The plot thickens

Back in October, I posted to my LiveJournal blog about the book-plot potential of mind-enhancing drugs, including brainstorming about how to detect that public figures are using them. (Note that I've moved my active blogging here to Blogger).

Yesterday, Stephanie pointed out an article on this very subject (originally from The Los Angeles Times, cited here in The Ledger)

As the article says:

"In my mind, it [modafinil] may be the first real smart drug," Sahakian said. "A lot of people will probably take modafinil. I suspect they do already."

The age of cosmetic neurology is upon us. Let the made-for-TV movies begin. :)

Future focus

In order to preserve eyesight or to keep eye muscles in proper shape, we're supposed to occasionally focus out the window or on other faraway objects. It's difficult for geeks like myself to remember to do this.

Why should we have to? Why not have the technology solve the problem for us? Why not make the display data itself require us to change focus?

At first, it could be as simple as an "eyesaver" that keeps track of our active usage and makes one of those stereograms pop up when we've been focused too long. (There are already other examples of this approach: third-party software packages that remind you to take a break after typing for X minutes or after Y keystrokes. )

Later, when 3D computer displays become feasible, it would be trivial to present different data objects as being at different -- or even changing -- distances. Even those of us who can't see those stereograms will be saved from having our eyes fall out. :)

We may find that 3D arrangement of data will have other benefits that we haven't thought of. Zooming in and out will have a whole new meaning. And as one of those kids who can't play FPSes, I'll get dizzy trying to use Excel 2010. :)

Wordsworthy

I've notice a recent upsurge in the use of -worthy as a superlative suffix. A local radio station - The Buzz - refers to music as being "buzzworthy". Too many additional examples to even mention here. (And how the heck do you Google for words with particular suffixes? Anyone heard of Google working in a substring search? But that's for another time ...)

I believe that this is a direct result of the popularity of Seinfeld and the word "spongeworthy": from brainyencyclopedia.com:

spongeworthy - that a potential sexual partner is particularly attractive; in the original episodes, being "spongeworthy" meant Elaine was willing to use one of her limited supply of (no longer produced) contraceptive sponges with this person.

I'd love to be able to trace the development of word usage using daily Google statistics -- but most of what I'm interested in (other than entirely new phrases like "jump the shark") are trends in things like punctuation and usage that are difficult to Google.

Of course, every time I think "Hmm, Google would be cooler if ...", they've usually got it on Google Labs before I can finish the sentence. :)

The Future of Social Networking?

Some of the new social-networking crop (Friendster, Tribe, Orkut) are a superset of the dating standbys (match.com, eHarmony.com, etc.). The technologies seem to be all collectively wanting to converge towards something that fluidly combines the best features of IRC, email, personal home pages, IM, match.com, blogging, and those Japanese devices that beep when you get close to someone who shares your interests.

What will this magical PSA (Personal Social Assistant) look like? As it sits today, all of these sources make me want to write an aggregating front end to replicate similar data to its various sources -- sort of like Trillian on uber-steroids. With a standardized XML-ish format, perhaps something RSS-like ("Real Simple Socializing"?)

Now if I could only get my PSA subcutaneously implanted and automatically route stills of approaching people to facial recognition software so that their name appears on my heads-up sunglasses ... :)

On the Use of the Apostrophe

In my observation of apostrophe use, I've finally hit upon the new rule:

If the basic word doesn't come with an S, use an apostrophe to set it off.

I believe that more and more of the "uneducated" appear to be gravitating towards this for a reason. It is in direct response to the relatively new crop of words for which it is hard to tell how to derive their possessive or plural forms. The two big drives for this are responses to foreign words, acronym-like words, and a tendency to print signs and other text in all-caps.

How do you pluralize "VCR"? OK, how about "TiVo"? What about "MTrSs"?

What? You've never seen the acronym "MTrSs" before? Is it plural or not? Can't tell, can you? What's a great way to be able to immediately tell what part of the word is the base, and what part is the pluralness or possessiveness? How about "MTrSs's" ?

Let's try a different one. You're familiar with burritos, the Greek god Thanatos, Cheerios, and potatoes. Let's stipulate the existence of an entirely unfamiliar word: "polgos". If you see this word without context, is it singular or plural? It's impossible to tell. If you see it as "polgo's", you automatically know. (Of course, I'm also seeing things like "Thanato's", which is an entirely different story ...)

In other words, it's now becoming easier to tell from context whether or not the word is possessive versus plural than it is to tell whether or not it came with an S.

Unfortunately, this means that some information is lost. If you're driving down the road and you see a sign that says "CARLOS RESTAURANT", does it mean:

• Carlos Restaurant


• Carlos' Restaurant


• Carlo's Restaurant
  

The answer is that it's starting to not matter, even though I would prefer it to be otherwise. I'm not sure how the new rule will develop to handle this type of word.

Now that I get it, apostrophe misuse isn't giving me a stroke every time I see it. What we're seeing is just a sign (pun intended) of people trying to grapple with changing linguistic needs. Calming down now. :)