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28 Aug 2010 13:30

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World: Thanks computers! Chinese, Japanese youths forget how to write

  • goodTechnology has made it easier than ever for Chinese and Japanese youths to use their language.
  • bad As a result though, many of them no longer know how to actually write it out by hand. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

11 Jun 2010 21:09

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Tech: Dear Phil Corbett: Shut up and let us tweet in peace. OK?

  • Some social-media fans may disagree, but outside of ornithological contexts, ‘tweet’ has not yet achieved the status of standard English. And standard English is what we should use in news articles.
  • New York Times standards editor Phil Corbett • For some reason fighting the flow of the English language, which has already decided to call Twitter posts “tweets” (lowercase). Corbett calls the word “inherently silly” and says it’s possible people may not even be using the site in a year. OK, this would be fine if he had any good recommendations. But what does he come up with? “But let’s look for deft, English alternatives: use Twitter, post to or on Twitter, write on Twitter, a Twitter message, a Twitter update. Or, once you’ve established that Twitter is the medium, simply use ‘say’ or ‘write.’ ” In other words, he has no good ideas for what to call this thing that he’s railing against. How about we call it “tweet,” Phil? Seems like a reasonable name. It also seems dumb for a guy who uses “ornithological” to complain about the clarity of language.  source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

19 Mar 2010 07:59

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Politics: Health care: Has anyone thought about how Bart Stupak feels?

  • People saying they’re going to spit on you and all this. That’s just not fun.
  • Rep. Bart Stupak • Regarding the Senate version of the health care bill that he’s been pushing against due to its language on abortion. The House version, which Stupak had a hand in pushing, has stronger language. Regarding the updated bill, he claimed that he could wrangle 12 representatives to support him, but that’s looking less likely due to the hard work Obama’s putting in to woo these specific voters. Oh, and the fact that it’s almost exactly the same language. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Feb 2010 21:29

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Biz: Why is Toyota not called “Toyoda,” like its namesake?

  • ten the number of brush strokes to write “Toyoda” in Japanese
  • eight the number of brush strokes to write “Toyota” in comparison
  • Why does this matter? Well, the number ten in Japanese resembles the plus sign, which apparently was seen as a bad omen due to the fact it also resembles crossroads. Also, “Toyota” sounds better than “Toyoda,” according to the company, which seems reasonable to us, kinda. Akio Toyoda feels shame on his company. 🙁 source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Feb 2010 11:24

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World: Literally dead language: Last speaker of ancient Bo language dies

  • 70,000 the age of the language, spoken in India’s Andaman Islands and thought to have originated from Africa
  • 85 the age of Boa Sr (a woman, BTW), who was the last speaker of the language for 30 to 40 years source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 Jan 2010 22:09

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Politics: We’re going to cut down an Atlantic story about cutting down stories

  • 89 ShortFormBlog’s word count
  • 1,844 Michael Kinsey’s word count
  • one Newspaper stories are too long and filled with too much flowery language.
  • two Too much space is devoted to attributing quotes and trying to balance the story.
  • three People are often quoted saying obvious things to push the story’s main points.
  • four Back in the day, journalists used inverted pyramid writing style; now we don’t.
  • five Michael Kinsey wrote a long story about how stories are too long. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

22 Dec 2009 08:17

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World: Many Russians not so hot on the idea of Cryillic domain names

  • This is one more step toward isolation. And since this is a Kremlin project, it is possible that it will lead to the introduction of censorship, which is something that certain officials have long sought.
  • Tula, Russia, construction engineer Aleksei Larin, 31 • Regarding his dislike of the idea of Cyrillic domain names, an idea that carries more currency with leadership (who have long-disliked the hold English has had on the Web) than it does with people. Others support the idea due to the city-centric nature of Russian internet use, but others – mainly companies – just don’t see the point. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

07 Aug 2009 10:30

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Music: Rapper homophobia evolves into “no homo” boasts on records

  • This is still a concession to homophobia, but one that enables a less rigid definition of the hip-hop self than we’ve seen before. It’s far from a coup, but, in a way, it’s progress.
  • Slate columnist Jonah Weiner • Who’s obviously thought way too hard about the role of homophobia in hip-hop. While it’s always been there, the latest mutation, the use of the phrase “no homo,” seems to at least offer a degree of wiggle room. “No homo tweaks this dynamic because it allows, implicitly,” he says, “that rap is a place where gayness can in fact be expressed by the guy on the mic, not just scorned in others.” Cam’ron, Lil’ Wayne and Kanye West (who has made statements denouncing homophobia) have all spouted the phrase on record. Is it really a turning point? • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Jul 2009 15:06

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Biz, Tech: We want you to retweet this, but you won’t ’cause it’s self-referential

  • What the frack? It’s true. We want you to talk about us, but a recent set of statistics gathered by internet smart guy Dan Zarrella shows that you won’t retweet this because we’re talking about ourselves. Really, it plays into the viral nature of the Internet. You’re way more likely to trust your friends finding something than us saying it.
  • Other notes Zarrella also notes that if you want to be retweeted, you need to include a link. A link is key to the process, and nearly 60% of retweets have one (versus fewer than 20% of non-retweeted links). Also: Say something original. Make up some stuff! Use some unusual big words! Play on our emotions! But make sure it’s original.
  • Our takeThis explains a lot about how people use social media, but not everything. Seemingly everyone on Twitter’s a marketing expert who would like nothing better than for you to retweet them. Some people are better at this than others – the social media equivalent of Neil Strauss. But in the end, we don’t want to be gamed. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 6 Comments • Permalink

18 May 2009 22:35

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Offbeat, Tech: For massive nerds only: Anti-virus software, in Klingon. (WTF?)

  • Somebody had to do it. And by had to, we mean shouldn’t have. Anti-virus manufacturer Sophos decided to cash in on the Trekkie hype in a novel way, releasing a version of their popular anti-virus software in Klingon. Because clearly, who the hell would use this? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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