nebuchadnezzar

I got my story done for Niners Nation last night so anyone interested can read it here, and I know there are oh so many people who want to read it. As I write this my dog is trying to burrow behind me back. I think I may have the laziest, most codependent jack russell there is.

One thing I've noticed about talking online is that it's not a very good form of communication. I bartend so I spend a lot of time having conversations with total strangers. I can see their body language and hear the tone of their voice. If they say, "Awesome, it snowed again" but say it in a sarcastic way I know they're really saying, "Ugh, it snowed again." However here, for the most part, it's just typed words so it can be easy to misconstrue what's being said. Although, I guess there's only one way to interpret, "OMG, I love your boobs!!!"

Then there's the fact this is a global community. Anyone who has ever translated something from one language to another knows that sometimes there is no perfect translation, and sometimes even among people who speak the same language a word can mean different things. Being part Finnish I was raised knowing the word "Sisu" but there is no English equivalent. If I go to England and ask for "chips" they'll give my fries, and if I tell them I really wanted those thinly sliced potatoes that are cooked in oil and salted they'll tell me I should have asked for "crisps".

None of this is profoundly insightful. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote a whole book, "Philosophical Investigations", were he talks about the fluid nature of language as being the core problem for most philosophical debates. This is just more random musings and pointless observations which I seem to have a lot of.