Friday, August 20, 2004
Sorry for the lack of posting this week busy with work and a new hobby Learning Russian.
I understand that sounds odd learning Russian of all things but hear me out, I'm bored. This is how I spend my free time learning another language or some other device to better myself, I honestly believe that communication is the foundation of respect for another culture and we should all try and learn another language.
There are six languages I want to learn
1. Mandarin
2. Japanese
3. Cantonese
4. Russian
5. French
6. Arabic
I decided to start the process the other day while at a book store, there I could choose between the six starter courses and see which one jumps out at me. The big three were Mandarin, Russian and Arabic, the others I could wait to become fluent in. I wanted to learn Arabic for a while but this would cause a problem; Data mining which has given us such debacles as the voter purge in Florida and the flight list errors of the past few years is currently being used by Homeland Security thanks to the Patriot Act. If I bought an Arabic language course it would hit their computers, as digital red flag would be placed on my purchase and thanks to Data mining they'll go after everything I have purchased with a credit card over the last five years and oops theirs another red flag, it seems as if I bought the Koran in 2001.
Thanks to profiling it shows I bought a Koran in 2001 and (for the sake of argument) I recently purchased a Arabic language course so now I personally have a red flag over my name, regardless of the fact I bought the Koran well before 9/11 and the language course was to better myself or the fact that I have an FBI file which passed the background test, one I've had since the early eighties thanks to (oddly enough) the Soviets and my Uncles involvement in Military intelligence in Turkey.
So there I am and I have to pass up a language because it would be a bigger hassle than it's worth to deal with the orwellian control grid and have my life turned up side down all because I want to better myself.
So it came down to Mandarin and Russian, Mandarin is really hard to learn and Russian is easy, I went the easy road although I chose Russian the next is mandarin because something tells me I should learn the language quickly and I should learn Russian too, just my gut reaction to the world situation probably unfounded but hey always go with your gut!
Also thanks to insomnia I'm also working on the new site, in fact I've gone through four different designs and still no where near what I want it to look like, and I'm having to deal with load times, bandwidth and the total lack of an artistic sense is making it difficult to make and honestly two of them would be just fine but I am really a perfectionist and I come down hard on myself with I don't like what I see. I would use an existing blogging software, however I have NO IDEA how to use PERL, for those unfamiliar that's a programming language and apparently it's one of the easier programming languages.
The new site should be up before 2005 with LOTS of audio and Media files, streaming and download and a few other surprises I'm cooking up if everything works out, needless to say it will be user-friendly and get lots out of it. For laughs only I will put in test pages and gag pages, just for the hell of it.
Off to watch Quantum Leap and and learn some more Russian!
|
I understand that sounds odd learning Russian of all things but hear me out, I'm bored. This is how I spend my free time learning another language or some other device to better myself, I honestly believe that communication is the foundation of respect for another culture and we should all try and learn another language.
There are six languages I want to learn
1. Mandarin
2. Japanese
3. Cantonese
4. Russian
5. French
6. Arabic
I decided to start the process the other day while at a book store, there I could choose between the six starter courses and see which one jumps out at me. The big three were Mandarin, Russian and Arabic, the others I could wait to become fluent in. I wanted to learn Arabic for a while but this would cause a problem; Data mining which has given us such debacles as the voter purge in Florida and the flight list errors of the past few years is currently being used by Homeland Security thanks to the Patriot Act. If I bought an Arabic language course it would hit their computers, as digital red flag would be placed on my purchase and thanks to Data mining they'll go after everything I have purchased with a credit card over the last five years and oops theirs another red flag, it seems as if I bought the Koran in 2001.
Thanks to profiling it shows I bought a Koran in 2001 and (for the sake of argument) I recently purchased a Arabic language course so now I personally have a red flag over my name, regardless of the fact I bought the Koran well before 9/11 and the language course was to better myself or the fact that I have an FBI file which passed the background test, one I've had since the early eighties thanks to (oddly enough) the Soviets and my Uncles involvement in Military intelligence in Turkey.
So there I am and I have to pass up a language because it would be a bigger hassle than it's worth to deal with the orwellian control grid and have my life turned up side down all because I want to better myself.
So it came down to Mandarin and Russian, Mandarin is really hard to learn and Russian is easy, I went the easy road although I chose Russian the next is mandarin because something tells me I should learn the language quickly and I should learn Russian too, just my gut reaction to the world situation probably unfounded but hey always go with your gut!
Also thanks to insomnia I'm also working on the new site, in fact I've gone through four different designs and still no where near what I want it to look like, and I'm having to deal with load times, bandwidth and the total lack of an artistic sense is making it difficult to make and honestly two of them would be just fine but I am really a perfectionist and I come down hard on myself with I don't like what I see. I would use an existing blogging software, however I have NO IDEA how to use PERL, for those unfamiliar that's a programming language and apparently it's one of the easier programming languages.
The new site should be up before 2005 with LOTS of audio and Media files, streaming and download and a few other surprises I'm cooking up if everything works out, needless to say it will be user-friendly and get lots out of it. For laughs only I will put in test pages and gag pages, just for the hell of it.
Off to watch Quantum Leap and and learn some more Russian!
|
