From: bill.sloman@ieee.org
On 2/02/2026 2:36 am, john larkin wrote:
> On Mon, 2 Feb 2026 00:37:55 +1100, Bill Sloman
> wrote:
>
>> On 1/02/2026 10:10 pm, john larkin wrote:
>>> On Sun, 1 Feb 2026 21:57:08 +1100, Bill Sloman
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 1/02/2026 8:36 am, john larkin wrote:
>>>>> On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 21:42:27 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 1/31/26 16:34, john larkin wrote:
>>>>>>> On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 11:21:44 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On 1/31/26 00:53, john larkin wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 22:49:12 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> On 1/30/26 21:00, Nioclás Pól Caileán de Ghloucester wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> Bill Sloman wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> |---------------------------------------------------
--------------------|
>>>>>>>>>>> |"Languages aren't learned any faster if you learn them
young" |
>>>>>>>>>>> |---------------------------------------------------
--------------------|
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> It is much easier for a child to learn a language than it is for an
>>>>>>>>>>> old person.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> An often repeated myth, entirely untrue.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Adults can learn a new language in much less time than a
>>>>>>>>>> child, provided they are motivated and immersed. Those are
>>>>>>>>>> the keys, motivation and immersion.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Jeroen Belleman
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Adults rarely acquire a new accent at native level.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> https://news.mit.edu/2018/cognitive-scientists-define-
ritical-period-learning-language-0501
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> John Larkin
>>>>>>>>> Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
>>>>>>>>> Lunatic Fringe Electronics
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> True, but those natives probably don't have the linguistic
>>>>>>>> abilities of the foreign speaker. Your thinking is shaped
>>>>>>>> by language, and speaking more languages is enriching.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I'm native Dutch, but I've been told I have a French
>>>>>>>> accent now.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Jeroen Belleman
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Which language is best for thinking about electronics?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I think circuits in pictures, not words, but people are very
>>>>>>> different.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> John Larkin
>>>>>>> Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
>>>>>>> Lunatic Fringe Electronics
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That has to be English, I think. Anyway, for quite some time now,
>>>>>> English has been the common language of science and technology,
>>>>>> electronics included. It has been French for a while, and Latin
>>>>>> for a long period before that. And ancient Greek before that, and
>>>>>> and ,,,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Jeroen Belleman
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> English is shockingly irregular.
>>>>
>>>> Not really. It's just another language which evolved. Imagining English
>>>> was ever designed is plain silly.
>>>>
>>>>> One word can mean six things and
>>>>> there are a zillion words to express a concept.
>>>>
>>>> Quite a lot of word meanings are context dependent. Dictionaries deal
>>>> with this by quoting word use in the various different contexts.
>>>>
>>>>> Plus there are places like the UK with their own weird versions.
>>>>
>>>> At one level English is the language spoken in England, and the
>>>> derivations spoken in the US and Australia are the weird versions.
>>>>
>>>> Some of the oddities of US English reflect the fact that some of the
>>>> evolution of British English over the past few centuries didn't make it
>>>> across the Atlantic.
>>>>
>>>>> Given the concept that ambiguity generates creativity, maybe English
>>>>> is a good language to invent in.
>>>>
>>>> The idea that ambiguity generates creativity is one that I haven't come
>>>> across. Google throw up a few examples from the past few years, so it
>>>> may be currently fashionable word salad.
>>>>
>>>> Ambiguity didn't feature in any of the ideas I've had that ended up
>>>> patented, nor in any of the 25-odd ideas that my father got patents for.
>>>> I'm not familiar with all of Alan Dower Blumlein's 128 patents, but the
>>>> none of the ones I do know about had anything ambiguous about them.
>>>
>>> With all the patents in your family, you must be very wealthy.
>>
>> If you are an employee you don't get any extra just because you have a
>> patent. My father did end up pretty well off, but none of it came
>> directly from the patents.
>>
>> The most significant one - for the counter-current cooking of wood chips
>> into paper pulp - didn't earn much in the way of royalties. Kamyr, who
>> made all the digestors used by the industry, chose not to pay royalties,
>> and it wasn't worth suing them, or the people who used the process in
>> continuous digestors that they'd bought from Kamyr.
>
> Journal papers and patents are mostly vanity expenses.
Except when they aren't. A friend patented an idea that he had had, and
eventually got $A12million out of the patent.
Most scientific papers are intended to keep the authors visible to the
rest of their academic community, but sometimes they get lucky. Brian
Josephson is said have complained that he would have preferred to get
his name attached to an effect that did something. That was apparently
before the Josephson junction became way of establishing the value of
the standard volt.
> Designing electronics can be a source of revenue.
And you seem to make money out of cobbling electronics together.
Electronic design is difficult, particularly if you haven't got a clue
about what's involved in doing it.
Ripping up preliminary designs and starting over does seem to be an
integral part of the process of actual design.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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