Thoughts......

   Many years ago I was taking a digital logic class in college, learning about the primitive circuits that were at the heart of a computer’s operation. The class was clear enough and the subject interesting enough that I really wanted to put what I had learned into action. I envisioned designing and building a computer from those simple circuits into a completed (though slow and simple, by modern standards) computer. I decided to build it using “virtual circuits” inside a computer. It would be a simulated computer. I had two reasons for doing this.     1) I am not an electrical engineer and wanted to focus on the computer’s own internal logic. I did not also want to have to learn engineering on the side, just for what amounted to an (involved) hobby. So this would allow me to concentrate my efforts on how the logic components worked together, not on figuring out power levels and resistors and transistors and so forth. A cheat, I know.     2) Even more ...

I'm watching music videos. Feeling nostalgic. Rum on the rocks. And Akon's "I wanna love you" comes on. Such a simple melody and beat. "I wanna love you....but you already kno-ow." Somehow it epitomizes 2004. The years run together. I remember the song, the voice, the ding. I am taken back in time. 29. Devastated. Hurt. Alone. Rejected. Angry. I want...something back. Something I lost. Determined. It's not a good time. Clubs here and there. Dancing. Big city nights. Top Deck. Never trouble. But I am still drowning. Grasping for a branch. Dancing. Getting a number. Feeling reassured. Better. Knowing I wasn't pariah. I throw the number away. It did its job. Temporarily. Dangerous though. Stupid. And Akon plays in the background somehow. Maybe because he came at the beginning of the change. 9 years ago. Gradually balance sets in. Maturity. Self Control. The clubs are done. Back to normal. But the time passes. 30. 31. I am now 32. So ...

Sounds of crashing waves float to my room Lying in bed, the warm air still and moist and oppressive A blanket. I steal away from my room, Silent, down the lobby, in between white gleaming buildings, alcoves and arches of Arabic form, over the dark wooden bridge, to the palm trees lining the beach. I look up to the sky, Through the tree leaves, Sharp black shadows against cobalt night No sound but the waves on the water, The breeze in the air. The moon drifts across the sky, Silvery, bulbous cut by thin clouds Given preternatural life,  glowing reflected light From reflected light, grey, white, black, charcoal, blue, Bathing the earth, The light of the huntress as she quietly stalks her prey. I step out from the palms, Bark strips and fronds under my feet, Sharp and rough against my skin, and walk to the shore The warm sand yields, pushing between my toes, Around my heels, Becomes cool and dense with water, compress...

I sat in the class listening to the teacher talk about Rorschach Tests, as well as the method of showing a picture and then asking the patient to tell a story based on the picture. The idea is to let the person's subconscious thoughts and feelings influence the response, to give a window into what they are really thinking or feeling, what is going on behind the facade that they put up. It didn't make sense to me. It still doesn't. I raised my hand and asked a question. To the best of my recollection, it was something like this. "How do you deal with people who are self conscious enough to guess, or know, the purpose of the exercise and, rather than give a raw and unedited answer, would be wondering at what they were inadvertently revealing with their answer and thus self edit?" To me, this seemed like a no-brainer. I wasn't about to reveal to someone else things that I wasn't even sure of myself. I would be self-reflecting at my answers, trying to determ...

       So I’ve written in the past about the evolution of language and how linguistics attempts to make sense of all this. What I’d like to do now is to explain how a dead language- a language no one speaks today (and hasn’t for the past 3,000 years!); a language that was not written down or preserved for us in any form- can be resurrected from across the lost millennia. The process itself is fascinating, like a mystery where every clue contributes to the ultimate answer. It also provides insight into the migration patterns of these ancient peoples and their descendants. But more than that, once those descendants have been identified and the mother language has been reconstructed, its culture, and even some of its mythology, can be retrieved from the mists of time. To me, this is the most fascinating aspect of historical linguistics, the ability peer deep into the past and catch a glimpse of an ancient people whose only legacy is in the daughter languages and cultu...