Monday, 11 August 2014
Cymraeg
Land of the sheep on the patchwork quilt,
germanic tongue with a soft valley lilt,
Warm and yet cold as is rose quartz,
fostering of gentle mind and thoughts.
germanic tongue with a soft valley lilt,
Warm and yet cold as is rose quartz,
fostering of gentle mind and thoughts.
Saturday, 28 June 2014
Monday, 16 June 2014
transcript of Ella explains what a wookie is
"Hey /Ella."
"[/INAUDIBLE BABY NOISE]"
"Who's the guy from Star Wars on your cup?"
"Chewbacca."
"Chewbacca? (1) What is Chewbacca?"
"A woobkie"
"A what?"
"A wookie."
"A Wookie?"
"nmmmn"
"What does he say?"
"Byah"
"What- How does- What do Wookies say?"
"Blyah."
"Blrlrlrlrl," [the mother laughs] "What do they say?"
"Brryah. Brryah. Brrr. Byah. Byah. Byabyah!"
"Who says that?"
"Chewbacca."
"And what is Chewbacca again?"
"A wookie."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=229NvV0SRHw
This text features two speakers, who I assume to be parent and child but whose exact relationship is not explicitly stated. The main audience is likely casual browsers of video sharing site YouTube, or people who enjoy videos of cute things, which is a very wide demographic. Most people find YouTube videos such as this either through specific search terms, through the website's 'recommendations' feature, or by stumbling across it via related videos (which is how I found it). The purpose is to entertain, as the information presented in the video is not worth anyone's time and effort by itself. The form is a seemingly unedited video.
This conversation is formatted as a series of interrogatives, asked by a parent, and answered by the child. This is likely because it can be difficult to speak with very young children without giving them specific prompts to work from, as the framework of social conventions is still usually very bare bones at such a low age. For example, 'Who's the star wars guy on your cup?' asks the parent. 'Chewbacca.' is the childs response, but then the parent repeats the answer: 'Chewbacca?'. I think the parent does this for a few reasons: to confirm that she heard the child correctly, as children do not always pronounce words as an adult would, to again prompt the child into making further conversation, and also as a low-effort response to the child's correct answer. For the child this probably creates the effect of knowing that the parent heard their answer, as a kind of back-channel agreement, and also draws the child into further conversation, which forwards the parent's agenda of teaching their child English language and conversational technique through immersive learning.
"[/INAUDIBLE BABY NOISE]"
"Who's the guy from Star Wars on your cup?"
"Chewbacca."
"Chewbacca? (1) What is Chewbacca?"
"A woobkie"
"A what?"
"A wookie."
"A Wookie?"
"nmmmn"
"What does he say?"
"Byah"
"What- How does- What do Wookies say?"
"Blyah."
"Blrlrlrlrl," [the mother laughs] "What do they say?"
"Brryah. Brryah. Brrr. Byah. Byah. Byabyah!"
"Who says that?"
"Chewbacca."
"And what is Chewbacca again?"
"A wookie."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=229NvV0SRHw
This text features two speakers, who I assume to be parent and child but whose exact relationship is not explicitly stated. The main audience is likely casual browsers of video sharing site YouTube, or people who enjoy videos of cute things, which is a very wide demographic. Most people find YouTube videos such as this either through specific search terms, through the website's 'recommendations' feature, or by stumbling across it via related videos (which is how I found it). The purpose is to entertain, as the information presented in the video is not worth anyone's time and effort by itself. The form is a seemingly unedited video.
This conversation is formatted as a series of interrogatives, asked by a parent, and answered by the child. This is likely because it can be difficult to speak with very young children without giving them specific prompts to work from, as the framework of social conventions is still usually very bare bones at such a low age. For example, 'Who's the star wars guy on your cup?' asks the parent. 'Chewbacca.' is the childs response, but then the parent repeats the answer: 'Chewbacca?'. I think the parent does this for a few reasons: to confirm that she heard the child correctly, as children do not always pronounce words as an adult would, to again prompt the child into making further conversation, and also as a low-effort response to the child's correct answer. For the child this probably creates the effect of knowing that the parent heard their answer, as a kind of back-channel agreement, and also draws the child into further conversation, which forwards the parent's agenda of teaching their child English language and conversational technique through immersive learning.
Transcript of Star Wars according to three year old
Well... (3) Well... (3) OK (.) The sand people capture robots (.) and drive (.) and (.) sell 'em (2) in garage sale (.) kinda like garage sale except they're selling robots (1) and no-ones gonna buy R2 and the shiny guy (.) the shiny guy always worries. (.) Luke's gonna buy those. (2) And Obi Kenobis kind of a teacher (.) He's (.) teaching Luke (0.5) how to (.) learn how to do his little (1) light up sword he has to try to block the little pokey ball (Pokeball?) He tried to do it with out seeing. Obi Kenobi sometimes move things around sometimes he's disappears. Princess Leia got out of jail and out of the spacesip (.) And they got (1) the big thing that blowed up stuff they (.) we blowed it up together (1) it blowed up princess leias planet. But don't talk back to (.) Darth Vader he'll get ya! It's an exciting movie...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBM854BTGL0
This text is a transcript of an edited monologue spoken by a young girl into the camera which focuses on presenting the key plot points of Star Wars: A New Hope. The audience for the YouTube video is likely people who have seen Star Wars and enjoy cutesy or short videos. The purpose is to entertain, as the main focus of the video is on showing the authors opinions and observations about a fictional movie. The form is a live-action video recording on YouTube. The fact that the text has been edited may mean that the video was staged, or perhaps irrelevant or inappropriate scenes were cut, or perhaps it was clipped to a 'highlights reel' of sorts.
The speaker in this text is a young toddler, which creates the gimmick that this video relies on: That a young person has strange, cute and funny ideas about movies they have seen. For example, "don't talk back to Darth Vader" is cute because it makes use of children's language as they understand the world, and is somewhat funny, possibly because of the implication that such a young child can not think of many more antagonistic actions than 'talking back' to someone. In fact, a large aspect of the entertainment on display in this text stems from the fact that, to a person well-versed in the English language, this child speaks very childishly, often stumbling over words or using non-standard forms of grammar, as well as novice level phonetic pronunciation (See: "Spacesip). This creates a sense of endearment in the reader to the young child, perhaps the reader is nostalgic about when they or someone else spoke a similar way, or they enjoy to witness the often care-free attitude of a child when using English Language.
This text links to today's other text both in subject (Star Wars) and in form: A young child talking about Star Wars. The child from this text is seemingly older, indicated by a greater grasp of linguistic techniques. One might say that the child from the above text is a toddler, whereas the child in the second text is more of an infant. In this text, which is edited, it does not seem as if there is anyone playing the part of an interviewer or interrogator, whereas in the second text, a voice who I assume to be an older female relative is prompting the child to speak. However, such sections could have been edited out in this text in order to make the child's insights seem more original, or perhaps not. Other similarities arise in that both texts feature non-standard english, as expected from such young children, though the first text merely contains simple non-standard errors, whereas the second text features heavy use of nonsensical language, particularly when imitating the bestial cry of a 'Wookie'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBM854BTGL0
This text is a transcript of an edited monologue spoken by a young girl into the camera which focuses on presenting the key plot points of Star Wars: A New Hope. The audience for the YouTube video is likely people who have seen Star Wars and enjoy cutesy or short videos. The purpose is to entertain, as the main focus of the video is on showing the authors opinions and observations about a fictional movie. The form is a live-action video recording on YouTube. The fact that the text has been edited may mean that the video was staged, or perhaps irrelevant or inappropriate scenes were cut, or perhaps it was clipped to a 'highlights reel' of sorts.
The speaker in this text is a young toddler, which creates the gimmick that this video relies on: That a young person has strange, cute and funny ideas about movies they have seen. For example, "don't talk back to Darth Vader" is cute because it makes use of children's language as they understand the world, and is somewhat funny, possibly because of the implication that such a young child can not think of many more antagonistic actions than 'talking back' to someone. In fact, a large aspect of the entertainment on display in this text stems from the fact that, to a person well-versed in the English language, this child speaks very childishly, often stumbling over words or using non-standard forms of grammar, as well as novice level phonetic pronunciation (See: "Spacesip). This creates a sense of endearment in the reader to the young child, perhaps the reader is nostalgic about when they or someone else spoke a similar way, or they enjoy to witness the often care-free attitude of a child when using English Language.
This text links to today's other text both in subject (Star Wars) and in form: A young child talking about Star Wars. The child from this text is seemingly older, indicated by a greater grasp of linguistic techniques. One might say that the child from the above text is a toddler, whereas the child in the second text is more of an infant. In this text, which is edited, it does not seem as if there is anyone playing the part of an interviewer or interrogator, whereas in the second text, a voice who I assume to be an older female relative is prompting the child to speak. However, such sections could have been edited out in this text in order to make the child's insights seem more original, or perhaps not. Other similarities arise in that both texts feature non-standard english, as expected from such young children, though the first text merely contains simple non-standard errors, whereas the second text features heavy use of nonsensical language, particularly when imitating the bestial cry of a 'Wookie'.
Our Quote discussions
The quote was simply a twitter post (tweet) 'Sssshh! Game of thrones!'
We discussed the affordances and constraints of a medium that has features such as the 140 character limit, but also affordances such as hashtags, hyperlinks, real time updating and easily accessible archives.
We talked about how shorter quotes are often quite catchy which helps them stick in the brain.
We looked at the fact that the user uses an imperative, and why this might be. It may have been said in jest, or perhaps he was being straightforward. Perhaps he was conveying that Game of Thrones is sacred, and must not be talked over, or that he simply wishes to hear what happens on the show, or that he does not want people to tell him about what happens in the episode, or that he cannot spare the attention to read other user's tweets while the episode is on.
He may have been using a very weak form of influential power, however if the post was played for laughs than it is likely he was not trying to exert any kind of power.
Finally we discussed the context of the post. I think that the post was made on the day of the recent episode of game of thrones that aired a couple of weeks ago, as he makes another reference to a character called 'The Mountain', whose most notable appearance was in a recent episode of the show. There was also another user who tweeted about giving lessons for fictional language 'Dothraki'. There are a few other reasons why people might be talking about game of thrones, but I feel the above are most likely.
We discussed the affordances and constraints of a medium that has features such as the 140 character limit, but also affordances such as hashtags, hyperlinks, real time updating and easily accessible archives.
We talked about how shorter quotes are often quite catchy which helps them stick in the brain.
We looked at the fact that the user uses an imperative, and why this might be. It may have been said in jest, or perhaps he was being straightforward. Perhaps he was conveying that Game of Thrones is sacred, and must not be talked over, or that he simply wishes to hear what happens on the show, or that he does not want people to tell him about what happens in the episode, or that he cannot spare the attention to read other user's tweets while the episode is on.
He may have been using a very weak form of influential power, however if the post was played for laughs than it is likely he was not trying to exert any kind of power.
Finally we discussed the context of the post. I think that the post was made on the day of the recent episode of game of thrones that aired a couple of weeks ago, as he makes another reference to a character called 'The Mountain', whose most notable appearance was in a recent episode of the show. There was also another user who tweeted about giving lessons for fictional language 'Dothraki'. There are a few other reasons why people might be talking about game of thrones, but I feel the above are most likely.
Friday, 9 May 2014
A bit of revision
FREE WILL AND DETERMINISM
Determinists believe that it is possible to predict the future with certainty, even where human action is concerned. They believe that free will is merely an illusion, and that whenever we as humans think we have a choice, our answer is actually fully determined by conditions and causes.
Libertarians believe that free will does exist, that in any given situation we could have chosen otherwise. Some Libertarians consider the mind to be outside the chain of causality, which is why our thoughts cannot be caused: after all, it's not like our mind can be affected by any physical means, as the mind is as intangible as a ghost or a god. Famously, Ayn Rand opposes Libertarian idealism, calling it a threat to capitalism. She even created her own philosophy in response: Objectivism.
Compatibilists believe that Determinism and Libertarianism are not opposite, and that it is possible to believe in both determinism and free will. 'A man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.' This statement means that people do what they have a motive to do, nothing more and nothing less. You cannot choose your motives, so you cannot choose your actions because they are decided by your motives which are decided by your experiences why are determined. Compatibilism is an extremely weak conception of free will, I would not even call that free will. Incompatibilism's most common argument is that Compatibilism is merely Determinism under the guise of 'rejuggled' words.
TOLERANCE
Lord Devlin argues against tolerance by saying that it is the duty of the government to impose one shared moral system on their subjects. He argues that morality should be social, not private. He is not opposed to the quashing of conflicting beliefs, as he thinks that a single shared moral system would benefit society more than any other alternative.Some say this philosophy would cause conflict and strife from people who disagree with this system. Devlin counter argues by stating that if his recommendations were followed properly, everyone would be sharing one moral code and conflict would not arise.
However, Devlin's argument favors moral agreement over moral truth. Though his system would be, in a sense, 'fair', it would not be conducive to finding the absolute moral truth. Another criticism is that once a single moral code had been imposed, it may stifle individual and social welfare. For instance, Devlin believed that homesexuality was morally wrong. Now that laws have been passed effectively legalizing homosexuality, we have not experience a disintegration of society or moral values. This suggests that Devlin's argument was flawed.
A philosopher named Rawls believed that the only universally imposed moral rule should be one of tolerance: that we all must tolerate each other, though perhaps this should be taken more as a criticism of Devlin's argument rather than it's own argument for tolerance.
Devlin's argument also infringes on autonomy. By encouraging one particular system of beliefs, it is removing a persons ability to choose for themselves. However, autonomy is not necessarily beneficial to the masses. Some people make choices that may not benefit them as much as if things were chosen for them. This is one argument against tolerance: Why tolerate beliefs that are sup-optimal, or even negative?
John Stewart Mill argues for tolerance. In a nutshell, his argument boils down to the fact that in order to learn, we must discuss, and in order to properly discuss, there must be opposition of views. Someone to play devil's advocate as it were. He argues, for instance, that we should tolerate racists because they have unique perspectives on the subject of racism, and so they are an important member in the debates on racism.
However, Mill's argument is also flawed. Is it more beneficial to allow racists continued existence just so that we can have a varied debate? Would it not be more beneficial to discourage racism entirely, so that others do not fall into the trap of thinking it is right? Mill assumes that a racist holds such values because they have rationalized and arrived at that conclusion, but they could be entirely irrational. This would make their contributions to any debate worthless, as the underlying though processes are mangled.
Determinists believe that it is possible to predict the future with certainty, even where human action is concerned. They believe that free will is merely an illusion, and that whenever we as humans think we have a choice, our answer is actually fully determined by conditions and causes.
Libertarians believe that free will does exist, that in any given situation we could have chosen otherwise. Some Libertarians consider the mind to be outside the chain of causality, which is why our thoughts cannot be caused: after all, it's not like our mind can be affected by any physical means, as the mind is as intangible as a ghost or a god. Famously, Ayn Rand opposes Libertarian idealism, calling it a threat to capitalism. She even created her own philosophy in response: Objectivism.
Compatibilists believe that Determinism and Libertarianism are not opposite, and that it is possible to believe in both determinism and free will. 'A man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.' This statement means that people do what they have a motive to do, nothing more and nothing less. You cannot choose your motives, so you cannot choose your actions because they are decided by your motives which are decided by your experiences why are determined. Compatibilism is an extremely weak conception of free will, I would not even call that free will. Incompatibilism's most common argument is that Compatibilism is merely Determinism under the guise of 'rejuggled' words.
TOLERANCE
Lord Devlin argues against tolerance by saying that it is the duty of the government to impose one shared moral system on their subjects. He argues that morality should be social, not private. He is not opposed to the quashing of conflicting beliefs, as he thinks that a single shared moral system would benefit society more than any other alternative.Some say this philosophy would cause conflict and strife from people who disagree with this system. Devlin counter argues by stating that if his recommendations were followed properly, everyone would be sharing one moral code and conflict would not arise.
However, Devlin's argument favors moral agreement over moral truth. Though his system would be, in a sense, 'fair', it would not be conducive to finding the absolute moral truth. Another criticism is that once a single moral code had been imposed, it may stifle individual and social welfare. For instance, Devlin believed that homesexuality was morally wrong. Now that laws have been passed effectively legalizing homosexuality, we have not experience a disintegration of society or moral values. This suggests that Devlin's argument was flawed.
A philosopher named Rawls believed that the only universally imposed moral rule should be one of tolerance: that we all must tolerate each other, though perhaps this should be taken more as a criticism of Devlin's argument rather than it's own argument for tolerance.
Devlin's argument also infringes on autonomy. By encouraging one particular system of beliefs, it is removing a persons ability to choose for themselves. However, autonomy is not necessarily beneficial to the masses. Some people make choices that may not benefit them as much as if things were chosen for them. This is one argument against tolerance: Why tolerate beliefs that are sup-optimal, or even negative?
John Stewart Mill argues for tolerance. In a nutshell, his argument boils down to the fact that in order to learn, we must discuss, and in order to properly discuss, there must be opposition of views. Someone to play devil's advocate as it were. He argues, for instance, that we should tolerate racists because they have unique perspectives on the subject of racism, and so they are an important member in the debates on racism.
However, Mill's argument is also flawed. Is it more beneficial to allow racists continued existence just so that we can have a varied debate? Would it not be more beneficial to discourage racism entirely, so that others do not fall into the trap of thinking it is right? Mill assumes that a racist holds such values because they have rationalized and arrived at that conclusion, but they could be entirely irrational. This would make their contributions to any debate worthless, as the underlying though processes are mangled.
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