time for a twice yearlly update
As usual, I'm not posting very often. But it occurred to me that if my interaction with the internet is purely a case of me absorbing information and never contributing, then karma will bite me.
My main use of the internet lately has been http://en.wiktionary.org. I'm attempting to teach myself latin and irish at the moment, as well as keeping on top of my greek. The latin entries are largely fantastic, and the irish entries are surprisingly good, where they exist. I'm amazed by the inability of language textbooks to get to the point and give you a broad overview of the language. Even if I don't learn other tenses of the verb right off the bat, I'd like to at least know what other tenses there are, as that gives me an idea what the purpose of the tense I am learning is. Anyhow, I'm making quite a bit of progress on both languages. In latin I've memorised the forms of the first and second declensions, and the present tense forms of the 1st and 2nd conjugations of verbs. In Irish I'm working my way through the speaking CD my ma got me, as well as deciphering the actual grammar of the words. I don't know how I'm supposed to remember phrases without knowing which words are which! So I'm having an absolute ball working on that.
Last night I went for a ride to the rocks at about 11pm. On the way back through the city, I stopped to listen to some christian preachers standing on a street corner on a milk crate. I was struck by the power of the guy's voice, he was making it carry out over the noise of crowds, music, and traffic, as clear as day. Then it struck me that whatever the virtue of his message (and I didn't particularly like his message), that he was cheapening it by voicing it in such a place. Standing on that street corner of a busy world city on a saturday night, I was inundated with messages if I cared to heed them. One corner advised me to eat Hungry Jacks. Another advised me that that hotel was the best place to eat, sleep, and drink. Another corner offered me a wealth of juicy pornography. The corner the preachers were on had upmarket bars that offered me another message, that of the benefits of high society, or something like that. Meanwhile women in revealing outfits wandered about with another message and temptation. On the spur of the moment, all of these other messages are more appealing than the fire and brimstone the preacher was offering (Do you choose to reject Jesus? For God has outlined the punishments that await you my friends...). So the preacher's message was just another message amongst the din, a din that any sane person tunes out of completely, lest it consume you! So, whatever the virtue of his message, it seemed diminished by the venue, condemned to be another ignored advertisement for a product I didn't want right then. I might add that I didn't follow the advice of any of the other messages on that street corner, I had riding to do!
The other thing that entertained me about the city last night, was that riding through heavy traffic (all the rice burners cruising for chicks), the smell of the cologne and perfume of the folks attending bars actually overpowered the smell of car exhaust. I can't imagine how intense it must have been inside the clubs...
Sorry to everyone whose blogs I've been failing to read. The interwubz is a big place and I'm largely lost in it. According to the bureau of statistics, the "iGeneration" is from 1986 onwards and is marked by a complete taking for granted of gadgets and the always-online lifestyle. I was born in 1984, so I'm merely a generation barely holding on to the technological roller coaster. That being said, I am sitting on my verandah typing this on my laptop, which is connected to my cable internet wirelessly through two routers, one of which is a DHCP server, and one of which isn't. I also managed to set up port forwarding to my linux torrent client on a dual boot machine.... So who is the more "at home" with technology? The kid with the iphone who tells their friends, via twitter, everything they do on a five minute by five minute basis and spends hours every day grooming their online presence via MySpazz? Or the guy who knows that a DHCP server is, manages a home network of five computers with four different operating systems and a robotic armenian bunny, and who set up a dual boot linux/winxp computer just to see what would happen?
These are the words of the militantspacepygmy...
My main use of the internet lately has been http://en.wiktionary.org. I'm attempting to teach myself latin and irish at the moment, as well as keeping on top of my greek. The latin entries are largely fantastic, and the irish entries are surprisingly good, where they exist. I'm amazed by the inability of language textbooks to get to the point and give you a broad overview of the language. Even if I don't learn other tenses of the verb right off the bat, I'd like to at least know what other tenses there are, as that gives me an idea what the purpose of the tense I am learning is. Anyhow, I'm making quite a bit of progress on both languages. In latin I've memorised the forms of the first and second declensions, and the present tense forms of the 1st and 2nd conjugations of verbs. In Irish I'm working my way through the speaking CD my ma got me, as well as deciphering the actual grammar of the words. I don't know how I'm supposed to remember phrases without knowing which words are which! So I'm having an absolute ball working on that.
Last night I went for a ride to the rocks at about 11pm. On the way back through the city, I stopped to listen to some christian preachers standing on a street corner on a milk crate. I was struck by the power of the guy's voice, he was making it carry out over the noise of crowds, music, and traffic, as clear as day. Then it struck me that whatever the virtue of his message (and I didn't particularly like his message), that he was cheapening it by voicing it in such a place. Standing on that street corner of a busy world city on a saturday night, I was inundated with messages if I cared to heed them. One corner advised me to eat Hungry Jacks. Another advised me that that hotel was the best place to eat, sleep, and drink. Another corner offered me a wealth of juicy pornography. The corner the preachers were on had upmarket bars that offered me another message, that of the benefits of high society, or something like that. Meanwhile women in revealing outfits wandered about with another message and temptation. On the spur of the moment, all of these other messages are more appealing than the fire and brimstone the preacher was offering (Do you choose to reject Jesus? For God has outlined the punishments that await you my friends...). So the preacher's message was just another message amongst the din, a din that any sane person tunes out of completely, lest it consume you! So, whatever the virtue of his message, it seemed diminished by the venue, condemned to be another ignored advertisement for a product I didn't want right then. I might add that I didn't follow the advice of any of the other messages on that street corner, I had riding to do!
The other thing that entertained me about the city last night, was that riding through heavy traffic (all the rice burners cruising for chicks), the smell of the cologne and perfume of the folks attending bars actually overpowered the smell of car exhaust. I can't imagine how intense it must have been inside the clubs...
Sorry to everyone whose blogs I've been failing to read. The interwubz is a big place and I'm largely lost in it. According to the bureau of statistics, the "iGeneration" is from 1986 onwards and is marked by a complete taking for granted of gadgets and the always-online lifestyle. I was born in 1984, so I'm merely a generation barely holding on to the technological roller coaster. That being said, I am sitting on my verandah typing this on my laptop, which is connected to my cable internet wirelessly through two routers, one of which is a DHCP server, and one of which isn't. I also managed to set up port forwarding to my linux torrent client on a dual boot machine.... So who is the more "at home" with technology? The kid with the iphone who tells their friends, via twitter, everything they do on a five minute by five minute basis and spends hours every day grooming their online presence via MySpazz? Or the guy who knows that a DHCP server is, manages a home network of five computers with four different operating systems and a robotic armenian bunny, and who set up a dual boot linux/winxp computer just to see what would happen?
These are the words of the militantspacepygmy...