A new paper has identified twenty-three words from a language supposedly spoken in Europe before the end of the last ice age (via Mefi). The words are thou, I, not, that, we, give, who, this, what, man, ye, old, mother, hear, hand, fire, pull, black, flow, bark, ashes, spit and worm.
Judging from some linguists’ reaction the claim seems doubtful, but I pulled this from the ashes.
Hear Not
Mother,
What is this?
Bark.
Fire.
Old man,
What is this?
Fire.
Flow.
Mother,
What is this?
Black.
Ashes.
Old man,
Who gives fire?
Old man.
Mother.
Mother,
Who am I?
Hand.
Fire.
Ashes.
7 May 2013 · Whatever
It’s well past time I got this blog moving again. I would blame pressures of work, except that the issue until a few weeks ago was actually skirting:
Twenty-three metres of it, to be exact. Buying and priming and painting and fitting all of that took a while. Then there was the gloss painting of handrails and railings, painting of staircase walls, and other extended DIY that only fitted around work and family life with difficulty, all compressed into as few weeks as possible so that we could host two rounds of family visitors in the guest beds in our new upstairs room. Lots of late nights and lost weekends.
Read More · 17 April 2013 · Journal
We took the kids to Stirling Castle yesterday, and got snowed on while we were there. In Edinburgh today it's still all white outside—the latest snow of the season since we moved here.
11 March 2013 · Journal
Last week our university held an Innovative Learning Week, and as part of it I ran an activity to remix the Manifesto for Teaching Online my colleagues had proclaimed a couple of years ago. I had to do some of my own remixes, of course. After wondering whether I should make a video or cut-up the text or what, the penny dropped: limericks. Here they are, dressed up as digital postcards. I should do the same for my other limericks, when I have about five hundred hours spare.
28 February 2013 · Net Culture
Just had such a major weekend of DIY that I didn’t have a moment to post these links that were almost ready to go on Friday. So much paint, so much white spirit, so many barked knuckles. Once it’s all done, though, there’ll be time again for more than links here at last.
Read More · 4 February 2013 · Weblog
It wasn’t just recovering from that virus and its after-effects that kept me from posting for the past week; or the usual demands of the start of semester; or the builders coming back to finish the attic conversion.
On Friday the fourth of January, my hometown of Hobart in Tasmania reached a record temperature of 41.8°C, and the state experienced its worst bushfires since the year before I was born. It was the start of a week of fires around Australia, as a heatwave in the centre recoloured temperature maps and sent blasts of scorching air to different parts of the country in turn.
On that Friday morning, my parents drove my brother and his family up to Hobart airport from their home near Nubeena on the Tasman Peninsula, not thinking much of the small fire they spotted along the way. By lunchtime, after they’d done their weekly supermarket shop, the road back home was closed by what had turned into a raging fire that destroyed hundreds of homes, particularly in the small town of Dunalley right on the highway.
Read More · 15 January 2013 · Journal
Although I thoroughly abandoned my 2012 resolution to post 274 words every day to reach 100,000 words by the end of the year, it’s time for one last reckoning of how well I did.
Read More · 15 January 2013 · Site News
December 2012
