(no subject)
A few ramblings tonight -
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I don't think I've ever raved about how much I love the Wayback Machine. Seriously - I would be lost without it.
My own use of it might be personal and frivolous, but I can't help but think of what a valuable repository it could be for future historians. The internet is vast, but the individual websites that make it up can be so fleeting and transient - I'm glad that, somewhere, sometimes, there is a place they can be preserved. Not that it's perfect, of course, but it's certainly saved me from the icy Hades of the redirected Yahoo Geocities page on a few occasions.
* * *
I wonder, a dozen generations from now, long after the last server has sputtered its last, what myths of this strange, frantic, co-dependently interconnected electronic age will persist? If any. I have a hilarious, horrifying image of our ignorant, self-absorbed selves being remembered as 'the sages whose voices crossed the world' or some damn thing.
* * *
As a collection of tales, Star Trek could be a lot better than it is - but only if interpret it at face value. Actually sci-fi is a lot less creative and original than we think; like all art and literature, it's really way for us to explore ourselves - in this case, by creating 'aliens' as outside observers, holding up a dispassionate mirror that we can examine ourselves in. If we ever meet real aliens, we won't have the first clue what to do with them.
* * *
I like learning languages. I haven't studied many of them, and all but one have been romance languages, not truly alien, but I've taken satisfaction in it nonetheless. Partly it's that huge steep learning curve after you get past the stumbling basics - that time when you know only enough that you've realised how much you still have to learn, and your head is aching with the effort of remembering new words, and your brain is buzzing with the effort of rewiring itself into a new language.
And the second thing I love is learning some new expression or concepts that doesn't exist in english at all - french genders, spanish having two 'being' verbs instead of one, irish being bloody-mindedly poetic. You learn a lot about your unquestioned assumptions when you have to do it all differently.
* * *
Rubber ducks rule. That is all.
* * *
* * *
I don't think I've ever raved about how much I love the Wayback Machine. Seriously - I would be lost without it.
My own use of it might be personal and frivolous, but I can't help but think of what a valuable repository it could be for future historians. The internet is vast, but the individual websites that make it up can be so fleeting and transient - I'm glad that, somewhere, sometimes, there is a place they can be preserved. Not that it's perfect, of course, but it's certainly saved me from the icy Hades of the redirected Yahoo Geocities page on a few occasions.
* * *
I wonder, a dozen generations from now, long after the last server has sputtered its last, what myths of this strange, frantic, co-dependently interconnected electronic age will persist? If any. I have a hilarious, horrifying image of our ignorant, self-absorbed selves being remembered as 'the sages whose voices crossed the world' or some damn thing.
* * *
As a collection of tales, Star Trek could be a lot better than it is - but only if interpret it at face value. Actually sci-fi is a lot less creative and original than we think; like all art and literature, it's really way for us to explore ourselves - in this case, by creating 'aliens' as outside observers, holding up a dispassionate mirror that we can examine ourselves in. If we ever meet real aliens, we won't have the first clue what to do with them.
* * *
I like learning languages. I haven't studied many of them, and all but one have been romance languages, not truly alien, but I've taken satisfaction in it nonetheless. Partly it's that huge steep learning curve after you get past the stumbling basics - that time when you know only enough that you've realised how much you still have to learn, and your head is aching with the effort of remembering new words, and your brain is buzzing with the effort of rewiring itself into a new language.
And the second thing I love is learning some new expression or concepts that doesn't exist in english at all - french genders, spanish having two 'being' verbs instead of one, irish being bloody-mindedly poetic. You learn a lot about your unquestioned assumptions when you have to do it all differently.
* * *
Rubber ducks rule. That is all.
* * *