2003-02-06
The Space Race is Over (not a Colombia link!) is one of the saddest things that ever rang true in my soul. I loved the Apollo program, and it ended ten years before I was born. I read about it, thought about it, dreamed of 'slipp[ing] the surly bonds of Earth' . . . but my chances look poor.
04:03
2003-02-04
Cows With Guns
02:25
See also some of the copious materials on Rap Lin Rie, or Dutton World Speedwords -- a combination shorthand / short-type and international auxiliary language. Interesting. I might go so far as to learn some of it for my own notetaking. Sona, by contrast, is a priori, also short and centered around a simple base vocabulary, rather like Earth Minimal I think. It has been webified by Rick Harrison, whose other material is worth taking a gander at.
01:52
To the conlanging side of things I add some more favorite writings: Plan B, a perversely elegant and elegantly perverse look at syntax and information theory (though its extreme exploitation of allophony I find off-the-wall, and I must wonder if it wouldn't be better implemented purely in consonants, saving the vowels for, e.g., pragmatic or discursive functions). Lojban, an experiment in language creation / logical languages, with less bias than e.g. Esperanto. And the essays and a giant monograph (which I'll get through one day, knock on wood) which address many and sundry really cool things that languages do.
01:38
