zero_iq

You should take a look at the game Cold Waters, if you haven’t already.

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Users get a service, so it can be argued they are paid in kind. That’s the price of their “free” services.

Whether you agree with that or not, websites are unlikely to pay users to use their services (unless they’re at least providing content) any more than a coffee shop would pay its customers to drink their coffee.

How many more millennia are needed before you’ll consider graffiti an established tradition?

How do you feel about even newer practices like “farming” and “democracy”? Do you think they’ll catch on too? Or just new-fangled nonsense?

They’ve also benefitted enormously themselves from public domain and expired or pre-copyright works like traditional folk tales etc. exploiting them and their timeless appeal for huge profits, then mired and viciously defended those derivative works with copyrights and trademarks, and refused to allow their own works’ copyright to expire. Take take take, never giving back.

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Well, I blame the nails. They’re just asking for it.

And I didn’t assert otherwise. Perhaps improve your own reading comprehension before wading into a discussion of the English language.

Nobody said it was of American origin

I know. Go back and read what I wrote. The only argument here was started by you. The only person putting words in others’ mouths is you.

Language is alive

Where did I say it wasn’t? But language being alive doesn’t change history – the phrase was used by British writers before the USA even existed.

and I can’t see anyone requesting origins specifically.

So? I offered the origin as it was presented alongside a number of phrases that are of American origin, and that one stands out as not (also as being suspected far older in origin than the others). I’ve simply added some additional information to the discussion. If you find it “boring”, you are free to ignore it.

I didn’t request your reply, yet you still wrote it.

Phrases like this can be part of 2 cultures at once.

Where did I say it couldn’t? I merely stated that the phrase was not of American origin. I didn’t say it wasn’t used in the US, or that the UK somehow has some special exclusive licence to it.

and don’t even have hard proof one way or the other

I didn’t post sources because I was short on time, but here, have some… (as I apparently now have time to waste…)

• “Dogs and Cats rain’d in showre”, from the poem Upon a Cloke in Olor Iscanus (1651) by Henry Vaughan
• “…and it shall raine… Dogs and Polecats”, from The City Wit, or, The Woman Wears the Breeches (1653) by Richard Brome
• “it should rain Dogs and Cats”, from Don Juan Lamberto: or, a Comical History of the Late Times (1661) by Thomas Flatman
• “Made it rain down dogs and cats”, from Cataplus, or Æneas, … (1672) by Maurice Atkins
• “When it rains Dogs and Cats in Hell” from Maronides; or, Virgil Travesty, … (1678) by John Phillips
• “raining cats and dogs”, from A Description of a City Shower (1710) by Jonathan Swift
• “rain cats and dogs”, from Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation (1738) also by Jonathan Swift

You will note that these are all British works by British authors. I can provide even more if you need them.

While the ultimate origin is unknown (there are many theories), any claim to it being American in origin is surely nonsense. There is no evidence for this at all. If you have some, please provide it.

What proof have you provided? Indeed, what has your comment added at all to the discussion? You could have looked up those sources and extensive etymological research on Google with less effort than you took to write your comment.

Pretty boring…

And what about your own comment? It adds absolutely zero additional information to the conversation, is rude, and you clearly misconstrued and misinterpreted my comment (apparently with the most negative interpretation possible), without even bothering to research anything for yourself.

Personally, I think some may find it interesting that a phrase they might have thought was of modern American origin is actually from another country and of far more ancient origins they expect. To me, that is interesting. If it isn’t to you, why do you bother to read and comment?

In the future, I suggest you simply ignore comments you find boring and move on instead of posting insulting low-effort replies.

That’s another one with a British origin (originally “see a man about a dog”). Still widely used in the UK to refer to leaving for any unspecified reason, although this is often to go to the toilet. (Also was used in the US during prohibition to refer to going for a drink.)

“Raiining cats and dogs” is not of American origin. The precise origin is unknown, but the first recorded uses are British, dating from the early to mid 17th century (Earliest uses are raining “dogs and cats” and “dogs and polecats”.) although it’s possible the phrase is significantly older than this.

The phrase is well known and widely used in the UK, and I doubt anyone here would consider it an American phrase.

OMG I can’t believe you had the audacity to write an answer about cats in response to a serious question that is clearly about goats.

In this thread: people who don’t understand what power is.

Power isn’t something that is “pushed” into a device by a charger. Power is the rate at which a device uses energy. Power is “consumed” by the device, and the wattage rating on the charger is a simply how much it can supply, which is determined by how much current it can handle at its output voltage. A device only draws the power it needs to operate, and this may go up or down depending on what it’s doing, e.g. whether your screen is on or off.

As long as the voltage is correct, you could hook your phone up to a 1000W power supply and it will be absolutely fine. This is why everything’s OK when you plug devices into your gaming PC with a 1000W power supply, or why you can swap out a power-hungry video card for a low-power one, and the power supply won’t fry your PC. All that extra power capability simply goes unused if it isn’t called for.

The “pushing force” that is scaled up or down is voltage. USB chargers advertise their capabilities, or a power delivery protocol is used to negotiate voltages, so the device can choose to draw more current and thus power from the charger, as its sees fit. (If the device tries to draw too much, a poorly-designed charger may fail, and in turn this could expose the device to inappropriate voltages and currents being passed on, damaging both devices. Well designed chargers have protections to prevent this, even in the event of failure. Cheap crappy chargers often don’t.)

In the latest version of the emergency broadcast specification (WEA 3.0), a smart phone’s GPS capabilities (and other location features) may be used to provide “enhanced geotargeting” so precise boundaries can be set for local alerts. However, the system is backwards compatible – if you do not have GPS, you will still receive an alert, but whether it is displayed depends on the accuracy of the location features that are enabled. If the phone determines it is within the target boundary, the alert will be displayed. If the phone determines it is not within the boundary, it will be stored and may be displayed later if you enter the boundary.

If the phone is unable to geolocate itself, the emergency message will be displayed regardless. (Better to display the alert unnecessarily than to not display it at all).

The relevant technical standard is WEA. Only the latest WEA 3.0 standard uses phone-based geolocation. Older versions just broadcast from cell towers within the region, and all phones that are connected to the towers will receive and display the alerts. You can read about it in more detail here.

Ah, OK. So it seems it’s a case of the spirit of the text not matching the precise technical wording used. IMO, the legislation clearly intends to exclude freely-distributable open-source software, but the issue lies with what constitutes a commercial activity. (I’ve not yet checked the rest of the document to see if it clearly defines “commercial activity” in relation to the legislation.)

TBH, it seems that what is needed here is a clarification and tightening up of definitions, not wholesale rejection of the legislation.

Why is everyone up in arms about this?

The legislation specifically excludes open source software. Has nobody in this discussion actually read the proposed legislation?

From the current proposal legislation text:

In order not to hamper innovation or research, free and open-source software developed or supplied outside the course of a commercial activity should not be covered by this Regulation. This is in particular the case for software, including its source code and modified versions, that is openly shared and freely accessible, usable, modifiable and redistributable.

There is also a clause that states those using open source software in commercial products must report any vulnerabilities found to the maintainer.