some-antics.com

I’d written a first draft of my first year project proposal about a month ago, but wanted to get an ok on it from Polly before posting. It’s certainly very general; I had submitted it to my committee along with a monstrously long and detailed version of what was mentioned in the proposal. I need to proofread and add one more section to that longer write-up, which I will post hopefully by the end of the day, but for now, here’s my first year project proposal: pdf html

emma :: Jun.21.2007 :: misc, syntax, semantics, linguistics :: No Comments »

Oh, you know. That one. The one that all my non-linguist friends kept calling or writing to tell me about. “Hey Emma, I just read a really interesting article in the New Yorker about this guy who totally proves that Chomsky is wrong.”

Yes, the article covering Daniel Everett’s work on Pirahã and his claim that this language is non-recursive. When it first printed, almost every non-linguist hipster friend I had would ask me about it, and even though my roommate Paul had a copy of it in our apartment, I just didn’t feel like reading it. I was pretty sure of how I’d react to it, and, well, pop-linguistics usually just doesn’t interest me. (Nor does cross-linguistic work done with a sort of “A-ha! Look what we found!” spirit. Nor does cross-linguistic work done with the “A-ha! Sapir-Whorf!” spirit.)

Anyway, Simon and I read the article a couple of nights ago, and wow. It exceeded even my expectations of how bad it would be. One feeling that we both had was that we wanted to write about why it was so awful, but there were just so many flaws to the article that doing so would be a rather daunting task. So, instead of taking on that task, here’s Simon’s take on the article. Better yet, to get a sense of how we feel, you should just read the article.

emma :: Jun.20.2007 :: misc, linguistics, pop-culture :: 3 Comments »

Nate Charlow has an interesting post over at his blog about CCG and the ontology of syntax, where he voices some concerns about the redundancy of different operators (function application and function composition)/derivations in yielding the same interpretations for the same expressions. There’s already an interesting little discussion brewing over there, and these are the sorts of concerns that theoretical linguists need to have an appropriate response to, so I very much recommend checking it out. I may add my own thoughts on the matter when I have some time to, but for now, I think Simon does a very good job in representing our camp.

emma :: Jun.15.2007 :: misc, syntax, semantics, philosophy, linguistics :: No Comments »

While Simon was talking on the phone when I was over at his apartment hanging out, I read this very amusing article in the New York Times about a ban to feed the parakeets in San Francisco:

An online forum devoted to the parakeets quickly grew heated as word of a ban on feeding spread. “It’s a bit like Baghdad in there,” said Mr. Ente, who started the forum, which he said had been “decimated by sectarian strife over this parrot conflict.”

Mr. Peskin says the new ban, which specifically forbids feeding “red-masked parakeets,” the park’s breed, will be enforced with signs and police warnings at first.

“Obviously the city doesn’t want to give tickets to folks for this,” Mr. Peskin said. “But if we have to, we will.”

And no, the article does not reveal why there are parakeets living wild in San Francisco or where they came from. I have my doubts that they are part of the Bay Area’s native flora and fauna.

This is what I get for blogging before checking out all possible sources. According to the Wikipedia:

[article on red-masked parakeet]

These birds are native to southwestern Ecuador and northwestern Peru, where they inhabit forest edges and partially cleared areas. Some are sold as cage birds; they are considered good talkers. Escaped cage birds are considered to be introduced in Spain. They are also found in Florida and California, and make up most of the feral population in San Francisco that was documented in the book The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill by Mark Bittner and the film of the same name by Judy Irving. Although these birds reproduce in the wild, the Red-masked Parakeet is not considered established in North America.

[article on Telegraph Hill]

Today Telegraph Hill is known for supporting a flock of feral parrots (primarily Cherry-headed Conure), most of whom are descended from escaped or released pets.

And finally, from Mark Bittner’s own Frequently Asked Questions page: “How did they get there?”

Ah, now I know more than I could have ever imagined knowing about red-masked parakeets. Thanks a lot, Mr. Internet.

emma :: Jun.07.2007 :: misc :: 2 Comments »

On the topic of Wikipedia, here’s the Art of Wikigroaning:

You see, there are games you can play with Wikipedia. Fun games that you can pass hours upon hours with. I’m not talking about hiding a clue to the supposed sexuality of your high school nemesis in the article about Lieutenant Worf. A nondestructive Wikipedia game was invented last year by my good pals Dr. David Thorpe and Street Cactus, and I have to say that it blows that pedestrian-ass googlewhacking right out of the water.

The premise is quite simple. First, find a useful Wikipedia article that normal people might read. For example, the article called “Knight.” Then, find a somehow similar article that is longer, but at the same time, useless to a very large fraction of the population. In this case, we’ll go with “Jedi Knight.” Open both of the links and compare the lengths of the two articles. Compare not only that, but how well concepts are explored, and the greater professionalism with which the longer article was likely created. Are you looking yet? Get a good, long look. Yeah. Yeeaaah, we know, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. (We’re calling it Wikigroaning for a reason.)

Some of my favorites from the SA post:

Asperger’s vs. Self-confidence

Girlfriend vs. Video games

Gray’s Anatomy vs. Grey’s Anatomy

Armageddon vs. Armageddon (film)

Debate vs. Comparison of Battlestar Galactica (1978) and (2003)

Real life vs. Second Life

Steam vs. Steampunk

Normality (behavior) vs. Furry fandom

List of people who have disappeared vs. Characters of Lost

As of now, there’s still no Wikipedia article about Wikigroaning, but I’m sure someone will get around to it sometime soon. And when that happens, I look forward to Wikigroaning “Wikigroaning” and “Wikipedia”.

EDIT: I really like Girlfriend vs Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne song). Yay for my first stab at Wikigroaning!

emma :: Jun.06.2007 :: misc, pop-culture, nerdiness :: 5 Comments »

Today, while reading about various cults like the Children of God, I stumbled across this Wikipedia article about the Cult Awareness Network, CAN.

The Cult Awareness Network (CAN) was founded in 1978 in the wake of the Jonestown mass suicides. CAN is now owned and operated by associates of the Church of Scientology, an organization that the original founders strongly opposed. Prior to the takeover, CAN provided information on groups that it considered to be cults, as well as support and referrals to so-called deprogrammers.

Supporters and detractors alike use the terms “old CAN” and “new CAN” to refer to the two periods of the organization’s existence.

The whole article is a pretty good read, especially, of course, the part about “new CAN”: how the Church of Scientology sued the “old CAN” into bankruptcy and then bought CAN and all associated branding.

emma :: Jun.06.2007 :: misc :: 3 Comments »

I find the whole lolcat fad to be mostly obnoxious, but lolcode is actually pretty funny.

Here’s the almost familiar program “HAI WORLD”:

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
VISIBLE “HAI WORLD!”
KTHXBYE

emma :: Jun.06.2007 :: misc, pop-culture, programming language, programming, nerdiness :: No Comments »

Here’s a picture of me, Raj and Paul (current and former roommates, respectively), the night of Campus Dance.

I think this might be the only picture of all three of us, so I like it quite a bit. Paul convinced me to sneak into the party with him and he convinced me to put on the nicest dress that I could find in my closet (I did, however, wear sandals–yes, an homage to tacky). We met up with Raj in the Cog&LingSci Department building because he had locked himself out of his office there. So we waited for campus security together while drinking beer in my office.

Raj just finished his second year here. He works on vision perception stuff with Fulvio Domini, and his latest experiment involved sitting in a dark room looking at a small rotating disc with blue dots of light while listening to ambient electronic music. He also plays the bass in a band with Steve Sloman.

Paul is pursuing his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology. He’s just finishing up his dissertation on German opera, for which he did field work in Berlin a year after I was there; he lived in the same neighborhood that I had lived in, Prenzlauer Berg. Paul just moved out of our apartment to travel for the summer and then possibly move to New York in the fall. He will be missed!

So, yeah, these two people made my first year of graduate school really awesome outside of work. Yay, them.

emma :: Jun.05.2007 :: misc :: No Comments »

Go to Start -> Run (or, if you’re on a Mac, open Terminal), and type: telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

Super nerdy fun.

(Props to Jake for alerting my attention to this.)

(Regular programming will return soon, after I finish the first draft of my first year project proposal.)

emma :: Jun.05.2007 :: misc, nerdiness :: 1 Comment »