:11-07:00

With all this remarkably erudite and considered argumentation, I wonder that no one has wondered which usage is the older? Wouldn't that settle it? What about the etymology? From the online dictionary of etymology,
"O.E. toweard "in the direction of," prepositional use of toweard (adj.) "coming, approaching," from to (see to) + -weard, from P.Gmc. *-warth, from PIE *wert "turn" (see -ward). Towards with adverbial genitive ending, was in O.E. as toweards."

Now if only I knew what an "adverbial genitive ending" was...

Comment by Mark Neal on "Toward and Towards"

Mark Neal — 2009-03-02T21:24:12-08:00

I must agree with the ones who attribute the use of towards to a southern or perhaps rural dialect/coloquialism in the U.S. Being a native Californian born of an Oklahoman mother and Appalacian father, I would say that the use of "towards" is most definitely prevalent in english as spoken in the south and southern midwest. I am glad to read this discussion because I recently decided to train myself out of saying, "towards" and now realize that it is a legitimate usage.

Comment by Mitch on "The Tensor Explains It All, 2008"

Mitch — 2009-03-01T09:25:57-08:00

Re: the last question, is that actually how 11-year-old girls write, and what they worry about (it isn't on the news much?)? Or is that just what Walter L. Wagner thinks an 11-year-old girl should be worrying about?

Comment by Scott A. Joseph,MD on "A Word of Explanation..."

Scott A. Joseph,MD — 2009-02-27T09:14:24-08:00

I like to live by the motto: "Never make an enemy by mistake, but always by intention." Keeps me polite most of the time.

Comment by xbash on "Either a Prediction or Free Advice"

xbash — 2009-02-26T19:02:22-08:00

This article couldn’t have come at a better time. I literally just went full-time freelance last year. How I pictured my freelance life and how it’s actually turning out, I’m finding, are very different. Not only is “working when you want” a myth, but I actually feel insanely guilty for wasting a minute of my freelance time. It’s been a VERY hard adjustment, which I did not expect in the least.

Thanks for the article, it made what I’m going through feel… “normal”.

Comment by Medical Transcription on "This I Believe #34"

Medical Transcription — 2009-02-25T08:37:33-08:00

That movie really scared the crap out of me. We watched it as a class when I was in 6th grade, and I felt like I should be laughing but I was too scared.

Comment by Markus on "Word DOC to PDF"

Markus — 2009-02-16T00:23:46-08:00

Thanks for that tutorial. Best I found after some search and with this, anybody can do it.
The good thing about this doing it yourself is that it's all freeware and most other pdf converters have some annoying watermarks or even worse.
Ghostscript (and GSView) may be more complicated but I think it's worth it.

PS: You don't need to be admin. A big plus.

Comment by RC on "Word Moment"

RC — 2009-02-14T01:19:21-08:00

Evidently (there is evidence), I am not the only one with such experiences. T'is a higher awareness.

Comment by Bill McNeill on "This I Believe #35"

Bill McNeill — 2009-02-05T14:46:52-08:00

I had the idea for a sitcom starring David Spade and James Spader called "Spade and Spader".

Comment by on "This I Believe #35"

2009-02-01T11:05:04-08:00

Personally I believe that Isla Fisher marry Jack White, then divorce him and marry Brian Ferry, then she can be introduced as Isla White-Ferry.

http://www.wightlink.co.uk/

Comment by Mark Newman on "Convergent Etymology"

Mark Newman — 2009-01-29T09:19:35-08:00

Since geekery is encouraged, I'll point out there was a superhero named the Minute Man.

He was angry because the public thought he would be a Revolutionary War themed hero. But he wasn't.

Minute Man could shrink until really, really tiny. Until he was minute. He would tell people he wasn't the Minute Man, he was the Minute Man.

Mark Newman
fanboy (and journalist/photog)
The Ottumwa Courier (newspaper)
in Iowa

Comment by ZZMike on "Android Considered Harmful"

ZZMike — 2009-01-28T17:37:38-08:00

Does anyone consider the Android bug not a feature?

(PS: A long time ago, one of my newly-hired co-workers asked across the cubicles, "How do you get rid of a file?" We answered, quite reasonably, "rm ". Moments later, he was heard to be uttering colorful language. Apparently, the file he wanted to delete was "*".)

The emoticon is a long-faced man with a funny hat chewing on an ampersand.

Comment by ZZMike on "Σnigma"

ZZMike — 2009-01-28T17:27:46-08:00

I have no idea if you'll ever see this. (That's one of the hallmarks of the compulsive commenter.)

Why would the band want to call themselves "SNIGML"? It's not that easy to pronounce.

I don't know much about rock groups - the only "Enigma" I know of was a little machine the Germans used to try to keep us from reading their mail.

Well, that and the orchestral work by Elgar (the famous Spanish composer Eduardo el-Gar).

Then some British chap (one Winston Churchill) said that an enigma was something you wrapped around a mystery wrapped around a riddle - Russia being the thing inside).

Comment by Matt on "This I Believe #35"

Matt — 2009-01-28T03:08:06-08:00

Ooh, ooh, and we could say to our Japanese friends, "Kaku-Kaku-Kakutani ni michi o oshiete kudasai" and so forth.

Comment by Q. Pheevr on "This I Believe #35"

Q. Pheevr — 2009-01-27T19:52:57-08:00

Well, I believe that the governments of Canada and the United States should get together and (perhaps as part of the infrastructure component of their economic stimulus packages) build a major road linking Thompson, MB, with Walla Walla, WA, and name it after a noted Cree playwright.

What I'm not sure about is whether it should be called the Walla Walla–Thompson Tomson Highway Highway, or the Thomson Highway Walla Walla–Thompson Highway.

Comment by Andrew on "Python vs. Perl vs. C++"

Andrew — 2009-01-26T11:55:27-08:00

Python may have native floats, but it's also dynamically typed, so each step through your 'for' loop involves type checking. For fast numerical operations in Python, use NumPy, which doesn't use dynamically-typed elements:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NumPy

http://www.scipy.org/Getting_Started

http://numpy.scipy.org/