Archive for July, 2007
07-07-31
Tags:power law statistics Mark Newman and colleagues published a new paper on the Power Law distribution, along with Matlab code for fitting empirical data Fitting a power-law distribution This function implements both the discrete and continuous maximum likelihood […]
A. Clauset, C.R. Shalizi, and M.E.J. Newman, "Power-law distributions in empirical data" E-print (2007). physics/0706.1062
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(Statstics) | 0
07-07-27
Tags:character Chinese English language Linguistics writing system In his recent post The Ginormous question of language and creativitivity, revisited yet again… Kevin refuted the idea that the Chinese writing system deprives its people of X, where X in question this time was creativity. Kevin suggests that much of the neologistic creativity […]
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(Linguistics) | 0
07-07-22
Tags:Education
NHLBI has a Portion Distortion game, which compares the size of common food items 20 years apart. Here’s a question for you.
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(Odds'n'Ends, Education) | 0
07-07-21
Tags:Computing The Onion reported back in March that Apple Unveiled New Product-Unveiling Product called iLaunch Reportedly,
The iLaunch runs Keynote-formatted presentations in high definition through a built-in projector while displaying a 3-D rotating image of the product. Voice-recognition software, Apple’s most advanced to date, can recite a speech highlighting the features of the device while injecting several […]
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(Computing, Odds'n'Ends) | 0
07-07-21
Tags: A semantic anomality sparked by the iPhone: how do you estimate the probability that Duke is to be blamed for blaming iPhone for wireless network break downs.
My confidence with Duke’s networking department has never been very high. The last campus-wide network meltdown was blamed on a squirle getting inside a router or something like that. […]
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(Odds'n'Ends) | 0
07-07-19
Tags:History language Linguistics writing system This may be a big deal, if more of such records are found.
For the first time, a text has been found in Old Persian language that shows the written language in use for practical recording and not only for royal display. The text is inscribed on a […]
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(Odds'n'Ends, Linguistics) | 0
07-07-19
Tags:Teaching Watch List Wellcome Library opens an image bank of historical and contemporary images for free access (Creative Commons licenses). It’s wired mixture of medical, realistic, and artistic images, such as this one, published in the 15th century: ImageIndex+ Pseudo-Galen, Anathomia; WMS 290
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(Teaching, Odds'n'Ends, Watch List) | 0
07-07-18
Tags:Education Linguistics
Bill Poser revealed connections among literacy, linen rags, and goat skins in Language Log: The Relationship Between Underwear and Literacy.
July 08, 2007
The Relationship Between Underwear and Literacy
Although the invention of printing with movable type is often taken to be the technology that led to greatly increased literacy, a recent paper argues that […]
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(Odds'n'Ends, Education, Linguistics) | 0
07-07-06
Tags:English Linguistics Paperville Research spelling Flaps is notoriously hard in spelling. Becky Treiman and others have shown that young children (at some point during their literacy development) tend to spell as they hear the sounds, such as <*SDAR> for <STAR>. Does Eddington suggest here that children actually have an "underlying" lexical representation […]
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(Research, Paperville, Linguistics) | 0
07-07-03
Tags:OddsnEnds paraorthography punctuation 4,106 members have the book in their library. There are 92 books more popular. That’s what the LibraryThing.com page for Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss says today. Out of 15 million categolued books, that is. The one I read is an autographed […]
( Show all members ) <– don’t click!
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(Odds'n'Ends) | 0