Live data from Hacker News

This blog is written in en-GB

shkspr.mobi

201–210 of 474 posts

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#201
post #176

If you are from Europe, even if you're not living in the UK, the en-GB locale will feel a lot more familiar to you than the en-US one. It uses the dd-mm-yyyy date format like the rest of Europe, the start of the week is on Monday (vs Sunday in the US), the default paper size is A4 (vs US letter), measurement defaults are metric (indeed UK roads use imperial, but the default is otherwise metric), the time format uses…

So thankful that we use the correct date format (yyyy-mm-dd) in Sweden.

I've taken to using the Swedish locale for that very reason (French-American living in the UK).

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#202

This reminds me of the time when I removed en-US from windows, leaving just en-GB, and it blue screened. It's both surprising and irritating how many US-centric things are just assumed. (Don't even get me started on paper sizes...! ;) )

The amount of times that darn keyboard selector appears for no reason in Windows because its once again added en-US as a language, which it then switches to randomly for seemingly no reason and all of a sudden my symbols are all in the wrong places. One day someone at Microsoft is going to look at that bug and fix it....

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#203
post #176

If you are from Europe, even if you're not living in the UK, the en-GB locale will feel a lot more familiar to you than the en-US one. It uses the dd-mm-yyyy date format like the rest of Europe, the start of the week is on Monday (vs Sunday in the US), the default paper size is A4 (vs US letter), measurement defaults are metric (indeed UK roads use imperial, but the default is otherwise metric), the time format uses…

So thankful that we use the correct date format (yyyy-mm-dd) in Sweden.

Can I just say that, as someone born and bred in the UK, YYYY-MM-DD is the only correct way to display a date wherever you live.

Anything else is as bad as using mm:hh...

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#204
I declared my blog to be `en-GB` as well, but I'm fairly sure it's neither that, nor any other pre-catalogued locale. There's just no way I'm able to know where any of the references I use came from, let alone which weird contortions I came up with by myself. There are probably a few in this short comment alone.

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#205
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article strongly implies it is a response to a comment complaining the blog is not inclusive because it uses British English. There is a constant American assumption that their language and culture is the norm and we should all adjust our language to fit their definitions and culture. I intend to keep eating faggots, having a master branch in git, etc.

Equally, I doubt there was a single Brit involved in RFC 2617 Section 4.3 (for example).

I don't understand the reference. I looked it up here: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2617#section-4.3

    4.3 Limited Use Nonce Values

    The Digest scheme uses a server-specified nonce to seed the
    generation of the request-digest value (as specified in section
    3.2.2.1 above).  As shown in the example nonce in section 3.2.1, the
    server is free to construct the nonce such that it may only be used
    from a particular client, for a particular resource, for a limited
    period of time or number of uses, or any other restrictions.  Doing
    so strengthens the protection provided against, for example, replay
    attacks (see 4.5).  However, it should be noted that the method
    chosen for generating and checking the nonce also has performance and
    resource implications.  For example, a server may choose to allow
    each nonce value to be used only once by maintaining a record of
    whether or not each recently issued nonce has been returned and
    sending a next-nonce directive in the Authentication-Info header
    field of every response. This protects against even an immediate
    replay attack, but has a high cost checking nonce values, and perhaps
    more important will cause authentication failures for any pipelined
    requests (presumably returning a stale nonce indication).  Similarly,
    incorporating a request-specific element such as the Etag value for a
    resource limits the use of the nonce to that version of the resource
    and also defeats pipelining. Thus it may be useful to do so for
    methods with side effects but have unacceptable performance for those
    that do not.
Can you explain your (assumed) sarcastic remark?

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#206
post #14

I think that by exploring how different cultures and languages communicate about things opens the mind. There are concepts that can't be easily/succinctly explained in English but can in other languages. I think that we should be encouraging such breadth of thought because it allows us to appreciate new aspects of the world we live in.

This was my starting point, a belief that other languages were 'better' at expressing different things. However, I have done a few projects requiring translation over the years and I have found European language speakers, notably Italian and German, preferring the freedom of English to the relative straightjackets of their respective mother tongues. As a Brit I am biased, however, there is a crucial difference betwee…

>Had they allowed their language to accept English loan words, chances are that French could still be the language it once was.

The Académie française has exactly 0 to do with the fact that French is used less as a lingua franca.

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#207
post #12

> Accrington Stanley I've never heard of this depite being from the UK. It seems to be some ad from 1989. Although I do remember many classic ads from the 1980's I don't recall this. Is it an English / Scottish thing ? Who knows. Why is Accrington Stanley so famous? Ian Rush reflects on famous milk advert ahead of Liverpool v ... Accrington Stanley achieved worldwide fame primarily due to a legendary 1989 television…

I suspect it was England and Wales only.

It was never shown in NI, which had its own Milk Marketing Board. Scotland had a separate one too, so probably didn't get them either.

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#208
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiraeth

That one only works when the homeland is that beautiful.

I don't know. I mean it's not a longing for just a place, as I understand it. I am not even sure that hiraeth is necessarily longing for the beauty of a place or time. Hiraeth, it seems to me, could equally be a longing for the wordless Welsh expressions of emotion, or for rainy days, or damp, or a time that has passed, depending on where the bearer of the emotion is currently feeling it.

(I am not Welsh, but it has been described to me as an ever tightening elastic emotional rope that is anchored in a place and time that it might not be possible to go back to)

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#209
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go to France, or Japan, or Hungary, or somewhere like that. Someone there is visiting a web site that is in English. Now, what English is it most likely to be? My guess is US English, not UK English, not Indian English, not Chinese English. Sure, they may visit some of those sites, but I suspect that the most frequent will be US English.

Correct, generally speaking they will have their own default locales on their computer and local sites will be in e.g. French but going to Instagram it will render in US English - unless the app has been translated, which it probably has so it's not the best example.

I've just checked my instagram and it's using the UK spelling "favourites"

Re: This blog is written in en-GB

#210
post #28

I am the only Brit in the department I work in. No one gets the cultural references or British idioms I use, and I've found myself significantly changing the language I use to a very utilitarian and direct style to prevent the endless blank stares... reading this blog post just made me realise that this self-editing has made my interactions rather more 'flat' and unnatural, as they now lack spontaneity, with everythi…

I have a cunning plan: Sneak as many Brits into Hollywood as possible, and have them slip in as many British references into American films as they can. Over time, they'll effectively BECOME British, and Robert's your father's brother! Just whatever you do, don't mention the taxes! I did once, but I think I got away with it...

Is it as cunning as a fox who’s just been appointed professor of cunning at Oxford university?
Post reply on HN