politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Ipsos-MORI finds CON and LAB level pegging – but with Boris
LAB & CON level pegging amongst those certain to vote with @IpsosMORI . LAB 2% ahead with all expressing VI pic.twitter.com/Je4sGsBxGa
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The kippers love Boris - must be his Aryan hair.0
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For the purposes of comparison, the Tories had a 16% lead with Ipsos-Mori in August 20090
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From the previous threads trolling...TGOHF said:The kippers love Boris - must be his Aryan hair.
I said if UKIP don't win each seat, a pro EU party will.. no one said anything about MPs
Why don't you spend some time trying to make your party more electable rather than insulting people who disagree with their policies? #Nastyparty0 -
Where's Avery ?
We need a yellow box to explain why no wage growth is a sign of Osborne's genius.0 -
Satisfaction with party leaders increases across the board when they are all on holiday.0
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I fear that, in your enthusiasm, you are over-egging the pudding. Companies I have been involved with have learnt the hard way that automatic text-translation tools can cause significant problems - it is fine when you want the gist of what was said and the outcome doesn't really matter, but it does when nuance or idioms intrude.SeanT said:fpt
Learning foreign languages is one of the most pointless things to do. Google Translate is already close to being the Babelfish of Douglas Adams' imagination: instant, automatic translation.
In 20 years imagine how good it will be. There will be, literally, tiny chips you can wear by your ear which translate speech direct into your brain; and smartphone apps that instantly interpret whatever you say into whatever language you want.
Advising a small child to learn languages is like advising her to learn calligraphy.
Then you have the problem of converting speech-to-text to feed into the translator. Anyone who has used Dragon, IBM, or a.n.other speech-to-text tool knows that you have to teach them your speech, and even then they often get it wrong. In face-to-face communications they just don't work.
Also, different dialects - for instance an English to Cantonese translator would find it hard to cope with Brummie or Scouser accents if programmed with RP. The fact we can (mostly) understand those accents (and they can understand ours) is a tribute to our brains.
And your idea of interfacing directly into the brain is, for the moment, pure SciFi. Some rather trivial and self-publicising experiments aside, we have precious little idea about how the brain really works.
The instant face-to face advantage of speaking, and having a thorough grasp of the idioms of another language will not be beaten by technology for a long, long time.
As someone who loves technology I would love to say the problem will be solved in twenty years. Sadly, it will only really be solved when AI comes in, because good speech to text and text translation will depend on a rather good AI. And when that happens, everything changes. (ref. Skynet).
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Actually being able to write is rather a useful skill. In an age where the ability to form and express ideas is going to become the key determinate of income your suggestion that we should not train youngsters in how to do that efficiently is a bit odd.SeanT said:fpt
Learning foreign languages is one of the most pointless things to do. Google Translate is already close to being the Babelfish of Douglas Adams' imagination: instant, automatic translation.
In 20 years imagine how good it will be. There will be, literally, tiny chips you can wear by your ear which translate speech direct into your brain; and smartphone apps that instantly interpret whatever you say into whatever language you want.
Advising a small child to learn languages is like advising her to learn calligraphy.
Good luck with the Babelfish.0 -
Satisfaction with the Government increases +4% when they are all on holiday.
wisdom of the crowd, gawd bless em...0 -
I've already explained that. See previous thread.Alanbrooke said:Where's Avery ?
We need a yellow box to explain why no wage growth is a sign of Osborne's genius.
[You do want the economy rebalanced from high unemployment and excessive reliance on financial services, I imagine?]
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Demonstrably and incontrovertibly IPSOS MORI are the new Gold Standard.
Sorry ICM but you really must try harder.0 -
There's a message there.SimonStClare said:Satisfaction with the Government increases +4% when they are all on holiday.
wisdom of the crowd, gawd bless em...0 -
chortleRichard_Nabavi said:
I've already explained that. See previous thread.Alanbrooke said:Where's Avery ?
We need a yellow box to explain why no wage growth is a sign of Osborne's genius.
[You do want the economy rebalanced from excessive reliance on financial services, I imagine?]
abolutely rebalanced Richard it's long overdue.
but I don't want ordinary people's wages shoved down because of excessive immigration, poor skills, crappy no hours contracts and all the rest of the Blair paraphenalia Cameron has done bugger all about.
Osborne simply Gordon Brown in first gear.0 -
It's time the voters woke up to the nonsense that is Boris. He's the ideology free mayor when he wants to be then the true blue Telegraph commentator every so often.He couldn't get away with it as PM or even as LOTO.0
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Will you be emigrating if he becomes PM?FrankBooth said:It's time the voters woke up to the nonsense that is Boris. He's the ideology free mayor when he wants to be then the true blue Telegraph commentator every so often.He couldn't get away with it as PM or even as LOTO.
For me the biggest divergence between the public image of Boris and the reality is that some people I know who have had dealings with him describe him as far, far less amiable than you might be led to think from his public persona.0 -
Mr. T.,SeanT said:
Nah, that's nonsense. Within 20 years we will have Babelfish. Maybe sooner.JosiasJessop said:
I fear that, in your enthusiasm, you are over-egging the pudding. Companies I have been involved with have learnt the hard way that automatic text-translation tools can cause significant problems - it is fine when you want the gist of what was said and the outcome doesn't really matter, but it does when nuance or idioms intrude.SeanT said:fpt
Learning foreign languages is one of the most pointless things to do. Google Translate is already close to being the Babelfish of Douglas Adams' imagination: instant, automatic translation.
In 20 years imagine how good it will be. There will be, literally, tiny chips you can wear by your ear which translate speech direct into your brain; and smartphone apps that instantly interpret whatever you say into whatever language you want.
Advising a small child to learn languages is like advising her to learn calligraphy.
As someone who loves technology I would love to say the problem will be solved in twenty years. Sadly, it will only really be solved when AI comes in, because good speech to text and text translation will depend on a rather good AI. And when that happens, everything changes. (ref. Skynet).
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/google-translate-has-ambitious-goals-for-machine-translation-a-921646.html
From your quoted article
"The German computer scientist and his team have already made substantial progress. Google Translate can now translate text back and forth between 71 languages, be it from English into German or from Icelandic into Japanese."
Have you ever tried to use Google Translate? It is a heap of junk. The idea that you could translate from one language to another and then to a third whilst retaining the meaning is fanciful. For a phrase it is sometimes useful in giving you, with some imagination on your part, the gist of the meaning. For a block of idiomatic text it is worthless. For technical stuff, where jargon is common, it is even worse. As a test take a chunk of one of your own novels and feed it in, go on, and let us know what you think of the text that comes out - how many books would you sell if that was the sort of content?
Yes, it will get better but nowhere near good enough in your lifetime, let alone mine, to rely on for entertainment let alone money or engineering issues, and they are what matter.0 -
You are confusing lots of different things.Alanbrooke said:but I don't want ordinary people's wages shoved down because of excessive immigration, poor skills, crappy no hours contracts and all the rest of the Blair paraphenalia Cameron has done bugger all about.
Osborne simply Gordon Brown in first gear.
Firstly the average tells you very little: if we do have people moving from unemployment into mostly not particularly-well paid jobs, and a lower dependence on massive pay in the financial service sector, the average wage will appear to come down. Elementary arithmetic, which doesn't mean ordinary people's wages are coming down (there are lots of other factors as well, of course). Of course it is true that ordinary wages are not rising much if at all, so far. That will come soon.
Secondly, yes, immigration has been too high. Hardly Osborne's fault, though. He inherited the mess, he didn't create it.
Thirdly: Yes, poor skills are a key factor, but you are too impatient. That will take three parliamentary terms to fix, but Gove has made a superb start with getting the basics right, notably for the bottom 25% by household income who were abjectly failed by the education system the government inherited.
Osborne is the complete opposite of Gordon Brown: he's doing the right thing for the long-term. The results are now so clear that only the most blinkered, such as David Blanchflower, can possibly fail to see them.0 -
Did you honestly think you would see self-driving cars in your life time?HurstLlama said:
Mr. T.,SeanT said:
Nah, that's nonsense. Within 20 years we will have Babelfish. Maybe sooner.JosiasJessop said:
I fear that, in your enthusiasm, you are over-egging the pudding. Companies I have been involved with have learnt the hard way that automatic text-translation tools can cause significant problems - it is fine when you want the gist of what was said and the outcome doesn't really matter, but it does when nuance or idioms intrude.SeanT said:fpt
Learning foreign languages is one of the most pointless things to do. Google Translate is already close to being the Babelfish of Douglas Adams' imagination: instant, automatic translation.
In 20 years imagine how good it will be. There will be, literally, tiny chips you can wear by your ear which translate speech direct into your brain; and smartphone apps that instantly interpret whatever you say into whatever language you want.
Advising a small child to learn languages is like advising her to learn calligraphy.
As someone who loves technology I would love to say the problem will be solved in twenty years. Sadly, it will only really be solved when AI comes in, because good speech to text and text translation will depend on a rather good AI. And when that happens, everything changes. (ref. Skynet).
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/google-translate-has-ambitious-goals-for-machine-translation-a-921646.html
From your quoted article
"The German computer scientist and his team have already made substantial progress. Google Translate can now translate text back and forth between 71 languages, be it from English into German or from Icelandic into Japanese."
Have you ever tried to use Google Translate? It is a heap of junk. The idea that you could translate from one language to another and then to a third whilst retaining the meaning is fanciful. For a phrase it is sometimes useful in giving you, with some imagination on your part, the gist of the meaning. For a block of idiomatic text it is worthless. For technical stuff, where jargon is common, it is even worse. As a test take a chunk of one of your own novels and feed it in, go on, and let us know what you think of the text that comes out - how many books would you sell if that was the sort of content?
Yes, it will get better but nowhere near good enough in your lifetime, let alone mine, to rely on for entertainment let alone money or engineering issues, and they are what matter.
Never underestimate technological change.
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The machines will still need to be tended to; the High Priests of the technology have jobs for life.SeanT said:
I never said don't learn to write, I said don't bother wasting time learning languages when machines will do it better - or, certainly, much much cheaper and more proficiently (i.e. translating all languages, not just a couple) - by the time today's toddler is 21.
Truth is, I really don't know what to advise my 8 year old daughters, when it comes to acquiring skills, for future careers. So many professions are threatened. No one knows who will be safe. One study I read said vicars and athletics coaches might be the only survivors from the Digital Apocalypse.
However I am sure of one thing: I won't be telling my girls to spend years learning Mandarin.
Learn a language. Programming language. Or several.
Or Networks.0 -
Respect is not a pro-EU party.isam said:
From the previous threads trolling...TGOHF said:The kippers love Boris - must be his Aryan hair.
I said if UKIP don't win each seat, a pro EU party will.. no one said anything about MPs
Why don't you spend some time trying to make your party more electable rather than insulting people who disagree with their policies? #Nastyparty
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"Did you honestly think you would see self-driving cars in your life time?"MarkHopkins said:
Did you honestly think you would see self-driving cars in your life time?
Never underestimate technological change.
Oh yes! They were in the Eagle comic when I was a boy, they are just appearing a a lot later than we were led to expect. They are also stuck to the roads which wasn't part of the plan.
So actually for some of these wonders of technology that we have undoubtedly experienced are a bit short of what the far-seeing people predicted. Thus when Mr. T and others predict that in twenty years being able to speak a foreign language will be unnecessary because we will have Babelfish, some of us are inclined to say, "Oh, yes, we have heard that sort of thing before" and be a bit cynical.0 -
If you are trying to do business with someone who doesn't speak your language and you can demonstrate that you have made a competent effort to speak their language, you get more than brownie points.SeanT said:fpt
Learning foreign languages is one of the most pointless things to do. Google Translate is already close to being the Babelfish of Douglas Adams' imagination: instant, automatic translation.
In 20 years imagine how good it will be. There will be, literally, tiny chips you can wear by your ear which translate speech direct into your brain; and smartphone apps that instantly interpret whatever you say into whatever language you want.
Advising a small child to learn languages is like advising her to learn calligraphy.
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Some would argue that for the English (or native English speakers) it has never been necessary to learn a foreign language because everyone learns English!SeanT said:
God you do get het up, don't you? Calm down or you'll thrombose your chalfonts.HurstLlama said:SeanT said:
Nah, that's nonsense. Within 20 years we will have Babelfish. Maybe sooner.JosiasJessop said:
ISeanT said:fpt
Learning foreign languages is one of the most pointless things to do. Google Translate is already close to being the Babelfish of Douglas Adams' imagination: instant, automatic translation.
In 20 years imagine how good it will be. There will be, literally, tiny chips you can wear by your ear which translate speech direct into your brain; and smartphone apps that instantly interpret whatever you say into whatever language you want.
Advising a small child to learn languages is like advising her to learn calligraphy.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/google-translate-has-ambitious-goals-for-machine-translation-a-921646.html
Yes, it will get better but nowhere near good enough in your lifetime, let alone mine, to rely on for entertainment let alone money or engineering issues, and they are what matter.
In case you hadn't noticed, Google translate is now pretty much perfect for small clear sentences - the stuff people need when they go on holiday - so that's phrasebooks finished, and the people that write them.
Five years ago Google Translate was total rubbish. What will computer translation be like in another five, ten, twenty years?
Essentially, in advising a tiny child to learn Mandarin you are telling her to dedicate many many hours to acquiring a skill which, at the present rate of technological change, will probably be done by machines much better and cheaper by the time she is an adult.
That's bad advice to my mind. You might be right that there are insuperable technological challenges and we will always need interpreters - but why take the risk? Betting against Google and the internet has been a bad bet for the last two decades.
Surely the child is better off acquiring skills which are impossible to computerise?
The reason some English do learn foreign languages are reasons that are not replicated by computers eg socialness , politeness, because its a challenge, to appreciate the beauty of a language. Whilst a machine can deal with the technical side it seems a bit soulless (I am sure Stephen Hawking would prefer to speak with his tongue not through a box)0 -
Don't mind me, Mr. T., I am not in the least het up, just trying to have a chat. Of course I am daft old coot, so my opinions don't matter, and I have so little to say I am amazed to you even bother to reply.SeanT said:
God you do get het up, don't you? Calm down or you'll thrombose your chalfonts.HurstLlama said:SeanT said:
Nah, that's nonsense. Within 20 years we will have Babelfish. Maybe sooner.JosiasJessop said:
ISeanT said:fpt
Learning foreign languages is one of the most pointless things to do. Google Translate is already close to being the Babelfish of Douglas Adams' imagination: instant, automatic translation.
In 20 years imagine how good it will be. There will be, literally, tiny chips you can wear by your ear which translate speech direct into your brain; and smartphone apps that instantly interpret whatever you say into whatever language you want.
Advising a small child to learn languages is like advising her to learn calligraphy.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/google-translate-has-ambitious-goals-for-machine-translation-a-921646.html
Yes, it will get better but nowhere near good enough in your lifetime, let alone mine, to rely on for entertainment let alone money or engineering issues, and they are what matter.
In case you hadn't noticed, Google translate is now pretty much perfect for small clear sentences - the stuff people need when they go on holiday - so that's phrasebooks finished, and the people that write them.
Five years ago Google Translate was total rubbish. What will computer translation be like in another five, ten, twenty years?
Essentially, in advising a tiny child to learn Mandarin you are telling her to dedicate many many hours to acquiring a skill which, at the present rate of technological change, will probably be done by machines much better and cheaper by the time she is an adult.
That's bad advice to my mind. You might be right that there are insuperable technological challenges and we will always need interpreters - but why take the risk? Betting against Google and the internet has been a bad bet for the last two decades.
Surely the child is better off acquiring skills which are impossible to computerise?
If you don't want your daughters to have a second language or maybe even a third and the extra ability to learn that studying foreign languages brings that is for you. However, if you don't want your girls to learn a language then might I suggest you encourage them to take up a musical instrument.0 -
I reckon they will give him an easy runTGOHF said:
But you really have to try and get away from the mindset that UKIP voters are going to be browbeaten into voting Tory because you want them to... you keep trying this with me, someone who has never voted Tory and disagrees with almost all that Cameron says and does. Things have changed0 -
Dare one mention nuclear fusion? Been about 20 years away my entire life.HurstLlama said:
"Did you honestly think you would see self-driving cars in your life time?"MarkHopkins said:
Did you honestly think you would see self-driving cars in your life time?
Never underestimate technological change.
Oh yes! They were in the Eagle comic when I was a boy, they are just appearing a a lot later than we were led to expect. They are also stuck to the roads which wasn't part of the plan.
So actually for some of these wonders of technology that we have undoubtedly experienced are a bit short of what the far-seeing people predicted. Thus when Mr. T and others predict that in twenty years being able to speak a foreign language will be unnecessary because we will have Babelfish, some of us are inclined to say, "Oh, yes, we have heard that sort of thing before" and be a bit cynical.
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No I won't. Firstly I think it's actually pretty unlikely he'd become PM. If he did it would probably be for one term. Whether he would actually do much in that time I don't know - maybe every city would have its own cable car? And actually I suspect his instincts are quite liberal for a Tory. He'd be far preferable to Gove or IDS.Neil said:
Will you be emigrating if he becomes PM?FrankBooth said:It's time the voters woke up to the nonsense that is Boris. He's the ideology free mayor when he wants to be then the true blue Telegraph commentator every so often.He couldn't get away with it as PM or even as LOTO.
For me the biggest divergence between the public image of Boris and the reality is that some people I know who have had dealings with him describe him as far, far less amiable than you might be led to think from his public persona.
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Are you mad? Why would anyone want to learn a musical instrument when technology can record and playback the worlds greatest musicians in your home without you having to learn to play even one note.HurstLlama said:
Don't mind me, Mr. T., I am not in the least het up, just trying to have a chat. Of course I am daft old coot, so my opinions don't matter, and I have so little to say I am amazed to you even bother to reply.SeanT said:
God you do get het up, don't you? Calm down or you'll thrombose your chalfonts.HurstLlama said:SeanT said:
Nah, that's nonsense. Within 20 years we will have Babelfish. Maybe sooner.JosiasJessop said:
ISeanT said:fpt
Learning foreign languages is one of the most pointless things to do. Google Translate is already close to being the Babelfish of Douglas Adams' imagination: instant, automatic translation.
Advising a small child to learn languages is like advising her to learn calligraphy.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/google-translate-has-ambitious-goals-for-machine-translation-a-921646.html
Yes, it will get better but nowhere near good enough in your lifetime, let alone mine, to rely on for entertainment let alone money or engineering issues, and they are what matter.
In case you hadn't noticed, Google translate is now pretty much perfect for small clear sentences - the stuff people need when they go on holiday - so that's phrasebooks finished, and the people that write them.
Five years ago Google Translate was total rubbish. What will computer translation be like in another five, ten, twenty years?
Essentially, in advising a tiny child to learn Mandarin you are telling her to dedicate many many hours to acquiring a skill which, at the present rate of technological change, will probably be done by machines much better and cheaper by the time she is an adult.
That's bad advice to my mind. You might be right that there are insuperable technological challenges and we will always need interpreters - but why take the risk? Betting against Google and the internet has been a bad bet for the last two decades.
Surely the child is better off acquiring skills which are impossible to computerise?
If you don't want your daughters to have a second language or maybe even a third and the extra ability to learn that studying foreign languages brings that is for you. However, if you don't want your girls to learn a language then might I suggest you encourage them to take up a musical instrument.0 -
CopperSulphate said:HurstLlama said:
Are you mad? Why would anyone want to learn a musical instrument when technology can record and playback the worlds greatest musicians in your home without you having to learn to play even one note.SeanT said:
Don't mind me, Mr. T., I am not in the least het up, just trying to have a chat. Of course I am daft old coot, so my opinions don't matter, and I have so little to say I am amazed to you even bother to reply.HurstLlama said:SeanT said:
Nah, that's nonsense. Within 20 years we will have Babelfish. Maybe sooner.JosiasJessop said:
ISeanT said:fpt
Learning foreign languages is one of the most pointless things to do. Google Translate is already close to being the Babelfish of Douglas Adams' imagination: instant, automatic translation.
Advising a small child to learn languages is like advising her to learn calligraphy.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/google-translate-has-ambitious-goals-for-machine-translation-a-921646.html
Surely the child is better off acquiring skills which are impossible to computerise?
If you don't want your daughters to have a second language or maybe even a third and the extra ability to learn that studying foreign languages brings that is for you. However, if you don't want your girls to learn a language then might I suggest you encourage them to take up a musical instrument.
Isn't that like saying there is no need to play football because you can watch the best play on Sky Sports most nights? Been able to produce 'stuff' yourself is far more satisfying than watching someone else do it (even if they ,including machines, do it far better )0 -
People don't do random language translations just for the fun of it, nor are there concerts of translations. You cannot compare it to music.CopperSulphate said:Are you mad? Why would anyone want to learn a musical instrument when technology can record and playback the worlds greatest musicians in your home without you having to learn to play even one note.
There is value in learning a language, e.g. even a dead one like Latin, but for practical business use machine translation will become more and more the norm.
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I was about to post ICM to lose the Gold Standard, however one of the PB Hodges has already declared it.
ARF!!!0 -
How do you chat up a girl using a translation machine?
Just asking.0 -
I think the EU sometimes does translation for funMarkHopkins said:
People don't do random language translations just for the fun of it, nor are there concerts of translations. You cannot compare it to music.CopperSulphate said:Are you mad? Why would anyone want to learn a musical instrument when technology can record and playback the worlds greatest musicians in your home without you having to learn to play even one note.
There is value in learning a language, e.g. even a dead one like Latin, but for practical business use machine translation will become more and more the norm.0 -
If what I heard on Radio 4 this morning it true then apparently dance is what should be taught a lot more of in schools . More important than maths!
Maybe it is as computers don't do dancing . (that Japanese robot that James May /Karl Pilkington keep visiting is chit at it)0 -
Someone argued recently that learning Latin was preferable to learning MandarinMarkHopkins said:
There is value in learning a language, e.g. even a dead one like Latin, but for practical business use machine translation will become more and more the norm.0 -
Could converse with a future PM if Boris gets the job!!Scott_P said:
Someone argued recently that learning Latin was preferable to learning MandarinMarkHopkins said:
There is value in learning a language, e.g. even a dead one like Latin, but for practical business use machine translation will become more and more the norm.
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The people who bought the political class want a plantation economy and so that's what we get. As there's no longer a credit bubble to hide the consequences we will increasingly see what a bad idea it was for everyone but them - and that was before the automation tidal wave that is apparently on its way. Never have so few **** bankstas screwed up the lives of so many.
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Like!compouter2 said:I was about to post ICM to lose the Gold Standard, however one of the PB Hodges has already declared it.
ARF!!!0 -
The European Patent Office now offers machine translation in around 30 languages:
http://www.epo.org/searching/free/patent-translate.html
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Yes. They had them (in highway convoy form) in the 1980s.MarkHopkins said:
Did you honestly think you would see self-driving cars in your life time?
There has been massive progress since the DARPA Grand Challenge ten years ago. But don't be fooled by Google's publicity: they've been doing good stuff, but all their publicity about so-many hundreds of thousand of miles driven contains a certain amount of smoke and mirrors.
It's the old story: any idiot can knock up a prototype in their bedroom, reliable production products with no edge- or corner- cases is much, much harder to produce. The last 10% of effort can take 90% (or more) of time and money.
The cars also have $150,000 of equipment, including LIDAR. Look at all the idiots who drive at the moment: do you really think they check their tyres or lights as often as they should? Would they check the relevant sensors? Of course not.
Safety is also paramount. There's a story from a couple of decades ago about a certain manufacturer's attempt to remove the physical link between steering wheel and steering being brought down by someone changing a CD... (yes, really). (*) Expect many of these when the first driverless cars appear in any number.
It will happen (and before automatic real-time translation). But it will be painful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/6300/20140501/heres-how-googles-driverless-car-avoid-pedestrians-bikers-on-the-streets-at-least-most-of-them.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/04/28/google-driverless-cars/8409475/
(*) If you want to know the gory details, it was a fly-by-wire system. The steering wheel inputs were converted to electrical impulses and put on a data bus. Sadly, they also put the CD player on the same bus. In certain circumstances, when changing CD the bus would get saturated with data, leaving the steering unresponsive. It's fairly incredible that some brilliant engineers made that mistake, but that's life.0 -
I tell her I have a talented tongue and people note that I'm a cunning linguist.DavidL said:How do you chat up a girl using a translation machine?
Just asking.0 -
Chinese and back again, a SeanT translation adventure.
The EU will be the first large organization to switch to one of the machine translation, interpretation and translation costs because they .... € 11 bn. Yes it is. One billion euros a year.
Or they can buy some Babelfish platform will be, it will cost them about 200 pounds and chips for a guy who opened a package on the computer.
Translation may not be so good human translantions, for many years, but they can - and huge savings will be too tempting to resist.
The same happened in so many industries. In the Uber taxi driver, has a GPS, is not as good as who did the black taxi driver knowledge, but the former is seriously cheaper, faster, and so win.
Of course, in time, Uber taxi will be unmanned.
I always feel poignant Unfortunately, when I see people on mopeds learn. It's like seeing someone Encyclopedia of trickery.SeanT said:
The EU will be one of the first big institutions to switch to machine translation, because interpreting and translation costs them.... €1.1bn. Yes. One billion euros a year.state_go_away said:
I think the EU sometimes does translation for funMarkHopkins said:
People don't do random language translations just for the fun of it, nor are there concerts of translations. You cannot compare it to music.CopperSulphate said:Are you mad? Why would anyone want to learn a musical instrument when technology can record and playback the worlds greatest musicians in your home without you having to learn to play even one note.
There is value in learning a language, e.g. even a dead one like Latin, but for practical business use machine translation will become more and more the norm.
Alternatively they could buy a few Babelfish-to-be and this would cost them about £200 and a packet of crisps for the guy who turns the computers on.
The translations may not be quite as good as human translantions, for many years, but they will be good enough - and the vast savings will be too tempting to resist.
The same is happening in so many professions. An Uber taxi driver, in possession of a GPS, is not as good as a black cab driver who has Done the Knowledge, but the former is seriously cheaper, and quicker, and so it wins out.
And of course, in time, the Uber taxis will be driverless.
I always feel poignant pity when I see people on mopeds Learning the Knowledge. It's like watching someone trying to sell encyclopedias.0 -
SeanT said:
The EU will be one of the first big institutions to switch to machine translation, because interpreting and translation costs them.... €1.1bn. Yes. One billion euros a year.state_go_away said:
I think the EU sometimes does translation for funMarkHopkins said:
People don't do random language translations just for the fun of it, nor are there concerts of translations. You cannot compare it to music.CopperSulphate said:Are you mad? Why would anyone want to learn a musical instrument when technology can record and playback the worlds greatest musicians in your home without you having to learn to play even one note.
There is value in learning a language, e.g. even a dead one like Latin, but for practical business use machine translation will become more and more the norm.
Alternatively they could buy a few Babelfish-to-be and this would cost them about £200 and a packet of crisps for the guy who turns the computers on.
The translations may not be quite as good as human translantions, for many years, but they will be good enough - and the vast savings will be too tempting to resist.
The same is happening in so many professions. An Uber taxi driver, in possession of a GPS, is not as good as a black cab driver who has Done the Knowledge, but the former is seriously cheaper, and quicker, and so it wins out.
And of course, in time, the Uber taxis will be driverless.
I always feel poignant pity when I see people on mopeds Learning the Knowledge. It's like watching someone trying to sell encyclopedias.
Its perhaps inevitable and I don't want to sound like a Luddite but it will not be a perfect world when we get to a stage when people do not need to know or learn anything at all , no need to read a map, no need to learn a language , no need to learn mental arithmetic, no need to have a general knowledge, no need to drive because computers can do that for you.
It will not be a perfect world but rather a sad one!
I see Foyles at St Pancras has shut its doors btw Again rather sad but ineivtable0 -
your iphone will have a simultaneous translation app. you might have to get her to put headphones on, i supposeDavidL said:How do you chat up a girl using a translation machine?
Just asking.0 -
Oh get a life you sad tit.MrJones said:The people who bought the political class want a plantation economy and so that's what we get. As there's no longer a credit bubble to hide the consequences we will increasingly see what a bad idea it was for everyone but them - and that was before the automation tidal wave that is apparently on its way. Never have so few **** bankstas screwed up the lives of so many.
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I'm confusing nothing Richard, I'm pretty clear about what's happening outside the national association of Osborne apologists.Richard_Nabavi said:
You are confusing lots of different things.Alanbrooke said:but I don't want ordinary people's wages shoved down because of excessive immigration, poor skills, crappy no hours contracts and all the rest of the Blair paraphenalia Cameron has done bugger all about.
Osborne simply Gordon Brown in first gear.
Firstly the average tells you very little: if we do have people moving from unemployment into mostly not particularly-well paid jobs, and a lower dependence on massive pay in the financial service sector, the average wage will appear to come down. Elementary arithmetic, which doesn't mean ordinary people's wages are coming down (there are lots of other factors as well, of course). Of course it is true that ordinary wages are not rising much if at all, so far. That will come soon.
Secondly, yes, immigration has been too high. Hardly Osborne's fault, though. He inherited the mess, he didn't create it.
Thirdly: Yes, poor skills are a key factor, but you are too impatient. That will take three parliamentary terms to fix, but Gove has made a superb start with getting the basics right, notably for the bottom 25% by household income who were abjectly failed by the education system the government inherited.
Osborne is the complete opposite of Gordon Brown: he's doing the right thing for the long-term. The results are now so clear that only the most blinkered, such as David Blanchflower, can possibly fail to see them.
Prices are rising and wages aren't. Go figure.
As for doing things for the long term, simply a joke. Osborne has no more been a reforming chancellor than Gordon Brown.0 -
Just for the record I can speak fluent English, Urdu, Punjabi, German, French, Latin and Greek.
My tongue is indeed very talented.
And I'm trying to learn Portuguese and Spanish over the next year or so0 -
Otherwise known as Google getting the EPO to do testing for them. Note the fifth stage: "Submit your feedback."SouthamObserver said:The European Patent Office now offers machine translation in around 30 languages:
http://www.epo.org/searching/free/patent-translate.html
Besides, that is text translation. Sean was talking about voice translation, which is a much larger kettle of fish.
Also note these translation services send the text to a server to be translated by a rather large bank of machines. Without Internet access they are useless, and you have the security aspects of another company knowing your secrets (i.e. what you are translating).0 -
Sounding like Hawking? Good luck with that. (Your single entrendres may struggle in translation as well)TheScreamingEagles said:
I tell her I have a talented tongue and people note that I'm a cunning linguist.DavidL said:How do you chat up a girl using a translation machine?
Just asking.
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I once impersonated Stephen Hawking having phone sex (It was inspired by an episode of the Big Bang theory)DavidL said:
Sounding like Hawking? Good luck with that. (Your single entrendres may struggle in translation as well)TheScreamingEagles said:
I tell her I have a talented tongue and people note that I'm a cunning linguist.DavidL said:How do you chat up a girl using a translation machine?
Just asking.
Anything is possible.0 -
In law IT, databases and the likes of Westlaw have massively changed the way we do business and the speed with which we can answer queries. But what I have found, so far, is that the ready availability of vast quantities of data make it even more important to be able to ask the right questions.state_go_away said:SeanT said:
The EU will be one of the first big institutions to switch to machine translation, because interpreting and translation costs them.... €1.1bn. Yes. One billion euros a year.state_go_away said:
I think the EU sometimes does translation for funMarkHopkins said:
People don't do random language translations just for the fun of it, nor are there concerts of translations. You cannot compare it to music.CopperSulphate said:Are you mad? Why would anyone want to learn a musical instrument when technology can record and playback the worlds greatest musicians in your home without you having to learn to play even one note.
There is value in learning a language, e.g. even a dead one like Latin, but for practical business use machine translation will become more and more the norm.
Alternatively they could buy a few Babelfish-to-be and this would cost them about £200 and a packet of crisps for the guy who turns the computers on.
The translations may not be quite as good as human translantions, for many years, but they will be good enough - and the vast savings will be too tempting to resist.
The same is happening in so many professions. An Uber taxi driver, in possession of a GPS, is not as good as a black cab driver who has Done the Knowledge, but the former is seriously cheaper, and quicker, and so it wins out.
And of course, in time, the Uber taxis will be driverless.
I always feel poignant pity when I see people on mopeds Learning the Knowledge. It's like watching someone trying to sell encyclopedias.
Its perhaps inevitable and I don't want to sound like a Luddite but it will not be a perfect world when we get to a stage when people do not need to know or learn anything at all , no need to read a map, no need to learn a language , no need to learn mental arithmetic, no need to have a general knowledge, no need to drive because computers can do that for you.
It will not be a perfect world but rather a sad one!
I see Foyles at St Pancras has shut its doors btw Again rather sad but ineivtable
I think this will be the case for a long time. And it is not new. James I & VI once claimed that lawyers knew no more law than anyone else, they simply knew where to find it. That seems ever more relevant today.
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The language bit was reasonably good. What was truly impressive was the way Google Translate artificially increased the cost of the human work by a factor of 10, presumably in a sentient attempt to win more business.SeanT said:
is that Google Translate - out of English and back again? You see, it's not bad even when given that difficult test. It gets the meaning. 5 years ago it was terrible.Pulpstar said:The EU will be the first large organization to switch to one of the machine translation, interpretation and translation costs because they .... € 11 bn. Yes it is. One billion euros a year.
Or they can buy some Babelfish platform will be, it will cost them about 200 pounds and chips for a guy who opened a package on the computer.
Translation may not be so good human translantions, for many years, but they can - and huge savings will be too tempting to resist.
The same happened in so many industries. In the Uber taxi driver, has a GPS, is not as good as who did the black taxi driver knowledge, but the former is seriously cheaper, faster, and so win.SeanT said:
The EU will be one of the first big institutions to switch to machine translation, because interpreting and translation costs them.... €1.1bn. Yes. One billion euros a year.state_go_away said:
I think the EU sometimes does translation for funMarkHopkins said:
People don't do random language translations just for the fun of it, nor are there concerts of translations. You cannot compare it to music.CopperSulphate said:Are you mad? Why would anyone want to learn a musical instrument when technology can record and playback the worlds greatest musicians in your home without you having to learn to play even one note.
There is value in learning a language, e.g. even a dead one like Latin, but for practical business use machine translation will become more and more the norm.
Alternatively they could buy a few Babelfish-to-be and this would cost them about £200 and a packet of crisps for the guy who turns the computers on.
The translations may not be quite as good as human translantions, for many years, but they will be good enough - and the vast savings will be too tempting to resist.
The same is happening in so many professions. An Uber taxi driver, in possession of a GPS, is not as good as a black cab driver who has Done the Knowledge, but the former is seriously cheaper, and quicker, and so it wins out.
And of course, in time, the Uber taxis will be driverless.
I always feel poignant pity when I see people on mopeds Learning the Knowledge. It's like watching someone trying to sell encyclopedias.
So in 20 years time.... I reckon it will be flawless.0 -
Also these day there are plenty of foreign graduates whom companies can hire who have native level, doesn't matter how long you study, native level written and spoken is very difficult to attain.SeanT said:fpt
Learning foreign languages is one of the most pointless things to do. Google Translate is already close to being the Babelfish of Douglas Adams' imagination: instant, automatic translation.
In 20 years imagine how good it will be. There will be, literally, tiny chips you can wear by your ear which translate speech direct into your brain; and smartphone apps that instantly interpret whatever you say into whatever language you want.
Advising a small child to learn languages is like advising her to learn calligraphy.
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I hope you're right, but I believe you are wrong. The edge cases are the killer. Nick Palmer is, I believe, rather good at several languages and does some translation work of official documents. Yet even he resorts occasionally to asking questions on here about certain phraseology and meanings. Perhaps he could tell us more about the intricacies?SeanT said:
is that Google Translate - out of English and back again? You see, it's not bad even when given that difficult test. It gets the meaning. 5 years ago it was terrible.
So in 20 years time.... I reckon it will be flawless.
Also the English -> A.n.other -> English test is rather easy for the server to game.
As an aside, I heard a Radio 5 interview from the Welsh parliament a few years back, where it turns out they employed two sets of translators: one from Welsh to English, and the other from English to Welsh. I find that hard to believe, and would love to know if that was actually true...0 -
Matthew Goodwin @GoodwinMJ · 41s
LEAST Ukippy seats in Eng&Wales:
#5 Hampstead & Kilburn
#4 Kensington
#3 Brent North
#2 Ilford South
#1 Cities of London & Westminstr
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A recent report said Spanish was the easiest European language for English speakers to learn.TheScreamingEagles said:Just for the record I can speak fluent English, Urdu, Punjabi, German, French, Latin and Greek.
My tongue is indeed very talented.
And I'm trying to learn Portuguese and Spanish over the next year or so0 -
Thinking about translation machines, they might be capable of being some real-time use when they can interpret what the speaker means when he says "Inshallah".
In my experience Inshallah ("if God wills it") can mean anything from "Fanatastic Idea, Boss, we will get on with that right away" to "You can F*ck right off with that load of crap" and any and every blend of meaning in between. When a machine can do as well as a human mind in sorting out what the speaker meant when he uttered just that one phrase then we might be getting somewhere.
Of course, that brings us on to the point of how much communication relies on the words we say, as opposed to the way we say them and the body language that is going on at the time we say them. The actual problem of working out a reliable translation machine is trivial compared to getting a machine that can cope with the full meaning of human interaction and do so across races and cultures.
I fear when I said that Mr. T's babelfish would not happen in his lifetime, I think I might have been optimistic. In probably won't happen in his great-grandchildrens' lifetime.0 -
George Osborne looks as toxic as El Gord to me. Will the Tories be as daft as Labour when Cameron steps down?0
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It would be useful to see a list excluding inner London constituencies which are obviously very poor ground for UKIP.isam said:Matthew Goodwin @GoodwinMJ · 41s
LEAST Ukippy seats in Eng&Wales:
#5 Hampstead & Kilburn
#4 Kensington
#3 Brent North
#2 Ilford South
#1 Cities of London & Westminstr0 -
Good afternoon, everyone.
Hmm. Not sure I believe this would really happen. Boris is likeable, but I'm unconvinced he'll travel well beyond the south. I might be wrong, he certainly confounded expectations in London. Maybe we'll get to find out.0 -
BTW, who is the mysterious "Others" (non UKIP others) that have 14% with certain to vote voters?0
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Professional translators must be feeling a bit nervous.SeanT said:OK I just did a little test. I took the author's note from the Spanish Edition of Genesis Secret, and ran it through Google Translate.
Here is what it produced, first time it tried. I kid you not:
"The Genesis Secret is a work of fiction. However, most of the religious, historical and archaeological references are completely real and accurate, especially Gobekli Tepe an archaeological site of about twelve thousand years old which is currently being excavated in southeastern Turkey near the city of Sanliurfa."
I think that is almost word perfect. Certainly as good as any human translator could manage. It gets the meaning over entirely, and flawlessly.
And that's what Google Translate can do NOW. And it was useless just 5 years ago. In 20 years time it will perfect and it will be installed in our brains via Tiny Google Glasses whispering into our ears.
Kids, don't bother learning Mandarin.0 -
0
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Baxtering this poll it has the Lib-Dems down to 15 seats, LOL!
What it is Martin Day would say? Taxi For The Yellow Peril! :^O0 -
You can probably assume at least 5 or 6 % of it to the Greens, and a very heavily skewed Scottish sample? (I could say a large Pirate following in hiding, but I don't think it's likely... ;-) )GIN1138 said:BTW, who is the mysterious "Others" (non UKIP others) that have 14% with certain to vote voters?
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Girls' public schools typically have more dance teachers than maths teachers, so there is clearly a parental demand for it.state_go_away said:If what I heard on Radio 4 this morning it true then apparently dance is what should be taught a lot more of in schools . More important than maths!
Surprisingly perhaps, most employers, when polled, want skills rather than knowledge and soft skills rather than hard skills (how to run projects rather than how to lay bricks or fibre-optic cables).
Now, whether educationalists (the blob) are right to assume that you can have skills independently of knowledge is open to doubt but then, I'm no Nicky Morgan.0 -
Will The Greens start to overake the Lib Dems in polls ? They have been even with them a few times.0
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Not sure I buy the universal translator/translator microbes/Babelfish talk. Not sure if this is true, but I heard when learning German at school that 'Ich bin warm' (literally 'I am warm') is slang for 'I am horny'. Kalt = cold, and, apparently, sterile.
Mir gehts warm, or similar is how Germans say they're warm (if memory serves, it's a while ago).
If I had to get a book translated I'd far prefer, if possible, a human to do it so they can get the nuance and subtlety right.
It's also a matter of vocabulary level. When I was, briefly, in China a delightful young lady who worked for a bank asked me to cast my eye over a document she'd prepared in English, to check it. Of course, I agreed. The only flaw I found was that I didn't know some of the words, because they were too advanced (which did make them seem out of place). That's not technically wrong, but would a computer ever be able to assess whether something was high brow or 'slangy' enough?
As a rambly aside, I wish more computer games had German language options, and DVDs subtitles. I learnt a bit playing Shadow Hearts: Covenant auf Deutsch, back when RPGs were mostly text rather than spoken. It really is a good way to learn some stuff.0 -
Err really ? Accoridng to R4 today there is demand for 270,000 construction workers but we only train 130,000 a year, wheras the 90,000 ish people we train for hairdressing chase 18,000 jobs. Maybe there are enough jobs but our training's out of kilt.DecrepitJohnL said:
Girls' public schools typically have more dance teachers than maths teachers, so there is clearly a parental demand for it.state_go_away said:If what I heard on Radio 4 this morning it true then apparently dance is what should be taught a lot more of in schools . More important than maths!
Surprisingly perhaps, most employers, when polled, want skills rather than knowledge and soft skills rather than hard skills (how to run projects rather than how to lay bricks or fibre-optic cables).
Now, whether educationalists (the blob) are right to assume that you can have skills independently of knowledge is open to doubt but then, I'm no Nicky Morgan.0 -
بيقتل حالو ليعيش بولاية أمريكيةHurstLlama said:Thinking about translation machines, they might be capable of being some real-time use when they can interpret what the speaker means when he says "Inshallah".
In my experience Inshallah ("if God wills it") can mean anything from "Fanatastic Idea, Boss, we will get on with that right away" to "You can F*ck right off with that load of crap" and any and every blend of meaning in between. When a machine can do as well as a human mind in sorting out what the speaker meant when he uttered just that one phrase then we might be getting somewhere.
Of course, that brings us on to the point of how much communication relies on the words we say, as opposed to the way we say them and the body language that is going on at the time we say them. The actual problem of working out a reliable translation machine is trivial compared to getting a machine that can cope with the full meaning of human interaction and do so across races and cultures.
I fear when I said that Mr. T's babelfish would not happen in his lifetime, I think I might have been optimistic. In probably won't happen in his great-grandchildrens' lifetime.
و بيقتلك لو قلتلو ولاية إسلامية
Anyone able to translate that lot ? Google gives me a load of nonsense.0 -
Applying the L&N model to IPSOS we have:-
(Central forecast)
Con vote lead 8.5%
Con seat lead 76 seats
(10000 Monte Carlo simulations)
Chance of Tory vote lead: 100.0%
Chance of a Tory seat lead: 99.5%
Chance of a Hung Parliament: 38.8%
Chance of a Tory majority: 61.2%
Chance of a Labour majority: 0.0%
The Tory position seems to be gradually strengthening...0 -
Mr. Crosby, I must admit I find it hard to see a blue majority. However, it's not too long to go to find out.0
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What does applying it to ICM say though ?RodCrosby said:Applying the L&N model to IPSOS we have:-
(Central forecast)
Con vote lead 8.5%
Con seat lead 76 seats
(10000 Monte Carlo simulations)
Chance of Tory vote lead: 100.0%
Chance of a Tory seat lead: 99.5%
Chance of a Hung Parliament: 38.8%
Chance of a Tory majority: 61.2%
Chance of a Labour majority: 0.0%
The Tory position seems to be gradually strengthening...0 -
Does ICM have leader approval?Pulpstar said:
What does applying it to ICM say though ?RodCrosby said:Applying the L&N model to IPSOS we have:-
(Central forecast)
Con vote lead 8.5%
Con seat lead 76 seats
(10000 Monte Carlo simulations)
Chance of Tory vote lead: 100.0%
Chance of a Tory seat lead: 99.5%
Chance of a Hung Parliament: 38.8%
Chance of a Tory majority: 61.2%
Chance of a Labour majority: 0.0%
The Tory position seems to be gradually strengthening...0 -
Brick Lane?Pulpstar said:
بيقتل حالو ليعيش بولاية أمريكيةHurstLlama said:Thinking about translation machines, they might be capable of being some real-time use when they can interpret what the speaker means when he says "Inshallah".
In my experience Inshallah ("if God wills it") can mean anything from "Fanatastic Idea, Boss, we will get on with that right away" to "You can F*ck right off with that load of crap" and any and every blend of meaning in between. When a machine can do as well as a human mind in sorting out what the speaker meant when he uttered just that one phrase then we might be getting somewhere.
Of course, that brings us on to the point of how much communication relies on the words we say, as opposed to the way we say them and the body language that is going on at the time we say them. The actual problem of working out a reliable translation machine is trivial compared to getting a machine that can cope with the full meaning of human interaction and do so across races and cultures.
I fear when I said that Mr. T's babelfish would not happen in his lifetime, I think I might have been optimistic. In probably won't happen in his great-grandchildrens' lifetime.
و بيقتلك لو قلتلو ولاية إسلامية
Anyone able to translate that lot ? Google gives me a load of nonsense.
No alcohol or homosexuals?0 -
Ah yes the model is based off the Leader approvals. Forgot that.RodCrosby said:
Does ICM have leader approval?Pulpstar said:
What does applying it to ICM say though ?RodCrosby said:Applying the L&N model to IPSOS we have:-
(Central forecast)
Con vote lead 8.5%
Con seat lead 76 seats
(10000 Monte Carlo simulations)
Chance of Tory vote lead: 100.0%
Chance of a Tory seat lead: 99.5%
Chance of a Hung Parliament: 38.8%
Chance of a Tory majority: 61.2%
Chance of a Labour majority: 0.0%
The Tory position seems to be gradually strengthening...0 -
You do know the UK MoD has a programme called SkyNet.JosiasJessop said:And when that happens, everything changes. (ref. Skynet).
I like to think that's because they have a sense of humour...
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mod-launches-new-skynet-satellite
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If they only select 300-400 candidates there's no way they can overtake the LDs in votes. With around 35 weeks to go they've selected 34.GIN1138 said:
I think it's unlikely in a general election, but they did in the Euro's...hucks67 said:Will The Greens start to overake the Lib Dems in polls ? They have been even with them a few times.
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How many did they have standing last time around?AndyJS said:
If they only select 300-400 candidates there's no way they can overtake the LDs in votes. With around 35 weeks to go they've selected 34.GIN1138 said:
I think it's unlikely in a general election, but they did in the Euro's...hucks67 said:Will The Greens start to overake the Lib Dems in polls ? They have been even with them a few times.
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We are not going to agree on this, Mr. T, a Babelfish may in the not to distant future give you a literal translation of what someone is saying to you. It will not be able to give you what someone wishes you to understand. Better than nothing, but a person who is fluent in that other language and understands the nuances/idioms, body language will be far, far better at communicating.SeanT said:
You ignore the fact that the Babelfish - which is coming - will be able to translate from 100 different languages, instantly, it will also be able to read any alphabet - from Armenian to Cyrillic. Unlike a human who is likely to know one or two extra languages at most.
So even if, in one individual situation, a person speaking Arabic would definitely be better than a machine (I agree with your point about nuance), you have to be that unusual person who has actually learned Arabic. How many people do that?
99.9 times out a hundred the machine will be better, because it is more likely to speak any individual language, as it will speak all languages.
There really isn't much point wasting years learning languages, unless you do it for cultural and emotional reasons.
Let me give you a small example of what I mean. Years ago I was working in a middle east country, primarily for their government. As I was leaving the complex one afternoon I fell into step with an American chap, he was very, very frustrated. He had been there two weeks and had not yet secured an appointment to see the person he wanted to talk to or pretty much anyone else.
What had happened is that he had made his sales pitch, and received the answer, "Yes of course, inshallah", which he had taken to mean, "OK it will happen and you will get your appointment with the big guy" What the chap he had spoken to meant was, "You might as well get back on the plane now because your idea is batshit crazy".
When you have a babelfish that can workout that level of human interaction to that degree, then there will be no point to learning foreign languages except for the fun of it.0 -
On the language learning thing, the point of doing it isn't to become a translator, is it? Even if the computers can't do it you'd lose out to people who grew up bilingual. Surely the point is to be able to talk to people without intermediate translation? I'd have thought talking to Japanese people through a translator would be a fairly pointless experience, as they'd presumably go into the same weird "pretend to be a diplomat and avoid saying anything untoward" mode they use when they're speaking English.0
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Current forecast 2015 Tory leads from various methodologies.
Byelection swingback: -1.2%
Fisher: 3.9%
2009-2010 repeat: 4.9%
Prosser: 5.0%
L&N: 8.5%0 -
Out of curiosity, how fluent are you, and how much did actual, spoken, idiomatic Japenese differ from 'language course' Japanese?edmundintokyo said:On the language learning thing, the point of doing it isn't to become a translator, is it? Even if the computers can't do it you'd lose out to people who grew up bilingual. Surely the point is to be able to talk to people without intermediate translation? I'd have thought talking to Japanese people through a translator would be a fairly pointless experience, as they'd presumably go into the same weird "pretend to be a diplomat and avoid saying anything untoward" mode they use when they're speaking English.
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The construction industry doubtless will need skills in construction. Whether they need brickies who can name the wives of Henry VIII in the correct order is less certain.Alanbrooke said:
Err really ? Accoridng to R4 today there is demand for 270,000 construction workers but we only train 130,000 a year, wheras the 90,000 ish people we train for hairdressing chase 18,000 jobs. Maybe there are enough jobs but our training's out of kilt.DecrepitJohnL said:
Girls' public schools typically have more dance teachers than maths teachers, so there is clearly a parental demand for it.state_go_away said:If what I heard on Radio 4 this morning it true then apparently dance is what should be taught a lot more of in schools . More important than maths!
Surprisingly perhaps, most employers, when polled, want skills rather than knowledge and soft skills rather than hard skills (how to run projects rather than how to lay bricks or fibre-optic cables).
Now, whether educationalists (the blob) are right to assume that you can have skills independently of knowledge is open to doubt but then, I'm no Nicky Morgan.
Defenders of a liberal arts education cannot depend on the support of employers. The irony is that what is seen as a left wing position in the USA is seen as a right wing position here. Perhaps that means it is neither.0 -
Dont tell TSE!AndyJS said:
If they only select 300-400 candidates there's no way they can overtake the LDs in votes. With around 35 weeks to go they've selected 34.GIN1138 said:
I think it's unlikely in a general election, but they did in the Euro's...hucks67 said:Will The Greens start to overake the Lib Dems in polls ? They have been even with them a few times.
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This conversation about translations reminded me of a scene in Children of Dune
"We have a brave Fedaykin here," Alia said, motioning toward al-Fali. "This argument can wait."
"It can wait forever," Jessica said, speaking in Chakobsa, her words double-barbed to tell Alia that no argument would stop the death command."
Like to see the Bablefish that could cope with that.
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I must be getting worse at reading... the thread seems to have missed the changes from last time - Tory +1 and Lab -2....
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The near iron law of swingback is, unfortunately, now a bit rusty. We have other models to play with now.Pulpstar said:
Does the By-Election swingback method have enough data points to make it worthwhile as a model right now ?RodCrosby said:Current forecast 2015 Tory leads from various methodologies.
Byelection swingback: -1.2%
Fisher: 3.9%
2009-2010 repeat: 4.9%
Prosser: 5.0%
L&N: 8.5%
0 -
16, which is more than the past three parliaments...Pulpstar said:
Does the By-Election swingback method have enough data points to make it worthwhile as a model right now ?RodCrosby said:Current forecast 2015 Tory leads from various methodologies.
Byelection swingback: -1.2%
Fisher: 3.9%
2009-2010 repeat: 4.9%
Prosser: 5.0%
L&N: 8.5%0 -
Now 95% of the photographers are unemployed.
Funny, I read English at university, even though most of the planet already seemed to speak it.
Still managed to have a reasonable career for 30-years.
Learning a language shows you have the mental ability and discipline to master a difficult challenge.
That is something employers will always value.0 -
Tell that to all the professional photographers who thought that you would always need a trained, talented human eye to interpret scenes and tell the visual story, then along came cameraphones and we realised pushbutton machines could take decent photos just as well as most photographers (apart from truly exceptional individuals).SeanT said:
We are not going to agree on this, Mr. T, a Babelfish may in the not to distant future give you a literal translation of what someone is saying to you. It will not be able to give you what someone wishes you to understand. Better than nothing, but a person who is fluent in that other language and understands the nuances/idioms, body language will be far, far better at communicating.
Let me give you a small example of what I mean. Years ago I was working in a middle east country, primarily for their government. As I was leaving the complex one afternoon I fell into step with an American chap, he was very, very frustrated. He had been there two weeks and had not yet secured an appointment to see the person he wanted to talk to or pretty much anyone else.
What had happened is that he had made his sales pitch, and received the answer, "Yes of course, inshallah", which he had taken to mean, "OK it will happen and you will get your appointment with the big guy" What the chap he had spoken to meant was, "You might as well get back on the plane now because your idea is batshit crazy".
When you have a babelfish that can workout that level of human interaction to that degree, then there will be no point to learning foreign languages except for the fun of it.
Now 95% of the photographers are unemployed.
I know, Mr. T, I am a daft old coot and maybe one day the ability to communicate meaning rather than words will be taken over by machines.
By the way the fact that I have a umpteen mega-pixel camera on my phone doesn't actually make me a good photographer. Any more than the fact than in the annexe I have an easel and a box of water colour paints. Both give me the ability to produce stunning images, but only the imagination and skill of the person using such tools will produce good pictures. I have a keyboard and a word processor does that mean I can write novels that will sell as well as yours? I don't think so. Human communication is a very complex thing.0 -
How many businesses still have typing pools?HurstLlama said:I have a keyboard and a word processor does that mean I can write novels that will sell as well as yours?
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Despite the fact that taking a photograph has never been easier, paintings and artworks still have value.0
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I almost wish I had done some English courses during uni. Given the amount of time I spend writing proposals, I could have really benefited from it.taffys said:Now 95% of the photographers are unemployed.
Funny, I read English at university, even though most of the planet already seemed to speak it.
Still managed to have a reasonable career for 30-years.
Learning a language shows you have the mental ability and discipline to master a difficult challenge.
That is something employers will always value.0
