phyllostachys 68: Minute Tech 53 Show Transcript

53 - Is Text the Best Communications Medium?

Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 53 of the Minute Tech podcast -

coming to you for Tuesday, December 18th, 2007

On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:

- A Galaxy Gets Cooked, FireWire Heats Up, & Late Night Warms Up;
- Is Text the Best Communications Medium?
- What's a Ninja Crayon, and what's in a Logo?

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Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:

Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Taiji - learning tai chi and qi gong 9:30 am every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA. "Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.

And:

Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207-[at]-alltel-[dot]-net.

Tech News:

Marc Kaufman of the Washington Post reports from various scientific groups that scientists have identified a huge jet of stellar matter streaking out from a super-massive black hole (which is a gravitationally collapsed star, as originally predicted by Albert Einstein) and colliding with a neighboring galaxy. Speculation by scientists is that this jet of matter will cause devastating effects to any habitable or inhabited planets in star systems in the affected galaxy. Such a jets effect on earth would be to strip away the ozone and magnetosphere, both which help protect life on earth from harmful radiation emanated by Earths stellar companion, the sun.

On a slightly different scale, Jonny Evans of Macworld UK reports that the 1394 Trade Association is expecting to ratify by February '08 a new specification for FireWire, or IEEE-1394 data transfer, which will boost existing FireWire 800 equipment from 800Mb/s to 3.2Gb/s, without a need to modify or otherwise update the existing hardware. Note that this is referring to bits...divide by eight to get the MB/s transfer speed. Travis Hudson, posting on PCWorlds blog, states that this bump up will help FireWire compete with the new USB 3.0 data transfer standard, which according to wikipedia's article on USB, is rated at 4.8 Gb/s.

And on different tangent, but related to the news about Letterman working with the WGA, Richard Huff of the NY Daily News reports that Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien are looking to return to the late night airwaves without the WGA, but with their existing production staff intact. Apparently, comedy "bits and sketches" require the input of WGA writers, so It'll be interesting to see the late night shows without such features. Can they operate without the WGA?

Tech Question: Is Text the Best Communications Medium?

By text I mean the written word...and the written word, or symbol which when written on a surface means something beyond the context of the picture itself, has been around for 10 or 20 thousand years. Think back to the cave paintings, of the warriors chasing the various forms of wildlife with spears raised or flying through the air. Those pictures tell a story, a story which is later recounted, though in different form for different cultures, on the walls of egyptian tombs, on the clay tablets of the fertile crescent and on the bamboo boards of the far east.

Writing, whether it takes the form of pictures, of hieroglyphs, of pictographs or stick figures, means something beyond the artistic quality of their rendering...but the reader has to learn carefully the context of those words as they pertain to a particular culture before proper meaning can be understood.

The same characters can be used to represent different languages: the Roman alphabet, or Latin alphabet, for example, is the most widely used character set in the world today. In addition to the base 21 characters originated in the 7th Century BC, as the Romans adapted the Cumae version of the Greek alphabet - the Romans added the letters G & Y. In the ensuing 2,700 years, the Latin alphabet has spread to all major civilizations, in competition with the Greek & Cyrillic, Arabic, Brahmic and Chinese character sets.

So, with text so widespread, is it the best communication method? We see it today on automobiles, road signs, newspapers, books, websites, magazines, musical scores, billboards, animations, video games, food containers, buildings, water towers, our clothing and our skin, the last in the form of body art. But, again, text is culture specific - ya gotta know the local dialect to know what the words are saying, and you have to know how to read them in context. So, I repeat, is Text the Best Communications Medium?


Podcasting - Blogging News:

Have you heard of Ninja Crayon? Check it out here A link is in the Show Transcript.

There are many Ninja Crayon's on the web - it's a popular handle for the artistic types who like black outfits. This one was suggested to me by an acquaintance on the Pixelcorps forum as a place he could put the logo for Minute Tech....If I had one.

So, what's in a logo? That's my next crusade, simultaneous with updating the blog interface. :-)

Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com

"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"

- A Galaxy Gets Cooked, FireWire Heats Up, & Late Night Warms Up;
- Is Text the Best Communications Medium?
- What's a Ninja Crayon, and what's in a Logo?

Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.

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