I couldn’t pass this post up by Joane Jacobs who got it from Kitchen Table Math on the Jargon-Omatic. The Jargon-Omatic helps you convert regular language into edu-speak so that you can talk to policymakers and eduwonks in their own language. Now, if this only came in the form of a small fish to insert in my ear (ala Douglas Adams) or like this real online version of the Babelfish or if I could buy it off the rack in an Ipod Version, I might have the necessary tool to help kids by influencing the creation of sensible public education policy.
Just for your own knowledge, this from wikipedia:
| “ | The Babel fish is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. | ” |
Life — a website to translate languages across the globe — Imitates Art – a plot device to facilitate intergalactic communication, that Imitates Life — Closed captioning for the hearing impaired. Now that is truly 21 century thinking at work.
