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Knoll (verb) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Knolling is the process of arranging like objects in parallel or 90 degree angles as a method of organization."

[Reminds me of "Things Organized Neatly": http://thingsorganizedneatly.tumblr.com/ ]

glengarryglenross frankgehry words language arrangement ocd tools angles parallels rightangles florenceknoll tomsachs via:litherland knolling organization from delicious
yesterday by robertogreco

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Penny Eckert's Web Page [Heard here: http://www.cbc.ca/q/weekly/2012/05/18/this-week-on-q---may-21-2512/ ]

"The goal of my research is to understand the social meaning of linguistic variation. In order to do this, I pursue my sociolinguistic work in the context of in-depth ethnographic fieldwork, focusing on the relation between variation, linguistic style, social identity and social practice.

Gender has been the big misunderstood in studies of sociolinguistic variation - in spite of the fact that some of the most exciting intellectual developments over the past decades have been in theories of gender and sexuality ... so I have been spending a good deal of time working on language and gender as well.

Since adolescents and preadolescents are the movers and shakers in linguistic change, I concentrate on this age group, and much of my research takes place in schools. The institutional research site has made me think a good deal about learning and education, but particularly about the construction of adolescence in American society."

sexuality socialpractice socialidentity sociolinguistics ethnography society vocalfry research adolescents gender language linguistics penelopeeckert from delicious
5 days ago by robertogreco

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Telescopic Text

"telescopictext.org is an extension of telescopictext.com, and is primarily a set of tools for creating expanding texts in a similar way. The tools can be found by clicking Write in the navigation at the top. Texts will house an ongoing collection of selected texts. Resources provides help for using this website, and also any news, updates, guides, support and a Q&A.; If you need further information or help, contact info@telescopictext.com. You can Register in order to save and publish texts, or Sign in if you already have an account. If you like what you find here and you want to help support it you can Donate."

micromacro collaboration wcydwt language via:maxfenton text telescopic telescopictext literacy tools writing from delicious
8 days ago by robertogreco

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Leonard Cohen, "How to Speak Poetry" - Acephalous

"The poem is nothing but information. It is the Constitution of the inner country. If you declaim it and blow it up with noble intentions then you are no better than the politicians whom you despise. You are just someone waving a flag and making the cheapest kind of appeal to a kind of emotional patriotism. Think of the words as science, not as art. They are a report. You are speaking before a meeting of the Explorers' Club of the National Geographic Society. These people know all the risks of mountain climbing. They honour you by taking this for granted. If you rub their faces in it that is an insult to their hospitality. Tell them about the height of the mountain, the equipment you used, be specific about the surfaces and the time it took to scale it…

Avoid the flourish. Do not be afraid to be weak. Do not be ashamed to be tired. You look good when you're tired. You look like you could go on forever. Now come into my arms. You are the image of my beauty."

simplicity modesty expression via:charlieloyd language information science accuracy precision truth art writing process leonardcohen poetry from delicious
11 days ago by robertogreco

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Metropolis M » Magazine » 2011 No5 » dOCUMENTA (13) Thinks Ahead

"A collection of notes is a curious archive of attempts. Attempts to understand the language we use, the logic we trace, and the images we generate to understand life today. Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, the artistic director of dOCUMENTA (13), would say that these notebooks are “worlding” exercises, weaving and stringing together different potentials.’"

"we are really interested in exploring artistic research. Artists, like scientists, are pioneers when it comes to creating new forms of connectivity between worlds that seem to have nothing in common with each other. They embark on the endless study of everything that contributes to different formulations of what we call reality. Taking artistic research seriously means accepting disorganisation within the relationship between disciplines that deal with contemporary art. The rise of cultural studies, critical theory, and the many variations of post-Marxist understanding of the relationship between art and economics is the fruit of…"

sketchbooks worldbuilding worlding sensemaking meaningmaking meaning cv howwethink howwecreate howwelearn howwework research art multidisciplinary crossdisciplinary crosspollination interdisciplinary interdisciplinarity artisticresearch connections potentials sketching drawing language logic deschooling unschooling glvo notebooks 2012 carolynchristov-bakargiev chusmartinez documenta(13) documenta understanding notetaking notes learning from delicious
17 days ago by robertogreco

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dOCUMENTA (13) - dOCUMENTA (13)

"Note taking encompasses witnessing, drawing, writing, and diagrammatic thinking; it is speculative, manifests a preliminary moment, a passage, and acts as a memory aid.

With contributions by authors from a range of disciplines, such as art, science, philosophy and psychology, anthropology, economic- and political theory, language- and literature studies, as well as poetry, 100 Notes – 100 Thoughts constitutes a space of dOCUMENTA (13) to explore how thinking emerges and lies at the heart of re-imagining the world. In its cumulative nature, this publication project is a continuous articulation of the emphasis of dOCUMENTA (13) on the propositional, underlining the flexible mental moves to generate space for the possible. Thoughts, unlike statements, are always variations: this is the spirit in which these notebooks are proposed."

[via: http://frieze.com/issue/article/books2027/ AND http://halloween-in-january.tumblr.com/post/21407577412 AND http://www.jennasutela.com/frieze ]

publishing conversations collaborations essays notebooks hatjecantz memoryaids memory noticing witnessing writing drawing diagrammaticthinking thinking 2012 2011 notetaking notes literature language economics politics politicaltheory philosophy anthropology art psychology books documenta(13) documenta from delicious
18 days ago by robertogreco

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Looking, Walking, Being | Design Culture Lab

Looking, Walking, Being

“The World is not something to
look at, it is something to be in.”
- Mark Rudman

I look and look.
Looking’s a way of being: one becomes,
sometimes, a pair of eyes walking.
Walking wherever looking takes one.

The eyes
dig and burrow into the world.
They touch
fanfare, howl, madrigal, clamor.
World and the past of it,
not only
visible present, solid and shadow
that looks at one looking.

And language? Rhythms
of echo and interruption?
That’s
a way of breathing.

breathing to sustain
looking,
walking and looking,
through the world,
in it.

~ Denise Levertov

eyes language walking 2012 deniselevertov observation annegalloway poetry poems markrudman noticing looking from delicious
21 days ago by robertogreco

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Abra Ancliffe

"Abra Ancliffe is an artist working primarily in printmaking & drawing, and is based in Portland, Oregon. She is interested in how language and architecture intersect, the beauty in gaps & voids and translations of translations. She received her MFA in printmaking from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and her BFA in printmaking from the Pacific Northwest College of Art. Abra teaches in the BFA and Continuing Education programs at PNCA."

glvo architecture language pnca libraries printmaking iceland translation translations oregon portland artists art abraancliffe from delicious
24 days ago by robertogreco

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Distinguishing blue from green in language - Wikipedia

"The English language makes a distinction between blue and green, but some languages do not. Of these, quite a number, mostly in Africa, do not distinguish blue from black either, while there are a handful of languages that do not distinguish blue from black but have a separate term for green.[1] Also, some languages treat light (often greenish) blue and dark blue as separate colors, rather than different variations of blue, while English does not."

[via: http://bobulate.com/post/21832744467/everything-you-know-lost-in-translation ]

blue languages linguistics perception green psychology color language from delicious
4 weeks ago by robertogreco

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Notes from a six-day workshop with Johanna Drucker at MIT (April 2012) - 5880

"Notes from a six-day workshop with Johanna Drucker at MIT (April 2012)

[ALL APOLOGIES FOR MIS/INFORMATION BELOW. THESE ARE UNEDITED NOTES WRITTEN IN THE MOMENT AT MIT HYPERSTUDIO]"

2012 instagram datamining attribution augmentedreality gps alancole alphabethistoriography historiography pantographia databases credit granularity visualtheory interfacedesign interface gis discovery search navigation narration narrative design hyperstudio brooklynbeta digitalhumanities continuity flow cabinetsofcuriosity structure scale collaborativeproduction authoringtools stevemambert readability reading.am connections serendipity ecologyoftools language complexity reading anthologies pinboard maps mapping conversation visualization temporality folksonomy tagging tags computation analytics collaboration collaborativewriting annotation traffic users walking local content notes johannadrucker maxfenton from delicious
4 weeks ago by robertogreco

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Everything you know lost in translation - Bobulate

"Japanese used to have a color word, ao, that spanned both green and blue. In the modern language, however, ao has come to be restricted mostly to blue shades, and green is usually expressed by the word midori (although even today ao can still refer to the green of freshness or unripeness — green apples, for instance, are called ao ringo). when the first traffic lights were imported from the United States and installed in Japan in the 1930s, they were just as green as anywhere else. Nevertheless, in common parlance the go light was dubbed ao shingoo, perhaps because the three primary colors on Japanese artists’ palettes are traditionally aka (red), kiiro (yellow), and ao. The label ao for a green light did not appear so out of the ordinary at first, because of the remaining associations of the word ao with greenness.

But over time, the discrepancy between the green color and the dominant meaning of the word ao began to feel jarring. Nations with a weaker spine might have opted for…"

history symbolism symbols description guydeutscher language color blue green lizdanzico japanese translation from delicious
4 weeks ago by robertogreco

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Imagination to imagination « Snarkmarket

Ellen Ullman quote:

"I think that literature—essays, stories, poems—is the one form where we can meet, imagination to imagination, without hosts of people in between, no directors and actors and set designers and so on. The medium itself is fairly transparent. You don’t need equipment or electrical outlets. You can go off alone to read, and, if the work is good, you are then intensely close to other human beings."

Tim's comment:

"I’ve been thinking about this a bit lately — how literature overcomes (or tries to overcome) the deficiencies of language — all those failures of imaginations to connect — WITH language. Like, only the spear that made this wound can heal it. Cf also Mallarmé, “to purify the language of the tribe.”"

imagination connection mallarmé language books reading ellenullman communication poetry 2012 timcarmody writing literature snarkmarket robinsloan from delicious
7 weeks ago by robertogreco

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Endangered Languages

"Of course, even under the previously mentioned worst-case scenario, the Japanese language itself is currently in Category (3), "safe" languages. However, the answers to the questions of whether Japanese will continue to be safe forever, and whether the Japanese people will maintain an adherence to established forms (kodawari) of their language, are by no means certain. The term kodawari has come to have a positive meaning in recent years (as seen in advertising by companies who use it to stress their pursuit of excellence in their products), but in the past, it used to have an exclusively negative connotation as a sort of stubborn reluctance to alteration. Might that not be why the Japanese, lacking much of a kodawari toward their traditional culture, have been so receptive to the foreign and the heterogeneous, in response to the times, their situation, and the countries they are dealing with? The uncritical acceptance of foreign loanwords may be one example of this phenomenon…"

extinction linguistics loanwords craft adaptability languages language osahitomiyaoka kodawari via:tealtan japanese japan from delicious
12 weeks ago by robertogreco

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Sorry, there's no such thing as 'correct grammar' | Michael Rosen | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Many people yearn for correctness & this is expressed in the phrase "standard English". The honourable side to this is that it offers a common means of exchange. However, this leads many people to imagine that because it is called standard, it is run by rules & that these rules are fixed… In fact, there is no agreed list, a good deal of what we say and write keeps changing and nothing is enforceable. Instead, language is owned and controlled by everybody and what we do with it seems to be governed by various kinds of consent, operating through the social groups of our lives. Social groups in society don't swim about in some kind of harmonious melting pot. We rub against each other from very different and opposing positions, so why we should agree about language use and the means of describing it is beyond me.

…This is not a neutral activity. It is part of how a certain caste of people have staked a claim over literacy."

paradigmwars society elitism power colonization colonialism language communication standardization rules class literacy 2012 michaelrosen dialect education english grammar castes via:litherland from delicious
march 2012 by robertogreco

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…My heart’s in Accra » Linguistic isolation

"As some of my readers know, I’m finishing writing a book on cosmopolitanism in a digital age. There’s lots of ways to think about cosmopolitanism; in my case, I’m thinking of the ways in which people build ties of friendship and information sharing across borders of language, nation and culture. People who have a lot of these ties are cosmopolitan, by my definition, while those whose ties are more locally bound are less cosmopolitan. One of the central questions of the book is whether the rise of the internet is leading towards higher levels of cosmopolitanism. (The answer: not necessarily, and not automatically.)

All well and good, but can we quantify these ideas?"

sociology borders online web media news internet ethanzuckerman 2012 cosmopolitanism language technology from delicious
february 2012 by robertogreco

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The Shelf Life: "Translation as Detour"

"Professor Rubin shared one anecdote that involved his current project translating the first two volumes of 1Q84 for Haruki Murakami. He assured us that this isn't a spoiler, but some of the characters see two moons in the sky. These folks are in the minority, as everyone else sees a single moon. But in Japanese, there is no distinction between plural and singular nouns. So the struggle, for him, has become sorting out how many moons each character sees. It occurs to me that only a certain kind of person will think that's funny, or even remotely interesting, but I'm absolutely of that variety."

plural japanese japan language 2010 translation harukimurakami jayrubin
february 2012 by robertogreco

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Twitter, NPR’s Morning Edition, and Dreams of Flatland | metaLAB (at) Harvard

"“Wellman is finding that Twitter isn’t flat,” Vidantam says—as if Tom Friedman’s chimerical “flatness” (the analytic value of which has proven to be nil) is the only possible quality of transformative political agency.

In last year’s revolutions, it wasn’t flatness that gave social media its power. It was its hyperlocality, its novel blending of intimate communities and witness at a distance.

Other work in which Wellman is involved argues for the richness of real-world community life that gets instantiated in Twitter. In a paper called “Imagining Twitter as an Imagined Community,” Wellman & his coauthors find that Twitter networks are “the basis for a real community, even though Twitter was not designed to support the development of online communities. There they conclude that “studying Twitter is useful for understanding how people use new communication technologies to form new social connections and maintain existing ones.”

Here’s the thing: Twitter is part of the “real world.”"

networks hyperlocal flatness connections place language nationality borders barrywellman shankarvidantam andycarvin tejucole communitites thomasfriedman worldisflat 2012 matthewbattles community twitter sociology socialmedia geography from delicious
february 2012 by robertogreco

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russell davies: subtle fail

"Thus far this sign has been my most productive inspiration. It seems to have a speculative, fantastic layer and a cautionary one.

The speculative layer is about objects with intention and behaviour. This restaurant is trying to stay close to you, it caused some un-named inconvenience in the past. Its owners (trainers? suppliers? workers? subjects?) are sorry about that. Sentient restaurants! Good.

The cautionary layer is about the weirdness that comes from software that tries to solve problems. In this instance what happens when spellcheck meets people who don't speak English as their first language? You get something that seems right but isn't, you get SUBTLE FAIL, which is more intriguing and dangerous than EPIC FAIL

SUBTLE FAIL is going to be interesting in a world of 3D printing and the internet of things."

epicfail tense sentientrestaurants speculation translation language fail 2012 internetofthings subtlefail russelldavies spimes
february 2012 by robertogreco

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world-weary, adj. : Oxford English Dictionary

Nothing new here, but the timing (that it pops up in my Pinboard network) is interesting:

"Weary of the world; feeling or indicating feelings of weariness, boredom, or cynicism as a result of long experience of life."

language cv words via:preoccupations weariness boredom cynicism world-weariness
february 2012 by robertogreco

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Ana Tijoux: Addressing Global Unrest In Rhyme : NPR

"Because Tijoux grew up in French culture, it took time and effort before she could speak Spanish comfortably. She says she still has plenty to learn about the Latin side of her identity — which is why she probably won't make an album in French anytime soon.

"All the countries in South America — I was just in Peru, Columbia and Brazil — every time it's like, 'Wow, I have to travel more, I've got to mix more with Latin American music, I've got to know more of where we come from!'" she says. "And I've got to be honest: I love to rap in a language where I can go to Mexico and they understand me, [or] I can go to Panama. I love when people can understand what I'm talking about.""

chile music language anatijoux 2012 from delicious
february 2012 by robertogreco

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On Wonder · tealtan · Storify

"An extended [Twitter] discussion on the nature of wonder" compiled and brought to you by Allen Tan.

language questions answers time schools unschooling education curiosity lizdanzico paulsoulellis frankchimero storify allentan ableparis ninastössinger carolynwood derrickschultz carenlitherland comments conversation 2012 wonder from delicious
february 2012 by robertogreco

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Realizing Empathy: An Inquiry into the Meaning of Making by Slim — Kickstarter

"At the heart of it is an inquiry into the meaning of making. I am deeply interested in how making works (as a process), what it means (to make something), and why it matters (to our lives).

One of the central theme is the relationship between the act of empathizing with the act of making…

The second theme is exploring how we can design a space that facilitates the act of making, especially in the digital space…

The book is structured around a number of stories that talk about the humbling experiences I've had in art school. These are experiences that have lead to epiphanies, which changed my understanding of what it means to make something.

In response to these experiences are conversations I've had with an interdisciplinary group of friends (an animator, a programmer, a neuroscientist, a human-computer interaction researcher, and a theologian) about these epiphanies.

Weaving together the stories and conversations are both reflective and analytic essays that model…"

integrity honesty acting knowledge workspace space metaphors trust courage comfort computers computing safety technology seungchanlim perspective risktaking risk dignity humility meaningmaking meaning scale_slim tools howwework openstudioproject making empathy design 2012 language
february 2012 by robertogreco

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Text analysis, wordcount, keyword density analyzer, prominence analysis

"Welcome to the online text analysis tool, the detailed statistics of your text, perfect for translators (quoting), for webmasters (ranking) or for normal users, to know the subject of a text. Now with new features as the anlysis of words groups, finding out the keyword density, analyse the prominence of word or expressions. Webmasters can analyse the links on their pages. More instructions are about to be written, please send us your feedback!"

english wcydwt classideas onlinetoolkit text software analysis research language tools writing from delicious
december 2011 by robertogreco

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Constant spoonerizing - Neven Mrgan's tumbl

"I spoonerize words all the time. All. The. Time. Good spoonerisms and bad. In my head. (I worderize spoons all the time. Tall. The Lime. Spoon Gooderisms band ad. Hin my ed.)…

I’ve only ever told a few people about it openly - not because it’s a big secret, but because it’s so… goofy and inconsequential. I know others have similar uncontrollable wordplay obsessions: constant punning, rhyming, anagrams, inverting words. Another minor thing I do is count the letters in a word and sort the consonants from the vowels, possibly as a pre-processing step for spoonerization.

This is a contagious brain-bug. Start doing it around someone and watch them pick it up. (I’m so sorry, Cabel. Oh also, dart stewing it surround omeone and pock whem ditch it up.)"

fun words language classideas tcsnmy toshare cv play wordplay spoonerisms nevenmrgan from delicious
december 2011 by robertogreco

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Learn 40 Languages for Free with Free Audio Lessons | Open Culture

"How to learn languages for free? This collection features lessons in 40 languages, including Spanish, French, English, Mandarin, Italian, Russian and more. Download audio lessons to your computer or mp3 player and you’re good to go."

languages language learning arabic spanish bulgarian catalan chinese mandarin danish dutch english esperanto finnish french free gaelic german greek hebrew hindi hungarian indonesian irish italian japanese korean latin lithuanian luxembourgish maori norwegian polish portuguese romanian russian swedish tagalog thai ukranian urdu vietnamese yiddish lessons from delicious
november 2011 by robertogreco

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Destinos [now online]

"Travel the world with lawyer Raquel Rodríguez as she solves a mystery for a dying man. Watch the complete Destinos series, practice your Spanish, and find new resources for learning and teaching Spanish."

spanish destinos soapoperas language destinos! toshare telenovelas from delicious
november 2011 by robertogreco

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15th Century Collective Nouns
language english collectivenouns 15thcentury from delicious
november 2011 by robertogreco

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Bookworm: Ngrams Meet the Library Catalog | Hack Education

"Despite the ease by which Ngrams purports to let users glean insights from the history of published words, it’s pretty clear that it’s not a complete (or completely accurate tool). Yet the idea of this sort of search-plus-visualization is really compelling.

Bookworm builds on this visualization, but does so with a much richer sense of libraries, metadata, and texts are interconnected. It feels as though it moves closer to the ways in which we use the library stacks — you search for a subject or book; you go to that shelf; you grab that book and then you browse what’s nearby. As our reading and research habits become more digital themselves, these sorts of discovery tools are crucial."

2011 audrewatters googlengrams ngramviewer books humanities visualization metadata culture scholarship academia history language libraries from delicious
october 2011 by robertogreco

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Varsity Bookmarking

""Instead, the human story goes somewhat like this “sitting in caves, coming up with language, figuring out farming, inventing steam + electricity, creating the Internet.” The Internet is that important."
Albert Wenger, in his talk opening the Turing Festival"

via:robinsloan history internet online albertwenger language classideas bigideas invention gamechanging from delicious
october 2011 by robertogreco

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Save The Words
language words wcydwt classideas english writing from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco

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My Family’s Experiment in Extreme Schooling - NYTimes.com

"He [Bogin] seemed to care about the way they thought, not what they knew. The children found him bizarre… 
 
As things settled, we were discovering that New Humanitarian was a pretty remarkable place. Bogin set up a system of what he called curators, two or three teachers whose job was to oversee the 10 to 15 children in each grade. Curators generally do not conduct lessons but observe classes, identify problems and take children to meals and activities… 
 
Bogin had another innovation: classes were videotaped… 
 
New Humanitarian cost about $10,000 a child our first year. We could afford it — like many companies that send workers abroad, The Times paid tuition. Yet for Muscovites, the school was a strange breed. It was too expensive for most but not appealing to the rich, who often preferred compliant teachers and lavish facilities…" 
 
[See also: http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/z-is-the-first-letter-of-the-alphabet/ ]

education russia moscow schools progressive tcsnmy learning children language 2011 criticalthinking languageacquisition vasiliygeorgievichbogin bogin cliffordlevy experience resilience lcproject teaching from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco

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Simple English Wikipedia - Blog - Matthew Culnane

[A great reminder from Matthew Culnane on the value of Simple Wikipedia, even for native speakers of English. I also like the "Further Reading" component of the post.] 
 
"When I need a clear, straightforward summary of a topic, I’ve started reading the ‘Simple English’ version of Wikipedia. It’s primarily written for people whose first language isn’t English, but I’ve used it profitably." 
 
[Followed by an example.]

wikipedia simplewikipedia classideas rampingup forbeginners 2011 matthewculnane learning anything101 english starting brevity simplicity language from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco

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The Believer - Doubling in the Middle

"Barry Duncan is quite possibly the world's first master palindromist, and he refuses to cede control to the alphabet

DISCUSSED: Epic Struggles, The Distance Between Masters and Hacks, Palindromic Taxonomy, A Convenient Ampersand, Cutting-Edge Work in Reversibility, Some Limitations of an Untrained Audience, A Strange Kind of Amazing, The Relationship Killer, Disproportionate Responses, A Surfeit of Calendars, A Deficit of Wool and Illusions"

writing language barryduncan words literature fun taxonomy reversability 2011 thebeliever from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco

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Tweet of Life: The Science of Human Life in Twitter Messages

"This demo is the result of a study that was carried at the Language, Interaction and Computation Laboratory at the University of Trento in Italy [1]. We looked at the daily patterns of life in Twitter messages (tweets), and we present the differences in the contents of tweets according to the gender of the users and time of the day. 
 
HOW? 
We analyzed millions of tweets collected by researchers from the University of Edinburgh between November 2009 and February 2010. For gender differences, we separated the tweets into two subsets as male and female tweets by using the first names of the Twitter users. For hourly differences, we grouped the tweets according to the time of the day they were posted (in each user's local time)."

visualization twitter 2009 2011 2010 information language usage timeofday time human from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco

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Inundated with placenames « Derek Watkins [See also: https://sites.google.com/site/streamgenerics/ ]

"I like this map because it illustrates the range of cultural and environmental factors that affect how we label and interact with the world. Lime green bayous follow historical French settlement patterns along the Gulf Coast and up Louisiana streams. The distribution of the Dutch-derived term kill (dark blue) in New York echoes the colonial settlement of “New Netherland” (as well as furnishing half of a specific toponym to the Catskill Mountains). Similarly, the spanish-derived terms rio, arroyo, and cañada (orange hues) trace the early advances of conquistadors into present-day northern New Mexico, an area that still retains some unique cultural traits. Washes in the southwest reflect the intermittent rainfall of the region, while streams named swamps (desaturated green) along the Atlantic seaboard highlight where the coastal plain meets the Appalachian Piedmont at the fall line."

history language geography infographics linguistics placenames creeks streams us maps mapping toponyms genericplacenames 2011 derekwatkins from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco

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My Father’s Final Gift « Aza on Design

"“Is it bigger than a bread box?”, I stare at the package in my hands. In it is my father. The man who invented the Macintosh and misnamed what should be the “typefaces” menu the “fonts” menu. He never forgave himself for his incorrect usage of English. He groomed with exacting use of language and considered that mistake a failure of being young and reckless with semantics. The man who invented click-and-drag was now the man who could hardly keep his gaze focused on his son. The box is, of course, smaller than a bread box. It’s a question we always ask. My family smiles out of habit. 
“No”, my father says. A long pause. “No”, he says again, “it is smaller than a bread box. Smaller and sharper.” He speeds the guessing game along. Time." 
 
[Also at: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663156/the-mac-inventors-gift-before-dying-an-immortal-design-lesson-for-his-son ]

azaraskin jefraskin language gifts writing design history questions tradition 2011 via:jeeves shaving knives razors questioning inquiry play has:via from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco

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Want a job? Major in liberal arts: Technology firms need more than science and math skills

""This Is Your Brain on the Internet" [class]…strips down fundamentals of learning in order to come up w/ better principles designed to help students think interactively, creatively, cross-culturally & collaboratively.

…read sci fi novels & written hypertext versions of them…spent week working w/ Chinese choreographer to learn to improvise w/out a common language…worked w/ video game designer using scissors & construction paper to prototype game…passed evening w/ science writer who lets them "hear" the world as if thu his own cochlear implants…

How do you test skills this curriculum is meant to sharpen?…midterm exam…students had 24hrs to choose, write & answer a question as a group that best summarized the first half of class. 17 of them, signing off on one coherent, final essay, posted on a public website before midnight—w/ failure for all the potential consequence.

These are the kinds of skills the humanities majors of the future are learning…mix technology & communication…"

cathydavidson education classideas learning questioning questions inquiry teaching liberalarts technology 2011 collaboration creativity interactivity communication humanities cv toshare stem curriculum infosystems information informationscience language business stevejobs problemsolving perspective empathy from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco

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Take ‘Em To Task - Smiley & West

"A minister from Ventura, CA takes West to task on the terms "progressives" vs "liberals"."

cornelwest travissmiley liberalism progressivism liberals progressives definitions language politics economics 2011 from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco

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Why Arabic is Terrific

"So I would like to stand up for the language nerds and give some reasons for studying Arabic that have nothing to do with politics. The language of the National Designated Other is bound to switch to Chinese in a couple of years, but until colleges start teaching Martian, Arabic is going to remain the strangest, most interesting language you can study in an undergrad classroom. 
 
And don't fall for the bait and switch with Chinese or Japanese! They might tempt you with an exotic writing system, but after a few months you find out that the underlying language is pretty vanilla, and meanwhile there is a stack of three thousand flash cards standing in between you and the ability to skim a newspaper. 
 
Arabic, on the other hand, twists healthy minds in twelve ways:…"

education learning writing language maciejceglowski arabic languages 2011 from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco

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Newswordy: Word of the day

"Buzzwords are frequently used in news media. These are words that do not typically occur in everyday speech, but are common among newscasters, talking heads, and pundits on cable news. 
These ‘news words’ are accepted by audiences for their implied meaning. But often loaded words are misused or used out of context. The actual definitions can be different than what is implied. 
Newswordy is a growing collection of these words, updated every weekday. Along with each word is a definition, a quote with its use (or misuse) in the media, and a news and Twitter feed on the subject."

education media language misuse outofcontext writing journalism classideas wcydwt english news twitter definitions vocabulary from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco

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The Rhetoric Of Neuroscience | Wired Science | Wired.com

"The language of neuroscience definitely fuels an “anxious parenting” mentality–everything you do molds the child’s brain, permanently influencing your child’s future life (job, mental health, intelligence, and so forth). This is scary stuff–some of the language I look at uses neuroscience to suggest that a single mistake at the wrong time (an aggressive tone, yelling at the child) can have permanent effects on the child’s emotional stability. Of course, we have always had various ways of promoting – as well as contesting – the anxious parenting mentality, so the neuroscientific version isn’t totally new, it’s just the latest reinvention. But the neuroscientific language and images give it a particularly persuasive quality that I think is especially nerve-wracking–popular magazine features tell us that we can see, on a second-by-second basis, how our every word and behavior are permanently influencing our child’s brain."

jonahlehrer davijohnsonthornton parenting anxiety anxiousparenting permanence fear neuroscience language rhetoric 2011 brain science
august 2011 by robertogreco

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Urban Dictionary: Fhtagn

"Word which roughly translates to waits/dreams/sleeps in a long forgotten tongue."

[via: http://twitter.com/agpublic/status/101644269621747712 ]

fhtagn cthulhu hplovecraft dreams sleeping sleep waiting dreaming language words definitions
august 2011 by robertogreco

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The Healing Powers of a Pie Shop - NYTimes.com [See also http://mmm.pielab.org/ (nice touch on the URL) AND http://vimeo.com/9386150 ]

PieLab opened in a makeshift space…Project M team members…at the invitation of the Hale Empowerment & Revitalization Organization (HERO), a housing-advocacy nonprofit, which also sponsored community-minded local initiatives. The Project M team conceived of their pie shop as a pop-up — a temporary cafe — describing it as a “negative-energy inverter, fueled by pie.”…
PieLab = a neutral place + a slice of pie.A neutral place + a slice of pie = conversation.
Conversation = ideas + design.Ideas + design = positive change.

…operated out of temporary quarters for four months…Within a few months of opening…PieLab-inspired efforts popped up in [other] cities…"

[Article also outlines misteps.]

"All the attention buoyed the PieLab collaborators. But it also created problems. When Project M first arrived in Greensboro, some folk bristled at the language it employed."

[Slide show: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/10/10/magazine/pielab.html?ref=magazine ]

alabama greensboro popuprestaurants pop-uprestaurants lcproject community humanitariandesign designimperialism projectm amandabuck food glvo srg pielab halecounty conversation problemsolving designbasedsolutions nonprofit cultureclash language blackbelt us change ideageneration thirdspace studios popup pop-ups
august 2011 by robertogreco

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prepone - Wiktionary

"1. (India) To reschedule to a time earlier than the current scheduled time." 
 
[Also listed here (worth mining): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English ] 
 
[Related, also interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi_English and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinglish ]

prepone words india english indianenglish language definitions time meetings scheduling adelanto from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco

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PHRAS.IN - Say this or say that?

"Because spell checkers only do 80% of the job. 
If you, like me, speak English as a second language, you know that using correct spelling doesn't protect you from writing those awkward sounding lines. 
Tell me, how many times did you come up with two ways to say the same thing, and couldn't decide which one was the best fit? 
My solution was to google both expressions and check out the number of web results. 
 
Low figures meant that very few people ever phrased the sentence that way, thus it was probably incorrect. 
 
On the other hand, higher numbers indicated common use, and the 3 line preview in the results helped me figure out if I was using the right form. 
This tool does just that, in a much quicker and convenient way." 
 
"Tip: You can get results straight from the address bar, just type http://phras.in/phrase1/phrase2"

phras.in writing comparison language english phrasing usage commonuse classideas wcydwt from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco

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Cool Tools: Writing Tools

"This two-sided page contains the wisdom of an entire book on how to write better. Nay, it distills an entire shelf of the world's greatest writing manuals (and I have them all). After 30 years as both a writer and editor I can't think of much I would add to these 50 short tips. This PDF is now my favorite guide to writing well. You can print it out for free. If you want its pithy reminders fleshed out with more examples, see the book form, or the website. But the free tip sheet itself -- one paper printed both sides -- rewards a quick review anytime you get down to serious writing."

writing language kevinkelly cooltools classideas howto english tools from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

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Dymaxion: Transnationality and Performance

"…I crossed an international border to install an app on my cellphone. That wasn't the nominal purpose of the trip, but if we step back from our understanding of internationalization & international copyright law, that interaction btwn border crossing & the performance of an effectively physical act is almost surreal. More surreal is possibility…that I could have simply traded my Icelandic SIM card for my US one &…effectively, virtually, performed that border crossing…

Like everyone else, my life is bound up mostly w/ those of some few hundred other people, & lived in a specificity of place mostly across some few square km. Unlike many other people, the future is rather more heavily salted into it, & that space is split over various countries. It is unclear if transnational culture or border performance will win, or how long a compromise of ever-increasing osmotic pressure can last. I dearly hope…immediate awareness of our ultimate interconnectedness will triumph regardless."

international global borders simcards law copyright interconnectedness transnationalism transnationality porous porosity future present eleanorsaitta bordertown culture permeability osmosis neo-nomads nomads ip intellectualproperty vpn translation history serfdom language jacobapplebaum moxiemarlinspike us cities from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

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Will · How Can You Not Be Angry?

"But here’s the thing: If you’re a public school educator in the U.S. right now, how can you not be angry? How can you not be doing something, even if it is just a profanity laced Tweet? The profession is being trampled. Politicians and businessmen with no background in education are driving reform. And our students are stuck in a system that still thinks it’s the 19th Century. By any standard, including the tests, our kids are not being well served, especially those who live in poverty. As a community, we’re in a fight, whether we like it or not, yet we seem more inclined to figure out Google+ than to make our voices heard to the policy makers who seem to have no desire to figure out what’s best for our children and care more about their re-election campaigns. 
 
I mean really…what’s it going to take?"

willrichardson activism apathy politics education reform policy language profanity comments teachers teaching anger 2011 edreform from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

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Amazon.com: Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures (9780415214216): Bill Cope, Mary Kalantzis: Books

"Multiliteracies considers the future of literacy teaching in the context of the rapidly changing English language. Questions are raised about what constitutes appropriate literacy teaching in today's world: a world that is both a global village yet one which local diversity is increasingly important. 
 
This is a coherent and accessible overview of the work of the New London Group, with well-known international contributors bringing together their varying national experiences and differences of theoretical and political emphasis. The essays deal with issues such as: 
 
• the fundamental premises of literacy pedagogy 
• the effects of technological change 
• multilingualism and cultual diversity 
• social futures and their implications on language teaching. 
 
The book concludes with case studies of attempts to put the theories into practice and thereby provides a basis for dialogue with fellow educators around the world."

multiliteracies via:anterobot billcope marykalantzis teaching pedagogy english language languagearts books toread newlondongroup literacy culturaldiverisity diversity multilingualism socialfutures 1999 from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

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Inca Paradox: Maybe the pre-Columbian civilization did have writing. - By Mark Adams - Slate Magazine

"But what if the khipus don't fit neatly into the precise criteria established for true writing? It's possible, says Wisconsin's Salomon, that khipus were actually examples of semasiography, a system of representative symbols—such as numerals or musical notation—that conveys information but isn't tied to the speech sounds of a single language, in this instance Quechua. (By contrast, logographic languages such as Chinese and Japanese are phonetic as well as character-based.) The Incas conquered a huge number of neighboring peoples in a short time span, between 1438 and 1532; each of these groups had its own language or dialect, and the Incas wanted to integrate those new territories into their hyperefficient organizational network quickly. "It makes sense that they'd use a system that could transcend languages," Salomon says."

language linguistics history writing quechua inca ancientcivilization communication khipus semasiography knots 2011 perú from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

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Edwin Himself is Edwin Negado » John Jay on the importance of language

“Competitive advantage in the future will come from discovery, accessing, mobilizing and leveraging knowledge from other locations around the world”. 
 
“Cultural knowledge is critical for building iconic brands”. 
 
“The challenge is to innovate by learning from the world”. 
 
“In order to learn, you can’t just hang out with the same people, you have to go somewhere and try something and be with people that are different than you”. 
 
“Technology makes time and distance irrelevant”.

johnjay language languages learning multiculturalism international perspective communication diversity discovery global from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

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Boontling - Wikipedia

"Boontling is a folk language spoken only in Boonville in Northern California. 
 
Although based on English, Boontling's unusual words are unique to Boonville, California. Scottish Gaelic and Irish, and some Pomoan and Spanish, also influenced the vocabulary of the language.[1] Boontling was invented in the late 19th century and had quite a following at the turn of the 20th century. It is now mostly spoken only by aging counter-culturists and native Anderson Valley residents. Because the town of Boonville only has a little over 700 residents, Boontling is an extremely esoteric dialect, and is quickly becoming archaic. It has over a thousand unique words and phrases" 
 
[via: http://twitter.com/thisandagain/status/89424538575712256 ]

history writing language storytelling california norcal boonville andersonvalley dialects from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

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Paul Bloom | Professor of Psychology, Yale University | Big Think

"Paul Bloom is a professor of psychology at Yale University. His research explores how children and adults understand the physical and social world, with special focus on morality, religion, fiction, and art. He is a past president of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology and a co-editor of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, one of the major journals in the field. Dr. Bloom has written for scientific journals such as Nature and Science as well as for popular outlets such as The New York Times, the Guardian, and the Atlantic. He is the author or editor of four books, including "Descartes' Baby: How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human." His newest book, "How Pleasure Works," will be published by Norton in June 2010." 
 
[This link points to the segment of the interview title: "How Are Kids Smarter Than Adults?"]

children language socialinteraction brain plasticity psychology imagination pretending interviews paulbloom play pretend development fiction evolution perception childdevelopment morality art religion pleasure reality purposefuldeception self-deception from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

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Bring chaos theory to English language teaching | Education | Guardian Weekly

"By relying on grammar rules in class, learners are in danger of becoming detached from the dynamism of spoken language"

language english grammar teaching writing classideas deschooling unschooling languagearts via:rushtheiceberg rules rulebreaking slang change dynamic from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

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Railspeak should be terminated | Media | The Guardian

"If anyone from Network Rail or the Misassociation of Train Operating Companies is reading this, I simply ask if it is beyond them to devise a clear, simple system of announcements, in plain English, restricted to essential information rather than the incessant outpouring of all this aural ordure. I am happy to volunteer my services and willing to undercut whatever was paid to the tin-eared idiots responsible for the development of train and station announcements over the last 20 years or so. 
 
Meanwhile, someone should tell the announcer at Waterloo station that the ever-lengthening list of things we can't do – smoke, run, cycle, skateboard, find a rubbish bin, find a seat – does not, so far, extend to playing boules or yodelling. Is this an oversight?"

language communication transportation english wordchoice via:preoccupations uk trains 2011 from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

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SpeEdChange: Pygmalion

"There has always been a tension in the US btwn expressed ideal of multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society - you know…and the reality on the political ground, which is that "our leadership" would find things "much easier" if we were all "white, protestant, straight, northern Europeans." 
 
Actually not. 
 
They don't want that. If everyone were "the same" the "leadership class" would not know at-a-glance who belonged & who did not. So, what they want is for everyone "else" to waste enormous effort trying to be like them, while they race comfortably ahead… 
 
You know, there's a reason great universities crave diversity in their student bodies (exclude Harvard, Princeton, & Penn from that group because…social class finishing schools): It is because, education, like societies, work best - makes the greatest strides - when there is neither "Common Core Knowledge" nor "Common Culture."… 
 
We don't need E.D. Hirsch, Jr, Bill Gates, and Arne Duncan making Eliza Doolittle's out of us."

commoncore irasocol pygmalion 2011 diversity edhirsch kipp colonialism deschooling unschooling schooliness properness identity whiteness history literature universities colleges learning education instruction decolonization billgates arneduncan elizadoolittle georgebernardshaw class wealth power control cities homogeneity language speech fordenglishschool from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco

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For Dewey, Bellow, and Sweetness: The Story of the Chicago Comma - storify.com

"The University of Oxford no longer uses the "Oxford" or serial Comma in its own publications. Even though the serial comma is still recommended by Oxford University Press, we feel that the time has come for the torch to be passed to a new city on a new continent. We say: let the so-called Oxford Comma become hereafter known as the Chicago Comma."

timcarmody danielsinker oxford oxfordcomma punctuation chicago 2011 manualofstyle writing style ego humor appropriation renaming classideas storify commas howwewrite parentheses quotationmarks dumbquotes serialcomma language communication styleguide
june 2011 by robertogreco

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For Dewey, Bellow, and Sweetness: The Story of the Chicago Comma - storify.com

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YouTube Playlist: The History of English in Ten Minutes

Description: Where did the phrase 'a wolf in sheep's clothing' come from? And when did scientists finally get round to naming sexual body parts? Voiced by Clive Anderson, this entertaining romp through 'The History of English' squeezes 1600 years of history into 10 one-minute bites, uncovering the sources of English words and phrases from Shakespeare and the King James Bible to America and the Internet. Bursting with fascinating facts, the series looks at how English grew from a small tongue into a major global language before reflecting on the future of English in the 21st century.

language history english classideas via:thelibrarianedge cliveanderson humor openuniversity open from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco

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Oxford Writing and Style Guide no longer recommending the Oxford comma

"The kottke.org style guide still advocates the use of the Oxford comma, but take that with a grain of salt; I also misuse semicolons, use too many (often unnecessary) parentheses -- not to mention m-dashes that are actually rendered as two n-dashes in old-school ASCII fashion -- use too many commas, and place punctuation outside quotation marks, which many people find, in the words of Bill S. Preston Esq. and Ted "Theodore" Logan, "bogus". Oh, and in another nod to the old-school, I also use "dumb quotes" instead of the fancier and, I guess, technically more correct "smart quotes". (via, who else?, @tcarmody (or should that be "whom else?"))"

writing style oxford commas kottke howwewrite punctuation parentheses quotationmarks dumbquotes 2011 serialcomma oxfordcomma language communication styleguide from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco

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Frank Chimero’s Blog - The Storm and The Line

"…“changer les idées”… to do something different to clear one’s head.…to take a break, to have a rest, but most importantly…an interruption of routine…“to change one’s ideas.” Sometimes…inflicted on us…other times we may choose to do it for ourselves. If the world can be reinvented, we should reassess our presumptions and ideas, especially when we find ourselves in situations that shake us to the core…

…everything we do, everything we make, is not about the beginning or the end of things. We may draw a line, but we are in the thick of life. We make for these middle parts. Every time we sit down to write, draw, design, paint, dance, we do so because we believe there will be a tomorrow. Every movement and each creation says, “The world is not done yet.” To make is to be optimistic. We get to make tomorrow for ourselves and one another, and we are lucky, because we are allowed to be engaged with the world and one another in this way…"

design culture writing language life nicholsonbaker creativity creating making doing glvo optimism change meaning meaningmaking happiness sadness emotions frankchimero routine disruption disruptive disruptors action
june 2011 by robertogreco

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notes.husk.org. It was fairly common in medieval times to put east....

“It was fairly common in medieval times to put east at the top. Which has a logic to it: when traveling across open terrain, the one consistent thing you had to orient yourself by when you broke camp in the morning was the sunrise. In fact, that’s the source of the term “orient yourself”: it literally means to face east.” —Carl Muckenhoupt

orientation travel medieval direction language maps mapping north east
june 2011 by robertogreco

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Anagnorisis - Wikipedia

"Anagnorisis ( /ˌænəɡˈnɒrɨsɨs/; Ancient Greek: ἀναγνώρισις) is a moment in a play or other work when a character makes a critical discovery. Anagnorisis originally meant recognition in its Greek context, not only of a person but also of what that person stood for. It was the hero's sudden awareness of a real situation, the realisation of things as they stood, and finally, the hero's insight into a relationship with an often antagonistic character in Aristotelian tragedy."

culture writing language literature realization anagnorisis aristotle plays drama theater discovery insight definitions greek via:rodcorp
june 2011 by robertogreco

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miscellany · When you inherit a language, it does not mean you...

"When you inherit a language, it does not mean you are totally in it or you are passively programmed by it. To inherit means to be able to, of course, appropriate this language, to transform it, to select something. Heritage is not something you are given as a whole. It is something that calls for interpretations, selections, reactions, response and responsibility. When you take your responsibility as an heir, you are not simply subjected to the heritage, you are not called to simply conserve or keep this heritage as it is, intact. You have to make it live and survive, and that is a process - a selective and interpretive process."

—Jacques Derrida

jacquesderrida language culture remixing appropriation transformation livinglaanguage meaning meaningmaking unfinished from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco

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Frank Chimero’s Blog - The Storm and The Line

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Skip The Legalese And Keep It Short, Justices Say : NPR

"All of the justices talk about "legalese" in disparaging terms…many refer to great fiction writers as masters of language. 
 
"The only good way to learn about writing is to read good writing," says Chief Justice John Roberts. 
 
That sentiment is echoed by Breyer, who points to Proust, Stendhal & Montesquieu as his inspirations. Justice Anthony Kennedy loves Hemingway, Shakespeare, Solzhenitsyn, Dickens & Trollope. 
 
Justice Thomas says a good legal brief reminds him of the TV show 24. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says one of the great influences on her writing was her European literature professor at Cornell, Vladimir Nabokov… 
 
Many of the justices admit to linguistic pet peeves. Kennedy hates adverbs & disdains nouns that are converted to verbs — "incentivize," for example. Scalia readily admits to being a snoot. 
 
"Snoots are those who are nitpickers for the mot juste, for using a word precisely the way it should be used, not dulling it by misuse. I'm a snoot."…"

writing law legalese supremecourt 2011 literature classideas editing rewriting shakespeare hemingway montesquieu proust stendhal charlesdickens trollope vladmirnavakov antoninscalia ruthbaderginsburg johnroberts clarencethomas language geechee vladimirnabokov from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco

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The Private Eye - jeweler's loupes and inquiry method for hands-on interdisciplinary science, art, writing, and math

"The Private Eye is a nationally acclaimed, hands-on learning process that rivets the eye and rockets the mind. With everyday objects, The Private Eye’s easy questioning strategy, and an almost magical magnification tool, a jeweler’s loupe, you’ll accelerate concentration, critical thinking and creativity — for all ages. 
 
In the arts and the sciences, you’ll build close observation skills linked to the mental muscle of thinking by analogy. Learners write, draw and theorize at higher levels. Join us, along with millions of students and teachers. Discover new worlds. Magnify minds." 
 
[via: http://borderland.northernattitude.org/2011/06/04/hearts-and-minds-2/ ]

observation inquiry theprivateeye teaching learning art science language languagearts writing reading noticing magnification loupes concentration systems systemsthinking inquiry-basedlearning analogy analogies criticalthinking drawing tcsnmy perspective from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco

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Logical punctuation: Should we start placing commas outside quotation marks? - By Ben Yagoda - Slate Magazine

For at least two centuries, it has been standard practice in the United States to place commas and periods inside of quotation marks. This rule still holds for professionally edited prose: what you'll find in Slate, the New York Times, the Washington Post—almost any place adhering to Modern Language Association (MLA) or AP guidelines. But in copy-editor-free zones—the Web and emails, student papers, business memos—with increasing frequency, commas and periods find themselves on the outside of quotation marks, looking in. A punctuation paradigm is shifting… 
 
But the main reason is that the British way simply makes more sense. Indeed, since at least the 1960s a common designation for that style has been "logical punctuation." … 
 
[Example] … 
 
"Tales of the City" and "Out in the Silence" are units—consisting of the words and the quotation marks. Insinuating a period or comma within the unit alters it in a rather underhanded manner.

writing language punctuation classideas change logicalpunctuation it'sabouttime english usage 2011 from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco

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Nonce - Wikipedia

"Nonce may refer to: 
*Nonce, time being: the present occasion; "for the nonce" 
*Nonce word, a word used to meet a need that is not expected to recur 
*Cryptographic nonce, a number or bit string used only once, in security engineering 
*The Nonce, American rap duo 
*Nonce (slang), a sex offender 
*Nonce orders, an architectural term"

words computers cryptography slang time language temporary temporality nonce from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco

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Text Patterns: curators and imitators

"So I’d suggest this as the beginnings of a taxonomy:

1) The Linker: That’s what most of us are. We just link to things we’re interested in, without any particular agenda or system at work…my Pinboard page…page of links.

2) The Coolhunter: People who strive to find the unusual, the striking, the amazing — the very, very cool, often within certain topical boundaries, but widely & loosely defined ones…Kottke & Maria Popova…

3) The Curator: There are some. Not many…tends to have a clear & strict focus…some particular area of interest…finds things that other people can’t find…easily…having access to stuff that is not fully public…putting stuff online for the first time…having a unique take on public material…Bibliodyssey is a genuinely curated site; also, just because of its highly distinctive sensibility, Things magazine.

…not saying that one of these categories is superior to the others. They’re just all different, and the difference is worth noting."

alanjacobs via:lukeneff curation curating online web blogging kottke mariapopova taxonomy links bookmarks del.icio.us pinboard blogs tumblr bibliodyssey coolhunters 2011 language sharing from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco

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Design design design. by David Cole - Quora

"My friend Tag recently introduced me to the concept of a Buffalo sentence. The eponymous example is: 
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. 
It works because the word buffalo has three meanings: buffalo the animal, Buffalo the city, and buffalo the verb (a synonym for bully). Rewording clarifies: 
New York buffalo (that) New York buffalo bully (also) bully New York buffalo. 
This sort of ambiguity pops up in a lot of places, and it's pretty delightful… 
 
Where it isn't delightful is in the design trade…We have three ways of understanding design: 
 
Designers: design as a role within an organization. 
Designing: design as a process. 
Designs: design as a deliverable. 
 
The confusion of any pair of these is destructive for both the designer and their organization."

design language buffalosentences process deliverables words davidcole from delicious
may 2011 by robertogreco

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I Read Where I Am

"Exploring New Information Cultures" 
 
"For example, words are colour-coded in a gradient from dark (more) to light (less) as a comparative value of frequency versus uniqueness. Also, several indexes are featured as random access interfaces to the articles. And finally, the subject matter in the texts is extended beyond the book through comparisons with Wikipedia entries of similar semantic meaning (micro- versus macro-context).So in essence, in the conceptualization of this book, we are not only trying to produce graphic and typographic design. But, by augmenting code and form with critical language theories, we are also practising what we like to call Digital Anthropology."

design art culture future writing reading toread ellenlupton kevinkelly erikspiekermann dunne&raby jamesbridle bobstein digital books text digitalanthropology wikipedia indexing typography criticallanguage language narrative semantic literaryanthropology screens screen behavior etexts linguistics bookfuturism experience from delicious
may 2011 by robertogreco

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Chrestomathy - Wikipedia

"Chrestomathy (Pronounced krɛsˈtɑːmʌθiː/kres-TA-muh-thee from the Greek words khrestos, useful, and mathein, to know) is a collection of choice literary passages, used especially as an aid in learning a foreign language. 
In philology or in the study of literature, it is a type of reader or anthology which presents a sequence of example texts, selected to demonstrate the development of language or literary style. 
 
In computer programming, a program chrestomathy is a collection of similar programs written in various programming languages, for the purpose of demonstrating differences in syntax, semantics and idioms for each language. This term is thought[according to whom?] to have been first used by Eric S. Raymond in the Retrocomputing Museum web site. It is used by analogy to a linguistic chrestomathy." 
[Found in: http://www.ftrain.com/times-inverted-index.html]

learning language linguistics words chrestomathy philology programming compsci syntax semantics paulford from delicious
may 2011 by robertogreco

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INTHECONVERSATION: Art Leisure Instead of Art Work: A Conversation with Randall Szott [Truly too much to quote, so random snips below. Go read the whole thing.]

"Sal Randolph talks w/ Randall Szott about collections, cooking, "art of living," & infra-institutional activity."

"undergrad art ed seemed overly concerned w/ 'how & what to make' sorts of questions…"

"in my possibly pathetic & overly romantic vision of considered life, I am quite hopeful about ability of (art & non-art) people to improve their own experience & others' in both grand & mundane ways"

"I would like to build along model of public library. Libraries meet an incredibly diverse set of needs & desires"

"art is a great conversation…tool for making meaning & enhancing experience, but it is highly specialized, & all too often, closed conversation of insiders"

"I am deeply committed to promoting "everyday" people who are finding ways to make lives more meaningful - devoted amateurs to a variety of intellectual pursuits, hobbyists, collectors, autodidacts, bloggers, karaoke singers, crafters, etc…advocate for a rich, inclusive understanding of human meaning-making."

2008 salrandolph randallszott leisure art living collecting food cooking life slow thinking philosophy unschooling deschooling credentials artschool education learning skepticism everyday vernacular language work leisurearts dilletante generalists cv distraction culture marxism anarchism situationist lcproject tcsnmy intellectualism elitism meaning sensemaking interdisciplinary multidisciplinary projectbasedlearning projects openstudio crossdisciplinary transdisciplinary thewhy why audiencesofone from delicious
may 2011 by robertogreco

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Lebenskünstler « Lebenskünstler

"The word is “Lebenskünstler.” It is a German word and connotes a person who approaches life with the zest and inspiration of an artist, although he or she may not be working recognizably as an artist. 
 
Lebensfreude = joy of living 
Lebenskunst = art of living 
Lebenskünstler = master of the art of living 
 
* Lebenskünstler (“life artist”, someone who masters life in a somewhat eccentric way) 
* -meister (primarily satirical usage) 
 
connoisseur of the art of living – Lebenskünstler {m} 
 
Imagine making art, not with paint or clay, but with life itself as your medium. A “life artist,” or “Lebenskuenstler” as the Germans would say, is someone who finds beauty in the colors life puts at their disposal, someone who makes do with the brushes they’ve got and doesn’t pout over a few mistaken strokes."

randallszott art artofliving life german language words definitions lebenskünstler joyofliving living well-being from delicious
may 2011 by robertogreco

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Bricolage - Wikipedia

"Bricolage (pronounced /ˌbriːkɵˈlɑːʒ/ or /ˌbrɪkɵˈlɑːʒ/) is a term used in several disciplines, among them the visual arts, to refer to the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or a work created by such a process. The term is borrowed from the French word bricolage, from the verb bricoler, the core meaning in French being, "fiddle, tinker" and, by extension, "to make creative and resourceful use of whatever materials are at hand (regardless of their original purpose)". In contemporary French the word is the equivalent of the English do it yourself, and is seen on large shed retail outlets throughout France. A person who engages in bricolage is a bricoleur."

[Bricoleur!]

bricolage bricoleur creativity language postmodernism art tinkering diy glvo lcproject unschooling deschooling interdisciplinary multidisciplinary multimedia crossdisciplinary crosspollination learning education borrowing french fiddling culture punk edupunk claudelevi-strauss guattari constructionism seymourpapert sherryturkle ianbogost kludge deleuze thesavagemind polystylism jacquesderrida gillesdeleuze from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco

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Why the King James Bible Endures - NYTimes.com

"But what this modernizing ignores is that the most powerful religious language is often a little elevated and incantatory, even ambiguous or just plain hard to understand."

religion bible history literature language kingjamesbible via:britta classideas ambiguity from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco

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Learning Spanish and English unites children - latimes.com

"To join or not to join — a grand L.A. Unified experiment in dual-language immersion."

lausd losangeles education languages language schools teaching learning spanish english bilingualism bilingual dual-languageimmersion 2011 from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco

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Los idiomas de Borges « Eterna Cadencia

Nos hemos acostumbrado a tal grado a afirmar que Jorge Luis Borges fue un “escritor universal” que esta expresión y el nombre de Borges han pasado a ser casi sinónimos. Famoso y reconocido por la amplitud y la profundidad de sus obras, Borges fue un escritor a la vez profundamente argentino y cosmopolita. En sus poemas y cuentos aparecen compadritos del viejo Buenos Aires, sacerdotes mayas, vikingos de las sagas nórdicas o reyes anglosajones largamente olvidados. El conocimiento que Borges tenía de las diversas literaturas del mundo era poco menos que enciclopédico y las múltiples y diversas fuentes de su inspiración continúan siendo investigadas por la crítica. Sin embargo, un hecho que a menudo se pasa por alto es que Borges logró acercarse a muchas de estas obras gracias a las numerosas lenguas que estudió durante toda su vida."

borges language universality universalism cosmopolitanism languages english german french italian portuguese icelandic japanese from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco

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