Well, not my normal posting here. But I have been trying to use my iPhone more and more for blogging and was excited about some of the new software upgrades that were made available today. And so I started the upgrade. And the iTunes server has apparently crashed and now my phone is stuck in "Emergency calls only" mode. So much for mobile blogging for today at least.
Oh, Jon! How hor-ri-ble!
ReplyDeleteNow you can't have your intellectual development compressed into ...
xtrmly shrt sntnces lk 'Hw R U?'
But, look on the bright side! It'll be back! And you'll be able to empathize with students who respond to test questions with ...
'bcz mtochndria mtblize lipds'
... and be grateful they can put 4 partial words together!
Callou, callay, O' Frabtious Day!
... and all that.
iPhones are the elitist version of mobile devices.
ReplyDeleteWe who use them write in the King's English only ...
Oh, and Jon?
ReplyDeleteDid you know about the study of brain activity in people who speak languages with dipthongs and bizarre spelling (like English) versus people who speak languages without them and with regular spelling, (like italian and Russian)?
The English speakers brains light up more. So maybe the exercise it gives the brain is part of what stimulated industrial civilization?
(We won't even start now, on snortulous stuff like Katakana, Hiragana or Kanji, and how that affects a culture's ability to percieve and think about complex objects.)
Snort. :-)
ReplyDeleteu'll c. whn ur thmbs arthrtis get.
Actually, I studied Japanese and learned Katakana, Hiragana, and Kanji. Alas I was faced with a choice as an undergrad. at Harvard.. Courses with Stephen Jay Gould, E.O. Wilson and Dick Lewontin or continue as an East Asian Studies major solely to have classes with Mira Sorvino. Evolution won.
ReplyDeleteA rounded guy - in the sciences no less!
ReplyDeleteWell, gwasshoppah. I never studied those, although i had some exposure to them. I must bow in shame.
What is most significant, I think, is what the mapping is that happens in our minds from language. Takes semantics a step further, beyond, "The map is not the territory." into the interaction between the map and the territory. Semantics, at least for Korzybski and Hayakawa was all about a kind of western zen, removing blinders of cultural thinking.
But considering such basic levels of mapping that occur, to the level of being able to perceive something existing or not, what are the limits of such? (Perhaps many of us are like those cats who were raised in rooms with only vertical stripes, and later in life cannot see horizontal stripes.) I think sometimes that there is an inverse semantics that is about controlling our ability to think or see certain things at all, or comprehend them, which is based upon [all that stuff].
Our modern world is patterning us from childhood to perceive things very differently from people who grow up where natural things are dominant.
Oh, dear. I really MUST get some things done and sign off here.
But I am wondering how to subscribe to a blog now....
iPhone Upgrade works ... yay
ReplyDeleteI had the same experience all day today.
ReplyDeleteRelief was sweet after 5 hours of worry.