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Understanding The Voynich Manuscript #4

Understanding The Voynich Manuscript #4 If not Latin, then what? Please see the links at...

Understanding the Voynich Manuscript #3

Understanding the Voynich Manuscript #3 Plants and the moon. For thousands of years, people...

Understanding the Voynich Manuscript #2

Understanding the Voynich Manuscript #2 An i for an i ? Not nymphs: women! There are...

Understanding The Voynich Manuscript #1

Understanding the Voynich Manuscript #1 Tom, Dick and Harry explain a statistical method. ...

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Patrick LockerbyRSS Feed of this column.

Retired engineer, 73 years young. Computer builder and programmer. Linguist specialising in language acquisition and computational linguistics. Interested in every human endeavour except the scrooge... Read More »

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The Moving Finger Writes

The Moving Finger Writes

May 28 2009 | comment(s)

The Moving Finger Writes

I cannot agree that much of what is, these days, called poetry, is in fact poetry.
I base that assessment on a simple rule:
If it isn't memorable, it isn't poetry, q.e.d.
 If I read something, and an hour later can remember only that it is something to do with, say,  a roof, then it is not poetry.

The traditional poetic device of memorably melodic metaphor marching through the mind reinforces recall.  Recall of rhyme recalls the time sublime of childhood play with blocks and bricks of wooden words.

Such is the power of poetry.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Creationism Axed - Again !

Creationism Axed - Again !

May 27 2009 | comment(s)

Creationism Axed - Again !

The stone axe from 400,000 years ago which has been described as "the most important stone tool in the establishment of the geological antiquity of humankind" was mislaid for many years.  It has been  rediscovered thanks to the efforts of  Professor Clive Gamble, an archaeologist in the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Digging Beneath the Surface of Grammar

Digging Beneath the Surface of Grammar

May 26 2009 | comment(s)

Digging Beneath the Surface of Grammar

How does language work?
A Journey to the Centre of the Universe

A Journey to the Centre of the Universe

May 25 2009 | comment(s)

A Journey to the Centre of the Universe

There has been debate for millenia amongst philosophers as to where the centre of the universe lies.

There is a possibility that I may have found it.  Please note the classic use of hedging.  There is a reason for this.  If the media should get the wrong idea, they might want photographs of the exact location.  For reasons which should become self-evident, we would all find an intrusion by the paparazzi extremely problematic.

Mental Models.
Random Noise #11 : I Just Hate it When ...

Random Noise #11 : I Just Hate it When ...

May 24 2009 | comment(s)

I Just Hate it When ...

I just hate it when other people blog about or link to a topic when I'm half-way through writing an article on the very same topic.  You know who you are. Hate! Hate! Hate!

Copyright: Arturo J. Paniagua

I doubly hate it when somebody beats me to the metaphorical inkpot and does a write-up using my kind of humor.  Grrrrr!

Caution #1:  strong language!
Random Noise #10 : New Math

Random Noise #10 : New Math

May 24 2009 | comment(s)

Solving Problems in the New Math


Generations of schoolkids have been puzzled by this problem:

If it takes 10 workers 10 days to fill in a hole,
how many days does it take 5 workers to fill in 1/2 a hole?

Walsall Housing Group in the UK thought they had the definitive answer,
but it didn't stand up to the scrutiny of peer review.