There are a number of people out there who have expressed an interest in learning Na’vi (the language spoken by the Omatikaya in Avatar ) and are getting verbally shat upon by the communities they dare to mention this in. And, I can understand the knee-jerk reaction that it’s silly to learn a language from a semi-random piece of popular fiction. But, I can also think beyond that.
Learning a language, any language, is a remarkable thing, especially in American society, and if you think about it, there is nothing more or less valid about a language that was created for a movie.
Over on Sociological Images Lisa evaluates Avatar(spoiler alert) Unfortunately, she’s got an agenda, and is seeing what she wants to see instead of what’s actually there.
First off, she says that the Na’vi “… are, in short, the stereotypical “noble savage.” Which as I stated in my review of Avatar, is simply false.
The Na’vi are never portrayed in the classic sense of “noble savage”. They are noble yes, but your classic “noble savage” (at least as I’ve seen it) is also, “savage”, “primitive”, and simply “doesn’t know better.
Every web page on the internet has an URL that is a unique address (that’s why it goes in the “address” bar), and in the beginning everyone used that. But early e-mail clients kinda sucked, and some of the current ones still do, and those addresses were so long they’d wrap, or had some funky characters in them that the e-mail client wasn’t expecting, and so it’d break the URL in such a way that you’d have to copy and paste both parts of it into the address bar instead of just clicking on it.
I didn’t plan to write this.
I just can’t get it out of my head.
Despite the hype, despite my fear of having expectations set too high, Avatar has blown me away.
You’ve probably heard people talking about how incredible the CGI is, and it is. But that’s not important. What’s important, is that James Cameron has created a lush and beautiful world that is utterly believable. You will hear that the plot is fairly simple, even predictable.
There was a young girl, at that age when puberty hasn’t quite reached her, and everything hasn’t changed. I watched her through the window of the subway train as she buried her face into her fathers chest and hid from the cold. He was talking with another man his age and gesturing with his arms. After a moment she turned around, reached up, and put her hands around his forearms. Not to interfere.
Somewhere around the time I was in High School my mother introduced me to Heinlein, and one of the first things I read was A Stranger In A Strange Land. And, I think it impacted me even more than I realized at the time. I’m almost finishing rereading it now, and reflecting on some interesting paralels between the characters and myself. While I could never prove it, it seems that as I changed from a “nestling” into an adult I took on the morals of Valentine Michael Smith and combined them with Jubal Harshaw’s way of thinking.
We’re doing an interesting variation on Secret Santa in our group this year, that you might enjoy too.
Background: we do behavioral targeting in my group. We get anonymous data about web surfers and try and try and make sure that those people are shown banner ads that are actually applicable to them, but we never know WHO, and thus…
A behaviorally targeted Secret Santa. Each participant submits a list of 3-5 items they’ve recently purchased (online or off) and are comfortable sharing to the coordinator.
A little bit ago I got a 1" button maker and have been having lots of fun with it. So, I thought I’d make you a present. :) In order to get one all you have to do is send me a Direct Message on Twitter. If, by some chance you’re following me (@masukomi), but I’m not following you (and thus you can’t DM me) send me an e-mail at masukomi@masukomi.
It was, so strange… No, unbelievable.
I was sitting at my desk, typing away, when the phone rang. Hmm, I don’t recognize that number… “Kay speaking”
“Hi, I’m Random Headhunter X with Random Company Y, and I was hoping I could talk to you about a position. I know you’re not looking, but I was hoping you might know someone…”
My brain froze for a minute. I know more words followed but… did he just say what I think he just said?
I was thinking about my trip and had one of those awesome, yet so simple, realizations.
I never had a “long day” on the bike. Like many of you, I sit in my cube day in and day out, and by three o’clock on most of those days it’s already feeling long, and my brain just starts thinking about going home. But that never happened on the bike. Even when I was ridding ten hours a day I can’t remember a single day that felt “long”.
