merlin's blog

merlingist.tumblr.com/ 

I tried something new, by creating a portfolio on the web as a little experiment via Tumblr, which I though made the best use of multimedia options. Here's the link!!

In class, we discussed different types of information and languages. Anne asked "how important (essential??) is inefficiency, incompleteness, lack of understanding, to our both "slowing down" and "staying connected"? (eg, the QWERY phenomenon). Some of us seemed to think that there is a zero-sum balancing out between efficiency and understanding when it comes to recording what we say with technology.

Drawing on Grobstein's quote, he asks that if there are highly unambiguous "languages" (mathematics.. computer languages), and how come ordinary language is highly ambiguous in interpretation..does it serve to facilitate discussion? Maybe ambiguity even evokes new knowledge..

Intersex and transgender conditions in ancient cultures will be explored in the style of a book we read in class by Joan Roughgarden titled Evolution’s Rainbow. The examples show cases in which transgender and intersex conditions were encountered throughout history. These examples are sometimes instances were atypical attitudes were taken towards the conditions. I use said instances as evidence that Intersex and Transgendered individuals have been surprisingly common in human history and in learning about it’s occurrences, the possibility exists for societal acceptance of the condition as falling in a spectrum of normalcy.