Tag Archives: language

The Information – James Gleick

by Myrna Posted on April 29, 2020

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

The Information

A History, a Theory, a Flood

James Gleick

Genre: History

Price: $2.99

Publish Date: March 1, 2011

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


From the bestselling author of the acclaimed Chaos and Genius comes a thoughtful and provocative exploration of the big ideas of the modern era: Information, communication, and information theory.    Acclaimed science writer James Gleick presents an eye-opening vision of how our relationship to information has transformed the very nature of human consciousness. A fascinating intellectual journey through the history of communication and information, from the language of Africa’s talking drums to the invention of written alphabets; from the electronic transmission of code to the origins of information theory, into the new information age and the current deluge of news, tweets, images, and blogs. Along the way, Gleick profiles key innovators, including Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Samuel Morse, and Claude Shannon, and reveals how our understanding of information is transforming not only how we look at the world, but how we live. A  New York Times  Notable Book A  Los Angeles Times  and  Cleveland Plain Dealer  Best Book of the Year Winner of the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award  

Source:  

The Information – James Gleick

Posted in alo, ALPHA, Anchor, Cyber, FF, GE, Knopf, LAI, LG, ONA, oven, PUR, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Information – James Gleick

The Science of God – Gerald L. Schroeder

by Myrna Posted on April 23, 2019

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

The Science of God

The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom

Gerald L. Schroeder

Genre: Physics

Price: $11.99

Publish Date: June 16, 2009

Publisher: Free Press

Seller: SIMON AND SCHUSTER DIGITAL SALES INC


For the readers of The Language of God, another instant classic from "a sophisticated and original scholar" ( Kirkus Reviews ) that disputes the idea that science is contrary to religion. In The Science of God , distinguished physicist and Biblical scholar Gerald L. Schroeder demonstrates the surprising parallels between a variety of Biblical teachings and the findings of biochemists, paleontologists, astrophysicists, and quantum physicists. In a brilliant and wide-ranging discussion of key topics that have divided science and religion—free will, the development of the universe, the origin of life, and the origin of man—Schroeder argues that the latest science and a close reading of the Bible are not just compatible but interdependent. This timely reissue of The Science of God features a brand-new preface by Schroeder and a compelling appendix that addresses the highly publicized experiment in 2008 in which scientists attempted to re-create the chemical composition of the cosmos immediately after the Big Bang. It also details Schroeder’s lucid explanations of complex scientific and religious concepts, such as the theory of relativity, the passage of time, and the definitions of crucial Hebrew words in the Bible. Religious skeptics, Biblical literalists, scientists, students, and physicists alike will be riveted by Schroeder’s remarkable contribution to the raging debate between science and religion.

See original article:

The Science of God – Gerald L. Schroeder

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, Free Press, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, oven, PUR, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Science of God – Gerald L. Schroeder

How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming – Mike Brown

by Myrna Posted on January 17, 2018

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming

Mike Brown

Genre: Astronomy

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: December 7, 2010

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


The solar system most of us grew up with included nine planets, with Mercury closest to the sun and Pluto at the outer edge. Then, in 2005, astronomer Mike Brown made the discovery of a lifetime: a tenth planet, Eris, slightly bigger than Pluto. But instead of adding one more planet to our solar system, Brown’s find ignited a firestorm of controversy that culminated in the demotion of Pluto from real planet to the newly coined category of “dwarf” planet. Suddenly Brown was receiving hate mail from schoolchildren and being bombarded by TV reporters—all because of the discovery he had spent years searching for and a lifetime dreaming about. A heartfelt and personal journey filled with both humor and drama, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is the book for anyone, young or old, who has ever imagined exploring the universe—and who among us hasn’t?

This article:

How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming – Mike Brown

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, ONA, PUR, solar, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming – Mike Brown

How Language Began: The Story of Humanity’s Greatest Invention – Daniel L. Everett

by Myrna Posted on November 7, 2017

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

How Language Began: The Story of Humanity’s Greatest Invention

Daniel L. Everett

Genre: Life Sciences

Price: $14.99

Publish Date: November 7, 2017

Publisher: Liveright

Seller: W. W. Norton


How Language Began revolutionizes our understanding of the one tool that has allowed us to become the "lords of the planet." Mankind has a distinct advantage over other terrestrial species: we talk to one another. But how did we acquire the most advanced form of communication on Earth? Daniel L. Everett, a “bombshell” linguist and “instant folk hero” (Tom Wolfe, Harper’s), provides in this sweeping history a comprehensive examination of the evolutionary story of language, from the earliest speaking attempts by hominids to the more than seven thousand languages that exist today. Although fossil hunters and linguists have brought us closer to unearthing the true origins of language, Daniel Everett’s discoveries have upended the contemporary linguistic world, reverberating far beyond academic circles. While conducting field research in the Amazonian rainforest, Everett came across an age-old language nestled amongst a tribe of hunter-gatherers. Challenging long-standing principles in the field, Everett now builds on the theory that language was not intrinsic to our species. In order to truly understand its origins, a more interdisciplinary approach is needed—one that accounts as much for our propensity for culture as it does our biological makeup. Language began, Everett theorizes, with Homo Erectus, who catalyzed words through culturally invented symbols. Early humans, as their brains grew larger, incorporated gestures and voice intonations to communicate, all of which built on each other for 60,000 generations. Tracing crucial shifts and developments across the ages, Everett breaks down every component of speech, from harnessing control of more than a hundred respiratory muscles in the larynx and diaphragm, to mastering the use of the tongue. Moving on from biology to execution, Everett explores why elements such as grammar and storytelling are not nearly as critical to language as one might suspect. In the book’s final section, Cultural Evolution of Language, Everett takes the ever-debated “language gap” to task, delving into the chasm that separates “us” from “the animals.” He approaches the subject from various disciplines, including anthropology, neuroscience, and archaeology, to reveal that it was social complexity, as well as cultural, physiological, and neurological superiority, that allowed humans—with our clawless hands, breakable bones, and soft skin—to become the apex predator. How Language Began ultimately explains what we know, what we’d like to know, and what we likely never will know about how humans went from mere communication to language. Based on nearly forty years of fieldwork, Everett debunks long-held theories by some of history’s greatest thinkers, from Plato to Chomsky. The result is an invaluable study of what makes us human.

Original post – 

How Language Began: The Story of Humanity’s Greatest Invention – Daniel L. Everett

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, ONA, PUR, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How Language Began: The Story of Humanity’s Greatest Invention – Daniel L. Everett

Here Is a Human Being – Misha Angrist

by Myrna Posted on September 6, 2016

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

Here Is a Human Being

At the Dawn of Personal Genomics

Misha Angrist

Genre: Science & Nature

Price: $0.99

Publish Date: November 2, 2010

Publisher: HarperCollins e-books

Seller: HarperCollins


Here is a Human Being delivers the first in-depth look at the Personal Genome Project—the effort to construct complete genomic maps of a specific human beings—written by one of the study’s ten human participants. Misha Angrist recounts the project’s fascinating nuances, including the larger-than-life personalities of the research subjects, the entrepreneurial scientists at the helm, the bewildered and overwhelmed physicians and regulators who negotiated for it, the fascinating technology it employed, and the political, social, ethical and familial issues it continues to raise. In the vein of James Shreeve’s The Genome War , Craig J. Ventner’s My Life Decoded , and Francis J. Collins’ The Language of Life , Angrist’s informed exploration of this cutting-edge science is a gripping look at the present and future of genomics.

View original article:

Here Is a Human Being – Misha Angrist

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, HarperCollins e-books, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Here Is a Human Being – Misha Angrist

Paul Ryan Says He Regrets Calling the Poor “Takers.” That Isn’t Enough.

by AnnisZus52255331 Posted on March 23, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Here is Speaker Paul Ryan today in an address to a group of House interns:

Instead of playing to your anxieties, we can appeal to your aspirations….We don’t resort to scaring you, we dare to inspire you….We question each other’s ideas—vigorously—but we don’t question each other’s motives….People with different ideas are not traitors. They are not our enemies. They are our neighbors, our coworkers, our fellow citizens.

….I’m certainly not going to stand here and tell you I have always met this standard. There was a time when I would talk about a difference between “makers” and “takers” in our country, referring to people who accepted government benefits. But as I spent more time listening, and really learning the root causes of poverty, I realized I was wrong….So I stopped thinking about it that way—and talking about it that way.

The obvious pushback is that while Ryan may have stopped talking about “makers and takers,” his policies are exactly the same as they’ve always been. After all that time spent listening, he changed his rhetoric but apparently none of his substantive views.

Which is true enough. If all Ryan is doing is telling a bunch of interns that they can get more done if they watch their language and hide their true intentions, then there’s nothing much to applaud here. At the same time, it’s still good to say this stuff out loud, regardless of how sincere it is. Not many people do anymore. Now, how about doing it again in front of a more important audience and with a few explicit references to Donald Trump thrown in?

Source article:  

Paul Ryan Says He Regrets Calling the Poor “Takers.” That Isn’t Enough.

Posted in alternative energy, Citizen, FF, GE, LG, ONA, solar, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Paul Ryan Says He Regrets Calling the Poor “Takers.” That Isn’t Enough.

#OscarsSoWhite Is Targeting Precisely the Wrong Thing

by NiamhMatthias Posted on January 27, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Caroline Framke argues that the #OscarsSoWhite movement is targeting the wrong part of Hollywood:

Ever since the Oscar nominations were announced and it became clear that talk of supporting diversity did not translate into tangible recognition, white actors have contributed astonishingly tone-deaf thoughts in droves….But even as these actors make gaffes about the lack of racial diversity in Hollywood, there are countless producers, agents, directors, and executives who aren’t getting the same kind of grilling — and they’re the ones who most stand a chance of making real change.

….The lion’s share of real power in Hollywood lies with its behind-the-scenes players. Producers, agents, and directors rarely have the glossy profiles, red carpet looks, or motivation to keep us interested in their day-to-day lives. Thus, they can operate in a publicity vacuum more than those making a living onscreen. When something like #OscarsSoWhite breaks, they’re usually not the ones sitting on folding chairs at press junkets and putting their words on the record.

Framke is right, but you don’t even need to stray this far to make her point. The chart on the right tells you everything you need to know. As I mentioned the other day, the acting categories at the Academy Awards are actually pretty diverse: the number of black nominees has gone up steadily and reached 9 percent during the last decade. That’s not bad. The songwriting category is even better: 14 percent of all nominees have been black over the past decade.

But everywhere else it’s a wasteland: less than 1 percent of all nominees in every other category combined have been black.1 If I bothered looking through the technical awards, the percentage would be even lower.

This is hardly a big Hollywood secret. And it makes Framke even more right: we should leave the actors alone. Hollywood actually does a decent job of making sure the face of the industry is fairly diverse. But dig an inch below the surface and black faces are all but nonexistent.

1I didn’t include two categories: Best Picture, because the winner is usually a team of producers; and Best Foreign Language Film, since by definition none of the winners are African-American. For the record, five African-Americans have been nominated as part of a group for Best Picture over the past decade.

Source – 

#OscarsSoWhite Is Targeting Precisely the Wrong Thing

Posted in alo, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on #OscarsSoWhite Is Targeting Precisely the Wrong Thing

It’s Not the Economy, Stupid. The Spanish Language Is the Ur-Motive of Anti-Immigration Sentiment.

by AbbeyAGWvozn Posted on August 31, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Ed Kilgore on the conservative hostility toward illegal immigration:

This very weekend I was reading an advance copy of an upcoming book that includes the results of some intensive focus group work with what might be called the “angry wing” of the GOP base. The author notes that one thing that simply enrages grass-roots conservatives is the use of non-English languages by immigrants.

Yep. You can read all about it from one of Kilgore’s predecessors, who wrote about it during our last big try at immigration reform in 2006. It’s based on an excellent piece by Chris Hayes, written before he sold out to the bright lights and big paychecks of cable television.

I agree that language is probably the key original driver of anti-immigrant sentiment, though it’s long since inspired further animus based around crime, gangs, social services, and other culture-related issues. The odd thing is that this is one of the few areas where I think the anti-immigrationists have a bit of a point. It’s not a very big point, since (a) Spanish occupies no official role in the United States, and (b) Latin American immigrants all end up speaking English by the second and third generations anyway. Hell, the third-generation Latino who speaks lousy Spanish is practically a cliche.

That said, I’ve long believed that having multiple official languages makes it very hard to sustain a united polity. The Swiss manage, but the whole reason they’re famous for it is because it’s so unusual. Even the Belgians and Canadians have trouble with it, and they’re pretty tolerant people.

Would a congressional declaration that English is the official language of the United States do anything to calm anti-immigrant fervor? At this point, probably not. But if it were written narrowly and carefully, I’d probably support it. I figure that if God considered a single common language such a boon that it threatened his dominion, it must be pretty powerful stuff.

This article – 

It’s Not the Economy, Stupid. The Spanish Language Is the Ur-Motive of Anti-Immigration Sentiment.

Posted in FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on It’s Not the Economy, Stupid. The Spanish Language Is the Ur-Motive of Anti-Immigration Sentiment.

Arkansas Just Passed Its Own Indiana-Style ‘Religious Freedom Restoration Act’

by EfrainGilley Posted on March 31, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Despite national outcry over a similar bill in Indiana, the Arkansas state Legislature on Tuesday passed its own ‘Religious Freedom Restoration Act’ which critics warn would allow business owners to discriminate against gay, lesbian, and transgendered people on religious grounds.

The bill now goes to Republican state Gov. Asa Hutchinson who vowed last week to sign it. Attempts by state lawmakers to add a provision that would prevent discrimination against gays and lesbians were blocked, according to the New York Times.

“The Arkansas and Indiana bills are virtually identical in terms of language and intent,” Human Rights Campaign legal director Sarah Warbelow told the Huffington Post. “They place LGBT people, people of color, religious minorities, women and many more people at risk of discrimination.”

Like Indiana, Arkansas is already facing mounting criticism over the bill. Walmart, which is based in Bentonville, and data-services company Acxiom have openly criticized the bill.

Source: 

Arkansas Just Passed Its Own Indiana-Style ‘Religious Freedom Restoration Act’

Posted in Anchor, Citizen, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Arkansas Just Passed Its Own Indiana-Style ‘Religious Freedom Restoration Act’

Why Is Closed Captioning So Bad?

by BridgetYGFX Posted on March 22, 2015

Mother Jones

Over at Marginal Revolution, commenter Jan A. asks:

Why is the (global) state of subtitling and closed captioning so bad?

a/ Subtitling and closed captioning are extremely efficient ways of learning new languages, for example for immigrants wanting to learn the language of their new country.

b/ Furthermore video is now offered on phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, televisions… but very frequently these videos cannot be played with sound on (a phone on public transport, a laptop in public places, televisions in busy places like bars or shops,…).

c/ And most importantly of all, it is crucial for the deaf and hard of hearing.

So why is it so disappointingly bad? Is it just the price (lots of manual work still, despite assistive speech-to-text technologies)? Or don’t producers care?

I use closed captioning all the time even though I’m not really hard of hearing. I just have a hard time picking out dialog when there’s a lot of ambient noise in the soundtrack—which is pretty routine these days. So I have a vested interest in higher quality closed captioning. My beef, however, isn’t so much with the text itself, which is usually pretty close to the dialog, but with the fact that there are multiple closed captioning standards and sometimes none of them work properly, with the captions either being way out of sync with the dialog or else only partially available. (That is, about one sentence out of three actually gets captioned.)

Given the (a) technical simplicity and low bandwidth required for proper closed captions, and (b) the rather large audience of viewers with hearing difficulties, it surprises me that these problems are so common. I don’t suppose that captioning problems cost TV stations a ton of viewers, but they surely cost them a few here and there. Why is it so hard to get right?

POSTSCRIPT: Note that I’m not talking here about real-time captioning, as in live news and sports programming. I understand why it’s difficult to do that well.

View the original here: 

Why Is Closed Captioning So Bad?

Posted in alo, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Why Is Closed Captioning So Bad?