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Eddy Vluggen wrote: So kittens in a litter that haven't seen a human are completely silent?
This something that's really cool to analyse. It's too complicated and messy (and phenomenally/inspiringly educational) to go into it in the CP Lounge, but if you're interested in how animals' (including humans') brains work, it's a fascinating field of research.
I know this because I researched it thirty years ago 
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote: I know this because I researched it thirty years ago
And cats only meow because of "humans"? So before humans, cats were completely silent?
Lions do not roar either, except for humans?
It's a nice myth, which does explain something interesting about the arrogance of our species and brain.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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With cats, it's a major predator thing, the same as when people use duck-quacky-things to make ducks stick their heads up to be shot off -- cats have more cranial processing space than ducks.
You might notice that every cat makes a different noise to get food, get rubbed, or get dried off after they've been out in the rain. It's all because their predatory instincts have pointed in the directions for doing so, that works in their current situation.
As for kitten noises, I confess I haven't looked into that, so I don't know, and therefore won't comment on it. Gimme a couple of months, when I find the time.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote: You might notice that every cat makes a different noise to get food, get rubbed, or get dried off after they've been out in the rain. It's all because their predatory instincts have pointed in the directions for doing so, that works in their current situation.
How does that differ from any other animal? Do dogs not work in a similar way? Even cows do not shut up, and they're definitely not predators.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Eddy Vluggen wrote: Do dogs not work in a similar way? Even cows do not shut up, and they're definitely not predators.
Sure, but dogs and cows make pretty much the same noises for everything. Cats make very distinct lure calls, imitating, as far as they can, the sounds of the things they're preying on.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Duckheads ... or whatever misspelling of those ...
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Not only the "kittens" bit that was previously mentioned, but ... have you ever seen a cat indoors looking at birds in a tree and "cacking". That's not for humans, that's for himself ...
And cats don't interact with each other silently: they purr, growl, hiss, ... but they know we don't have tails and must communicate somehow without them, so the do meow to us. (and purr, growl, hiss, ...)
Dij does a good line in silent "Guilt stares" when he thinks it's time for Dreamies Cat Treats and I don't.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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OriginalGriff wrote: And cats don't interact with each other silently: they purr, growl, hiss, ... but they know we don't have tails and must communicate somehow without them, so the do meow to us. (and purr,growl, hiss, ...)
true, but the "meow" comes from their their instinctive hunters' predatory "thinking".
I don't think I'd be as happy as I am if I didn't have a cat living with me, but it's always best to understand all about the monsters that live nearby.
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Cat's gotta be thinking, they're statements, not mere opinions...
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I know what I want, so how could these human blobs possibly want something else?!?
Yup. That fits the masses of empirical evidence I've been subjected to.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Our cat understands both the Indian languages we speak at home.
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"Your life is but to service his." - that about sums it up.
Signed, Long Experienced Feline Serf Client
Software Zen: delete this;
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A recent thread in this forum complained that a particular issue was "ungoogleable" because of the vagueness of the words involved. This reminded me of a song I played in high school pep band that I tried to Google a while back and couldn't figure out how. The song title was ["A" Rock] (without the square brackets - I added them as pseudo-quotes because the double quotes ARE part of the title).
When I try to Google this, Google ignores the quotes, discards the "A" as an article adjective, and simply returns results for "rock" (which of course give me millions of results unrelated to this song). Any suggestions as to how I might find information about this song, if such even exists?
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DuckDuckGo also gives the same result.
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Yes, but giving useful and usable results doesn't make money for google!
Get with the program. eh?
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I get results googling for ""A" Rock" song
Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other.
Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it.
Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.
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Google[^]
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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Years ago my brother-in-law made me look for "The Sound of C", a song he remembered from his childhood.
I guess Google's gotten that much better since then, because right now the very first hit brings back the actual music video for the song. Back then...it was pretty much like looking for Vin Diesel's "XXX" (without being able to include Vin Diesel as part of the search term).
By the way, in this particular instance, the C's gotta stand for "crap". I've not included the link to spare you from that earworm.
This would make a good survey topic...what are your ungoogleable terms?
modified 24-Jan-20 11:52am.
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Over the years, Google has been through so many variations of "search languages" - interpretations of quoting, plusses, minuses and whathaveyou, and variants of fuzzy matching, that I have given up.
I came into Information Retrieval before Google - even before AltaVista! - and "grew up" with the ideals of completeness and precision: Strive for a result that contains all the documents that the user wants (the completeness part), and only those of interest to him (the precision part). Today, that ideal has been replaced with one of "Use any measures available to generate as high hit count as possible - only be sure include at least one (semi)relevant hit in the first page of twenty entries, because that is all the majority of users care to look at".
In pre-google days, there was an IR search language (I believe that it was/is an ISO standard) for specifying not only "exact this string", but also that terms should appear e.g. wihin the same sentence, or paragraph, or separated by at most 'n' other words, etc. I belive that AltaVista offered an "advanced search" option handling this language. But using that search language required a certain level of training. Common man really doesn't care much for learning to use advanced tools; everyting shall be immediately available. So Google, with its totally dumbed-down search for anything that resembles anything that you mention, won the hearts of the public. Obviously, the ability to claim a minimum of two million hits, whatever you ask for, is essential to the marketing.
I am not sure that this idea of mine for a party game is original: Set up teams, give them one search term, and see which team can generate the lowest google hit count when combining this with two other terms, restricted to some dictionary. It doesn't have to be Encyclopedia Americana - it could e.g. be limited to words appearing the latest edition of your company's marketing magazine. You could vary the game by giving not one but two "mandatory" search terms, and by varying the number of "freely chosen" terms from the accepted sources.
I never carried this through as an actual party game, but when I suggest it, it always provokes a combination of laughs and recognizing nods.
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Google's search results are always tailored towards an attempt to sell you something. Filtering generic search results against the profile they've collected on you as a consumer and only returning what they think is the most relevant.
More often than not, I'm searching for API documentation. So that fancy algorithm is completely lost on me when I'm searching, say, for Directory.GetAccessControl().
Honestly, Bing isn't looking all that bad these days.
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Unrealistic user requirements: there is no song called "A Rock".
Prior art: The Rock.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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Answer was landscape
View = landscape
Not a picture = not portrait
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