Comments on "The Googlization of Everything - {And Why We Should Worry}" by Siva Vaidhyanathan and "The Net Delusion" - The Dark Side of Internet Freedom by Evgeny Morozov
Not surprisingly, the first book, by Siva Vaidhyanathan, is all about the American giant internet corporation "Google". Although not so important in Russia and China, and for some good reasons, "Google" provides amazing virtually magical information services in many realms: news, maps, books, and, it seems, almost everything else; in America, Europe, and throughout the world. Although, most people probably have other things to "worry" about, they should know more about the implications and consequences of this vast private enterprise network.
In the index to the 2nd book, by Evgeny Morozov, the American Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, is referred to on 27 pages of this approximately 330 page book. The rather distant 2nd and 3rd place people are referred to only on 8 and 7 pages. In other words, the author is quite critical of the liberal views that he characterizes as "internet-centric" and "cyber-utopian". Instead, he promotes his own views, very thoroughly and persuasively, that he calls "cyber-realistic".
Essentially, however, even someone who knows very little about the extremely complicated subject can understand that the "Internet" can be said to do 2 elementary things: it connects people and it provides information and/or entertainment. The author uses very different words, of course, but, in how many ways, and for what many different purposes, can the "connectable people" of the world's over 6 and one half billion people be connected? And besides "true facts", whatever that might mean, the internet is used to spread all kinds of opinions, propaganda, gossip, slander, deliberate lies, and whatever else anybody can think of.
For these and other reasons, we might say that the author wants us to think that the internet-cyber-future of the "global village", which is a term he apparently scorns, is not all that "rosy", as far as anybody can really imagine.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Experimental Blog #75
Comments on "You Are What You Speak" - Grammar Grouches, Language Laws, and the Politics of Identity by Robert Lane Greene
Prescriptivism is a point of view that emphasizes "rules" of "correct" language: either spoken or written. There have been numerous attempts in both England and America to, as if, codify such rules of writing, speaking, grammar, and punctuation.
Descriptivism, sometimes called a part of linguistics, is about the inevitable historical evolution of all languages. The author describes the "muddy continuums" of all of Medieval Europe's Romance, Germanic, and Slavic languages; when every village had its own dialect.
Diglossia is tne natural tendency for all languages to develope 2 forms: a "high" form and a "low" form, or a formal and an informal, or, sometimes, a written and a spoken form.
Whorfianism is a once once respected view that " a person's access to reality is conditioned by the language he speaks", but is now mostly rejected except in "weaker versions of the idea"; now language might "incline" people, but not completely "restrict" or "define what they can or can't think."
Of the roughly 6000 spoken languages in the world today, only several hundred have a written form.
The author himself speaks 9 languages, and his grammar and punctuation seem perfect. He uses colons much more often than semicolins. His rule seems to be that, however you use colins, semicolins, and commas, you should be consistent.
Prescriptivism is a point of view that emphasizes "rules" of "correct" language: either spoken or written. There have been numerous attempts in both England and America to, as if, codify such rules of writing, speaking, grammar, and punctuation.
Descriptivism, sometimes called a part of linguistics, is about the inevitable historical evolution of all languages. The author describes the "muddy continuums" of all of Medieval Europe's Romance, Germanic, and Slavic languages; when every village had its own dialect.
Diglossia is tne natural tendency for all languages to develope 2 forms: a "high" form and a "low" form, or a formal and an informal, or, sometimes, a written and a spoken form.
Whorfianism is a once once respected view that " a person's access to reality is conditioned by the language he speaks", but is now mostly rejected except in "weaker versions of the idea"; now language might "incline" people, but not completely "restrict" or "define what they can or can't think."
Of the roughly 6000 spoken languages in the world today, only several hundred have a written form.
The author himself speaks 9 languages, and his grammar and punctuation seem perfect. He uses colons much more often than semicolins. His rule seems to be that, however you use colins, semicolins, and commas, you should be consistent.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Experimental Blog #74
Comments on 3 books
"The Possessed" - Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them by Elif Batuman
It takes a very imposing and formidable person to write a literary travel memoir such as this book. Although the author, Elif Batuman, is American by birth, she is Turkish by very recent immigrant ancestry. Besides knowing English and Turkish, she is a Russian language scholar who also very extensively studied Uzbek. She also uses a few words of French, German, Polish, Italian, and Yiddish in her book.
Being at least 6 feet tall, she says, perhaps also helps her to be naturally self-confident.
"Songbird Journeys - Four Seasons in the Lives of Migratory Birds" by Miyoko Chu and "Superdove" - How the Pigeon Took Manhattan ... and the World by Courtney Humphries
Although Miyoko Chu's statistics or arithmetic seem somewhat questionable in places, it is truly amazing what recent scientific studies have revealed about the highly precise migratory movements and memories of even the smallest of many songbirds.
The second book, by Courtney Humphries, is supposedly about one bird, now called the Rock Pigeon. Its scientific name is Columba livia. However, the implications of the lives of these once wild, then domesticated, and now "feral" birds are very general and profound. They might even be applied to people and society in a variety of ways.
"The Possessed" - Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them by Elif Batuman
It takes a very imposing and formidable person to write a literary travel memoir such as this book. Although the author, Elif Batuman, is American by birth, she is Turkish by very recent immigrant ancestry. Besides knowing English and Turkish, she is a Russian language scholar who also very extensively studied Uzbek. She also uses a few words of French, German, Polish, Italian, and Yiddish in her book.
Being at least 6 feet tall, she says, perhaps also helps her to be naturally self-confident.
"Songbird Journeys - Four Seasons in the Lives of Migratory Birds" by Miyoko Chu and "Superdove" - How the Pigeon Took Manhattan ... and the World by Courtney Humphries
Although Miyoko Chu's statistics or arithmetic seem somewhat questionable in places, it is truly amazing what recent scientific studies have revealed about the highly precise migratory movements and memories of even the smallest of many songbirds.
The second book, by Courtney Humphries, is supposedly about one bird, now called the Rock Pigeon. Its scientific name is Columba livia. However, the implications of the lives of these once wild, then domesticated, and now "feral" birds are very general and profound. They might even be applied to people and society in a variety of ways.
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