Thoughts about my move to New Zealand

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by freebeard

I thought this was common knowledge.

Spain and Portugal divided the entire World between themselves.

It was a bit before my time. Doesn't explain why a plane departing China and landing in Germany will communicate in English using the Imperial measures.

Then there's our youth who the names Mao, Pol Pot, and Lenin have no contextual meaning. Hammer and Sickle is a "good thing", like a BLM flyer, or mostly peaceful protest.

[Piotrsko]

The English requirement is a holdover from american air traffic control located in Eurpoean countries after WW2. We had airplanes and cargo and we didn't speak whatever. Then there's the dual meaning word issue: when you hear "nein" in German, are they saying "9"or is it "nope I aint doing that"? Just easier to placate the 'Muricans.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by JSH

True but I’ll take top rated universal health insurance in Costa Rica over English as a national language any day. All Costa Rican citizens and permanent residents qualify. Insurance covers 100% without copays for doctor visits, surgery, and prescriptions. Cost is 7 - 11 % of income depending on income level.

I don't know about healthcare costs in Uruguay, but a few times I have already lurked about moving there.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

The English requirement is a holdover from american air traffic control located in Eurpoean[sic] countries after WW2. We had airplanes and cargo and we didn't speak whatever. Then there's the dual meaning word issue: when you hear "nein" in German, are they saying "9"or is it "nope I aint doing that"? Just easier to placate the 'Muricans.

Those 'Muricans that enunciate 'niner' to disambigute? It's also computer programmers. Their machines can translate, but the undelying code is constructed from an English precusor.

[Piotrsko]

Yup that's the reason for niner.

Wonder how linux deals with foriegn multiple syllable commands or native keyboards. Cobol had a limitless procedure name convention because you could define the input to any length the hardware could handle, ditto for the field identifiers.

I guess if you wrote your own compiler, what language you spoke wouldn't matter.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

I guess if you wrote your own compiler, what language you spoke wouldn't matter.

Unless you'd try to learn some newer languages with a substantially different alphabet once in a while

[Piotrsko]

Oddly the keyboards I have experienced have the equivalent letters in the standard places. Haven't played with katana keyboards. Knew a russian speaking lawyer that wrote his briefs in Cyrillic font and switched fonts for court

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

Oddly the keyboards I have experienced have the equivalent letters in the standard places.

I have never used keyboards with other fonts, yet AFAIK that was meant to enable the same keyboard to be adjusted to other fonts. But anyway, in my country the keyboards are usually different, even though the font is the same as it is in most other Western countries.

[freebeard]

TIL about the Shavian alphabet. Now my head hurts.

There's a better English alphabet.

The Shavian Alphabet has 40 characters, where our normal alphabet has [technically] 52. Upper case is denoted with a bullet. It eliminates redundant letters (so annoying) and replaces two or three character per phoneme. A word like 'through' becomes three characters.

Needs 2/3rds the paper and ink, and it's already in Unicode in the High ASCII set. But the adoption curve is a brick wall.

Would you like to know more? https://shavian.info/