Is this thing on?

There have been many language threads and digressions; I should know, I have participated in most of them. Maybe it's time to start talking about talking: What is language, where did it come from and for what reason? How do languages compete, cooperate, coopt each other? Where are they going? Is one language better than another? What about dialects, sociolects, idiolects, jargon?

Follow the discussion here

I got a well-appreciated birthday gift from myself a few days ago, the Rome series 1 DVDs. The second, and probably last season, will air in a few days. The time slice covered by this TV series will thus (assumedly) be from the fall of Gaul to the preeminence of the first Roman Emperor. A small gripe is why does it always have to be Caesar and Augustus, and not for instance the republic a couple centuries earlier.

While the backdrop story is one often told and retold, the historical characters are not the stars in the series, but the city of Rome itself. This fictional account of the end of the Republic, and history is always fictional, is the best one I've seen so far. Given the high cost and usually moderate income from historical soaps, dramas, and documentaries, it is likely to remain so for some time to come. The creators have said that current Calcutta, err Kolkata, has been an inspiration for the recreation of the Rome as was, and the city is as believable as the story is enjoyable.

A Debates & Discussions forum thread:

How has the Internet changed (or changed your life)? How will it change in you lifetime?

I can recall as a kid in the seventh grade, in Montreal Quebec, in our computer science class we had access to a time-sharing computer based somewhere else in the country. The method of data input/output was an enormous Telex teletype machine that sounded like a jackhammer when printing. [...] My vision of the future for Internet is not all rosy. [...] What I'm sure of is that the Internet will continue to become part of our lifestyle and those who are Internet illiterate will slowly be left behind as progress marches steadily on. [...] I invite any and all to send their ideas.