<insert crazy ramblings here>

Subtitle: Juxtapositions. Or two things make a post.

I've been catching up some old Radiolab podcasts, and I've just finished listening to the episode Words.

This episode concerns four people or groups of people, who at some point have no language, and then later acquire it, and the changes that follow.

I'd read about the formation of creoles and sign languages before in some popular science book or another. The founders tend to have very simple structure, but children raised in that environment later develop a more complex grammar. What the Radiolab episode added was that this places certain limits on the founders' thought process, but if the next generation teach the adults their new structure, the adults can learn new ways of thinking.

Another interesting aspect is that toddlers who are able to speak, but are not yet able to form noun phrases like "on the LEFT of the BLUE WALL", have the same difficulty solving certain spatial puzzles as rats.

Then the episode finished, and the very next podcast was Flowers for Algernon.

Every piece of research in the Radiolab episode happened after Daniel Keyes wrote Flowers for Algernon, yet it fits so well as a response to that episode.

Very busy at work. No lunch break today.

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Why do cats sit on papers?

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Some photo's of the hyperinflation in Zimbabwe. Increasing large bundles of bank notes paying for nothing. An every increasing number of zeros added to new note issued. They knocked 10 zeros off the end earlier this year, and may have to do it again before the year is out.

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Nurse led drop in centre say: I've likely sprained big trapezoid muscle, which would take around two weeks to start feeling completely better. So take ibuprofen to reduce inflammation. Full range of movement available from both shoulders. Excess movement in left should probably just an elongated tendon, talk to GP next time, but don't worry about it. So I won't.

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Saw Bond in Basingstoke with: Fuzz, piesandmash, March and March.

America has exploding petrol. Europe doesn't.

As spotted byFran.

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Read "Kitty and the Midnight Hour" by Carrie Vaughn (first recommended to me by makyo over three years ago!) basically in one sitting. Train and tube ride home. A bit before going to sleep. Then a bit more as I was over 3/4 of the way through. Took around 2.5 to 3 hours.

Basic premis: A werewolf running a late call in night show on the supernatural. Werewolves, Vampires, and other unspecified things (and lists only get three items in before being interrupted) are real, but generally try and stay hidden from public view.

( Cut for world spoilers. Not really plot spoilers. )

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More love for the UK online battery shop. They spotted a mistake in some invoices from ages ago, so sent out a polite email with an updated invoice, telling me that I can ignore it, unless I was using it for VAT reasons. I like when shops own up to things without prompting.

You might think that this comic strip about a cat's blog sounds silly, but cats' who own SF authors, or the power of procrastination.

When Watson told Holmes about some recent scientific discovery, Holmes replied with a statement to the effect that he'd try and forget it as soon as possible, as his mind was a tidy place, and he had no use for this fact.

I was just on the phone and realised that I couldn't recall the name of the person I'd been asked to on a message from. I'd remembered it for long enough to send the message by email, and had promptly forgot it.

Actually forget Holmes. Since I was away from my PC, I felt more like Manfred Macx when he loses his cyberware glasses in Accelerando.

... just Thurday, and the bullet points: I'll try and turn them into a coherent report at some point soon.

Thursday:
Jonathan Coulton gig. Fail to recognise any of the fen who I knew would be there.

Did talk to a guy who'd come over from Oslo especially to see JoCo. Squeezed onto a table as, much to JoCo's surprise, the gig was completely sold out. Chatted to Ian, who it turned out was going to Eastercon on Sunday.

( Friday: )( Saturday: )( Sunday: )( Monday: )( Egoboo )
I need to leave now, or I won't make tonight's BSFA pub meet!

Charlie Stross is a Guest of Honour at this year's Eastercon, so I thought I'd better catch up on the month or so of his blogged I missed since I went on holiday. The man sure do generate some ideas.

The singularity is a theme often explored in his work. One definition of which is the point at which graphs for technoglogical growth reach infinity. So his post on the time for worldwide technological addoption dropping from 125 to 16 years caught my imagination.

Say you want to set a story 30 years out... Back in 1900 to 1950 you could do so with a fair degree of accuracy... But today, that 30-year window is inaccessible. Even a 15-year horizon is pushing it. Something new could come along tomorrow and overrun the entire developed world before 2023.

Here's Charlie's take on the future, after Moore's law craps out.

Also from his blog was a link to this tale of how ATM's could have brought down the UK banks in the '90s. Poor internal security lead to one bank going seriously rogue.

Eastercon LiveJournal exchange, regarding email notification of programme participants ... Autopope: 'I haven't heard hide nor hair from you.' Committee Person: 'Who are you?' Autopope: 'I'm Charlie Stross, one of your GoH's.' CP: 'Ah, it's you ...'

Seen over at the, invaluable to UK fen, ansible newsletter.

Finally here's a Audio version of Trunk and Disorderly, a Stross novella.