Tyler’s litle preview of his new book Create Your Own Economy.  The points about the gains outside of monetary transactions are the most important.  I’ll add that the size of Twitter’s employee base he cites may be misleading.  Many of the essential tools to dashboard and filter twitter are engineered outside of the company.  They offer little more than a new type of social computing infrastructure.  While Ford installed dashboards on cars, Twitter “outsources” more or less the same thing.

Kottke on language and how it shapes your thought.  Of course he gets bombarded by opposition, but the post and argument are interesting.

Some commenters were confused about why Tyler loves Penelope Trunk’s blog, these posts on economizing your time might be why.  Don’t tell me you don’t have time to read them!

Newmark shows us a patch to revolutionize health monitoring.  Add a power supplied RFID chip and some government policies and its Eric’s worst nightmare!

One important thing to recognize about social networks in computing is that they can dramatically lower transactions costs.  With tools like twitter, Flickr, blogs and even text messaging, forming a group outside of traditional organizational structures becomes possible where it wasn’t before.  Its true of different networks and across social, business, and political spheres.  It’s people who went to a specific concert one day sharing photos in a way they never could before, and it’s Iranian liberals rioting like they never could before.  Of course, it can be good and bad.

Clay Shirky boils all this down into some simple, brilliant points in his book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.  For an idea of what its like, you can check out his podcast interview with Russ Roberts.

The Big Picture has photos of the chaos.

Many Iranians are tweeting in English.

There’s a bleg on Separated By A Common Language about the American usage of “can I get” versus “can I have.”  They’re asking readers for input for a student’s dissertation.  Here’s my contribution:

I use “can I get” in Starbucks or when ordering something at a counter. It works anywhere that I’m paying for something but I can be informal. At a fancy restaurant, I would say “I’ll have” or something even more polite (may I please have)

I use “Can I have” more when the other person will have to give that thing up. For example, if my friend is eating a bag of candies I will ask “can I have one?” However, for a good friend who has plenty of candies to spare, I might say something as insistent and informal as “lemme get one.”

I blogged once before about “can I get.”  I don’t know about elsewhere, but it’s common here in the New York area.  I find it hard to imagine a foreign English language student learning “can I get” in the classroom, but if they spend enough time in line at a store they’re almost certain to hear it.

How do our readers use these phrases? Separated By A Common Language is a blog about differences in American and British English.  Drop lynneguist a comment if you’ve got something to add.

I thought this would be appropriate given Mike’s recent post on loanwords. This is on the cover of the most recent issue of the New Haven Advocate:

Here’s a link to the article explaining why they did it. Here’s a snippet:

Continue reading this post…

From a post on loanwords about a year ago on Marginal Revolution, there was a discussion in the comments about meanings and distinctions in other languages which English doesn’t quite capture.  I’ve copied a few of my favorites here, and made some edits and comments:

From Spanish: picante and caliente. Or spicy hot and temperature hot.

The Spanish distinction between “ser” (to be fundamentally) and “estar” (to be right now)

“Te Quiero”, in Spanish. There is an enormous difference between “querer” and “amar”, whereas in English you only have “love.” For example, one would never say “te amo” to a family member.

From Chinese: “ri nao”: (”re’nao” ??) meaning a crowded, busy, but generally fun environment.  The closest word I can think of in English is “bustling” but bustling can describe a more agitated situation.

From French: l’esprit de l’escalier. It means thinking of a witty comeback too late after the moment to use it has already passed.

Vietnamese has a word for fragrant (huong) and a second word that means something that smells good that you want to taste (thom)

Here is the original post.  Do our readers have any more?  Continue reading this post…

Referring to the current decade is awkward.  What do you call it, the two thousands?  The twenty hundreds?  It doesn’t come out as smooth as the ’80s or the ’90s.  It was my co-blogger Eric who first introduced me to calling it the “twenty aughts.”  Being a history nerd, he said thats what they used to say in the 1900’s.  Sure its archaic, but nine years into the decade it might finally catch on:

Stephen Colbert, on his show, mentioned a run-in he had with billionaire Richard Branson “back in aught seven.”

That, I suspect, was the big step the word needed to eventually work its way into the popular lexicon. I’m betting that, in about two or three years, “aught” will be the word of choice for the years between 2000 and 2009. (Though I’m not sure it will be the spelling of choice.)

From June Casagrande.  What do we call the next decade?  The tens?  The teens?

Here’s an interesting article about grammar and aesthetic norms in conveying different types of talking in comic book lettering.

The majority of these points are established tradition, sprinkled with modern trends and a bit of my own opinion having lettered professionally for a few years now.

The article is by Nate Peikos, and hat tip to Barbara Wallraff at the Atlantic.

Turning old makes it harder for you to talk right.

Research and studies have shown that the effects of aging on language production are far more drastic than the effects on language comprehension. In other words; while a person still understands much of what he or she hears, it is often hard for that person to think of the words they want to speak.

Hey, I know somebody who just turned old this weekend.  Continue reading this post…