Routine Order

GIC Argentina’s program where you can learn Spanish in Argentina sure looks tempting. The deal is - you spend some time in Argentina, either teaching English, or participating in an outreach program, in one of the many volunteer programs in Argentina.


So you volunteer in Argentina, and in exchange, you can learn Spanish, in situ. The program is not entirely limited to Argentina, in fact, you can volunteer in South America, including in Misiones and Iguazu National parks. It sounds like the perfect thing to do between academic programs, or after college. You have to be at least 18 years old to participate in the program. The minimum time commitment required is 2 weeks, though, of course, a longer period of time might be more beneficial. The best of both worlds is if you can make it in winter. You can get away from the cold and immerse yourself in Latin American culture, and learn Spanish the natural way. I wish I had looked up something like this and taken a year off after college.

In the Preface to the Bibliography of American Literature(BAL) compiled by Jacob Blanck, he says:

“I am told that Chinese printers have a tradition which obliges them to introduce into their work a sprinkling of intentional errors; the reason for this curious action is to provide the careful reader with that sense of superiority which follows discovery of another man’s typographical lapse. We all know that strange pleasure; and while I would not rob you of such harmless delight it is nevertheless my sincere hope that no one will leave this Bibliography of American Literature with a violent attack of superiority complex.”

Wow! I wonder if this is another incident of someone using the “Chinese” as a vehicle for their imagination, like the old Chinese curse thingy.

However, it is interesting. I have always taken perverse pleasure in underlining mistakes in the books I read, as well as observing typesetting errors, like a top margin that varies in height from left to right. That a printer would intentionally introduce typos to make me feel smarter was beyond me!

I learnt that in the olden days, dictonaries, maps and authors used to intentionally misspell things, or even typeset some letters upside down to catch pirates. Copyright piracy, that is.

I came across simple.wikipedia.org. Just like en.wikipedia.org and de.wikipedia.org, the “simple” wikipedia aims to explain things in a “simple” language. But saying you want to explain something using simple English doesn’t create a new language called “simple”, folks!

Also, maybe due to it’s immaturity, you can now find gems like, “Electricity is the flow of positive electricity in a metal.” D’oh. That is real simple. If I don’t know what electricity means, I sure can understand that electricity is the flow of positive electricity.

There is a point after which simplifying science degenerates into into insulting the reader’s intelligence. Some people have way too much time on their hands.

How to write an awesome scientific paper | COSMOS magazine
Turning even the most dreary scientific paper into a riveting read is not as hard as it may seem…

1st Intern. Collection of Tongue Twisters - English

World Wide Web

Yup, that’s among the tongue twisters listed in the collection. Don’t let that deter you though, go and take a look. There are tongue twisters in many other languages too.

So says Engadget!!

Here’s the article on the Vaio G1 Laptop.

Here the line of contention:

Also coming up a bit short was the laptop’s keyboard, which is about 90 percent smaller than the average laptop’s and could take some getting used to.

Heck, if the keyboard is indeed 90% smaller than a normal keyboard, then it won’t take getting used to — it will be unusable, engadget. Looks like they made a boo-boo when reporting what the Laptop Magazine had to say in its first-hand review:

Because the battery rests between the display and the keyboard, the layout is only 90 percent as large as a regular notebook.

Engadget, Gizmodo and the like put out so many new posts a day that it is no longer funny. I wonder if their contributors are at war, trying to regurgitate the most in the shortest possible amount of time.