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motodraconis' book, and also because I don't post often enough or consistently enough for the usual to be worthwhile: the year in retrospect in first pictures, rather first posts.
60% Comfortable – uploaded 13 December 2009.
I hadn't uploaded anything so far this month, so if I wanted to be able to write this post I needed a photo for December. Something I saw on flickr with motion blur made me think of trying to catch the second hand of our nice clock what-we-brought-back-from Chicago in motion. Think of it as an image of time passing: silly and pretentious, probably, but appropriate to the theme of the post...
( November to January )
So I guess that's it: not my best photos, or my worst, but a nice cross-section of rather good year.
- Music:Garbage - Sleep Together
I learnt a new way of asking a question in Greek tonight: Δε μου λες...; — essentially, instead of "Could you tell me" (when the train leaves, or whatever), "Could you not tell me...?"
Must be hell to be autistic and Greek.
- Location:United Kingdom, England, Oxfordshire
So here's a plan: we import some Fordite, and hawk it round various such events from a stall (suitably draped with shawls) "as approved by Dr Ben Goldacre" (he probably would, if we asked nicely). The only question is, which chakras would we say it was good for, and what ailments could we claim to cure?
- Music:Flux - Light Fuse | Powered by Last.fm
Stuck for inspiration for a counterfactual conditional sentence in tonight's Greek class, I came out with "If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb." That the teacher wasn't familiar with the reference was probably clear from her thinking that I meant I would bring a lamb to class with me; so she had no idea why someone else then added that if she were wise, she would do her part. How we laughed, I can tell you.
Αν ήμουν τσοπάνης, θα έφερνα αρνάκι.
Αν ήμουν σοφή, θα έπαιξα τον ρόλο μου.
- Location:United Kingdom, England, Oxfordshire
jinty writes up all the important things, leaving me free to contribute the occasional frivolity. We've now been to the new Ashmolean twice (as documented elsewhere, of course), and I keep trying J's patience with continual photographs. The ones I'm most pleased with are probably those of the Alfred Jewel (which are already turning up high on Google searches, to gratify my vanity) and the one of the little netsuke figure of a ratcatcher:
( The new toy.. )
jinty is away...Giles: My calculations are precise.
Buffy: They're bad calculations. Bad!
Willow: Buffy has a really important date.
Buffy: Owen!
Giles: All right! I'll, I'll just jump into my time machine, go back to the twelfth century, and ask the vampires to postpone their ancient prophecy for a few days, while you take in dinner and a show.
Buffy: OK, at this point you're abusing sarcasm.
(Incidentally, it's interesting — to me, at any rate — that when you Google this story there are subtle variations on the name given at the start of the excerpt. In the original it is "Welch Hall computer assistant" — presumably a location and a role; but it metamorphoses via "Ridge Hall computer assistant" into "Rich Hall, Computer Assistance", where it is clearly a personal name. WTF? How is the rest of the anecdote word-for-word copy-and-paste accurate, but they've played Chinese Whispers with this one phrase? Weird.)
Also, for those who may or may not have seen
jinty's post about Logicomix, here's a snippet of the Greek version (bigger on click-though):
A very young and intense Wittgenstein flummoxes Bertrand Russell at their first meeting, by refusing to assent to the truth of the proposition "There is not a rhinoceros in this room," because it is merely empirical, and therefore has nothing to do with Truth.
Well, 32% vs. 1% does sound impressive and, if significant, does want some kind of explanation. But it'd be nice to have a proper source cited, and maybe a sample size.
- Location:Work
- Music:Divinyls - I Touch Myself | Powered by Last.fm
On first language acquisition: "[B]y the age of two, whether the child is producing 200 or 300 distinct 'words', he or she will be capable of understanding five times as many, and will typically be treated as an entertaining conversational partner by the principal caregiver."
On second lanugage acquisition #1: "Basically, if we are stressed, uncomfortable, self-conscious or unmotivated, we are unlikely to learn anything[...] In one intriguing study, a group of adult L2 learners [Shouldn't that read 'noble and selfless heroes of linguistics'? - Ed.] volunteered to have their self-consciousness levels reduced by having their alcohol levels gradually increased. Up to a certain point, the pronunciation of the L2 noticeably improved, but after a certain number of drinks, as we might expect, pronunciations deteriorated rapidly. Courses introducing 'French with cognac' or 'Russian with vodka' * may provide a partial solution, but the inhibitions are likely to return with sobriety."
On second lanugage acquisition #2: "As long ago as 1483, William Caxton used his newly established printing press to produce a book of Right good lernyng for to lerne shortly frenssh and englyssh [... H]is phrasebook format with customary greetings (Syre, god you kepe. I haue not seen you in longe tyme) has many modern counterparts."
*Lebanese Christians have already cornered the market in Arabic instruction.
ETA: There is a (badly OCR'd, as usual) copy of an EETS edition of the Caxton phrasebook here. An extract (found here) reads as follows:
It's nice to see the longevity of the association between language-learning and being full of drynkes.
- Location:Work
- Music:Easy Star All-Stars - On the Run | Powered by Last.fm
Item #2: We finally got around to listening to the mix CD that
jinxremoving gave us for the non-wedding. It turned out to be utterly awesome.Item #3:
jinty has already mentioned The Pyramids of Mars, but I also came away from the Retro shop with The Sontaran Experiment, The Genesis of the Daleks, and The Talons of Weng Chiang, all for under a tenner. Woot!Unfortunately, the new toy won't play videos. Bah.
- Music:She Wants Revenge - Tear You Apart
I make no comment: I feel none is needed. Or quite adequate.
- Location:Home
- Mood:aghast
jinty the whole list, and she said it sounded like it should be in a Captain Haddock speech bubble.(John E McIntyre reckons the undertaker one is in iambic hexameter: I'm not entirely convinced about the scansion, but it certainly has a nice, metrical, feel to it.)
- Location:Home
- Music:Scientist - Scientist meets the Space Invaders - Cloning Process
jinty's journal, or because you were actually there; for those who weren't, and don't, and aren't — we had a bit of a bash to celebrate being together. It was a fantastic day, with lovely food and lovelier friends and family: there is a bit of an account of it here; there are photos of the food here, and more photos in general on flickr; and there is a bit of an explanation of our choosing to get publicly Not-Married in J's speech here.Personally, I chose (for once) not to take a camera with me: I figured that I wanted just to enjoy the day, without being tempted to faff and fiddle with f-stops and slow-sync flash and what have you; and I reckoned enough other people would take nice photos for me not to bother. What I did do, though, was to make a speech; and since J has posted her sensible (but also, ultimately, very sweet and moving) one, I thought that may be I should post my sillier one, too.
Unfortunately, I can't — well, not exactly. You see, the exact version of my speech never made it beyond this form:
( But it probably went something like this... )
I knew that artichokes grew on things that looked like thistles on steroids, but it wasn't till I read up on how to cook them in the Larousse Gastronomique that I realized they were basically just gigantic flower-buds...
and Michael Jackson:
Also from links on the same blog, Jennifer Maestre makes amazing art with pencils... whatever next?
- Location:Home
- Music:Seasick Steve & the Level Devils - Rooster Blues
The trouble with contemporary Christianity is that a massive bait and switch is going on. "Christianity" has essentially become a mechanism for allowing millions of people to replace being a decent human being with something else, an endorsed "spiritual" substitute. For example, rather than being a decent human being the following is a list of some commonly acceptable substitutes:
Going to church
Worship
Praying
Spiritual disciplines (e.g., fasting)
Bible study
Voting Republican
Going on spiritual retreats
Reading religious books
Arguing with evolutionists
Sending your child to a Christian school or providing education at home
Using religious language
Avoiding R-rated movies
Not reading Harry Potter.
The point is that one can fill a life full of spiritual activities without ever, actually, trying to become a more decent human being. Much of this activity can actually distract one from becoming a more decent human being. In fact, some of these activities make you worse, interpersonally speaking. Many churches are jerk factories.
- Location:Home
- Mood:
amused - Music:Chakidor - Travailler c'est trop dur
( The good, the bad, and the meh of Dinosaur Jr )
Minor excitement for me earlier in the week on flickr, when I found I was getting literally hundreds of hits on one particular day. At first I suspected some sort of erroneous 'bot, but it turned out that it was actually down to real people: a Greek blog called troktiko had chosen this photo of the Treasury of Atreus in Mycenae for a Guess where in Greece? item — understandably, since it is clearly the best picture of the Treasury on flickr ;) — resulting in a bit of a spike, to say the least...
But I was chuffed that they picked my photo...
( Also on flickr... )
- Location:Home
- Mood:accomplished
- Music:A Notice of Eviction to a Closet Full of Skeletons - Thomas Truax
