[HN Gopher] A Farewell to LWN
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A Farewell to LWN
Author : guiambros
Score : 196 points
Date : 2021-12-23 19:42 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lwn.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (lwn.net)
| synergy20 wrote:
| Long time LWN subscriber here, it is very valuable and still has
| room to improve and expand. Best luck!
|
| I also miss those old days when I was reading Linux Journal from
| my mailbox.
| cromka wrote:
| Off topic, but hopefully someone helps:
|
| > I forget what kind of computer it was; an early type of PC that
| belonged to one of the professors.
|
| As a ESOL speaker, it always baffled me how native English
| speakers would sometimes use present tense "forget" to write
| about the past. Why is that? The only other time I see same
| oddity is with "win". I have seen this in enough of high-profile
| text to assume they're not just typos.
| metabagel wrote:
| One of the meanings of "forget" is "To be unable to remember
| (something)".
|
| https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=Forget
| johnisgood wrote:
| Since it is not "forgot", "I forget" here to me would be "I
| usually forget". English is not my first language.
| colechristensen wrote:
| English has more complicated verbs and tenses than many other
| languages, and this confusion probably comes from the fact that
| this conjugation doesn't exist in your native language. This is
| one of those edge cases that is very difficult to explain, and
| I'm no expert.
|
| Things like forgetting and winning would seem to be
| instantaneous things that don't ever happen "now" only in the
| past or future.
|
| "I forget" means something like "I have forgotten at some point
| and continue to not remember" whereas "I forgot" means "I did
| forget" without reporting anything on your current state of
| remembering
|
| "I forget" could also mean "forgetting is a thing i often do
| and expect to continue to do"
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > English has more complicated verbs and tenses than many
| other languages
|
| I've only learned a few other languages, but none of them
| have simpler sets of tenses than English (most of them have
| more differences in conjugation/inflection to reflect them,
| but also more regularity; English also has a fair number of
| idioms in which the semantics as far as time don't
| necessarily match what is normal for the syntax of the tense,
| but I'm not sure its unusually dense with those.)
|
| EDIT: But:
|
| > "I forget" means something like "I have forgotten at some
| point and continue to not remember" whereas "I forgot" means
| "I did forget" without reporting anything on your current
| state of remembering
|
| If you think of "to forget" as equivalent of "to fail to
| remember something which one once knew" (which I think is the
| best understanding of that verb), that's pretty much just
| what you'd expect from the present and past tenses,
| respectively.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| I'm actually a native English speaker (30yo), and feel this
| might actually be a recent usage? I think I started noting it
| as an oddity in the last decade or so. I kind of like it for
| the reason mtlynch said, even though you could argue it's less
| correct than "can't recall". I'm curious if there has actually
| been a long usage of "forget" this way that I managed to be
| oblivious of, or if it actually is recent.
| jfk13 wrote:
| The OED entry[1] for forget ( _v_.), under sense 1(b), has
| citations going back a couple centuries:
|
| > b. To fail to recall to mind; not to recollect.
|
| > 1787 'G. Gambado' _Acad. Horsemen_ 12 He says much the same
| of rabbits and onions, but I forget how he brings that to
| bear.
|
| > 1847 F. Marryat _Children of New Forest_ II. i. 3 I forget
| the sign [of the inn].
|
| [1] https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/73319
| leephillips wrote:
| How do you feel about the use in English of the past tense to
| refer to a desired future? "I wish you washed the dishes now
| and then."
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| ianai wrote:
| It's present tense. Your recollection of all things changes
| over time. Haven't you ever been unable to recall something one
| moment only to remember it later on? They're saying "I [at
| present cannot recall]..."
| dahfizz wrote:
| The forgetting is happening in the present time. The subject,
| at this moment, forgets about something that happened in the
| past.
| OldManAndTheCpp wrote:
| The writers current state is forgetting, so it's not totally
| unreasonable to use the present tense. The good news about
| English as a language is that it is very resilient to grammar
| mistakes, you don't need to do all the rules to make someone
| get it, get it?
| mtlynch wrote:
| Interesting! I never realized this was a language difference.
|
| In English, if you say "I forget X," it means that you still
| don't recall the information in the present. For example, "I
| forget my first phone number," you presumably forgot it before
| this moment, but saying, "I forget" conveys that you haven't
| remembered in the meantime.
|
| If you use the past tense, "I forgot," it leaves open the
| possibility that you remembered the information later. For
| example, "I ran into Jake at the mall, and I was about to say
| hi, but I forgot his name." The speaker forgot the information
| in the past but has since remembered.
|
| Hope this helps!
| nescioquid wrote:
| The usage here implies that the action is habitual, not
| continuous, nor final, e.g. "Every time I tell the story, I
| forget the name". She could have said "I have forgotten", but
| that implies a finality the writer wants to exclude. If her
| habitual forgetting was confined to the past, she might have
| written "I used to forget...".
|
| I think everything you've said is correct; I just wanted to
| add the idea of an habitual aspect.
|
| EDIT: found a reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Englis
| h_markers_of_habitual_as...
| da_chicken wrote:
| Yeah, habitual tense is very subtle in most forms of
| English.
|
| The meme-famous Oscar Gable quote, "They don't think it be
| like it is, but it do," is an example where some vernacular
| forms of English emphasize it more. Here, "be" is the
| habitual tense of "to be." It's not "bad" English. It's _a
| tense you 're not recognizing_.
| [deleted]
| knob wrote:
| Much thanks for all the work done through these decades. LWN
| rocks!
| benhoyt wrote:
| I'm not entirely sure why they titled the article this way, as it
| sounded (to me and others) like LWN is saying goodbye, rather
| than a staff member retiring from LWN. The former would be very
| sad. Anyway...
|
| I just wanted to say how _high-quality_ LWN 's content is, and
| very much worth subscribing to -- and it's not just Linux kernel
| stuff. I wrote several guest articles for them last year, and
| their editing process is excellent. You definitely cannot bluff;
| you really have to know what you're talking about, and then
| explain it clearly. They're (mercifully) allergic to buzzwords
| and hype. I even had to unlearn using the word "very": I would
| say "very fast" or "very good" or "very whatever else", and they
| basically said "cut all the very's, just say fast or good or
| whatever else, and let the reader decide whether it's very". And
| their (few) staff members are highly technical, so you get an
| excellent technical review as well.
|
| They're also a bit allergic to modern styling: I made a couple of
| minor suggestions and they politely declined. At first I thought
| their approach was a bit backwards, but on reflection I'd much
| rather they focus on quality textual content than make changes
| for the sake "looking modern". Their site works well on phone and
| desktop, is easy to read, and loads fast; what more could you
| want?
|
| One thing I do wonder: does LWN have a succession plan? Jon
| Corbet occasionally reminds us in his dry way that he's not
| getting any younger, and I know they only have 2 or 3 staff
| members. I hope that when the time is ripe they line someone else
| up who has the same focus on content and quality.
| leephillips wrote:
| A hearty second to everything you say about LWN's high quality
| and standards. The editing process can be more than what an
| author had bargained for, but the result is always worth it. In
| my case I received a suggestion to look up what Mark Twain had
| to say about "very". I've almost abandoned the word completely!
| corbet wrote:
| Thanks for the nice words, Ben. The curious can have a look at
| his articles at https://lwn.net/Archives/GuestIndex/#Hoyt_Ben .
| When's the next one coming? :)
|
| Meanwhile, I'm not going anywhere quite yet, but we're
| definitely looking for writer/editor types who would like to be
| a part of LWN and perhaps carry it forward in the distant
| future. Please drop us a note at lwn@lwn.net if you'd like to
| talk.
| mlinksva wrote:
| Unless I'm forgetting (Unless I've forgotten, Unless I forget,
| Unless I forgot...I'm not sure!), LWN is the only "content" I've
| personally had a paid subscription to for years. Always fun to
| read a bit of its own story. Thanks Rebecca, Jon, and all!
| unixhero wrote:
| LWN is great. I immediately reead this headline as if LWN was
| shutting down which I don't think it is?
|
| It seems Rebecca had a central role and that they need to do some
| staffing, but that LWN remains. Thanks for the long story!
| johnisgood wrote:
| Yeah, damn. I thought LWN was going to go away. That would have
| been really upsetting. :(
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