Sell your tunes on iTunes

Via merlyn's journal, I found out about Tunecore, a company which has arranged with Rhapsody and iTunes to allow users to sell their music -- without any money taken out of sale earnings! (You only have to pay for the initial upload cost, $0.99 a song or $7.98 an album.) Now if only I had written any good music lately...

[all posts in /tech/]  [permanent link]

An interesting evolution study

Thanks to the Trotter for posting about this study on the BSERC website (i didn't think BSERCers were using it anymore: apparently, I was wrong :)). Just thought others would be interested, but since I don't follow the hard sciences like I used to, I don't have anything worth adding. But it did make me think back to my typology class: the differences between analytic and polysynthetic languages. Has there been any recorded instance of a language that is mostly analytic becoming more polysynthetic in a certain area (e.g., nouns), or has it always been that more polysynthetic languages become more analytic (yes, the last part is an assumption on my part)? I seem to remember that there was speculation that languages limbo back and forth between analytic and polysynthetic, but can't recall any clear examples where a more analytic language became more polysynthetic or vice versa. At any rate, has a language which becomes more analytic (or polysynthetic) because of its contact with other languages ever been studied? Can any light be shed on this by the study of cross-fertilization of plants and the irreversibility of certain complex traits? Hmm...looks like I need to set aside some time for this stuff :)

[all posts in /ling/]  [permanent link]

Funny Ad for PS2
Talking about how to stream flash videos starting at different points in the file, Flashcomguru (back in November) used a PS2 ad that I hadn't seen before, and just busted out laughing when I finally "got it". Just click play, and see it for yourself.

[all posts in /]  [permanent link]

Great book deals

Alright, now I already know I'm a bibliophile, and that if I find a book in a store that looks interesting, I'll probably buy it if I have the money. Well, the Bookstar (Barnes & Noble) in the Costa Verde shopping center had an awesome deal a few days ago: 3 books for $10. Granted, you couldn't choose any book in the store, but the classics they offered seemed to be good deals:

• The Histories by Herodotus
• The Odyssey by Homer
• Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
• The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
• Aesop's Fables

They're all a part of the "Barnes & Noble Classics" series, and altho' the binding isn't top-notch, they're typical of many hardbacks you get anyway (glued not sewn, for those who care about book-binding). Anyway, I was beaming when I walked out of the store that day. Fast forward to this last Thursday, when I was helping a friend with some Latin. We ended up in Bookstar for a few minutes, and on the way out I remembered the great deals and was going to show my friend. However, the table that all the books were on wasn't there anymore! But nearby there was another table with a few books on it which were only $1: that's right, $1! These were "Barnes & Noble Classics" books too, but some were different titles that I hadn't seen a few days before. So in short, I couldn't help but see three more books that I liked:

• Grimm's Fairy Tales
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• The Soul of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois

And when I got to the register, there were three more books there that someone decided they didn't want (and, fortunately, I did!):

• Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
• The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson
• Paradise Lost by John Milton

So now I have twelve more books to read, practically all of which I have wanted to read all the way through for some time now. It was worth the 25 bones. :-D

[all posts in /]  [permanent link]

Peise the Time

The Merchant of Venice is an awesome comedy and I enjoyed reading it the farther along I got. Besides being very entertaining, I also noticed some interesting linguistic elements, too. The one that interested me the most is in Act III, Scene 2, when Portia is talking to Bassiano right before he openes the caskets:

I speak too long, but 'tis to peise the time, To eke it and to draw it out in length, To stay you from election.

peise the time, (i) weigh with deliberation each precious moment, (ii) weight the time that it may pass slowly; whichever interpretation we adopt, 'peise' was the regular name for the weights used in winding.

• under pass (v.):

  1836 A. A. PARKER Trip to West 165 Two Indians..halted within a few rods of us, stared a moment, and then civilly passed the time of day.

• under time (n.):

  1680 BUTLER Rem. (1759) I. 114 To pass his Times of Recreation In choice and noble Conversation.
  1851 MAYHEW Lond. Labour (1861) II. 489/2 The police..they're very friendly, they'll pass the time of day with me.

[all posts in /ling/]  [permanent link]

Bono interview

Quick thought: On the b-trans mailing list, Trevor Jenkins mentioned a post on dissonantbible.typepad.com which linked to the first page of a Rolling Stones interview of Bono. It's pretty good, but unfortunately I could only read the first page of the interview. For me, some of the philosophy of Bono reminds me of my friend Jordan Cross ( and, oddly enough, Jordan doesn't like u2.) At any rate, go check it out if you're so inclined. :)

[all posts in /]  [permanent link]

reconsidering consonantal
In their paper Reconsidering [consonantal] (Phonology 13 (1996) 345-376) Elizabeth Hume and David Odden consider the use of [consonantal] as a distinctive feature. After their short introduction of the history behind distinctive features, they state that [consonantal] is not a crucial distinctive feature. They provide three situations where [consonantal] is not required if approached from different directions. The first situation is when describing phonemic contrasts: "[consonantal] never functions as the sole feature responsible for distinguishing segments." The descriptions of the distinction between w (labial glide) and ? (bilabial fricative), and the distinction between y (palatal glide) and ? (palatal approximant) do not require the use of [consonantal]. Research done by Waksler (1990)

[all posts in /ling/]  [permanent link]