Wednesday, September 28, 2011

The Leopard's Limb* TH 09/29/11

*Home of Club Nitwit

Blue, blue, my world is xanh (?)
Interesting article on language differences. In Vietnamese, the word "xanh" does double duty for both green and blue.
http://hotword.dictionary.com/lingusticrelativity/?__utma=1.291589725.1313459503.1313459503.1317302542.2&__utmb=1.5.9.1317302630201&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1313459503.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none)&__utmv=-&__utmk=74190610


Drill baby drill . . . oh, they are drilling . . .
. . . and scraping, and digging . . . North American oil production is increasing.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2011/09/28/report-north-american-oil-output-will-hit-all-time-record-by-2016/#loopBegin

Dressed to the nines
Herman Cain won the Florida Straw Poll, in part because of his proposal to drastically reform the US tax code, the 9-9-9 Plan. It is so named because he proposes a 9% income tax rate, 9% corporate tax rate, 9% national sales tax. Linked is an article that is somewhat short on details, because Cain's plan is not detailed. Comments?
http://www.npr.org/2011/09/28/140851786/cains-catchy-9-9-9-tax-plan-draws-interest-doubters?sc=fb&cc=fp

In spite of his FL win, Cain still comes off second best in polling against President Obama, 39-34.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2012/election_2012_presidential_election/2012_presidential_matchups

Herman seems to be enjoying his uplifted status, made comments about blacks voting en masse for President Obama, and about the press trying to create stir to pull candidates into the contest.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/28/cain-black-community-brainwashed-into-voting-for-dems/

Faster than a speeding photon
Recently, scientists reported timing ghostly subatomic particles called neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light. While there will no doubt be a glitch found in their experiment, if there isn't a glitch, this would require a major look at Einstein's Relativity. Below is a link to a good non-technical article. My money is on there being a glitch. AE's Relativity theories have stood experimental test for 106 years. I think they're good for some more.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/09/28/140839445/is-einstein-wrong?sc=fb&cc=fp

5 comments:

  1. You are there, WW. You may have left the "Keep Me Signed In" box checked earlier.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Color is very important symbolically in literature, but you have to be careful when you stray outside traditional western literature, in which red symbolizes passion, anger or violence; black represents death or evil and white is for purity.

    In Japan, white carnations symbolize death and in most of east Asia, white is worn to funerals. In Viet Nam and other Asian countries, brides wear red, not for passion but because red means good luck. In South Africa, red is the color of mourning. In Egypt, mourning is represented by yellow. And so on.

    The article referenced by Stab is followed by some interesting comments about directional language and thinking. Long before modern navigational instruments were invented, the Polynesians performed amazing feats of navigation, as did desert and forest dwelling nomadic people, who didn't just wander around but followed patterns, returning to the same places over and over again.

    To see a terrific visual example of how different cultures use directional cues, watch the excellent movie "Black Robe", about Jesuit missionaries struggling to communicate with Algonquin Indians in Canada in the 17th century. Some very funny, and instructive, moments.

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  3. Hi OT!

    Years ago, I saw a show, probably on PBS, about Polynesians who sailed long distances in their outriggers, navigating by sun, stars, and by the waves and ripples of the ocean. What was a chaos of chop and ripples to me was a precise map to them. Sadly, that skill was a dying art then, probably more so now, if not lost.

    ReplyDelete