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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Cristianoo Triglot Senior Member Brazil https://projetopoligRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4123 days ago 175 posts - 289 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, FrenchB2, English Studies: Russian | Message 937 of 1317 01 February 2014 at 8:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
No. Parallel means many threads of processing while distributed usually means over different areas, which could be another process (program instance in memory), other computer, other network etc. So, if we talk about parallel processing, it means that the code is parallel (many threads of execution). if we talk about parallel distributed processing, it means that there are many "codes" in one or many computers processing that data. It can also means that there are many processes within the same machine handling that data, but the term is more used to data processing over network (different computers). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5534 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 938 of 1317 01 February 2014 at 9:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
If people have any further urge to discuss parallel versus distributed programming, please move it to PM. Thank you. :-) Meanwhile, for your amusement, a few cloze cards from Le Déchonologue. Here, {{cN::...}} makes a fill-in the blank card that hides everything with the same value of N. There were some highlighted words on these cards, too, with definitions on the back, but I didn't bother to reproduce that.
I know I've said this before, but Le Déchronologue is first-rate alternative history; the sort of book which influences everything that follows. And it's never been translated into English. Plus, hey, pirates. Mayans. Time travel. Reviewing these cards is a true pleasure. The writing is fine, and the half-word clozes make it easy to pick up even very obscure vocabulary. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5534 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 939 of 1317 03 February 2014 at 10:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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"Speak White" et la Révolution tranquille
Today, a bit of Québec history. First, a four-party documentary on la Révolution tranquille (posted by CBC, so I presume it's legal): Révolution Tranquille au Québec #1 - L'effervescence (1960-1966) Révolution Tranquille au Québec #2 - L'impatience (1966-1970) Révolution Tranquille au Québec #3 - La violence (1970-1976) Révolution Tranquille au Québec #4 - L'ambivalence (1976-1980) This is a fascinating story: how Québec transformed itself from a backwater mocked, controlled and exploited by anglophones into a modern, French-dominated society. This documentary recounts everything from peaceful protests to the kidnapping of the British diplomat James Richard Cross and the murder of the government official Pierre Laporte. When Trudeau was asked how far he would go to resolve this situation, he famously responded "Just watch me." You'll notice I'm linking to the French-language Wikipedia throughout. The English Wikipedia version of these events is far less detailed, and it often disagrees with reputable French sources on matters of fact. During this time, there was a particularly influential poem titled "Speak white!". The titled was inspired by a particularly nasty slur: A demand that francophones stop using French and "speak white." According to the French Wikipedia article:
Nobody who lives in North America would miss the subtext of this ugly little expression. The poem itself is remarkable:
The most famous reading of this poem was actually captured on camera. From what little I've seen of Montreal today, this history seems as distant as the summer of 1968 seems in the US. Today, the two languages often exist in something approximating harmony, despite some heartbreaking exceptions, and many anglophones have adapted to a multi-lingual existence:
I've spent most of my life living within several hours drive of Québec. And until recently, it was a mystery to me. French has, among many other great gifts, opened up a remarkable civilization that had been hidden in plain sight all my life. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| VivianJ5 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4264 days ago 81 posts - 133 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 940 of 1317 04 February 2014 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thanks, EMK, for these resources! We've been to Montreal a few times in the past 6 years or so (two kids studying at McGill, and very good friends live there), and have also been fascinated by the Quebecois language and history. Our friends, a francophone and an anglophone, have tried to explain things to us, but it seems to be a very convoluted, political story, even today, and affects just about everything and everyone in Quebec, and a decent part of the rest of Canada as well. As much as we enjoy speaking French in Montreal, I still have trouble understanding the accent, so these videos will be useful in a number of ways. And, as my older daughter has now started dating a "Quebecois de souche," I need to get with the program. Please, keep posting these terrific finds of yours! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5534 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 941 of 1317 11 February 2014 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thank you, Vivian, for a perfect example of the expression québécois de souche!
VoilaTV rocks For those of you in the US, I've mentioned VoilaTV plenty of times already, but I'm still a fan. Check it out:  
It's nice having French on the big screen with a remote control. And it costs us less than $30/month, instead of paying ~$90 for English-language cable (which we don't have). Channels include France 2, 3, Ô and 5, LCP, LCI, BFM, BFM Business, France 24, Sport 365, and their own in-house channel which plays cartoons 24/7. Notably missing are Canal+ and the other premium channels. I actually prefer to follow series on DVD when I can. But it's great to be able to turn on French TV and channel-surf, too. We just finished an awesome season of Castle, which is well-dubbed, and we're going to try the VF of Broadchurch next. Translation fail My wife found this candle in a shop in Nepal: 
 
Hopefully this makes us all feel a bit better on our bad days. I can produce more grammatical texts in hieroglyphs after only a couple months of study. And we all know that literal translation just doesn't work. French spam you actually want Sign up for these sites and ask them to send you email newsletters: Human Coders: French computer programming news SensCritique: Native media suggestions Izneo: Lots of cheap online BD deals every month (thanks geoffw!) Amazon.fr: Book and DVD recommendations Sure, you could pay a fair bit of money to Khatzumoto for his IMX immersion emails (which rapp has said are really awesome). But you could save yourself some money and just ask French companies to spam you, too. When that's done, go create yourself a Twitter account, and follow all of your favorite websites. So much of effective "home immersion" is making sure you set this stuff up in French, so you have no excuse for sticking to your native language. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4641 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 942 of 1317 11 February 2014 at 5:23pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thanks for the pictures of the Nepal candle package, that's hilarious, but not uncommon to see that kind of translations, especially in Asia. These picture could go right into the collection sign language on the website of the UK paper The Telegraph. Each week they present "a selection of strange signs and bizarre translations from around the world." Worth checking out if you need a laugh.
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| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5534 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 943 of 1317 15 February 2014 at 5:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Seen on the AJATT website today:
"IMX" is Khatzumoto's service that spams you with huge numbers of links to native media, along with explanations of how to search for more, by it, use it, etc. You can find a full description here. It's startlingly expensive (~$350/year), like all of his stuff, and it probably comes with another worthless AJATT Plus subscription that you'll have to cancel. But rapp has a version of IMX Spanish bundled with his Neutrino subscription, and he's really enjoying it. And I sent Khatzumoto my big list of cool French resources, so maybe some of that stuff will turn up, too. So I've actually been looking forward to IMX French. My plan is to sign up for the daily version, check it out for a few weeks, and write a review. I don't really need IMX at my level, because Amazon, SensCritique and Izneo are already quite happy to spam me with cool media suggestions, and because I can find French websites on my own. (Yeah, the luxuries of near-C1 passive skills, I know.) But hey, I'm as lazy as everybody else. And maybe I have a rich reader or two who'd be interested in knowing whether it's actually worth $350/year or not. I would have at least considered it back when I was around B1. And while we're talking about Khatzumoto… He has a really nice article on his site today titled But What If Immersion Makes It So I Learn Words Wrong?. In it, he quotes has a great quote from "Livonor":
This. Once you recognize a word well enough to say, "Oh, not that stupid word again!" the battle is already half-won. Just remembering that a word exists is pretty major victory, even if you remember nothing. Anyway, it's a nice article, and Khatzumoto explains some things that I've been wanting to say for a while, and he explains them very well:
Anyway, if this sounds interesting, go read the essay. He's got some good stuff there. Edited by emk on 15 February 2014 at 5:56pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5534 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 944 of 1317 19 February 2014 at 1:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I mentioned Human Coders recently, but I'd like to mention it again. For the programmers in the audience, this is a French programming news aggregator, with information about the startup scene in France. If you're interested in getting up to speed, add this to your daily news crawl. You will note, however, that they link to quite a few articles in English, and that even French programmers tend to write code in English. This is how it works, for better or for worse.
If you know of any other good programming aggregators, please let me know. My wife and I missed the first episode of Broadchurch on France 2. I think VoilaTV has started offering a DVR add-on for a few extra bucks per month; perhaps I should look into it. But in the meantime, we're finishing La légende de Korra, which is a solid and enjoyable piece of television, though it doesn't always reach the sheer brilliance of Avatar. After this is done, we may tackle the second season of Le Trône de fer. We'll see. TV watching is a great way to keep my French active, and there's an entire industry dedicated to making TV as addictive as humanly possible, so it's not like it takes a lot of willpower to "study." Of course, I'm a big believer in getting lots of input, and in enjoying myself, so TV is perfect. If only you didn't need to be a reasonably solid B1 to start getting into native TV in a big way. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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