Subject: Re: [Ltru] A Modest Proposal

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 21:07:52 +0200

Mark should be praised for this long overdue proposition.
It however rises some questions.

At 20:26 12/04/2005, Mark Davis wrote:
>Since it is obvious that all applications in the world will require
>extremely fine-grained approach to languages, here is an initial proposal
>for development of a separate RFC to deal with them.

Is this a private Draft or suggested by this WG-ltru?

>The goal is to be able to describe the variety of speech that each person 
>on earth may be using at a given time. Identification is by means of the 
>location of the speaker and the time at which the speech could have occurred.

"using" is imprecise. "spoken", "read", "though", etc. should be documented.
Is the "could" voluntary, as it introduces a interesting complexity. 
Obviously this one language can be tough, a second spoken, a third read at 
the same time (real time translation, considering the directory of an 
international meeting).

>The language tag is given by the following format (formal ABNF to follow).
>
>XLanguageTag ::= latitude "-" longitude "-" altitude "-" time

I thank you for disclosing your ultimate target. This implies a default 
language, a default script.
This is not compliant with the charter is you do not specify the ISO 
standard being used?

The real value of this proposition is its immediate support of IPv6 
reference. There is already several propositions to allocate a /3 Block to 
a geographic addressing in /64. The time value will be OK as an interface 
value. The interest is that the XLanguageTag can be encrypted. This means 
that you can have a protected hidden language tag, fully BCP 047 compliant.

>Latitude and longitude are specified by radians, and be measured from 0 to
>360 starting at the Prime Meridian going east, and from 0 to 180 starting at
>the South Pole and going north.

Sorry, wrong. A radian is equal to 360/2 pi. So, you mean 2 pi and pi.

>The numeric values below zero are avoided
>because the use of the terms "positive" and "negative" when applied to
>location can clearly be prejudicial to many of the peoples of the world.

Radian cannot be negative.

>Should in the course of the development of this RFC, the use of the Prime
>Meridian be viewed as representative of an English-speaking hegemony, a
>random longitude will be chosen as the origin.

Conforming to the IANA randomization process. But this process is biased as 
it uses the Wall Street Journal.

>  Use of latitude and longitude
>does not, of course, imply in any way that those who believe in a flat earth
>or the "four-elephant+turtle system" are in any way discouraged in the
>observance of their faith, nor does the use of radians in any way denigrate
>the goal of the Kansas State Education Board to recognize the value of Ï€ as
>exactly 3.0.

Fair enough.

>Altitude is in meters above the center of the earth. While some may feel the
>likelihood of two speakers being exactly overhead is low, we do -- of
>course -- want to plan for all eventualities. By avoiding measurement
>against sea level, we again celebrate the diversity of the world's
>population, and do not discriminate against the proud inhabitants of Death
>Valley and similar locations by in any way referring to them as "negative".

This obviously creates a problem, since the value of the Earth radius 
varies with the move of people on Earth. There should be a function to 
relate the language being used to the local position of the reviewer at the 
time the language is heard.

>For location, since people rarely overlap

This seems to condemn the system in short delay if human cannot reproduce. 
A large part of the Hollywood industry may oppose.

>in physical space, it will usually
>be sufficient to have accuracy to within 10 cm. But since fractions can be
>supplied, applications can have arbitrarily high degree of accuracy.

I am relieved.

>The time is specified by seconds since 0000-01-00T00:00:00Z (using the
>proleptic Gregorian calendar as specified in XML Schema), plus an offset of
>1,000,000,000,000,000,000. If finer granularity than seconds is desired,
>then fractions can be specified. The reason for the offset is to again avoid
>negative numbers, and their implied bias against historic inhabitants.

I am afraid there is a problem with the quantum decoherence. You seem to 
imply that the four dimensions can be simultaneously known? This will not 
scale. Please refer to RFC 1958.

>The offset is chosen as to be well before all current estimates of the Big 
>Bang.

Which Big Bang, in which universe? Please consult 
http://superstringtheory.com/

>Note, however, that this in no way implies any denigration of creationism,
>or that believers are in any way discouraged in the observance of their
>faith. Nor does it imply that any one system of creationism, such as Greek
>or Norse creation theory, is any way inferior to any other, such as that
>espoused by the Kansas State Education Board.

This constant reference to the Kansas dominance is not acceptable as it 
introduces a single point of failure in this otherwise excellent 
improvement on the previous Draft. Bravo!

>Other parts of this proposal, such as security implications, will be
>forthcoming.

Please do not forget IANA and multilingual considerations. As Misha 
indicated it, it will not fly the Last Call as Vint Cerf will certainly 
object that it does not support space.

>â€ŽMark

You see that at the end of the day we could reach a consensual position.
jfc

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---

From: "Mark Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 11:26:23 -0700

Since it is obvious that all applications in the world will require
extremely fine-grained approach to languages, here is an initial proposal
for development of a separate RFC to deal with them. The goal is to be able
to describe the variety of speech that each person on earth may be using at
a given time. Identification is by means of the location of the speaker and
the time at which the speech could have occurred. The language tag is given
by the following format (formal ABNF to follow).

Latitude and longitude are specified by radians, and be measured from 0 to
360 starting at the Prime Meridian going east, and from 0 to 180 starting at
the South Pole and going north. The numeric values below zero are avoided
because the use of the terms "positive" and "negative" when applied to
location can clearly be prejudicial to many of the peoples of the world.
Should in the course of the development of this RFC, the use of the Prime
Meridian be viewed as representative of an English-speaking hegemony, a
random longitude will be chosen as the origin. Use of latitude and longitude
does not, of course, imply in any way that those who believe in a flat earth
or the "four-elephant+turtle system" are in any way discouraged in the
observance of their faith, nor does the use of radians in any way denigrate
the goal of the Kansas State Education Board to recognize the value of π as
exactly 3.0.

For location, since people rarely overlap in physical space, it will usually
be sufficient to have accuracy to within 10 cm. But since fractions can be
supplied, applications can have arbitrarily high degree of accuracy.

negative numbers, and their implied bias against historic inhabitants. The
offset is chosen as to be well before all current estimates of the Big Bang.

‎Mark

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From: Tex Texin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 04:13:10 -0700

This is good, but ignores relativistic effects in the event the speaker
is traveling at a high rate of speed.
I guess that is why it is a modest proposal.

Also, it has an inherent limitation in that for speakers moving at a
high velocity, their position cannot be known accurately due to the
Heisenberg uncertainty principal.

The syntax ought to allow for a mapping between speed and location via
Planck's constant.

It also doesn't recognize interdimensional travel and so seems rather
centric on 4 dimensions.
The syntax should be made more extensible with an equation as follows:

XLanguageTag for n-dimension universe ::= sum for dimensions i = 0 to
n-1: -i

(best I can do in plain text. Or is that plane text?)

tex

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From: Tex Texin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 03:52:55 -0700

tex