Books (2011)

Rich Dad, Poor Dad

Most useful feature of iTunes 9: "Automatically add to iTunes" folder

Probably the most useful feature that Apple has introduced in iTunes' lifetime... Simply drop your files in the "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder. If you store your music on an external the folder should be there. This eliminates a few clicks when adding new music the previous "Add to library" method.

[support.apple.com] iTunes 9: Understanding the "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder

[RANT]: After recently transferring my music library from a previous external hdd to a larger external hdd, I'm eagerly awaiting SSDs to drop in $$$.

Emacs + zenburn.el

Sapir–Whorf hypothesis

Károly Kerényi's preface to the translation of Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life (Manheim, 1976):

"The interdependence of thought and speech makes it clear that languages are not so much a means of expressing truth that has already been established, but are a means of discovering truth that was previously unknown. Their diversity is a diversity not of sounds and signs but of ways of looking at the world."

Whorf's refined examination of grammatical mechanisms and their influence on thought.

"We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscope flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems of our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way—an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language [...] all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in some way be calibrated."