| Author |
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Ivor Longhorn
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 8:07 am
Post subject: Re: the asterisk |
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Shazam! No reason, it's just magic. So "Bill Bonde ('by a commodius
vicus of recirculation')" <John.Methuen@magersfontein.co.uk> said:
| Quote: |
Harvey Van Sickle wrote:
That entry is a good example of why one needs to be cautious when using
Wikipedia.
The unsupported statement that the asterisk is rooted in "the need of
the printers of family trees in feudal times for a symbol to indicate
date of birth" is, shall we say, a bit dodgy (given that both the
symbol and the word for it predate the invention of moveable type).
But what is so impressive about Wikipedia is that it actually tries to
get into the exact sort of stuff that Britannica often doesn't have
entries for.
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Yes, but without any rigour.
| Quote: | Certainly some of the material is questionable or even
wrong but time will surely cure that.
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No, I'm afraid not. Because it is based on commitment. You might
review an article, correct everything that is wrong with it and walk
away. Then some twat will happen along and revert what you've done to
the wrongness once more. If you do not have the commitment (or the
numbers or connections if it comes to a fight), those who do can
impose their view, whether correct or otherwise.
Dr Zen
Om.
http://gollyg.blogspot.com
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JF
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 1:34 pm
Post subject: Re: the asterisk |
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In message <4366F409.501C86F8@magersfontein.co.uk>, "Bill Bonde ('by a
commodius vicus of recirculation')" <John.Methuen@magersfontein.co.uk>
writes
| Quote: |
Xah Lee wrote:
there's a bunch of confusions about the display of non-ascii characters
such as the bullet •.
These confusions are justifiable,
How about if you not post using weirdo characters that show up like this
"•"? It turns out that exactly the words you are trying to highlight
are made much more difficult to decipher.
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Good point. Usenet is not a clean 7-bit transport. Folks still cling to
their outmoded dollar signs and pound signs despite the existence of ISO
abbreviations intended to end the ambiguity of mangled characters.
x-posts reset
--
James Follett |
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Harvey Van Sickle
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 2:29 pm
Post subject: Re: the asterisk |
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On 01 Nov 2005, Xah Lee wrote
| Quote: | Some academecian wrote:
«Egads.
I bet you think all knowledge can be found with Google, too.
I am a pinnacle expert ...»
Egads indeed, folks.
Look at the elite, the academecians. They love to trounce
wikipedia. It is almost a fashion now.
it's not that they really find wikipedia not useful, or its
criticism urgently important, but more is a need to air their
superiority.
|
Ad hominem arguments are *so* much easier than bothering with a
reasoned response, don't you think?
--
Cheers, Harvey
Canadian (30 years) and British (23 years)
For e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van
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Tony Myers (As seen nea
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 3:11 pm
Post subject: Re: the asterisk |
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| Quote: | Besides, i really do like the asterisk character for some reason.
(probably may favorite char out of all the ascii code. That is, out of |
all characters you can find on standard computer keyboard) >>
If you have thought about ascii characters long enough to have a
favorite there may be other topics that you've overlooked. |
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Charles Riggs
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 3:54 pm
Post subject: Re: the asterisk |
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On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 19:02:02 -0000, James Gifford
<nsp@nitrosyncretic.kom> wrote:
| Quote: | "Xah Lee" <xah@xahlee.org> wrote:
Therefore wikipedia [...] on the whole, [...] is extremely useful and
practically 100% reliable.
Egads.
I bet you think all knowledge can be found with Google, too.
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It is a misconception held by more than one AUE member, I sometimes
think.
--
Charles Riggs |
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Charles Riggs
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 3:54 pm
Post subject: Re: the asterisk |
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On Tue, 01 Nov 2005 07:29:34 GMT, Harvey Van Sickle
<harvey.news@ntlworld.com> wrote:
| Quote: | On 01 Nov 2005, Xah Lee wrote
Some academecian wrote:
«Egads.
I bet you think all knowledge can be found with Google, too.
I am a pinnacle expert ...»
Egads indeed, folks.
Look at the elite, the academecians. They love to trounce
wikipedia. It is almost a fashion now.
it's not that they really find wikipedia not useful, or its
criticism urgently important, but more is a need to air their
superiority.
Ad hominem arguments are *so* much easier than bothering with a
reasoned response, don't you think?
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As you've just demonstrated, Harvey old boy.
--
Charles Riggs |
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Chris Barts
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 4:14 pm
Post subject: Re: the asterisk |
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Jukka Aho <jukka.aho@iki.fi> wrote on Monday 31 October 2005 23:18 in
alt.fan.cecil-adams <<MND9f.8260$PN3.1190@reader1.news.jippii.net>>:
| Quote: | Even though not all newsreaders
support multi-byte character encodings - such as UTF-8 or Unicode
|
Technically, Unicode isn't a byte-level encoding scheme. It is a way to
organize glyphs in a single, coherent list of numbers. Its sole goal is to
provide a unique number, an idealized code point, to each glyph used in
writing. It does not dictate the byte-level codepoint assigned to each
glyph, because such low-level concerns have to be handled on a
machine-by-machine basis.
Unicode and a byte-level encoding scheme have two different prime
directives, two different goals in life:
* Unicode's goal in life is consistency: It should be easy for humans to
find where their favorite set of glyphs lives in the big list, and it
should be easy for humans to find where related sets of glyphs live as
well.
* A byte-level encoding scheme's goal in life is compatibility: It should
break as little preexisting software as possible, and it should be easy for
programmers to work with it using the skills they already have.
This fundamental clash makes Unicode appealingly clear and logical and the
average byte-level encoding scheme somewhat hairy and obscure. UTF-8, for
example, was born when Rob Pike and Ken Thompson needed a way to turn
idealized Unicode code points into strings of bytes in such a way that
wouldn't break existing ASCII-centric software, which (among other things)
regarded zero bytes as the termination of a string, and could synchronize a
byte-stream picked up mid-run; that is, if one byte of a multi-byte
character was lost, the maximum you would lose is that one incomplete
character, and you wouldn't end up with a spurious character. The result is
a surprisingly elegant kludge, where all characters from 0x00-0x7f are the
same as ASCII, and in multi-byte characters the number of bits set at the
start of the first byte determines how many bytes total are in the
character: If it begins 0b10xxxxxx, it is one byte, if it begins
0b110xxxxx, it is two bytes, etc.
There are many other ways to turn the idealized code points into actual
streams of bytes. One of those other methods is UTF-7, where the resulting
text looks exactly like flat US-ASCII; it is used when 8-bit characters are
forbidden by some fascistic dinosaur written in a prior geological epoch. A
different scheme is UTF-EBCDIC, where the text is compatible with IBM
software that refuses to believe ASCII won the war. UTF-16, where every
character is at least two bytes wide, comes in little-endian and big-endian
flavors: There is a two-byte sequence right at the start of the
transmission or file to allow you to tell which flavor you're working with.
All of them are capable of representing every glyph that has a Unicode
idealized codepoint, after a fashion, but if you looked at a byte dump of
files written in some of them you'd be hard-pressed to say even what
language the text was written in.
<http://www.unicode.org/>
<http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/utf-8-history.txt>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8>
----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =---- |
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Chess One
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 7:53 pm
Post subject: Re: the asterisk |
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"Harvey Van Sickle" <harvey.news@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:Xns97014C0416394whhvans@80.5.182.99...
| Quote: | On 01 Nov 2005, Xah Lee wrote
Ad hominem arguments are *so* much easier than bothering with a
reasoned response, don't you think?
--
Cheers, Harvey
Canadian (30 years) and British (23 years)
|
I must properly acknowledge an older gent; I was British 31 years, and now a
non-American for 21 years. Somehow I can never trade in that greencard as a
preference to returning to Cornwall, except if the gulf stream* shifts
substantially.
Cordially, Phil Innes
*the warm water current, not the private jet
| Quote: | For e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van
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Jordan Abel
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 8:06 pm
Post subject: Re: the asterisk |
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On 2005-11-01, Xah Lee <xah@xahlee.org> wrote:
| Quote: |
Bill Bonde ('by a commodius vicus of recirculation') wrote:
Xah Lee wrote:
there's a bunch of confusions about the display of non-ascii characters
such as the bullet ?.
These confusions are justifiable,
How about if you not post using weirdo characters that show up like this
"?"? It turns out that exactly the words you are trying to highlight
are made much more difficult to decipher.
how about you upgrade your software, your hardware, or have heart about
technology, or don't make a scene when others employed technology
appropriately?
by the way, the bullet character in your reply showed up fine. So i'm
not sure exactly what is your problem. If you don't really see the
bullet char ? in your software, try use groups.google.com. It might
show there.
Xah
xah@xahlee.org
? http://xahlee.org/
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The bullet is not defined as the byte you used even by the modern
standard, ISO/IEC 8859:1998. A final draft version of the standard
can be found here:
<http://anubis.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG3/docs/n411.pdf>
As you can see, byte 9/5 is not defined. the closest to a "bullet"
is byte 11/7:
· As you can (maybe) see here. |
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plausible prose man
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 9:08 pm
Post subject: Re: the asterisk |
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Towse wrote:
| Quote: | (We will =not=
start up the ID v. evolution debate ...)
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Interestingly, "Cower Mortals!" versus Wikipedia more or less is ID
verus evolution. |
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Chess One
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 9:24 pm
Post subject: Re: the asterisk |
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An inquiry in another newsgroup produced this //phil
| Quote: | According to the OED, asterisk means "a little star" and
as regards writing and printing gives the following definition:
3. esp. The figure of a star (*) used in writing and printing.
a. as a reference to a note at the foot or margin of the page,
b. to indicate the omission of words or letters,
c. to distinguish words and phrases as conjectural, obscure,
or bearing some other specified character,
d. as a dividing mark, or for similar typographical purposes.
[1382 Wyclif 2 Chron. Prol., Wher euer 3e seen asterichos...
there wijte 3e of Ebrue added, that in Latyne bokis is not
had. ('3' is my attempt to show a yogh)
1387 Trevisa Higden V. 55 A signe þat hatte asteriscus and
is i-shape liche a sterre.]
1612 Brinsley Pos. Parts Pref. (1669) 4 For the necessary
questions...I have set an Asterisk upon them.
1645 M. Casaubon Temp. Evils 47 Set out as imperfect with
three asteriscs.
1656 Blount Glossogr., Asterisque.
1796 Pegge Anonym. (1809) 289 The asterisks in Drake's
Eboracum are intended for Archbishop Lancelot Blackburne.
1824 J. Johnson Typogr. II. iii. 51 The Asterisk divides
each verse of a Psalm into two parts. |
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plausible prose man
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 9:25 pm
Post subject: Re: the asterisk |
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PR wrote:
| Quote: | "Harvey Van Sickle" wrote:
...one needs to be cautious when using Wikipedia.
I was at first enamored with Wikipedia,
|
It's certainly counter-intuitive that it works at all, let alone as
well as it does, but, eh...you know, it's only been couple hundred
years the species has really come to see how the world works through
spontaneous order.
| Quote: | but upon thinking about it, what
kind of encyclopedia would result if everyone and anyone who had a whim to
edit the thing, could do so? An inaccurate one.
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And how could something as complex as an eye have come into existence
without a designer?
| Quote: | It's the same reason
do-it-yourself surgery clinics haven't caught on so well.
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And why centrally planned economies are so much more efficient at
delivering goods and services than unfettered capitalism. |
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Weatherlawyer
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 9:54 pm
Post subject: Re: the asterisk |
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Xah Lee wrote:
| Quote: | i was checking wikipedia for some personal reasons on the asterisk.
because, i'm a computer programer and in recent years am addicted
somewhat to the bullet in unicode: ·, and am starting to use it a lot
in supplant of the asterisk * in many of my website writings.
however, in the back of my mind i was thinking, perhaps this too much
fluff... because although the glyph · is the de facto bullet used to
indicate items, but asterisk as a bullet isn't out of place either.
Besides, i really do like the asterisk character for some reason.
(probably may favorite char out of all the ascii code. That is, out of
all characters you can find on standard computer keyboard)
by a whim i though of looking up wikipedia on it, as i do read
wikipedia every day, but am not sure it'd say much but LO AND BEHOLD:
And you my lad are not based in the US of A. |
Can I have my dollar back? |
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Evan Kirshenbaum
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 1:14 am
Post subject: Re: the asterisk |
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Charles Riggs <chriggs@éircom.net> writes:
| Quote: | On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 19:02:02 -0000, James Gifford
nsp@nitrosyncretic.kom> wrote:
"Xah Lee" <xah@xahlee.org> wrote:
Therefore wikipedia [...] on the whole, [...] is extremely useful
and practically 100% reliable.
Egads.
I bet you think all knowledge can be found with Google, too.
It is a misconception held by more than one AUE member, I sometimes
think.
|
It's the modern equivalent of "I read it in a book; it must be true".
Like any research tool, you have to learn how to use it and how to
identify trustworthy sources. Personally, I find the Wikipedia quite
useful, but I'm perfectly aware that (as with other sources) there are
errors and articles written by people with serious misconceptions or
axes to grind. But I've found it to be usually reasonably reliable on
the things I've used it for. But it's best when used as a starting
point to see if others corroborate it.
For instance, in the recent discussion of the word "Winchester", it
gave a somewhat incorrect etymology of the term, but in enough detail
(correctly identifying the product involved) that it was trivial to
discover the true origin when seeking corroboration. Having satisfied
myself (based on information from IBM) that what I found is more
correct, I've edited the page.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |...as a mobile phone is analogous
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |to a Q-Tip -- yeah, it's something
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |you stick in your ear, but there
|all resemblance ends.
kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com | Ross Howard
(650)857-7572
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ |
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Bill Bonde ('by a commodi
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 1:54 am
Post subject: Re: the asterisk |
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plausible prose man wrote:
| Quote: |
PR wrote:
"Harvey Van Sickle" wrote:
...one needs to be cautious when using Wikipedia.
I was at first enamored with Wikipedia,
It's certainly counter-intuitive that it works at all, let alone as
well as it does, but, eh...you know, it's only been couple hundred
years the species has really come to see how the world works through
spontaneous order.
So here's a possibly relevant page at Wikipedia, |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence , which has an explanation,
examples and rather a lot of further references you could look up. If
you know of an error, you can fix it. If people disagree, a debate and
voting can occur. That seems like a pretty power system akin to peer
review in scientific journals, if you take the caveat that the peer
might be a drunk panhandler fixing your facts from a library internet
terminal.
--
Had Tolstoy confined himself to war or peace, he could have been
finished in seven hundred and fifty pages.
--
In a day and age when some people would think nothing of throwing stones
at Rosa Parks, she dared to rock the bus. Bully for her! |
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