Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Arts Journal

Can Literature Give You Hope?

“When reading about the feeling of hopefulness in a novel, it can become an almost tangible thing, perhaps made out of the fiber of the pages you’re turning, or housed within the blackness of the ink used to print the words you’re reading. And hope can often be easier to hang on to in literature than in real life, where it might feel ephemeral, intangible, and unsteady. And now, more than ever, hope takes work.”

Smartphones And Siri Don’t Understand Icelandic, And That Has Icelanders Really Worried

The 1,200-year-old language isn’t among the many options available on smartphones, virtual assistants, voice-activated devices, and even many computers – and with a small base of speakers (fewer than 350,000), Silicon Valley has little reason to spend money to add Icelandic. The worry: “The less useful Icelandic becomes in people’s daily life, the closer we as a nation get to the threshold of giving up its use.”
 

No comments: