[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

[rfmcdpei]

• At Bad Astronomy, Phil Plait makes the necessary point that the unusual lack of the predicted acetylene on Titan's surface doesn't automatically indicate that Titan hosts life.
• Beyond the Beyond' Bruce Sterling reports on how a French trader accused of massive, illegal trading is planning on defending himself by arguing that's what the bank expected

Comments

[mindstalk]

Baker: "If crowds of students take a language because they think it's useful (or easy), they suck the fun out of it. Entire rooms fill up with students doing time. I remember classmates losing their patience with the minority who took Spanish class seriously, rolling their eyes when we attempted to roll our Rs."

This seems incoherent. You've got
a) people who learn a language for the love of it
b) people who learn a language because it'll be useful
c) people who are taking a language class because it's required

He seems to be lumping b) and c) together, and this is unjustified. Someone who's properly b) should be serious -- perhaps too serious, and not playful enough for 'fun', perhaps more concerned with business speak than poetry, but not laughing at other people who take it seriously for other reasons.

[angel80]

And how many other countries could that point about PNG be applied to? (rhetorical question of course)