"...the great mathematician Lagrange claimed that a prime base is far more advantageous. He pointed to the fact that with a prime base every systematic fraction would be irreducible and would therefore represent the number in a unique way. In our present numeration, for instance, the decimal fraction .36 stands really for three fractions: 36/100, 18/50 and 9/25. Such an ambiguity would be completely eliminated if a prime base, such as eleven, were adopted." --Tobias Dantzig, quited in: Georges Ifrah, From One to Zero (tr L Bair, 1985)


norsmu cfipyboi
musmalsi
.i mi satci klama
le skari le krasi
le gansycau sanga
.i banzu


You know it's 2008 when you read everyday a blog about blogs to see what the bloggers are saying.

You know it's 2008 when you watch last Saturday Night Live's best skit on YouTube and forward the link to your friends.

You know it's 2008 when you speculate that CD's may have already become obsolete.

You know it's 2008 when you've never seen any of your favorite musicians play live.

You know it's 2008 when you hear people saying they seldom look at their email anymore.

You know it's 2008 when you get a FaceBook page just for career reasons.

You know it's 2008 when you google an author if you liked reading their book so you can read their blog.

You know it's 2008 when you create a fictitious internet pseudonym so you can review your own books on Amazon.

You know it's 2008 when you prefer a fan's SIMS music video to the band's own video for a song you like.

You know it's 2008 when you have friends in the same city you haven't met physically for years.

You know it's 2008 when there seems to be something very primitive and pure about a subculture that only existed in the physical world, like punk or reggae.

You know it's 2008 when you listen to a song on the radio made out of three other, famous songs--and you kind of like it.

You know it's 2008 when you overhear the younger generation talking about an artist they admire and not only have you never heard of them you don't know what sort of device you'd need to experience their medium on.

You know it's 2008 when since you never have time to watch a movie all the way through in one sitting, you prefer VHS to DVD because you can just pull it out & it keeps the place you were watching at last.

You know it's 2008 when your favorite YouTube videos are all clips from Sixties TV variety shows.

You know it's 2008 when at the used bookstore where you work, some of the merchandise you have to process is someone else's very extensive cancer library.

You know it's 2008 when you find out by self-googling that you are mentioned briefly in a book published ten years ago you never knew about; you post a link to the Google Search page result on your blog the very same day.

You know it's 2008 when the word "rendition" fills you with a vaguely ridiculous sense of dread.

You know it's 2008 when you wonder if you will ever travel abroad again. Or even fly in an airplane.

You know it's 2008 when you want to ask friends who live in the country how much of their own food they grow, but you don't because that would sound like you were angling for an invitation.

You know it's 2008 when you've stopped reading the blog about blogs when it comes to hard news of any kind, but you still read the trivia and sometimes find yourself blogging about some item of trivia you've already blogged about just to keep from thinking about what might have happened that day when you weren't reading the news.

You know it's 2008 when the AAA tow truck driver you summon at 630 AM recognizes you from a previous tow.

You know it's 2008 when you call up the available charge on your last credit card and divide that amount by the number of days till your next paycheck.

You know it's 2008 when you think putting up a list like this is a political act.

You know it's really 2008 when--it is.


Alt.Culture Music Guide archives.


Online Jargon File.