tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4565845984512808077.post1859481902604376470..comments2024-03-19T21:41:42.835+01:00Comments on Poemas del río Wang: Mallorcan, Menorcan, Ibizan and FormenteranStudiolumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06377777909296284368noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4565845984512808077.post-41524514729218570042011-10-10T18:00:16.375+02:002011-10-10T18:00:16.375+02:00Well, I mean their GPS is obviously correct, for t...Well, I mean their GPS is obviously correct, for they all manage to arrive here.<br /><br />What is wrong instead, is the map in their GPS, which indicates the way from here to the industrial zone as passable, instead of a dirt way which it is in the reality. The same refers, mutatis mutandis, to the maps of Urbino and Barcelona, too.Studiolumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06377777909296284368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4565845984512808077.post-56593943891871814662011-10-10T17:44:54.543+02:002011-10-10T17:44:54.543+02:00The recent neutrino velocity paper seized on by th...The recent neutrino velocity paper seized on by the press for travel faster-than-light (Einstein wrong, time machines etc), is interesting for the use of GPS to measure the distance between the neutrino source at CERN (Geneva) and the detector, deep underground at Gran Sasso. The distance of 730 km was measured to a precision of 20 cm. (The measurement also revealed continental drift - less than 1 cm/year - and a sudden displacement of 7 cm from a local earthquake).<br /><br />So, all things considered, I don't think the navigation of your heavy trucks should be blamed on GPS.<br /><br />Of course, you might have a huge gravitational anomaly near your home, making the relativistic corrections applied to GPS timing inaccurate. :)<br /><br />In London, would-be taxi drivers still have to acquire "the knowledge". GPS is far too modern!walterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02603255065547405744noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4565845984512808077.post-13311610484534234322011-10-08T10:30:54.129+02:002011-10-08T10:30:54.129+02:00Well, my multiple experience is that you cannot tr...Well, my multiple experience is that you cannot trust in GPS only. In several Central Italian towns, for example, GPS gets mad and loses the way. To Urbino you simply cannot enter by following the GPS’s guidances, only go round and round. When I told it to the first policewoman I met, she answered yes, we know it and have informed the GPS company several times, but with no result…<br /><br />Or from the village where I live, a road leads to the nearby industrial zone. Daily a number of heavy trucks, led by GPS, are trapped on the main square of our village, because the road in fact is a dirt road, passable only by bicycle. For years GPS has not been able to change this detail…<br /><br />alfanje: yes, I did not add that element because I thought the date made it clear for any reader. I’m also convinced it was because of this political situation; I doubt he would have been fined by speaking in Basque on the phone.Studiolumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06377777909296284368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4565845984512808077.post-75241311592778208722011-10-07T21:43:58.560+02:002011-10-07T21:43:58.560+02:00That fine has been widely circulated (it is a favo...That fine has been widely circulated (it is a favourite of my nationalist friends) and you do the right thing by mentioning that it happened during the Spanish Civil War. I think one more element of context if missing: in July 1937 San Sebastian and the rest of Guipuscoa were in Franco's hands whereas the whole of Catalonia was in the Republican zone.<br /><br />In my opinion it may be a lot more about the Civil War and control of communications than about Catalan language policies. Unfortunately the fine does not refer to any law of decree, which could clarify it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4565845984512808077.post-51287061145015334882011-10-07T17:28:16.230+02:002011-10-07T17:28:16.230+02:00Quite frankly,the cabbie's GPS is clearly to b...Quite frankly,the cabbie's GPS is clearly to blame and not the fact that a toponym is writen in the form used by local people for generations. By the way, most topnyms were "rewriten", as you say, more than twenty years ago...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4565845984512808077.post-83324020350105991242011-10-07T16:23:17.175+02:002011-10-07T16:23:17.175+02:00But the classic literature already needs a varying...But the classic literature already needs a varying degree of translation for the grade school students... and with a proper government subsidies and policies, a region could create tons of contemporary local literature in a very short time. Like in Iceland, pop. 270,000, which has the highest poetry output per capita by a large margin.<br /><br />Why? Probably because the govt effectively blocks employment of youth under 21, while at the same time subsidizing poets. To every kid with a garage rock band, the path is clear.<br /><br />I'm more concerned when the nativists aggressively rewrite the toponyms, because it then affects the rest of us. Sometimes it is subtle but still disruptive in the GPS age, like Hawaiian project to restore the proper diacritical marks in all the place names (the letters don't change but...)<br /><br />Recently I've been burned by a Catalan toponymic zeal too, to the tune of 10 euros. A cabbie's GPS wouldn't find the street we were going to, because it was no longer "Virgen" but "Mare de Deu" :)MOCKBAhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05150628026789690963noreply@blogger.com