lunchbox

But I would think (and remember reading somewhere) that phonetics shift more quickly where there is no written record of the pronunciation. Chinese has dozens of mutually unintelligible dialects (Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, Hakka, etc.). Maybe this fragmentation would be much less if they had a phonetic writing system in the first place.

> In a few decennies any spoken language has shifted, vocalisation is different, especially when the language is used by loosely coulped communities. And then you have to adapt spelling to new pronunciations. But what do you do with old books? And how do you keep the language united?

English (or Spanish, etc) is a real-world example of a mostly phonetic writing system, and I don't think it is that bad. We can still read old texts, even though our pronunciation of the words has changed vastly. If you go back far enough (e.g. to the time of Chaucer in the 1300s), it becomes hard to understand what is being said, but practically speaking I don't see this as a big problem. In contrast, I think it's very important to have a writing system that is easily learned, so that it is accessible to the entire population (not just those able to invest lots of time & effort).

Comment · 13 years ago

"Germanic languages have special words for 11 and 12, such as eleven and twelve in English, which are often misinterpreted as vestiges of a duodecimal system. However, they are considered to come from Proto-Germanic ainlif and twalif (respectively one left and two left), both of which were decimal."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal#Origin

Comment · 13 years ago

Dumb question: What does it mean that autocommit is now turned on? I no longer have to call mymodel.save()?

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/releases/1.6/#improved...

Comment · 13 years ago

Side comment: that's a nice website; how did you make it? I see it's hosted on GitHub pages and that you use Bootstrap. Did you write all the HTML/CSS yourself, or use Markdown, etc?

Comment · 13 years ago

Another name for "begging the question" is simply "circular reasoning"

Comment · 13 years ago

How do you know their issues are somatic, or that the relief they experience is a placebo effect?

Comment · 13 years ago

  - 1-800-FLOWERS
  - 1-800-CONTACTS
  - hotels.com

Comment · 14 years ago

> Two-finger slide from the right sometimes opens up a sidebar that apparently contains settings (not sure what the magic incantation is).

There's a grippie in the bottom right corner indicating the settings pull-out sidebar.

Comment · 14 years ago

Yes, but keep in mind you can't make Google Maps the default mapping application, so links to addresses (e.g. in calendar, web browser, contacts) will open in Apple Maps.