Language desk
< October 21	<< Sep \| October \| Nov >>	October 23 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

October 22

How to measure "at any time"

Despite its now common use, I am unable to find a concise list of measures and definitions for "at any time"... and their application eg contract law.

Warwick

Can you give some context? Who does want to measure what "at any time" and why do they want to do that? Can you give an example of this now common use? And what was the question? --Lambiam ^Talk 05:41, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Without more specific context, we can only assume "at any time" to mean... exactly that. I can't think of a simpler way to define it, and you obviously aren't having trouble with the meaning. freshofftheufo ΓΛĿЌ 06:31, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The context I suggested in my question was 'contract law' where "at any time" would be an enforceable contractual condition. How could this be enforceable without a definition for reference and a methodology to measure it...is it 'every' measurable division of time or 'any' measurable division of time? Of course, if it was not 'every' measurable division of time, the time would need to be specifically identified to be lawful. The methodology of measure is therefore dependent on the definition. In terms of common use, a simple google identifies the many ways "at any time" is used....millions. My question is contained in my query "a concise list of measures and definitions for "at any time". Any definition would be fine.

The definition of "time", and measurable divisions of time are at the article time, and the smallest measurable unit of time is a planck unit, though someone with more knowledge of that could probably help you better. freshofftheufo ΓΛĿЌ 07:54, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My question relates to the definition of "at any time" not "time" itself.

It means what it says. If the conditions are such that 'at any time' is not meant, you should use a different expression. If you mean for the time period to be limited, say so - 'at any time before 17:00 22 December 2006'. You're over-analysing it, some words are commonly understood. Natgoo 10:38, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From a conversational standpoint, the 'commonly understood' interpretation is valid. However, should one be writing a computer program to produce a critical outcome from multiple, continuous data feeds, what 'refresh' timing would be appropriate to ensure that the critical outcome was available "at any time"?

We can't answer that. Even if we knew how often and how much data was been feed, and what the data was being used for, we still couldn't give better than an estimate. Either the people who signed the contract had a good idea of what they meant, in which case you should ask them, or they didn't, in which case it's likely that no one knows exactly what that clause means.--Prosfilaes 14:17, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Prosfilaes comment. In a contract it usually simply means that when party A wants to enforce a provision of the contract, party B cannot say: "Now is not the right time". This is for a legal contract in real life. Perhaps you mean "contract" in a metaphorical sense, as in: "A specification is a contract between the customer and the implementor". If the term "at any time" occurs in a specification for a digital system, then it makes a bit of a difference whether this is part of the interface specification between two concurrent asynchronous components, or a stub specification of a component of a clocked system, or part of a specification of overall system functionality – in which case we may need to take account of real-time properties of the context in which it is embedded. In the latter case, no reaction to changes in the environment can be truly instantaneous. Even if the clock rate of the processor is measured in PHz, sensors at the input side may have a time lag on the order of milliseconds in responding to changes in the environment, and actuators (effectors) on the output side possibly have a much larger reaction delay, and a random variation in the delay. Pragmatically it is meaningless then to react "internally" orders of magnitude faster than that, and certainly much faster than the delay spread. You need to apply some common sense, or – if it is truly critical – insist on a more precise spec of what is required. For example, it might be possible to give a good upper bound on the probability of some fatal event occurring as a function of the sampling rate. As that rate tends to infinity, the probability will not go to zero but to some positive value. Then you can ask: Is it worth the cost to double the sampling rate so as to go down from 6.884·10^-9/yr to 6.876·10^-9/yr? Probably not. --Lambiam ^Talk 14:35, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Following Fillintheblanks Are In The Language Of German. What Would I Fill In The Blanks?

d___ nett____ und reich____ Leute
Ihr____ faszinierend____ Hobby

The underscores may or may not represent the number of required characters.

Danke schön.100110100 08:44, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're supposed to fill in the correct case endings. See German grammar. Btw, I think the first sentence is written in plural, but German grammar has always confused me... (Btw, if you study German right now, your books should contain enough information for you to be able to solve this yourself... ) 惑乱分からん 15:06, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well I wounldn't be asking would I if I knew, eh?100110100 09:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, of course not. I just htink it was strange that it wasn't made more obvious... 惑乱分からん 14:53, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

nominative &accusative: die netten und reichen Leute, Ihr faszinierendes Hobby.

genitive: der netten und reichen Leute., Ihres faszinierenden Hobbys

dative: den netten und reichen Leuten., Ihrem faszinierenden Hobby.

--Janneman 16:58, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unless these are parts of larger sentences you're going to want to use the nominative form. -Elmer Clark 03:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Welsh translation

What does "Popeth Am Gariad...Wel, Bron!" mean? It's supposed to be the Welsh translation of a book by Peter Corey and Phillip Reeve, but according to my dictionary, Bron means 'breast', which doesn't seem to be suitable for a child/teen book title, and the only books by the authors are 'Coping with Love', 'Coping with Exams and Tests' and 'Coping with 1999', none of which seem to match the title, so I'm guessing the translation is nonliteral or colloquial Welsh. La ï ka 14:31, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

'Coping with breasts'? 惑乱分からん 15:07, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You've missed out the meaning of "bron" as an adjective. It means "Everything about love... well, almost!". -- Arwel (talk) 15:38, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So this is the Welsh edition of 'Coping with Love', btw, which word means 'Love' here? 惑乱分からん 15:43, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That makes more sense than the "Everything of loving...or at least breasts" provided by a machine translator! La ï ka 18:01, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Cariad", mutates to "gariad"; masculine noun, also means "charity"; as either a masculine (plural "cariadon") or feminine noun (plural "cariadau") can also mean "lover". -- Arwel (talk) 23:30, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]