Saturday, April 6, 2019

Saturday Morning, April 6, 2019, T+94, Part 2 -- More Meanderings -- Nothing About The Bakken

Reminder: don't use any GPS-enabled device this weekend. Perhaps not even this entire week. Perhaps not even this entire year. Just saying. Lots of bugs to work out.

Memo to Boeing: in the software update, be sure to update GPS code.

Tesla: from SeekingAlpha this morning -- (archived) --
  • Tesla is moving from a supply constrained into a demand constrained market for the Model 3.
  • The North American backlog for the higher priced variants was exhausted in Q4 of 2018.
  • Since then, Tesla has been able to pull other demand levers such as the MR, the EU, and China backlog and the SR variant.
  • However, these are creating only short-term pockets of demand, the question of whether there is enough sustained demand for 7,000 or even 5,000/week production remains unanswered.
Tesla, later: wow. After posting the above, a reader sent me a link to a podcast from the Montana Skeptic re: Tesla. One must absolutely listen to this podcast. The SeekingAlpha link above dovetails perfectly with this podcast at ZeroHedge

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here.

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The Language Page

From The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language, Steven Pinker, c. 1994.

An incredibly fascinating book. Some parts of it are incredibly difficult.

Super-rules for grammar and deep structure. Chomsky. Very difficult. Not for the timid.

English. About verbs.

For a complete sentence, all verbs require a subject.

Some verbs require an object. Some don't.

Some verbs require a prepositional phrase. Some don't.

Dine and devour are two very similar verbs, with somewhat similar meanings.

Dine does not require anything but a subject: "They dine."

Devour requires an object: "They devour the turkey."

A most fascinating example of a verb requiring "everything," is the verb put. Put requires a subject, an object, and a prepositional phrase.

NO: a man puts.

No: a man puts the car.

Yes: a man puts the car into the garage.

All verbs that fit in the "put" category are stored in a special part of the brain and because language is innate/instinct with super-rules and deep structure, a child learning English immediately gets this right. Adults learning English as a second language miss out on this deep structure.

I doubt anyone has taught our four-year-old granddaughter the three "things" that the put category of words need but she instinctively knows the super-rules found in the deep structure. Or something to that effect.

I will see if I can come up with other words in the put category of words.

To show comes close:

No: He shows. (Unless on means "he" "arrives".)

Okay: He shows the dog.

Best: He shows the dog at the competition.

Or: He shows the dog to his friends.

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Later

I had a lot of fun with this.

I pushed Sophia almost to her "limits" on this one. Apparently this is one exercise she has not experienced at "school" so far. She is two months short of her fifth birthday.

I asked her to use draws in a sentence.

Her reply: "He draws a picture."

I asked her to use sees in a sentence.

Her reply: "He sees a ladybug."

Then I told her I had a very difficult one. She said she didn't want to "play" any more. But I went on.

I asked her to use puts in a sentence.

Her reply: "She puts food."

I said: "What! She puts food? What do you mean? Where does she put food?"

Her reply: "She puts food in the refrigerator."

A prepositional phrase. No hesitation. Immediate. She could have said almost anything (or nothing at all) but she responded immediately and she responded appropriately. She could have simply repeated the original reply, "She puts food." No one ever taught her the super-rules and I can guarantee no one has ever used that exact sentence when talking with/to her.

I'm sure she has heard "... put that back in the refrigerator..." or some variation, but I can guarantee she has never heard "... puts food in the refrigerator."

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