So you go into your classy high-rise establishment.
Then you sit down to observe the wide outdoors.
You have to love the Europeans. No, this is not an April Fools gag. More at Snopes.com
Of course, it’s only a matter of time before this is used in a thriller.
Iron Man was wonderful, every bit of what the trailers promised–adventure, humor, and a huge dose of gosh-wow. Of course, the idea of military exoskeletons are not new. It’s been in science fiction for a long time. More recently, Dan Brown used the idea in his thriller Act of War. In fact, if you think about it, it becomes clear that airplanes, ships, and tanks are all exoskeletons. So this is all old hat. But when did we ever need a brand-spanking new idea to have a wonderful and new story? What’s important is what the do with the idea–the characters, problem, plot, and setting. And Iron Man does a wonderful job of imagining new twists on all these parts of story.
*
In other news, it appears the future is not so far away. The military is going to be using robot bugs for recon.
British defence giant BAE Systems is creating a series of tiny electronic spiders, insects and snakes that could become the eyes and ears of soldiers on the battlefield, helping to save thousands of lives.
Prototypes could be on the front line by the end of the year, scuttling into potential danger areas such as booby-trapped buildings or enemy hideouts to relay images back to troops safely positioned nearby.
Soldiers will carry the robots into combat and use a small tracked vehicle to transport them closer to their targets.
Then they would swarm into the building and relay images back to the soldiers’ hand-held or wrist-mounted computers, warning them of any threats inside.
I’m all for saving lives and projecting power while we’re doing it. And robo spies are just cool. Except, of course, when they’re used against you…
Humm, zing!
Sometimes I love NPR, and sometimes those folks drive me nuts. But with Intelligence Squared they’ve come up with wonderful programming. I accidentally tuned in one night and found I couldn’t turn the radio off.
What they do is bring together articulate experts, half who argue for a motion such as “Guns reduce crime?” or “Is the government responsible for health care?” and half who argue against it. The nice thing is that they make enough TIME to allow full statements. These aren’t roundtables of knucklehead pundits spouting sound bites. These are long discussions.
Of course, so much depends on the presentation skills of the various experts. But being able to listen to both sides of an issue, at the very least, gives much to think about.
In this debate they argue for and against the motion “The US is winning the war in Iraq”.
They convinced me (I won’t say which side, however). Take some time and listen to this while you do monkey work for the day job.
schnook, schnorrer, megillah, meshuga, schlump…
Who can resist such words? I plan on working at least one of these into my conversation today.
I’ve copied from last week’s Wordsmith.org emails.
A language is the soul of its people. This is nowhere illustrated more profoundly than in the Yiddish language, the language of Jews of eastern and central Europe and their descendants. A tongue full of wit and charm, Yiddish embodies deep appreciation of human behavior in all its colorful manifestations. The word Yiddish comes from German Judisch meaning Jewish. But it is not the same as Hebrew, even though it is written in Hebrew script…
…Many of the everyday English language words such as bagel, klutz, and kibitz are terms from Yiddish. This week we’ll look at a few other Yiddishisms that have enriched the English language.
schnook (shnook) noun
A stupid, easily deceived person.
[From Yiddish shnuk (snout) or from German schnucke (a small sheep).]
-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
“A gun-toting schnook became an embarrassing crook when he robbed
a Spokane dollar store Sunday. Seriously, if you’re going to commit
a Class A felony, you might as well rob a Class A joint.”
Frank Sennett; Dollar-Store Thief Bucks Common Sense; Spokesman Review
(Washington); Mar 9, 2007.
schnorrer (SHNOR-uhr) noun
One who habitually takes advantage of others’ generosity,
often through an air of entitlement.[From Yiddish, from German schnurren (to purr, hum, or whir), from the sound of a beggar’s musical instrument.]
megillah (meh-GIL-uh) noun
A long, tedious account.
[From Yiddish megile (scroll), from Hebrew megillah, from galal (to roll).
The term alludes to the length of the text in the Book of Esther which is read in its entirety, twice, during Purim, a Jewish festival.]-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
“But the obvious challenge was to go through the whole megillah — to
begin with the Andante in C Major, which Mozart wrote when he was five,
and proceed to the bitter end, the Requiem.”
Alex Ross; The Storm of Style; The New Yorker; Jul 24, 2006
meshuga or meshugga (muh-SHOOG-uh) adjective
Crazy; stupid.
[From Yiddish meshuge, from Hebrew meshugga.]
Today’s word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=meshuga
-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
“Plenty of hip-hoppers want to be considered insane, but only Paul Barman
wants to be known as meshuga.”
David Segal; The Weirder, the Better; The Washington Post; Jun 25, 2000.
schlump (shlump) noun
A dull or slovenly person.
[From Yiddish shlumperdik (unkempt, sloppy).]
-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
“‘You don’t want to dress up too much, but you don’t want to be
a schlump,’ says Michael Kors.”
Hal Rubenstein; Terrific Style by Age, by Size, by Shape, by Color;
In Style (New York); Aug 2006.
