@johnefrancis this one is heading straight for our family land near #Parrsboro. My aunt is there. Luckily we are high up but nervous about how badly the beach/shore will look.
In the last 16 hours on Mastodon I've seen a person who is an expert in cave insects, someone else who posts about moss/slime molds, and a STEM educator who takes a planetarium around remote towns in the US.
Confession time: While I always respected the late #Canadian troubador #GordonLightfoot, I never dove into his discography. What songs (with links if possible) will make me weep, with joy or sorrow? Thanks. #music
I'm fascinated by the Inuit-Yupik-Unangan languages in Alaska, Canada and Greenland. There are many of these languages: they ring much of the Arctic Ocean. I just learned that they use a base 20 system for numbers, with a 'sub-base' of 5. That is, quantities are counted in scores (twenties) with intermediate numerals for 5, 10, and 15. This makes a lot of sense if you look at your fingers and toes.
But the Inuit didn't have a written form of their number system - until the early 1990s, when high school students in the town of Kaktovik, Alaska invented one! There were just 9 students at this small school, and they all joined in.
They used 5 principles:
• Visual simplicity: The symbols should be easy to remember.
• Iconicity: There should be a clear relationship between the symbols and their meanings.
• Efficiency: It should be easy to write the symbols without lifting the pencil from the paper.
• Distinctiveness: There should be no confusion between this system and Arabic numerals.
• Aesthetics: They should be pleasing to look at.
They decided that the symbol for zero should look like crossed arms, meaning that nothing was being counted.
@johncarlosbaez I boosted your post before realising your following post contained a racial slur. I cannot figure out how to unboost so I can only ask you to please edit the E word out of your post. Thank you. (Inuk Mom)
