"Why Chromebook Pundits Are Out of Touch"

[afv011]

I find the latest "Chromebook Schroogled" ad rather hilarious - in the sense that it's totally biased (not like the previous weren't, mind you). So, when you ask folks on the street what they primarily use their PCs for, the answers are "Photoshop", "Illustrator" and "Excel"? MSFT is losing it.

Linky

[forsooth]

Originally Posted by afv011

I find the latest "Chromebook Schroogled" ad rather hilarious - in the sense that it's totally biased (not like the previous weren't, mind you). So, when you ask folks on the street what they primarily use their PCs for, the answers are "Photoshop", "Illustrator" and "Excel"? MSFT is losing it.

Linky

Finally I see ad. It is very funny.

Worry, must Microsoft. (yoda!)

or

Worry Microsoft must. (yoda)

Which is best?

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by forsooth

Finally I see ad. It is very funny.

Worry, must Microsoft. (yoda!)

or

Worry Microsoft must. (yoda)

Which is best?

The first sentence is incorrect; the second uses an inversion that few modern readers could (or would be willing to) follow unless Microsoft were replaced with a pronoun.

The most commonly accepted versions might be these:

Microsoft must worry.

Worry, Microsoft!

However, those versions don't incorporate the wording of the Yoda quote, which would make the reference unrecognizable to the reader.

If you add a pronoun, you can keep the old-fashioned inversion that makes the reference clear:

Worry you must, Microsoft!

Keep in mind that if you weren't referencing a Yoda quote, that last version of your sentence would sound stagey and archaic. Ezra Pound actually yelled at W.B. Yeats for using inversions like that in his poetry, which compelled Yeats to edit or omit them subsequently -- and that was in 1911!

[ApK]

Yoda's syntax would be:
"Worry, Microsoft must."
That's the structure of his actual quote "Confer on you the level of Jedi Knight, the Council does."
I'm not great at diagramming, but in general Yoda's distinctive style uses:
"Prepositional phrase and object, subject verb."
I can't swear to the use of the comma but it fits his cadence.

[frahse]

Originally Posted by ApK

Yoda's syntax would be:
"Worry, Microsoft must."
That's the structure of his actual quote "Confer on you the level of Jedi Knight, the Council does."
I'm not great at diagramming, but in general Yoda's distinctive style uses:
"Prepositional phrase and object, subject verb."
I can't swear to the use of the comma but it fits his cadence.

Wow.
Find we such erudition on this site, we do.



Well, I tried. (It just sounded better with that first we.)

[frahse]

Separate issue.

The Google store has a replacement power supply for the supposedly bad one that came with the HP Chromebook 11.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by forsooth

I do not understand problem.

Is the audiobook file format wma?

How do you convert protected WMA audiobooks from OverDrive using only a Chromebook and nothing else?

Then there's the issue of legalities. These are library books. I don't own them; therefore I don't have the right to convert the files to another format.

[bullet]

Originally Posted by Graham

LastPass works fine on the Chromebook (I use it myself), but Sesame is an application written for Windows, Mac or Linux. There isn't a version that executes for ChromeOS.

However, if you need two stage authentication, and don't mind paying for an additional device, a YubiKey looks as though it will work. YubiKey's website states:



Note, I haven't tested this as I don't have a YubiKey.

Graham

Thanks for the suggestion, Graham. LastPass lets me bypass sesame with my android and IOS devices. If they would treat an HP Chromebook as a mobile device, I could get around the issue. I have a support ticket pending with LastPass asking that they address the issue. I expect they are aware of the problem and just don't know how to address it. The ticket has been with them for 3 days now with no response. Usually they respond pretty quickly (within a day). Either they are very busy or they are trying to figure out how to address the problem. They are "top notch" in my view usually being very proactive to user issues.

Unless my Nexus 7 can continue to be treated as an approved mobile device the YubiKey solution would require me to carry my little OTB connection cable around since the N7 has no usb connection.

What webs we weave.

[bullet]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Did you try using it in Crouton?

Without enabling developer mode, you can't run software anyway, right?

And since google search says ChromeOS is now based on Gentoo not Ubuntu, there is no Sesame version for Gentoo, so you might hit a little trouble there anyway, unless you use it in crouton or get LastPass to create a Gentoo version.

I have not tried Crouton yet. I had hoped to see if I could get Linux Mint 15 KDE running on the chromebook later. I understand you can load Linux Mint (Mate or Cinnamon), and thought I would try the KDE route as that's where I live most of the time. My wife just wants a simple tablet, but I know she wants LastPass to take care of her passwords. I will hear about it if it does not. She is used to linux so the Crouton approach is appealing. I get to dink with her chromebook.

I did not know about the Gentoo/ChromeOS/sesame situation. Thanks for the heads up.
You may get me distro hopping.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by ApK

Yoda's syntax would be:
"Worry, Microsoft must."
That's the structure of his actual quote "Confer on you the level of Jedi Knight, the Council does."
I'm not great at diagramming, but in general Yoda's distinctive style uses:
"Prepositional phrase and object, subject verb."
I can't swear to the use of the comma but it fits his cadence.

I thought about that, ApK. The three problems with practical usage (and one aesthetic quibble) are these:

1. The comma's unnecessary in a simple inversion like Forsooth's (cf. "In God we trust") unless the inverted language is also something else, such as an apposition. You can argue for its insertion for rhythmic reasons, but I think the real reason for it would be to emphasize the unusual syntax so that people could actually read the phrase.

2. The reference to the original quote becomes obscure if you leave out the pronoun.

3. Again, the better reason for the comma before Microsoft in Forsooth's otherwise admirably succinct version ("Worry Microsoft must") would be this: because the syntax of the inversion seemed obscure without the pronoun. After all, the screenplay (the source for Yoda's quote) uses the pronoun and doesn't need a comma.

4. I find the alliteration annoying because the rhythm's off: A trochee followed by a trochee followed by a spondee (which ends the line) sounds even worse when you emphasize the off-rhythm of the second trochee.* The line sounds much stronger with a trochee followed by an iamb, which is another reason that Worry you must is so memorable.

------------

* I actually hear the line as two eighth notes, a triplet with an annoying accent on the third note, and an accented quarter note on the next strong beat. Unfortunately, conventional prosody uses feet, not beats, which means that it can't recognize single syllables as separate rhythmic units. If it could, I'd scan the line as a trochee, a dactyl and a stressed monosyllable.

[ApK]

Yeah, I won't argue hard for the comma. In fact I have no evidence that Yoda uses written punctuation at all.

It's also true that he does not always use the same structure:
"Always in motion is the future."
or
"For 800 years have I trained Jedi. My own council will I keep on who is to be trained."
And then in the next sentence he shows that he can use standard structure:
"A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind."
So maybe it's just an affectation.
Or maybe he has no idea what the structure is supposed to be, and he just tries different combinations randomly.

[Prestidigitweeze]

The examples you've quoted are excellent illustrations of why inversions don't normally require commas.

Originally Posted by ApK

Or maybe he has no idea what the structure is supposed to be, and he just tries different combinations randomly.

Of course, when you're talking about Yoda's formulations, you're really talking about the writer's. And since there's no point to making Yoda's syntax sound random (he's supposed to sound like a sage, after all), it looks as though Lucas was using syntax inconsistently en route to getting the job done. I doubt he realized we'd be diagramming his sentences thirty-three years later!

[jj2me]

I want to rescind my off-topic apology earlier in this thread, asking about Chromebook password avoidance:

Originally Posted by jj2me

Apologies to all for the slightly off-topic direction, ...

after experiencing what "off-topic" really means. Like this:

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

II find the alliteration annoying because the rhythm's off: A trochee followed by a trochee followed by a spondee (which ends the line) sounds even worse when you emphasize the off-rhythm of the second trochee.* The line sounds much stronger with a trochee followed by an iamb, which is another reason that Worry you must is so memorable.

------------

* I actually hear the line as two eighth notes, a triplet with an annoying accent on the third note, and an accented quarter note on the next strong beat. Unfortunately, conventional prosody uses feet, not beats, which means that it can't recognize single syllables as separate rhythmic units. If it could, I'd scan the line as a trochee, a dactyl and a stressed monosyllable.

P.S. I'm not being critical. I can't be critical of passages where I can't fathom the subject because of my ignorance of the key nouns.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by jj2me

I want to rescind my off-topic apology earlier in this thread, asking about Chromebook password avoidance:
after experiencing what "off-topic" really means.

One reason I've stuck around Mobile Read is because these boards seem especially tolerant of digressions that aren't mean-spirited. Fealty to the topic can grow tedious after twenty pages -- if you don't believe me, just ask tubemonkey!

Besides, what's wrong with having to look up a few nouns?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by jj2me

I want to rescind my off-topic apology earlier in this thread, asking about Chromebook password avoidance:

...

Accepted.