P.S., not being rude, but why do Americans say "gotten"?

It is past perfect. We would say "got" or "have gotten", but not "have got". That is considered poor grammar.

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P.S., not being rude, but why do Americans say "gotten"?

It is past perfect. We would say "got" or "have gotten", but not "have got". That is considered poor grammar.

Past what? Er.... I deal with present, past, future. I can't think of any other times. Time is a linear dimension, there's now, before now, and what hasn't happened yet. I've never understood why we don't have a seperate word for future, but two for the past. Seems to have been removed from UK English anyway, although we've kept others. I suppose I should be thankful I don't live somewhere with genders for inanimate objects!

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Past what? Er.... I deal with present, past, future. I can't think of any other times.

American English has evolved in the last 200 years.

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Past what? Er.... I deal with present, past, future. I can't think of any other times.

American English has evolved in the last 200 years.

Actually it's stayed more the same than UK English. We've had influences from the French for example. Your spelling of sulfur, color, etc, were what we used to use, then the French added extra unnecessary letters and we listened to them. Don't ever join the EU :-)

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Don't ever join the EU :-)

OK, I guess we will scrap our plans to do so.
(I know, they wouldn't want us anyway.)

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for a few hours now, my computers have uploaded finished tasks, but according to the BOINC manager they get stuck in the "ready to report" status.

the problem seems to have gotten solved now :-)

Glad to hear it. I saw a server outage today for a few hours, but it seems to be over it.

P.S., not being rude, but why do Americans say "gotten"? In the UK, "get" is present tense, "got" is past tense. So is "gotten" like more than 3 days ago or something? Really really past tense?

"It has gotten dark outside"!!! To say "it has got dark outside'' is just plain bad in any language.

for a few hours now, my computers have uploaded finished tasks, but according to the BOINC manager they get stuck in the "ready to report" status.

the problem seems to have gotten solved now :-)

Glad to hear it. I saw a server outage today for a few hours, but it seems to be over it.

P.S., not being rude, but why do Americans say "gotten"? In the UK, "get" is present tense, "got" is past tense. So is "gotten" like more than 3 days ago or something? Really really past tense?

"It has gotten dark outside"!!! To say "it has got dark outside'' is just plain bad in any language.

Well that's what we say in the UK, since we don't use the word gotten anymore. And I can't understand why you need it. Got is past tense, for anything that happened in the past. It became dark earlier than now, so you use got. Officially, "past perfect" (which I think is pointless, and I assume is what you're saying "gotten" is) refers to to a time before the time you are talking about in the past, so it's in the past of the past, as in "yesterday it had already been raining". But "it has got dark outside" is just past. Anyway, these rules are so complicated that nobody could possibly work out which to use in the time taken to say a sentence in everyday conversation, which is why we've lost that word from UK English.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying our English is better, for example we spell colour with that pointless extra U, just because the French do. As for manoeuvre vs. maneuver..... 3 vowels together?! I've never learned how to spell that and have to guess until it's close enough for my spellchecker to understand it.

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Don't ever join the EU :-)

OK, I guess we will scrap our plans to do so.
(I know, they wouldn't want us anyway.)

I hope they don't want us back. If Scotland ever get independance, they're going to try to rejoin. Utterly crazy, wanting to leave the UK then join the EU. Independant or not, pick one Miss Sturgeon!

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for a few hours now, my computers have uploaded finished tasks, but according to the BOINC manager they get stuck in the "ready to report" status.

the problem seems to have gotten solved now :-)

Glad to hear it. I saw a server outage today for a few hours, but it seems to be over it.

P.S., not being rude, but why do Americans say "gotten"? In the UK, "get" is present tense, "got" is past tense. So is "gotten" like more than 3 days ago or something? Really really past tense?

"It has gotten dark outside"!!! To say "it has got dark outside'' is just plain bad in any language.

Well that's what we say in the UK, since we don't use the word gotten anymore. And I can't understand why you need it. Got is past tense, for anything that happened in the past. It became dark earlier than now, so you use got. Officially, "past perfect" (which I think is pointless, and I assume is what you're saying "gotten" is) refers to to a time before the time you are talking about in the past, so it's in the past of the past, as in "yesterday it had already been raining". But "it has got dark outside" is just past. Anyway, these rules are so complicated that nobody could possibly work out which to use in the time taken to say a sentence in everyday conversation, which is why we've lost that word from UK English.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying our English is better, for example we spell colour with that pointless extra U, just because the French do. As for manoeuvre vs. maneuver..... 3 vowels together?! I've never learned how to spell that and have to guess until it's close enough for my spellchecker to understand it.

You say ALOT of things differently in the UK that people in the rest of the World do, it's part of what makes each place the same but different, ie Loo, aluminium, tomato, potato and about a million others. You guys also have shaggy cows while the US has longhorn cattle, you guys also eat ALOT of sheep while in the US that's not nearly as popular.
The key is we all crunch no matter how we say it.

The key is we all crunch no matter how we say it.

That is what attracted me to engineering back in a more turbulent era (even more turbulent than now, for people who were not around at the time).
It is not political. They are just trying to do useful things.

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You say ALOT of things differently in the UK that people in the rest of the World do, it's part of what makes each place the same but different, ie Loo, aluminium, tomato, potato and about a million others. You guys also have shaggy cows while the US has longhorn cattle, you guys also eat ALOT of sheep while in the US that's not nearly as popular.
The key is we all crunch no matter how we say it.

No *you* say a lot different, the language is called English, not American :-P

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The key is we all crunch no matter how we say it.

That is what attracted me to engineering back in a more turbulent era (even more turbulent than now, for people who were not around at the time).
It is not political. They are just trying to do useful things.

And then governments and big business try to steal your ideas and profit from them. All science should be shared for free.

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And then governments and big business try to steal your ideas and profit from them. All science should be shared for free.

No, they never get used unless someone makes them. And it is not stealing when you are paid to invent them, or give them away for free, as with DC projects.
In fact, the only reason any of us do these projects is in the hopes that they will get used.

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And then governments and big business try to steal your ideas and profit from them. All science should be shared for free.

No, they never get used unless someone makes them. And it is not stealing when you are paid to invent them, or give them away for free, as with DC projects.
In fact, the only reason any of us do these projects is in the hopes that they will get used.

Not sure what you mean. But if you work hard at something, then it gets patented, then that idea is not used as well as it could have been. If it's public domain, it will be put to far more use.

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If it's public domain, it will be put to far more use.

About the only places I know where you can test out your theory are North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela.
Let us know how you make out. (If the Moderator wants to delete all of this, I won't object.)

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If it's public domain, it will be put to far more use.

About the only places I know where you can test out your theory are North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela.
Let us know how you make out. (If the Moderator wants to delete all of this, I won't object.)

I was under the impression that the results from Rosetta became public domain. See, it can be done, even in our backwards countries.

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Certainly our results are given away. Companies are then free to do with it what they want.
That may include patenting their various contributions; we don't control that.

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Certainly our results are given away. Companies are then free to do with it what they want.
That may include patenting their various contributions; we don't control that.

I assume there is something in place to stop them patenting our part?

Science would go so much faster if everybody knew everything instead of every company hiding things. Knowledge should never ever be owned.

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I assume there is something in place to stop them patenting our part?

Science would go so much faster if everybody knew everything instead of every company hiding things. Knowledge should never ever be owned.

They can't patent "our part". That is part of the "prior art" to them. They can only patent their advances beyond that, which may of course depend on "our part"; otherwise, there would be no point in doing what we are doing.

Otherwise, you "much faster" theory can be put to the test as I have indicated. Good luck.

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I assume there is something in place to stop them patenting our part?

Science would go so much faster if everybody knew everything instead of every company hiding things. Knowledge should never ever be owned.

They can't patent "our part". That is part of the "prior art" to them. They can only patent their advances beyond that, which may of course depend on "our part"; otherwise, there would be no point in doing what we are doing.

Otherwise, your "much faster" theory can be put to the test as I have indicated. Good luck.

Are you suggesting that private companies somehow help science? Sure, they have money, but if nobody else can benefit from the findings I call that a backwards step, especially if the patent then ends up blocking anyone else doing similar research. Just look at the nonsense with patenting genes! And those other countries aren't exactly rich enough to try my "idea", which I would prefer to be referred to as "common sense".

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