Thought of the Day

LANGUAGE.

Obviously language developed as a way of communication, which is a necessity all living beings have evolved to accommodate. Animals communicate with vocal (birds), scent (skunks), and body (peacocks). But man has employed his flexible tongue & larynx into language, with its unique arsenal of words, words, words.

This arsenal, however sophisticated, only highlights its own limitations. The words, "Yeah I'm having a great day." are not meaningful in it's own right. It could mean:

• "Yeah! I'm having a great day!" with a smile = joy.
• "Yeah I'm having a great day." with an eyeroll = sarcasm.
• "Yeah, I'm having a great day."over the watercooler at work = absolutely meaningless.
  

Speech, even compounded with tone, pace, and pitch is simplistic at best. It requires huge amounts of compression and decompression at both ends. Imagine standing in a beautiful garden, surrounded by vivid tulips in hot pink, feeling the moist dirt giving softly underneath your feet, inhaling sweet scents, listening to wind bristling through the leaves, tasting freshness with each inhale, warming under the sunshine upon your back.

And you distill the sum of all your senses into, "This is nice."

iTunes U: The U is for edUcation

iTunes U is a free section of iTunes that with free educational audio & video files.

iTunes U is a part of the iTunes Store featuring free lectures, language lessons, audiobooks, and more, that you can enjoy on your iPod, iPhone, Mac or PC. Explore over 75,000 educational audio and video files from top universities, museums and public media organizations from around the world. With iTunes U, there's no end to what or where you can learn.

That way you can balance that Britney Spears album with a podcast from the University of Oxford.

Downsizing Hits Girl Scout Cookies

You'll be paying the same price for less Thin Mints this year.

"It's shorter. It's smaller. It's an ounce less," laughs customer Suzanne Taylor.