Online Collaboration Helps Mumbai Attack Victims 46
GillBates0 writes "CNN has a nice story about how online collaboration swiftly helped form a centrally organized online disaster effort during Wednesday's Mumbai attacks. India accounts for almost one-fifth of the world's cell phone subscribers. At a time when chaos reigned, and voice calls were jammed, a loose collaboration of techies, laymen, and good samaritans quickly collaborated online via social media, Wikipedia, Google docs and other online resources to coordinate blood donors, assistance, rides, and other services to help the victims of the attack."
Geeks Inherit the Earth (Score:4, Interesting)
Helps Mumbai Attack Victims (Score:3)
The headline says "Online Collaboration Helps Mumbai Attack Victims". I initially read "attack" as a verb, not as an adjective. So it meant that the collaboration helps the city to attack victims. But in context it means that the collaboration helps the victims, who are victims of an attack.
In English, those words are ambiguous, and mean quite opposite things. Does that happen in other languages, too? Would the translation of that sentence into Hindi also have that double meaning, depending on which word was stressed when reading it?
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No, as I pointed out this is an ambiguity built into the language. Yes, editors could have chosen a wording that's not ambiguous. But the context makes it clear, right in the summary - and in common sense.
I'm not going to reply in this subthread (replies to the current comment), because I'm interested in linguistics here - not in bashing Slashdot's editors. They've got plenty of faults, but that's offtopic to what I'm talking about.
Re:Helps Mumbai Attack Victims (Score:4, Insightful)
No, as I pointed out this is an ambiguity built into the language. Yes, editors could have chosen a wording that's not ambiguous. But the context makes it clear, right in the summary - and in common sense.
I'm not going to reply in this subthread (replies to the current comment), because I'm interested in linguistics here - not in bashing Slashdot's editors. They've got plenty of faults, but that's offtopic to what I'm talking about.
Linguistics are only half of it. How skillfully you manage them (i.e. whether you avoid completely avoidable ambiguity) is the other half. You can pretend that natural languages are totally separate from the humans who use them, if you like. However, consider the vast multitude of words available and the grammatical structures that can be used. It should be self-evident that, from all these vaiables, the final diction that is chosen does boil down to how the language is used by the person using it. The writer is not merely an interchangable part in some industrial process because a different writer would word things differently.
I for one am glad that English makes no attempt to be completely idiot-proof. A language that tries to avoid every single potential ambiguity and misuse is also going to limit its own expressiveness. It is analogous to that Unix saying, that trying to prevent you from doing something stupid would also prevent you from doing something clever.
Also, while the wording of GP was a bit harsh, I cannot fault someone for expecting a paid professional to produce work meeting at least a minimal standard of quality. Would you want your doctor to practice medicine the same way these editors practice copy editing? I seriously doubt it, but if he/she did, maybe you'd enjoy answering a chorous of people who tell you to stop being so picky. The bottom line is that the professional could have acted like a professional and any "bashing" would have been stopped long before it started. Prevention is the very best and most superior way to handle these events. The cause-and-effect of this process is undeniable.
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"I for one am glad that English makes no attempt to be completely idiot-proof. A language that tries to avoid every single potential ambiguity and misuse is also going to limit its own expressiveness. It is analogous to that Unix saying, that trying to prevent you from doing something stupid would also prevent you from doing something clever. "
Worth quoting. I like this. I too used to worry about all the consistencies of English.
I once asked a Russian teenager once, "What's the hardest thing about English?"
English Verbs Nouns And Adjectives (Score:2)
This is just more of the usual from Slashdot: errors and ambiguities that even an unskilled editor would have corrected prior to submitting it to a large audience. The headline should have read "Online Collaboration Helps Victims of the Mumbai Attack". It does not take much mastery of the English language to understand that.
I don't understand myself how they can edit so badly, but this is not an example of that. This is what happens in English. It's probably down to the way adjectives, nouns and verbs change roles in all ways possible.
If you want PLENTY of examples from much more reputable ("Oxford English") sources than Slashdot then do a search on "British Left Waffles On Falklands". Oh and the rule of capitalizing every word in headlines can't help either.
I'm interested in languages but I have yet to find similar lists of
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Thanks, that's exactly what I was wondering.
I wonder if the "semantically lucky sentence" is due to common Indo-European roots. Which would mean that there's a lot of semantically lucky sentences. Or maybe just lucky this infrequent time.
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Thanks for your insights. How do you know so much about Hindi/English relationships?
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"I initially read "attack" as a verb, not as an adjective."
That's just as well, because in this instance, "attack" is a NOUN, you moron...
It's a noun being used as an adjective. [englishclub.com] Also, calling someone a moron isn't a good way to start off if you want to influence their opinion.
As for the rest of your post, one could make arguments for religion in general being a contributing factor to a large portion of the worlds problems, but singling out Muslims does nothing but make you appear bigoted.
(I know, I know, I shouldn't feed the trolls. I just really have nothing better to do right now.)
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As another response points out, "Attack" is an adjective in the headline, modifying "Victims", Anonymous moron Coward. You know nothing about grammar.
Secondly, you're such a moron that you don't see that abuse of religion is the problem. Supported by bigot morons like you. There's far more people in religion who are either no problem, or beneficial by virtue of their religious actions. And practically every religion has crusaders/jihadists and terrorists. America has far more Christian terrorists here than
why does mumbai want to attack victims? (Score:2)
(also see: eats, shoots and leaves)
do they make these titles tricky on purpose (Score:1)
way to go internet, helping a country attack some people
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city* damnit
oh god, now the post spam cooldown
Government is completely inept! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Name one government who is really prepared for this.
Israel
All Governments are Pretty Inept at Disasters (Score:3, Insightful)
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Not many. For the rest, government tends to stand between them and natural selection. It's in government's interests to do that since they still pay taxes. The rest
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Spoken like an idiot who wasted a lot of resources on redundant protections against things that he's already paid taxes to protect himself against.
No, what makes one an idiot is to adamantly insist that I must be mistaken and then have zero ability to articulate where I have made an error in my reasoning. None of my argument rests on what taxes I pay or the purpose to which they are applied. In the usual wrong-headed knee-jerk format, you are addressing arguments I never made and then declaring yourself the victor. In your imagination perhaps you are, but nowhere else. Everyone else just sees the emotional volatility of an impotent fool who cannot
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Thank you for your response. I totally agree with the sentiment that the US government response to disasters is perhaps not the finest. We're saying the same thing. Lots of people think that since the US government seems so powerful that we must have a good reason to feel secure and not worry about preparing for disaster. We US-ians do tend to think we are the top of everything. We often feel invincible. It is hubris, plain and simple. You are correct.
My main point is that you cannot depend on the governm
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The USA used to be like that. Is there any way we can be like that again?
A minority of us don't deserve the government our fellow countrymen are creating.
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Not so many years ago, in many parts of the southern USA, if a crime was committed and it was obvious that the government wasn't bringing anyone to justice fast enough, citizens would take things into their own hands. They'd lynch the person that everyone *knew* was guilty (who, for some reason, usually had dark skin), then pat themselves on the back for being such good citizens.
It's common that during disasters, citizens take things into their own hands by looting anything that they may need or want, hoar
Re:Government is completely inept! (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are actually prepared and have stored the essentials you need, you'll find yourself far less tempted to loot or steal anything from anyone. You may, in fact, have excess you are able to share with family, friends, and neighbors.
That is what self-sufficiency means. It doesn't mean lynching black people or busting store windows and stealing TVs, stereos, jewelry, gold, guns, and food. How you conflate these things is hard for me to understand. It leads me to suppose you already made up your mind that there is something wrong with preparedness and self-sufficiency (the real kind) and are clutching at straws to portray it in a negative light.
Especially the whole lynching deal... the founding fathers were clear about their belief that it is better for ten guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be wrongly punished. That's why they set up a system in which police work is genuinely hard and those "pesky" civil rights make it hard. No matter what their citizenship or nationality I have a hard time considering someone a real American if they would reject this principle. They might technically be a citizen of the USA but they are devoid of any understanding of what this country is supposed to be about.
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I think I know what you don't like about it. Both the situation and my personal general attitude reflect a belief that "if I did it, with modest means, then so can you; therefore, you have zero excuse for not doing the sa
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And they all had amusing moustaches. Makes them look really professional and worthy of respect.
Yes, facial hair is endlessly amusing. Of course.
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Humanity... (Score:1)
Just goes to show what people can do with a network designed to deliver pictures of Ceiling Cat watching you masturbate. Such a clever hack!
Yes, people can think for themselves (Score:2)
Really, here is an example, when their phones broke down, they found other methods to accomplish the same thing ... interestingly enough, and entirely missed in the summary is the fact that most of the work arounds were traditional, not internet related methods.
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The government does not need to prepare because we are used to events like these. Before you had 9/11 we have had our partition, kashmir pandit situation, mumbai blasts(version 0.01), babari mosque riots, more bombs. So chill out, we are used to this, since the time USA fully supported jihadis and ISI (well that hasn't ended yet).
Your comments are wise indeed.
God Bless you!
Online Collaboration Helps Mumbai Attack Victims (Score:1)