Isocracy AGM, VPAC Supercomputer Project, Socialising

[tcpip]

Prepared the committee report for today's Isocracy AGM with Race Matthews speaking afterwards on worker's cooperatives. For an organisation with a mere 26 members, we made extraordinary achievements this year (two branches established, seven forums, two Senate submissions, etc). Most recent post on the website is Stephen Spirgis' review of Rising Up and Rising Down, an excellent assessment of political violence in politics. Will take his opportunity to thank sebastianne for her great work over the years as VP, as she's unfortunately standing down.

Very pleased this week with the efforts on the new supercomputer. We've managed to get an enormous amount of the software installed, with numerous nodes installed with various DNS wars. imajica_lj deserves special recognition for his herculean efforts. Indeed, despite the swearing, cursing, and glazed-eyes from trying to get the system to an excellent state, there has been a high level of camaraderie from those on the project. First "real users" expected early next week. The most amusing media coverage compares our little 45.9 teraflop machine with Titan, the world's fastest at 20 petaflops.

Thursday night was another excellent Call of Cthulhu session, playing out the Zargeb and Belgrade chapter of Horror on the Orient Express; one character is increasingly insane, but the others are actually improving! Second chapter of our game-play posted. Last night attended the weekly multicultural gathering organised by Keith P.; some thirty (mostly) students crammed into his flat to discuss community. Will be presenting at the group in a fortnight's time on the topic "The Worst Features of the English Language", which I imagine fluffyblanket would have a few comments to make!

Comments

[ratfan.livejournal.com]

Insanity isn't always a drawback in COC, I find. There's one player in our team whose character has been elected Governor of his state ;-) My current character, Virginia Kendall (see link in previous post to the game) has lost heaps of points from simply gazing at the works of a mad artist, but I haven't written her off yet.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

True, insanity isn't always a drawback.. But the character in question has a great deal chipped away with no ill effects, so now that losing 20% in a short time (and gaining an indefinite insanity) will be happening at least twice a session. They're down to 7 SAN.. and there's no sanatorium of repute nearby (Sofia is the closest city).. Not that they would go willingly with their megalomania, criminal psychosis, and panzaism....

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

7 SAN!? They better have a brilliant on-board psychotherapist available if they want to make it to Istanbul!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Even the player admits that they're not going to make it... However, the issue is convincing the psychotic megalomaniac character that a short visit to the Bulgarian Institute for Mental Health is a good idea.. I mean, they're not a good idea now, I can't imagine what passed for mental health in 1923!

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

Multan dankon pro la referenco !
: )

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Did you know that "fish" could be spelled "ghoti", and still be consistent with English spelling?

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

Good grief ! Nothing about our insane orthography-or is it "authograffi"?- would surprise me !!! Blame it on Dr.Johnson and his lunatic "etyymological" spelling .

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Isn't it awesome and terrible?

gh is pronounced f, like "enough".
o is pronounced i, like "women".
ti is pronounced sh, like "nation".

The first published reference is in 1874, citing an 1855 letter that credits ghoti to one William Ollier Jr.

Dr. Johnson did a lot of good, but etymological spelling was not the best choice.

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

I've often wondered if those words were once pronounced more the way they're spelled - eg if "enough" once ended in a more guttural sound that gradually came sound like 'f', or if "nation" was once pronounced more like "nate" + "eon".

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Like the Pythonesque "K...nigit"?

The following is a good resource on the subject.. We're not sure, basically, as we don't have any native speakers (ditto for comments like "the Quebecois speak a pre-revolutionary French" & etc).

http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/resources/IOE/pronunciation.html

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

-- Richard Lederer

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I'll make sure I circulate this on the day!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Actually, Richard Lederer isn't the original author of this poem. It's actually Gerard Nolst Trenité who entitled it (most appropriately!) "The Chaos" ( "The Classic Concordance of Cacographic Chaos") and first appeared in his 1920 textbook..

There have been several elaborations since then.

http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j17/caos.php

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

Fassinayting staf !
Some of my favourite sites-
http://equitism.org/Equitism/Equitism-entry.htm
http://struggle.ws/anarchism/index.html
http://chomsky.info/
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/kropotkin/lawauthority.html
Can you please see if I can receive the posts on the Anarchist LJ community?I AM a member !!!
:D

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Can you please see if I can receive the posts on the Anarchist LJ community?

I can't check that. It's a user-defined option whether they receive posts; check your own settings at:

http://www.livejournal.com/manage/settings/?cat=notifications

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

Sorry to be such a drag but look -
http://anarchists.livejournal.com/profile
http://anarchisttheory.livejournal.com/profile

How anarchic !!!!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yes, your point being? Those are the profile pages for the two communities. They have absolutely nothing to do with whether you receive notifications of responses. The link I provided you previously does that.

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

The link has a section in the top right ,saying "leave"(not " join") as an option-implying surely that the robot acknowledges that I am already a member, surely?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yes, you are already a member.

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

Well WHY don't I EVER receive any posts then?
I solemnly swear that I'm not a police spy !!!!
: (

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Either;

a) Your settings aren't right.
b) Nobody has responded your posts.

Either way, it's completely outside my control.

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

Ok,I resign myself to unalterable defeat by the deus ex machina . I see AM listed as a member .I assume that , like all other LJ communities , Anarchism and Anarchist Theory display posts to their members . Strange though . Those are the only two out of 126 communities, to which I belong,that never send me any posts. Oh well .....

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Dr. Johnson did a lot of good, but etymological spelling was not the best choice.

Ah, the English language, how I love its complete orthographical insanity!

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

Español es muy fonético . If we can't have Esperanto , I'd settle for that , as it's the second most spoken language on Earth - after Mandarin - by population .

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Italian is an example of another language where the phonetic transcription and orthography are strongly related. Apparently Albanian is very good too, but I can't see that taking off as an international language!

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

Neither stands much chance , but Spanish is the language of 23 nations - many of them huge !!!
¡ y viva España !
PS I'm delighted to have you as a friend as you're so responsive to my drivel .
:D

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Spanish is a great second language choice for the reasons you've stated. Certainly a much better choice than French (a language I have a serious love-hate relationship with)! What do you think of Interlingua?

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

We have-
http://x-french.livejournal.com/
Re Interlingua-there are actually two !

Interlingua/Latino sine Flexione incited by Peano is brilliant .It has a latin vocabulary, just using the ablative form for nouns and adjectives and the imperative for verbs.
But there is another one, stealing the name but much inferior.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latino_sine_flexione

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Heh. When I saw the name "Peano" I thought "I wonder if that has anything to do with the mathematician?.."

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

You're right !
Solresol is THE most original IAL ever !
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solresol
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/solresol.htm

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

https://latinosineflexione.wordpress.com/about/

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

Please reconnect me to the anarchist community/ies if you can.