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Expert-Question: Software runs “under” or “on” any OS?

Jan 14

Gepostet von Carsten in @work, Englisch, Great Britain, USA | Comments off

Question:

Does a program run “under Linux” or “on Linux”? Do I do things differently “under Linux and under Windows” or “on Linux and on Windows”?

Answer:

Whether a program runs on Windows|Linux|OS or under it depends on the context.

In USE it boils down to this: If one speaks of the OS controlling the program, then it runs under the OS. If one merely speaks of the program and what platform it runs on, then it runs on the OS.

The difference is subtle, and not everyone would really notice. If you dont want to go this deep, on is probably more generic than under.

 

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Revocation of Independence

Okt 4

Gepostet von Carsten in Englisch, Fremde Länder, fremde Sitten, Geschichte, Great Britain, Humor | Comments off

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty QueenElizabeth II:

In light of your immediate failure to financially manage yourselves and also in recent years your tendency to elect incompetent Presidents of the USA and therefore not able to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. (You should look up ‘revocation’ in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas , which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, David Cameron, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated sometime next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘colour,’ ‘favour,’ ‘labour’ and ‘neighbour.’ Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters, and the suffix ‘-ize’ will be replaced by the suffix ‘-ise.’Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up ‘vocabulary’).

Den Rest des Eintrags lesen. »

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memories of the blazing sun

Okt 3

Gepostet von Carsten in Englisch, Ist das Kunst, oder kann das weg?, Lyrik | 6 Kommentare

 von Arthuro de las Cosas

l.a. aint my city

aint no love this city

burned desert city

desert in the streets desert in the people in the minds in the hearts in the desert

 

LAmetal snakes

sleazy roam

on yucky tar

 

sex

bombs

deton-ate all through my brain

cells

Den Rest des Eintrags lesen. »

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Competition oder Cooperation?

Jul 6

Gepostet von Carsten in Englisch, Essen und Genuss, Wirtschaft, Zitate und andere Weisheiten | Comments off

An anthropologist proposed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put a basket full of fruit near a tree and told the kids that who ever got there first won the sweet fruits.

When he told them to run they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats.

When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had all the fruits for himself they said: ”UBUNTU, how can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?”

 

‘UBUNTU’ in the Xhosa culture means: “I am because we are”

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Electrifrying: Jeffery Deaver – The Burning Wire

Feb 20

Gepostet von Carsten in Bücher, Englisch | 3 Kommentare

Foto des BuchesBeing a regular reader of Deavers physically challenged crime novels around the cripple Lincoln Rhyme I have to warn you. “The Burning Wire” is not one of his masterpieces.

Deaver is usually a master of suspense and not shy of describing pain, brutality and extreme suffering. But it seems that in this book he got overwhelmed by the theme he choose for the story: Murder with Electricity.

It is a very interesting and quite original idea that someone might start terrifying New Yorks inhabitants with introducing some of them to several thousand volts. Also using the issue of our dependency on (or maybe: addiction to) electric power and the discussion about renewable energy as a background theme holds quite some promise.

And you know that Deaver studied the matter  intensely – her shares many of his insights into physics and explains them better than most physics teachers. But somehow he just got stuck with the technology and fails to extend the fascination into his subjects, his story, or society in general. How our own body works with electricity, how it interacts with us, how it kills… and many more interesting roads remain uncovered. In older books never short of the cruelest details of torture, murder and dying, here Deaver restrains himself and leaves it at: It strikes you and you are dead. Well, he describes some suffering, but it remains distant, somehow theoretical. There is more to it as everyone who ever made intimate contact with 220 volt wire can tell (happend to me twice).

You may ask: What for would I want to know this? The answer: You might not. But reading Deaver used to mean exploring the pure essence of those things, to get to its center in very much a metaphysical sense – even Buddhist in some way. But here electricity remains – despite the burning title – a cold thing. I expected much more depth here.

So the story unravels unusually moderate (for a Deaver)  and with much details of physics and the history of electricity. But without the very strong tension that usually holds it together in other books by Deaver. Dont get me wrong: Its not a bad or boring book – its pretty good indeed. I still had to finish it quick. But its just not up to the standard that Deaver himself created.

One big emotion is very present in the book. It is fear. Fear of electricity. Which leads to another weakness not only of this book, but of the whole series.  Some of the main protagonists are extremely afraid of dying. Which is a contradiction to the fact, that the same – especially the main character Amelia Sachs – constantly flirt with death and risks life for the job. And not only the job:  Sachs permanently entertain either self-destructive thoughts or indulges in self-destructive life threatening private activities. Now why is she always so very afraid of the one particular way of dying discussed in the current book? This has always bothered me, but becomes very clear in this volume.

Inevitably Deaver also touches upon the issue of the electric chair. But he refrains from being anything close to explain: If killing by electricity  is so easy – why is it so difficult to do on the chair? Now this – and the whole issue of death penalty – would have spiced up the whole story a bit.  But it seemed, that he feared steering the emotions of his US readership.

But despite much criticism I still come to the conclusion: The burning wire is still a very interesting, well written and unusual crime story. Worth a read.

Oh, and he mentions Twitter once. 😉

 

Author: Jeffery Deaver

Title: The Burning Wire

Source: Darmstadt Public Library (Stadtbibliothek Darmstadt)

Pages: 462 (paperback)

My Reading Time: 3 days

Language: Slightly advanced American English, salted a few with technical terms from physics.

Rating: *** ( out of 5)

 

Weitere Buchkritiken:

Buchkurzkritiken

Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child:  Title: The Wheel of Darkness

Lee Child: Nothing to loose

Patrick Cave: Das Saint Netzwerk

Sibylle Berg: Sex II

 

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English Pronunciation

Jan 9

Gepostet von Carsten in Englisch, Humor | Comments off

English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité (this exists in different Versions on the net, I copyed it, so I would not loose it)

 

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

 

Die Quellen behaupten, wer das komplett korrekt aussprechen kann, spräche besser Englisch als 90% der Englisch-Sprecher auf der Welt. Die Behauptung , die über die Reaktion eines Franzosen auf diese Übung verbreitet wird, werde ich nicht weiterverbreiten, da sie doch sehr bösartig ist. Aber sie kann in den Quellen nachgelesen werden.

 

Sources:

http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2011/12/23/english-pronunciation/

SIGNS THAT YOU DRINK TOO MUCH COFFEE

Nov 29

Gepostet von Carsten in Englisch, Humor | Comments off

– You answer the door before people knock.
– Juan Valdez named his donkey after you.
– You ski uphill.
– You grind your coffee beans in your mouth.
– You haven’t blinked since the last lunar eclipse.
– You lick your coffeepot clean.
– You’re the employee of the month at the local coffeehouse and you don’t even work there.
– Your eyes stay open when you sneeze.
– You chew on other people’s fingernails.
– Your T-shirt says, “Decaffeinated coffee is the devil’s blend.”
– You can type sixty words per minute … with your feet.
– You can jump-start your car without cables.
– No-Doze is a downer.
– You don’t need a hammer to pound nails.
– Your only source of nutrition comes from “Sweet & Low.”
– You don’t sweat, you percolate.
– You buy 1/2 & 1/2 by the barrel.
– You’ve worn out the handle on your favorite mug.
– You go to AA meetings just for the free coffee.
– You walk twenty miles on your treadmill before you realize it’s not plugged in.
– You forget to unwrap candy bars before eating them.
– Charles Manson thinks you need to calm down.
– You’ve built a miniature city out of little plastic stirrers.
– People get dizzy just watching you.
– You’ve worn the finish off your coffee table.
– The Taster’s Choice couple wants to adopt you.
– Starbucks owns the mortgage on your house.
– Your taste buds are so numb you could drink your lava lamp.
– Instant coffee takes too long.
– When someone says. “How are you?”, you say, “Good to the last drop.”
– You want to be cremated just so you can spend the rest of eternity in a coffee can.
– Your birthday is a national holiday in Brazil.
– You’re offended when people use the word “brew” to mean beer.
– You have a picture of your coffee mug on your coffee mug.
– You can thread a sewing machine, while it’s running.
– You can outlast the Energizer bunny.
– You short out motion detectors.
– You don’t even wait for the water to boil anymore.
– Your nervous twitch registers on the Richter scale.
– You think being called a “drip” is a compliment.
– You don’t tan, you roast.
– You can’t even remember your second cup.
– You help your dog chase its tail.

 

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Who rules the world?

Nov 21

Gepostet von Carsten in Englisch, Humor, Internet | Comments off

Wikipedia: “I know everything!”

 

Google: “I have everything!”

 

Facebook: “I know everybody!”

 

Internet:” Without me you three are nothing!”

 

Electricity: “Keep talking! And pay you bill”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child: The Wheel of Darkness

Sep 9

Gepostet von Carsten in Bücher, Englisch, Thriller | 1 Kommentar

Author: Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Title: The Wheel of Darkness

Source: Darmstadt Public Library (Stadtbibliothek Darmstadt)

Pages: 508 (paperback)

My Reading Time: 2 1/2 days

Language: Slightly advanced American English, salted with technical terms from seafaring and Buddhism

Rating: *** ( out of 5)

The very special FBI-Special Agent Alosius Pendergast is drawn into his eights investigation by taking a time out from his job and re-visiting a hidden Tibetan monastery. Here he once took his first lessons in Buddhism. This time, he is shown to a very secret part of the monastery, where some object – the Agozyen (meaning: Darkness) – was stored that arrived at the monastery a thousand years ago and has been hidden ever since.

It was brought there from India and its purpose is to “cleanse the earth entirely of its human burden”. Not even the monks were allowed to look at it – but now it has been stolen. So the monks ask Agent Pendergast to find the Agozyen for them and to bring it back into the monastery.

While this first part of the story which involves Buddhist culture and Tibetan monks is the strongest and most interesting, the rest – genre-wise located somewhere between crime scene investigation, “big passenger ship in danger” and X-files – is tied together with high dosed tension. So even when you think: “I’ve read that before” (which I did quite often) its very hard to stop reading.

The reader is also recompensed with some quite surprising developments and an unusual denouement in the end.

While its entertaining to read, it is (like the other books of the Pendergast series) by far not as good as the amazing Preston / Child thriller “Thunderhead”.

Lead me into all misfortune. Only by that path can I transform the negative into the positive.

cited “from an ancient prayer” in the book

 

 

Weitere Buchkritiken:

Buchkurzkritiken

Electrifrying: Jeffery Deaver – The Burning Wire

Lee Child: Nothing to loose

Patrick Cave: Das Saint Netzwerk

Sibylle Berg: Sex II

 

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The 100 Greatest Movie Insults of All Time

Aug 26

Gepostet von Carsten in Englisch, Filme / Kino, Humor | Comments off

Mal tatsächlich praktisch anwendbares Englisch:

Mein Favorit ist immer noch:

I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal
      food trough whopper!  I fart in your general direction!  You mother
      was a hamster and your father smelt of eldeberries.

aus “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (Script)

Hier dazu die Liste der zitierten Filme. Ich habe mir schon mal ein paar vorgemerkt, die ich unbedingt nachholen muss.