English Over The Sleeve

This paragraph is grammatically correct:

An apparently new speech disorder a linguistics department our correspondent visited was affected by has appeared. Those affected our correspondent a local grad student called could hardly understand apparently still speak fluently. The cause experts the LSA sent investigate remains elusive. Frighteningly, linguists linguists linguists sent examined are highly contagious. Physicians neurologists psychologists other linguists called for help called for help called for help didn’t help either. The disorder experts reporters SpecGram sent consulted investigated apparently is a case of pathological center embedding.

Excellent! I was just looking for an example of grammar in context to give to my (French) students…
(The clue is in the last three words, for the non-linguists amongst you.)

It reminds me a bit of this also correct French sentence: quand ta tata tata ta tata ta tata était taté. Or: si ton tonton tond ton tonton ton tonton sera tondu. (The d at the end of tond is silent.)

One of the most widely read US papers, the Washington Post, published an article today about gas (petrol) prices in Europe, and specifically the UK.

I was amused to hear of a new Renault vehicule: the Renault Kangaroo!
I can only assume that they meant this.

Not the best reporting I have ever heard of.

The other thing they don’t mention is that US cars invariably have worse fuel consumption than European cars: take the Ford Focus (US) versus the Ford Focus (Europe), both with 2.0l engines. The US model has a consumption of 8l/100km, as opposed to 5.6l/100km in Europe.

Note: although you can get a Focus with the same engine and fuel economy in  Europe, it is sold as a more sporty vehicule and so I compared it to the four-door Ghia 2L engine.

It’s all very unscientific - but then, I’m not suggesting that anyone change continents to buy their car. However, If I do ever move across the Atlantic, my Audi will come too! (About 45mpg and it’s 15 years old…)

…just a link.

Sorry to my French audience, but if your English isn’t really good, you may not understand this… Try anyway, it’s definitely worth it!)

I have a new pair of shoes. Not just any shoes though, Pumas. And (to my surprise, as I have trouble with shoes), they fit like a glove.

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words:

I hate my pcmcia wifi card.

It didn’t work with Breezy, and it doesn’t work with Dapper either! (Well, tell a lie, some people have got it to work with Dapper using the built-in driver - but I haven’t. Visit the Wiki to find out more about that option.)

So here it is - a new get-your-linksys-wpc54g-to-work Howto.

1. Get rid of the kernel module that loads the native (and apparently still v. buggy) Broadcom driver: echo blacklist bcm43xx | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist and disable it in this session, too: sudo rmmod bcm 43xx
2. Install ndiswrapper (you’ll need the Universe repositories enabled for this, uncomment the line in your /etc/apt/sources.list): sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils
3. Copy the files called bcmwl5.sys and lsbcmnds.inf to a folder called linksys somewhere on your system (I put them into /opt/linksys, and that’s what we’re going to run with in this howto)
4. cd /opt/linksys
5. sudo ndiswrapper -i lsbcmnds.inf (Install the driver using ndiswrapper)
6. sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
7. sudo chmod 666 /etc/modules (change the permissions on this file so that you can complete the next step…)
8. sudo echo ndiswrapper >> /etc/modules (this should automate the whole weary procedure for next time you boot.)
9. sudo chmod 644 /etc/modules (It’s good practice to put the permissions back to their original state when you’ve finished modifying the file)
10. I switched off my cabled connection at this point: sudo ifdown eth0
11. sudo iwlist eth1 scan (This will bring up your access point. Note that in Ubuntu 5.10 the wireless card called itself wlan0)
12. sudo iwconfig eth1 channel 6 essid philips mode Managed (get the x and the essid from the previous step - and don’t put square brackets round them, either!)
13. sudo ifup eth1 (and to my utter astonishement, it was already running - go figure!)
14. Fire up firefox, and see if you have really connected (this is not necessary, but it can make you feel good ;-))
15. Come to http://macdo10.free.fr/wordpress/?p=217 and leave a comment to show your appreciation.

edit: You’ll probably need to redo all or most of this if/when you update your kernel. Sorry.

Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake Beta is out!

To get it:

sudo apt-get update
gksudo update-manager -d

…but I am with one of the better ISPs - and remember, their target audience is households.

Imagine an ISP who started offering ADSL at €30/month at a time when the cheapest price was €45/month. At the time, that bought you 512 kbits.

For those same €30/month, if you signed up today (and if you lived in the right place, that is, a medium to large town), let’s see what you’d get:

• ADSL2+: 20+ Mbit connexion.
• Free VOIP phone calls to all fixed line phones in France and in 13 other countries (and to mobiles in Canada and the US), without the need for a PC.
• A fixed IP address if you want it.
• A modem that works as a multimedia center - you can play videos from your PC on your TV, for example, or music on your Stereo system via the spdif port.
• The modem can also be configured as a router -Wireless access point, by the way.
• Up to 200 TV channels over your phone line (”only” about 100 of those are included, though)
• Films on demand (pay per view)
• And now, the new modem (Freebox HD) is MiMo-capable and decodes HDTV!
• And it all runs on Linux, of course.
• The latest news? A WiFi/GSM dual-band phone that will allow you to make the same free calls from anywhere in range of any Freebox HD that you could from your own home.

All these upgrades from that old 512 kbit start point have been offered to existing subscribers - not just to new arrivals. You can find out more here (link in French).

Do you think they’d offer me a job as a salesman?

ravloony - I don’t think I’ve forgotten anything, comment if I have

If you are running Ubuntu, you may have noticed that not all programs are actually optimal - OpenOffice.org, for one, is still the 1.9 beta version, and there’s no hope of an upgrade to 2 before Dapper.

Fear not! Add the line deb http://people.ubuntu.com/~doko/OOo2 ./ to your sources.list, then
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

And you’re on your way, with a nice Ubuntu-flavoured OOo 2.0 !
Other programs you might like to update are Firefox (to 1.5.0.2) and Thunderbird (to 1.5). I’ll let you work out how by visiting http://www.mozilla.com. I suggest that you back up your personal files first - look for folders called .firefox, .thunderbird, .mozilla or any combination of those in your home directory. Here’s a hint: in nautilus or konqueror, press ctrl-h to see hidden files…

In Google Chat, if you type a word surronded by *stars*, it is shown in bold: stars.

edit: and if you do _this_, it becomes this.