Interesting Links and News - Jan 20

The abbreviation, Statement of Work, appeared in an email I received today. Decided to know more about it and landed right on Wikipedia.

25 commandements for journalists from Tim Radford, former Guardian science editor, letters editor, arts editor and literary editor. Excellent stuff.

"Mobile number portability (MNP), which allows customers to switch service providers without changing their cell number, will be available across India from Thursday (January 20)," says The Telegraph daily. The question is who will gain the most if people change their service providers in large numbers. "More than one out of six mobile phone subscribers (17.6%) want to switch over to another telecom company," says The Hindustan Times. Business Standard says that if the service providers tweak their plans, customers may be the winners.

I wonder what will happen if the same is done for DTH services. Because DTH subscribers are the most unhappy lot, compared to mobile subscribers.

Deadly Congo fever virus surfaces in India, reports The Telegraph. The Indian Express says, "A six-member team from the National Centre for Disease Control...will visit Gujarat to investigate the prevalence of Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic fever (CCHF)."

Accelerated melting of sea-ice over the coming decades will release more mercury into the environment, says a study. At present, the absence of sunlight prevents the chemical degradation of the heavy metal element.

Understanding Poetry: A Basic Checklist

A poem can be understood by trying to answer the following: who, what, when, where, and why. But it is wise to keep in mind the following to understand it fully:

Title: Understand the link between the title of the poem and the poem itself.

Speaker or character: Identify the speaker or the characters mentioned in the poem.

Setting: Find out the setting in which the poem is based on.

Situation: Understand the situation the speaker is in and its relevance to the poem.

Words: Understand the meaning of all the words in the poem, repetitions of words, punctuation, unusual expressions, capitalisation etc.

Form: The form in which the poem is written and whether it changes or develops into some other form.

Theme: The subject of or the idea behind the poem and the experience it tends to evoke, or the message it seeks to convey.

Imagery: Note the words that indicate or describe the auditory, visual, tactile, taste, smell, and movement in the poem and their contribution to the meaning or the poem itself.

Figures of Speech: Identify the type of figure of speech used. This includes simile, metaphor, paradox, personification, synecdoche (a part standing for the whole), metonymy (one standing for another), pun, hyperbole, irony, symbols etc.

An Act for Plain Writing

If you have read official documents released by the central government or the state governments in India, you will know the pain. The writing in such documents is characterised by ambiguos, lengthy, and wordy sentences. "Officialese" is the name given to such kind of writing. The same applies to legal documents also.

Now, the US government has decided to do something about obscure writing. The Plain Writing Act of 2010 seeks to etsbalish that "Government documents issued to the public must be written clearly, and for other purposes."

Interestingly, the act defines "plain writing" as "writing that is clear, concise, well-organized, and follows other best practices appropriate to the subject or field and intended audience." So, plain writing gets legal approval. Technical writers beware!

Traitorware and privacy

Traitorware are "devices that act behind your back to betray your privacy, says the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It actually got me thinking about my new smartphone, which may be leaking or accessing information to someone. Dangerous times ahead, as I started reading Web Photos That Reveal Secrets, Like Where You Live.

Meanwhile, I have to check my location security settings and disable it. That is my New Year resolution.