The Clocks and the Record
Three essays on rates and residue. Seven clocks running at different speeds and the exchange rates between them. A record that thins toward the documented register, because adoption moves expression out of the medium that preserves it. And whether a vernacular can still form when the standard hears everything as it is said.
TAM_095
The Many Clocks
On why nothing here is a race, and what you see instead when you stop counting laps
Dana keeps a paper schedule four feet wide because the software shows a month and not a year. Seven clocks run at different rates, and most arguments about the future are two …
TAM_096
Taphonomic Bias
On why the fossil record is not a sample of life, why a training corpus is not a sample of what was said, and what we are deleting
Stromer's Spinosaurus burned in Munich in 1944 and the species had to be reconstructed from drawings. A fossil record is not a sample of life and a training corpus is not a sample …
TAM_097
The New Prakrit
On what forms beneath a standard that is no longer a language
Ellis speaks the most carefully engineered register in working life, and forty words nobody outside his facility would understand. The old question was whether a vernacular can …