Semantics

Linguists, philosophers and psychologists are gradually
interpreting everyday experience on the WWW.


Flickr and Interestingness


For that, many thanks.

Λουλούδια

A Bouquet of Flowers

μεταφορά

I tend to dust the house on a Saturday.

Listening to Andrew Taylor, as he presented a fundamentally new model for the arts and business kept me focused.

It also reminded me that my metaphors are, being as charitable as possible,
a little rusty.


The childrens' books that formed by early consciousness
had not changed much since the 19th century.
They had a serious gender divide, they were alarmingly moralising,
metaphors included slippery slopes, ghastly punishments meted out to the wayward,
banana skins that, to my puzzled eyes, seemed far more numerous in literature
than they were to be found on the average Irish street.

That was long before Youtube.

Boundaries? Ethics? The World we carry in our heads
(in fact, it's not possible, according to Mr Taylor to carry the World in one's head)
and, above all, metaphors.

I got the house cleaned in jig time,
thanks to the adrenelin rushes the lecture brought on.

I am now reeling with new ideas.

Let's hope they lead somewhere...

The Metaphors We Manage By

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

Links Within Links

Ever so often it is remarked on when I bump an old thread
on a chat room.

It seems to me that the Internet is timeless.
Information is ever-present.

We may as well enjoy it...

Flower Bordered Pathway

Flower Bordered Pathway
Originally uploaded by rosewoodoil

Dreaming My Way Through November

An effort to rationalise and generally organise everyday living
means hours looking at six year's photography work.

Next step how to capitalise on such industry?

As the French would say "Profitons-en!".

Mandatory Link Back

It's "Round the World for Sport" time again.

I stopped posting Flickr links to Boards.ie, because of all the linking required.

Gradually finding ways to make a more efficient posting system.

Academics Unite

During an idle moment this morning
I looked at the Extramural Classes
being offered by Trinity College.

Maybe next year...

All my friends seemed to have been innoculated
with a writing bug at birth.

They have produced books, pamphlets,
theses, "belles lettres", manuals
and various specialist articles
on everything from herbs to
multi-lingualism over the years.

Long may it continue...

Pardon My French!

Thanks to Granny J, I've started looking more
closely at words like "ukase".

To be honest, I had never seen it before
last week and now I'm extending my knowledge
of French and Russian,
thanks to a comment she posted.

It's years since I rummaged daily in
dictionaries in order to understand
the people round me.

There was the year spent studying Irish
when, thanks to hours spent marking
English words in pencil over medieval
texts, I managed to get through an exam
that would steer my destiny for the rest of
my life.

Why Irish is still obligatory for students
leaving Irish secondary schools is a topic
I would prefer not to address.
It gets people hot and bothered.

Then there were the many Summers spent
rummaging in my pocket dictionary on
French beaches in order to be able
to share a joke or some mundane detail
with the non-English speakers round about.

The months spent in Rathmines Library,
studying for a diploma in Botany and Horticulture
was probably the most rewarding.
I emerged bursting with new words...

Since then I have managed to study

Commercial French

Photography (very puzzling words and concepts, indeed)

Modern Greek

Culinary English and French

'Strine


A new course of study for this Winter
is in order...

Pardon My French!

It's English...

...but not as I know it.

Having discovered references to the strange practices
of contemporary humans,
I'm now settling in for a few months
of vocabulary extension.

As I write, there are people out there
Facelurking
and
Google Bowling
to beat the band.

I have to admit I find this thought entertaining
rather than alarming.

Most conversations with my peers involve much rolling of eyes
and worried head butting on the subject of

"the dangers of the Internet".

Their fears, to me, seem ill-founded and
probably based on some negative jibe made by a
professional journalist who sees their position
threatened by jumped up Johnnies who write
anything that comes into their little heads...
and, worse, without editorial policy to direct
their outpourings.

It's a bit lonesome on the Internet,
as the over-fifties tend to write about health matters
or worse, just hang about in the shadows,
possibly Facelurking and adding to their own
paranoia rather than anybody else's.

"Google Bowling" was last weeks find.

I don't know how daft you need to be to set about
undermining other businesses on the Internet by
trying to enforce a sort of negative SEO,
making customers nervous.
These recessionary times have offered
many opportunities for trying new ideas.
Scuttling the opposition is probably not necessary?

A Facelurking Google Bowler would be a scary
person to meet on a dark night...

Search Engine Optimisation

Ever so often I catch up with activities on the
Irish Webmaster Forum.

It's well worth joining, if you are interested in SEO.

The various methods of putting your best foot forward
in cyberspace are discussed
and posters are friendly and share tips with enthusiasm.