The Shavian alphabet
On Wednesday I saw a Toot in a beautiful script I did not recognise. It looked like this:
๐ฃ๐ฉ๐ค๐ด ๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐ฏ๐ฑ๐ฅ ๐ฆ๐ ยท๐๐ผ๐ฏ๐ธ๐ Tyers. ๐ฒ ๐ค๐ฒ๐ ยท๐๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ฉ๐, ๐ฃ๐จ๐ฅ ๐๐จ๐ฅ๐ข๐ฆ๐๐ฆ๐ ๐ฏ Tayto ๐๐ฎ๐ฆ๐๐๐.
which says
Hello my name is Bernard Tyers. I like Guinness, ham sandwiches and Tayto crisps.
from the to Shavian translator
It was the Shavian alphabet which:
is a constructed alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonemic orthography for the English language to replace the inefficiencies and difficulties of conventional spelling using the Latin alphabet.
It was posthumously funded by and named after Irish playwright Bernard Shaw.
Shaw set three main criteria for the new alphabet. It should be:
– Wikipedia
- at least 40 letters;
- as phonetic as possible (that is, letters should have a 1:1 correspondence to phonemes);
- distinct from the Latin alphabet to avoid the impression that the new spellings were simply misspellings.
Wayback Machine data downloader
I found that the Wayback Machine had archived versions of this website from 20 years ago. I thought I’d lost those posts from the various migrations to different hosting over the years.
I wanted to download those posts in a format where I could import them into this WordPress. If that wasn’t possible, then just simply downloading all the posts and somehow repost them here.
The #Fediverse came to the rescue again. Paul Ganssle suggested “Wayback Machine Downloader” a Ruby on Rails tool.
It downloaded all the website snapshots into a nice directory structure.
Now it’s a matter of copying and pasting. Not ideal, but it’s better than nothing.
RSS-is-dead.lol
RSS-is-dead.lol makes it easier to discover RSS feeds of content related to a Fediverse user account. For example, here’s the RSS feeds associated to my Fediverse account.
Tor Network University campaign
Tor have a campaign for encourage universities to run Tor nodes. If you’re working in a university, the campaign website will help.
Tor will also be speaking at
Lessons learned running Tor exit relays at an NREN
Rituals are the key to happiness
In this Guardian article about Wim Wenders new movie, they talk about “marrying physical activity with routine is optimal for improving oneโs mental wellbeing”.
It mentions the results of a Harvard 80 year longtudinal study on happiness.
โClose relationships, more than money or fame,โ she wrote, โare what keep people happy throughout their livesโฆ Those ties protect people from lifeโs discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes.โ
Underpinning close relationships are shared rituals, a shared language, a shared code. Intimacy is produced by habit. To maximise happiness in this age of choices, we need to inject more routine into our lives. We should all aim to be happy monks.
Harvard study, almost 80 years old, has proved that embracing community helps us live longer, and be happier, by Liz Mineo