I love linguistics sometimes. I think mostly because it seems to work on something I call casual logic– it’s not as rigorous as math or the (other) sciences, but it does have a nice logical ring to it. And I would study linguistics just for the jargon. Maybe that’s why I like Perl– Larry Wall, the creator, designed it using certain natural language constructs. Anyhow, this a gem of a link on slips of the tongue.
It is interesting how finding one good website almost definitely means discovering a whole new underworld of websites that I’ve never heard of before. Like, I mentioned rawbrick.net in my last entry; today I’ve been wallowing in the net of links that I followed out from there. I won’t bother with mindless link propagation, as they can all be reached through her links section, but I did discover a couple of cool things: most notablely woodge.com. Appropriately enough, all that section of the web seemed to have the same ‘flavor’ as rawbrick.
Visiting all those worthy sites made me really want to do something with my own, so I tracked back down this website, a list of minimalist sites, and am going through the listed sites, systematically cataloguing all the features of them that I would like to duplicate on my own site. I also visited webstandards.org, and I’m loving their new news oriented design; it makes the site so much more useful. Now I’m reading this article about the way XHTML 2 is going to be incompatible with XHTML 1. Hmmm.
…that’s what I would be, if I were a woman. I guess than makes me a bookstud :). (you know, the whole sexually active stigma thing) Anywho, this is one of those type of sites that makes me want to be a better blogger: rawbrick.net. It has one purpose, to talk about the author’s life and the books she reads, and it does it well. I enjoyed browsing through her old book lists and emailing myself tons of titles to pick up. And her design is also good: simple, organized, unobtrusive, and easy on the eyes. I give this site a 10; if I were ever to get my links up, it would definitely be near the top.
Stereotypes are funny things. You may think that you resist them, but in the end, when the opportunity arises for you to make snap decisions based on stereotypes, we do so. Like today (and remember, I’m black, so I’m allowed to say this), when I saw a guy with those big, pink, African (so goes the stereotype) lips. I was tempted to ask him, “Are you black?”, in a dubious tone of voice. If I had the guts to speak as it comes to me… the trouble I’d get myself into.
In a related note, I’ve been thinking lately about the way lots of people who learned English as a second language– probably just because I heard Noam Chomsky will be speaking @ UH some time soon, so I’ve become unnaturally attuned to anything relating to linguistics (strangely, he isn’t going to be speaking about language). Basically, I’m wondering if the errors they make are genuinely predicated on a misunderstanding of English sentence structure (”No Food or Drinks in here or account will be disabled”– to borrow an example from a sign in the room, which I think (and maybe a little, hope) was written by an ESLler), or if they might be just be betraying the influence of the way their first language structured their thoughts. I think it could possibly be the second case because I think, if I took the time to finish learning Spanish, I would be able to speak grammatically correctly, albeit very slowly. Not because I’m good with languages, but because I think English has more and subtler grammatical rules than Spanish. It seems that my main problem would be forgetting English sentence structure, rather than learning Spanish itself. So I think that translates over to other people learning English; except, in their case, they are almost always learning a language that is more subtle and diagonal (as compared to Spanish, which always seemed rather orthogonal to me). To make a programming analogy, the hardest thing for a C programmer to do when adjusting to the world of Perl is not learning the syntax, but forgetting the thought patterns of C, and learning to use Perlish idioms. Of course, that’s a very truncated and oversimplified analogy, but I think it conveys the point.
All of this points to what I’ve heard many times before: children should learn more than one language in their early childhood. I think that would accustom them to switching between the thought patterns of different languages, which would help them later to learn any other language they would like to, with more ease. For best results, probably, the languages should be as ‘far apart’ as possible, i.e. from different major language groups. English and Spanish would be acceptable, English and Sanskrit better, and English and Chinese even better. In the end, I think learning this ability to switch thought patterns would also help people in dealing with technical subjects: math, the science, etc. which require a kind of mental domain transformation.
Somewhere, there should be an unwritten law stating if you carry more books from the library that you can comfortably, then you won’t be able to finish reading those books. At least in my case– I went to the library for one book, and ended up getting 3, at least two of which I probably won’t do much more that glance at until it is time to turn them in. Seriously, I have a problem… a strange one, but a problem none the less. When will it end!
Rhetorical question: does anyone know of a webhosting company that would be willing to host a student organization’s website? Specifically, the University of Houston’s chapter of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars? I’m trying to involve myself in their affairs. We would like PHP or ASP, and database connectivity if possible. 
The message has been spread… to the unlistening wind (of the Inernet).
Latest content ideas: cryptography for beginners (because I’m interested in it right now), math (because I’m continually interested in that), nude pictures of me (because who isn’t interested in that?). I’ll stop now.
And because probably only two people but myself visit this site, which is only occasionally, despite how hard I try, anything other than a tribute to my ego and evidence of my bad English, happy belated birthday Zorowar! (I should post your email for the spam-bots, that would be unique birthday gift).
Speaking of which, I wonder at anti-spam technology sometimes. Why is it so undeveloped? Currently every ’solution’ I’ve seen is, at core, nothing but a list of reg-exps. Certainly in the wide and twisted field of AI, there has got to be some kind of research that can be applied to spam prevention. Maybe this genius, Douglas Hofstadter, has the answer; I wouldn’t be surprised at all, with his bad, Godel-toting, Bach-loving, Escheresque self :). The most original approach to dealing with spam are those spambot traps that post multitudes of fake email addresses, attempting to corrupt spam-masters’ databases, so they have to toss them out and start over. Unfortunately, while that may slow the spam-bots down, it can’t help those people who have already had their email addresses added to every single spam database in the world! (like myself). I would love to do something about spam, but what can I do? I don’t know much of anything really.
I used to smirk at the people who basically claimed that XML is the be all and end all of data storage methods; I couldn’t see why having everything based on markup would make such a big difference. But, praise the Lord, I have seen the light! Why? Nothing apocalyptic happened, I just had the first occasion to truly see how XML can help a lowly, non-enterprise, would-be web programmer like myself. The NSCS is considering moving some of their data over to XML, as they translate it from ‘old’ html to fit the design of their new site. That made me think: why not just change everything over to XML, and generate the markup dynamically using XSLT? That would solve all future compatibility problems, as well as allowing them to generate non-HTML output with ease. Go XML!
… makes up for several missed stitches (and hopefully, missed blogs). Or alternatively, makes for an imaginative title to an imaginative book– If you don’t have even a clue to what I’m talking about, shame on you!
Anyhow, I’m learning Javascript now, despite having pretty much decided long ago never to even attempt it again. At the time when I first thought of learning Javascript, it was still a relatively new technology, and all the books on the market focused on the flashy crap (that’s right, crap) that it makes possible (but never advisable— yes, I’ll stop now). Since I hate flashy crap in Websites which aren’t all about flashy, avant garde crap– i.e. everywhere but the myriad of ‘design’ shops– I was turned off immediately. Tack onto that the crappy interbrowser operability with respect to DHTML (actually, lack of operability, with or without the inter-), and I decided the time and sweat put into learning Javascript would not be paid off anytime soon. You see, I try never to use flashy crap on any of my websites.
Despite this resolution, I have always admired those sites that use Javascript commendably and sensibly– for cookies, form validation, and other quiet, constructive, and unobtrusive purposes. The best webmasters, however, are those who use Javascript in a manner totally transparent to the user.
As an efficient task separation on the Web— i.e. I hate old-fashioned CGI push animation technology, and love client-side image maps and CSS– I have also seen times that using Javascript for some minor data munging would be the most sensible choice, instead of wasting the time, bandwidth, and complexity required to implement a CGI script for the same purpose. So, I suppose it’s only been a matter of time until I sat down and learned some JavaScript.
I just came back from Fry’s Electronics, where I was helping my dad buy some computer stuff for my aunt back in Barbados. Of course, I was coerced to go, and as usual, my advice was neither needed or wanted. So I had time to wander around the programming section of the book department, where I stumbled across a book called “Discovering P2P”; at first I was disappointed– I had expected a guide on the techniques and considerations involved in both programming P2P software and designing P2P networks– but then I stumbled across a concise listing of several P2P networks, the likes of which, despite much searching, I have not been able to find on the Internet. Armed with this knowledge, and as part of my constant search for meaningful content, I have added to my todo list the task of compiling a comprehensive database on all publicly available P2P networks, complete with user comments and all– no one should have to install FreeNet to find out how crappy it is. To that end, I have here a collection of terms to feed to google, which I gleaned from the book in a hasty five minutes. Here goes…
punch webgroups, swaptor, url blaze, file rogue, file pile, gnutella, jungle monkey, konspire, myster, peergenius, porndigger, mojonation, gnucleaus, gnut, n-tella, newtella, phex, toadnode, limewire, hotline connect, bearshare, freenet, edonkey2000, filetopia, bad blue, direct connect …
If anyone has anything to add, please contact me. Thanks and peace out!
Even after this last admittedly pathetic revamping of the site, I feel a hankering for a change. This is to be a record of ideas I plan to or am considering implementing at some nebulous time in the future. Or as the saying goes, in my copious free time.
I disagree with the common sentiment– perhaps it is just much used, and not much thought on– that it is better to insult someone to their face than to do it behind their backs. Of course, sometimes that is true, but I think it all depends on certain factors: (1) your relationship to the person you’re insulting, and (2) the type of person you’re insulting, among others. If a king insults his subject, because of the relationship of power, the servant is in no position to answer that insult. Therefore it is reasonable to expect that servant to want his king to insult him, if at all, without his knowledge. Of course, with the king it would be the opposite; he would prefer for his subject to speak to his face, so he could crush them mightily! As for the second mentioned factor, it is a little harder to illustrate. Perhaps the essence of it is, is the insultee good with responding to insults, or not? In my case, the answer is most definitely not; hence, I prefer for people to insult me behind my back. Then I can pretend not to hear them.
