Fantasist's Scroll

Just something that touched me.

I read a lot about a lot of things. One subject that I tend to enjoy reading about online is conlanging. One of the more well known people in conlanging is Jeffrey Henning, who runs Langmaker.com. But, he has a whole other side that a lot of us don’t really know. I stumbled across it the other day. As an example of how deep a person he is, I offer his Forgiveness Prayer.

Well, actually, macadamia nuts, but still…

According to this article on the Sydney Morning Herald, there’s now a power plant in Australia that runs on the shells of macadamia nuts. It opened on September 18 and is the first of it’s kind. The “green” facility will “…convert 1680 kilograms of waste shell into 1.5 megawatts of electricity” but “will reduce greenhouse gases by around 9500 tonnes which is the equivalent of taking more than 2000 cars off the road”, and that’s just in its first year.
The article says that several other countries have expressed interest in this plant, including the United States. About time. We need power that is less damaging to our environment. Way to go Australia!

Not sure where this fits, really, but it’s interesting.

Ever wanted to get a close look at the inside of a prison without going to jail? Well, now, according to this article on Wired News, you can. The state of Tennesse has a “virtual tour” of their maximum security prison. You can look in on Death Row, the Rec Yard, the Gym, and the Perimiter, among other virtual destinations. It’s the real deal, so be prepared. You can check it out for yourself here.

What do you use to get the Job done?

Slashdot, a geek news service, has an interesting article about writer’s choices of tools. They mainly focus on word processors, of course, but it goes beyond that. There are some rather insightful comments about the article, too. Especially, the comment made that, basically, all we need in a word processing program is Open, Save, Bold, Italic, Underline, Spellcheck, and Print. What else do you really need to get the message accross? That’s all I use in this blog, for instance. So, do we need to spend big money on the latest version of Microsoft Word? Not really. We can do just fine with the free Wordpad, if we’re willing to use an actual dictionary instead of Spellcheck.
So, what are you waiting for? Go start writing!

And, living batteries are born.

I love new power-related technology. Especially when it all turns back to the original power source: life. So, these two stories, one on USA Today and the other on SpaceDaily, about batteries that are powered by bacteria, just tickle me. The idea of germs, basically, keeping us in energy. Of course, some of you will make the extension to the Matrix, but that’s your hang-up, man.

Enjoy the stories.

Freakishly, we can still raed them.

And, you probably just did. Yes, that misspelling of “read” was on purpose. I did it as an example of what Kourosh Saberi of Caltech, Pasadena, and David R. Perrott of California State University, Los Angeles, California have discovered about how we “see” words. According to this article on Nature.com, we apparently don’t usually read all the letters in a word, just the first and last. The rest of the letters can be there in almost any order and we’ll still “see” the right word. It’s bizarre, but apparently true, to a certain extent, of course.
Hmm, I wonder if that’s why I have such trouble spelling?
In any case, it’s an interesting article and idea. Go check it out.

A good book, but only for the dedicated.

I recently finished The Language Instinct : How the Mind Creates Language by Stephen Pinker, which is a rather long “proof” of his theory that humans are born with an internal “instinct” for language. It’s a fairly readable book, but it does start to really drag at the end. I wouldn’t recommend it as the first linguistics book for someone new to the field, but it’s not a bad second or third. (For the best introductory book, see my review of Teach Yourself Linguistics.)
But, that being said, it really does a good job of going over some of the basics of linguistics. Pinker explains grammar, phonology, morphology and Chomsky’s Universal Grammar theory. In fact, his explanation of phonology is the first that made it clear to me. Of course, I’m a non-linguist and totally self-taught, so take that for what it’s worth. What’s more, Pinker also covers language change and historical linguistics. He talks about these two in terms of how language may have become innate. Or, at least, how the basic grammatical structures may have become innate “instincts” over time. It’s a fascinating view of how language works and how we human beings learn it.
Pinker also debunks several language myths, including the Eskimo “words for snow” myth and the “animals can learn our language” myth. In fact, he spends quite a lot of time talking about the apes that “learned” sign-language. It seems there was more than a little bias in the studies and no small amount of sloppy science, too.

Overall, I found The Language Instinct to be very readable and quite accessible to the average reader. The last hundred pages, or so, dragged since it felt like Pinker was beating a dead horse. If he couldn’t convince his readers in the first 300 pages that there were parts of language that are instinctual, that last 100 pages weren’t going to help.
That being said, though, it’s still a “must read” for anyone doing any conlang work. It explores language from a broad view and provides invaluable insights into how language works. Well, worth the effort to get through the few rough spots.

Well, it looks like they might be soon!

According to this article on the Washington Post, there’s a working test model already. So far, it’s only a lab toy, but they’re working on making it a more viable reality. Of course, the goal is to make Predator-type robotic aircraft, but the possibilities are really endless.
There are two reasons ornithopters are cool. One, flapping-wing flight is more maneuverable than fixed wing flight. Also, it’s easier to hover with flapping wings. Two, because Frank Herbert described it in Dune. No, really, that counts!

Anyway, it’s a fun one for a Friday afternoon.