Language and the media.

Wed, 4 Mar 2009
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The whole comparison to water usage is a deliberate attempt to mislead.

The standard telecom contract for data services has been based on bandwidth provided since the invention of data circuits. Indeed, the ISP’s price their services based on the bandwidth to which one subscribes. If I have subscribed for an 8Mb/sec service, how can I be a “bandwidth hog” for using 8Mb/sec of bandwidth? I paid for it, and I have the right to use it.

— Waleed Hanafi, Singapore – ISP’s to customers – “You are evil”

It’s an old article but I think it’s a very good example about how language and the media have the power to shape public opinion, and the media having a responsibility to report the news in an objective way. But if that doesn’t happen, then readers have to develop media literacy and critical thinking skills in order to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of information and data processing.

Making education relevant.

Mon, 2 Mar 2009
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I’m in no position to dispute either of the two formulas, simply because I haven’t sat down to work it out, and don’t really plan on doing so because it has no intrinsic value for me at the moment.

But I think an important lesson to be learnt here is this: the article caught my eye because it was a topic I was vaguely curious about, hence, my reading of the article. I’m shure the same would go for anyone else. So if we really wanna engage students in education, we should be teaching Math and Physics to students using examples like these, but adapted and modified to make it more relevant and applicable to their lives.

Cute archaic phrase of the day.

Thu, 26 Feb 2009
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put up (verb phrase)
to accommodate; lodge.
e.g. Where are you putting up now?

Someone asked me this today, and it was all I could do to stop myself from smiling. Why? Because I was reminded of a discussion some of us had during a workshopping session a month or so back, about ‘archaic’ phrases that people from our parents’ generation use, and how extremely out the place the phrases are. But because they’re so incongruent especially in our age, they’re kinda cute, in a retro sort of way. Other examples of cute archaic phrases: taking your breakfast/lunch/dinner in lieu of eating.

Any other examples you can think of?