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Click here, roll over: ambiguity and Dutch
Followup to the previous piece on the new ugliest word in my language, I'd like to expand a bit on this statement:
Dutch is a merchants' language, harshly deriding ambiguity and far favoring clarity over beauty. This isn't to say it lacks grace, simply that our verbal eloquence comes from idiom rather than vocabulary.
An example of this just popped ( Read more... ) -
The new ugliest word in Dutch: "gelikete"
In June I railed against 'geüpdated', the neerlandified word for 'updated'. Now there's a new contender: 'gelikete', meaning 'liked' in the context of Facebook's like button.
The verb 'to like' knows no translation in Dutch. No surprise; even among its Germanic siblings the Dutch language has a particular paucity in vocabulary, so it certainly can't ( Read more... ) -
The emotional shape of a story, by Kurt Vonnegut, with commentary by Yours F. Truly.
An excerpt of a longer talk; thankfully the original source provided a link to an illustrated transcript.
Hint: read the illustrated transcript after you read this. Or instead, I don't care. Vonnegut's more important than I am, but he's dead and I'm alive, so make your choice.
My academic career, long and inconclusive as it was, started with a ( Read more... ) -
The title of this post does NOT suggest that any evidence exists of Babylon 5 coming to Blu-Ray.
Only that it should.
B5 broke new ground in its day, breaking from the Star Trek establishment by blasting a sci-fi series onto the screen that blended speculative contemplation, mystical philosophy, long-term character development, conspiracy, heroism, betrayal, cutting-edge creative effects and wicked, wicked forehead jobs.
The original airing of ( Read more... ) -
Personality and short intention paths: why Andy Rubin is wrong about Siri
I haven't used Apple's ingenious new Siri, nor do I need to in order to parry Android chief Andy Rubin's assessment that "your phone should[n't] be an assistant."
Siri purports to interpret natural language instructions. You are encouraged to treat it as a person both because of the casually courteous phrasing of its responses and the slightly sassy ( Read more... ) -
Alex F. Vance = Khaki F. Dog.
So the seasons change and as always I feel a sudden and intense desire to reinvent myself. Sometimes that means replacing my wardrobe, or getting a radical haircut. I'm too frugal and conservative for either of those, so here's something else.
Rebranding. Renaming. Introducing Khaki Dog, the mover-and-shaker formerly known as Alex Vance.
I've taken ( Read more... )
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