Vivian Maier, photographer

We learn the amazing story of Vivian Maier, a Chicago nanny who took more than 100,000 photos during her lifetime but never showed them to anyone. Now that she's gone and her photos have been discovered, some say she may rank among the top street photographers of the 20th century.

Samuel Sevian, 9, is youngest US national chess master

America on Wheels in Allentown

Have you wrapped your cat yet?

Remix a Classic Bob Dylan Track With Your Own Music [APPS]

Remix a Classic Bob Dylan Track With Your Own Music [APPS]

Sony’s giving users a chance to perform a remix of the classic “Subterranean Homesick Blues” by Bob Dylan, and whoever does the best job of re-creating the song wins a trip to South by Southwest in Austin in March.

Each of Dylan’s recorded tracks are separated for your mixing pleasure. Individual Dylan vocals, drums, electric guitar and bass lines, along with dozens of other tracks performed by various artists, can all be mixed together for a unique result.

The World: The last 200 years

Hans Rosling's famous lectures combine enormous quantities of public data with a sport's commentator's style to reveal the story of the world's past, present and future development. Now he explores stats in a way he has never done before - using augmented reality animation. In this spectacular section of 'The Joy of Stats' he tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers - in just four minutes. Plotting life expectancy against income for every country since 1810, Hans shows how the world we live in is radically different from the world most of us imagine.

William Shatner on William Shatner

A modern use of pen, ink and notebook

Save the Words

Here's your chance to adopt your very own word -- before it's gone forever! :-)

A very neat site.

Quoting from Kim Komando's website, that alerted me to this site:

"Today's Cool Site aims to keep our language alive. Appropriately, it is called Save the Words. It features a list of words being retired by the Oxford English Dictionary.
You can click on words to find out what they mean. If you like a word, you can "adopt" it. You're simply committing to use the word often.

Adoption does require a free registration. But you don't need to register to use a word, of course. Feel free to use or adopt as many words as you want.

Hopefully, the words you adopt will become celeberrimous (highly celebrated) and noscible (well-known) again!"

Click on the title bar to go to the website

Remember this one?

Perhaps the best Twilight Episode of all. Here's the ending.

Big Interest in Tiny Cars

Bob Dylan at Stabler Arena

My ticket stub

The reviewer from the Morning Call newspaper sums it up well:

mcall.com
Bob Dylan shows Stabler a whoppin' good time
Veteran rocker delivers a near masterpiece

By John J. Moser, OF THE MORNING CALL

8:14 PM EST, November 13, 2010
Advertisement

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.

The question is what made Bob Dylan, at 69 years old and having muddled through a mediocre show last summer at Allentown's Coca-Cola Park, put on a performance Friday at Bethlehem's Stabler Arena that was vital and exciting — a near masterpiece that was far better than anyone had a right to expect?

For 103 minutes, Dylan became an animated performer, broadly and intently gesturing as he stood at a microphone in front of the stage and sang — really sang, infusing his vocals with texture and emotion.

Or dancing as he added inspired flourishes on his keyboard. Or playing rich, inviting harmonica.

Dylan's five-piece backing band, again being led by guitar whiz Charlie Sexton, was just as good — crackling and tight, urgent and intuitive.

It wasn't that Dylan — playing his sixth show at Stabler; a record for the venue — changed his set that much from last year's show. Eight of Friday's 16 songs also were played at Coca-Cola Park. He simply played them much better.

Such was the case on the opening "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat," with which he also opened last year. In a wide-brimmed white hat, he twisted his shoulders and kicked his legs as he played keyboards; his singing and phrasing were animated.

And he only got better as he went along. He strapped on his guitar for a jaunty "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" and croaked and growled the lyrics, sometimes spitting out the words as he and Sexton — playing his guitar like a gunslinger or from his knees — dueled to a hootchie-cootchie finish.

The band was wonderfully expressive on "Just Like a Woman," and Dylan was at his playful best, pausing during each chorus to let the audience sing "just like a woman" before he did. He played his keyboard like a carousel calliope as Donnie Herron accompanied him on lap steel guitar.

Dylan played lead guitar and sang so well on "Simple Twist of Fate" that the audience spontaneously broke into applause mid-song.

And his singing was exceptional — that's a compliment you don't hear much these days — on "Summer Days." His voice reached high — also something you don't hear — to complement his keyboard playing.

But the highlight was "Tangled Up in Blue." In a spotlight at the front of the stage, Dylan performed his mid-career masterpiece as well as he ever has. He transformed it from a young man's searching to the studying, understanding and regret that comes with age.

But that was only the mid-point of the show. He followed with a nine-minute churning, burning, steamrolling "Highway 61 Revisited," yelling the lyrics and duck-walking at the piano.

And Dylan's voice was again wonderful on a shuffling, tender "Working Man Blues #2." As he sang, he pointed to the audience, reached out his hand like a carnival barker, or sang open-armed.

The requisite closer, "Like a Rolling Stone," was, of course, wonderful — both beat-heavy and chiming; Sexton's guitar swirling amid Dylan playing the familiar keyboard riff. It, too, became less a tale of spite and revenge than Dylan imparting knowledge: more knowing, less hurt, acceptance replacing bitterness.

Dylan went nearly the entire night without speaking to the mixed-age crowd of more than 3,000 people, finally saying, "Well, thank you," before the encore and playfully introducing his band members.

But throughout the night, his music spoke volumes to the people in the crowd. And they clearly understood – not just the songs' meanings, but that they were seeing something special at Stabler.

During yet another wonderfully voiced song, "Spirit on the Water," in mid-show, Dylan sang, "You think I'm over the hill."

"No!" the crowd roared back.

"Think I'm past my prime/Let me see what you got/We can have a whoppin' good time."

Friday was, indeed, a whopping good time. As good as you'll ever see Bob Dylan.

Copyright © 2010, The Morning Call

The Desk

Desk - Music and Sound Design from Aaron Trinder Film:Motion:Music on Vimeo.

Dick Miles, Record-Setting U.S. Table Tennis Player, Dies at 85

By BRUCE WEBER

Published: October 23, 2010

Miles had a powerful forehand and exceptional defensive skills, which helped him win a record-setting 10 national championships.

 

Dick Miles, right, with Erwin Kline in 1961. Miles was known for his strong forehand stroke.

 

One of the real greats in my sport. Click the title above to read the NY Times article.

Chess sets for the Jet Set

One of several terrific chess sets shown at the title link. This one uses the New York skyline as its inspiration.

iPhone or Android?

I've been going back and forth about which Smartphone to get. I kind of like this Android one:

10.10.10 -- Spaceship 2 (Enterprise) first glide flight

The President Speaks: Hear Obama Describe What Happened When Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney Performed at the White House

New archaeological discovery!

How Handwriting Trains the Brain

Click the title to read the WSJ article

Star Trek pizza cutter

Finally! Two of my favorite things, brought together!

Getting Dylan's autograph

Who knew it was that easy? Just walk around Las Vegas until you find Bob Dylan and ask him for his autograph. Simple!

Light painting with the iPad

Making Future Magic: iPad light painting from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

"There are lots of contenders for the killer app that’ll take the iPad to the next level, and we think light extrusion is currently near the top of the heap. Dentsu London has paired accelerometer-based software with long exposure/stop-motion photographs to take 3D renderings into real space, with a result that reminds us of the Graffiti Research Lab."

The pen that never forgets

"To refresh her memory, Dervishaj pulled out her math notebook. But her class notes were not great: she had copied several sample problems but hadn’t written a clear explanation of how exponents work.

She didn’t need to. Dervishaj’s entire grade 7 math class has been outfitted with “smart pens” made by Livescribe, a start-up based in Oakland, Calif. The pens perform an interesting trick: when Dervishaj and her classmates write in their notebooks, the pen records audio of whatever is going on around it and links the audio to the handwritten words. If her written notes are inadequate, she can tap the pen on a sentence or word, and the pen plays what the teacher was saying at that precise point.

Dervishaj showed me how it works, flipping to her page of notes on exponents and tapping a set of numbers in the middle of the page. Out of a tiny speaker in the thick, cigar-shaped pen, I could hear her teacher, Brian Licata, explaining that precise problem. “It’s like having your own little personal teacher there, with you at all times,” Dervishaj said."

Click on the title to read the entire article and see a graphic

10 Things You Should Know About J.R.R. Tolkien

"As a linguist and expert on Old English and Old Norse literature, Tolkien was a tenured professor at Oxford University from 1925 until 1959. He was also a tireless instructor, teaching between 70 and 136 lectures a year (his contract only called for 36). But the best part is the way he taught those classes. Although quiet and unassuming in public, Tolkien wasn’t the typical stodgy, reserved stereotype of an Oxford don in the classroom. He was known to begin classes by barging into the lecture hall, sometimes in era-appropriate chain mail armor, and bellowing the opening lines of Beowulf at the top of his lungs. As one of his students put it, “He could turn a lecture room into a mead hall.”"

mental_floss Blog » 10 Things You Should Know About J.R.R. Tolkien

WWII memory

My father, Alan Haase, took part in the Battle of the Bulge in the Second World War. Like most veterans, it -- or the war in general -- wasn't something he talked about much.


One of the few photos of my dad -- on the right -- from World War II
(unfortunately, I don't know the identity of his buddy)

Occasionally he'd tell me an amusing story, like the time in basic training when he hid out from a training march, so that he could return to the barracks and catch some extra sleep. Unfortunately for him, another unit decided to use the barracks for tear-gas training that day.

Or the semi-amusing story of the 'brass' misplacing his unit for six months, where they lived in a muddy field in England -- prior to the D-Day invasion -- in two-man pup tents. They all got trench foot. I believe this story arose when he was trying to explain to me as a young boy that our 'camping' trip would take place in a motorhome, not a tent.

Or he'd tell me a bit of the romance he had with a girl in Belgium.

But it took my asking my godfather, years after my father died, to tell me a little about their mutual best friend Norman Witte (whom my godfather served with in the 10th Mountain Division and who died in the initial assault of Mt. Belvedere in the Italian Alps) -- and whose name I proudly bear.

Being in Patton's 3rd army, and in the medical corps, I can only imagine what my dad -- and millions more like him -- saw and endured. It's no wonder so few of them want to relive the horrors of that time.

My mind was reminded of all this tonight, as I came across this brief remembrance from the Battle of the Bulge from a veteran named Joseph Robertson.

Federer's Footwork: Artful and Efficient

An interesting visual look at Roger Federer's footwork -- with an accompanying article.

Da Shatner Funk

I had to repost this video of the Shatman. It shows him driving a race car at about 160 MPH, sometime in his 70's (he's 79 now).

NASA releases cache of great photos on Flickr

My Captain...forever! :-)

Click the title bar to read the NY Times Magazine article about William Shatner.

Steve Jobs and the importance of calligraphy

Steve Jobs' Stanford commencement address in 2005. He talks about the importance of calligraphy in his life, starting at about the 3:30 mark of the video.

My fitness plan

I thought you'd be interested in seeing my daily workout. I'm up first, followed by my brother and nephew.

Ultraviolet light reveals how ancient Greek statues really looked

"Original Greek statues were brightly painted, but after thousands of years, those paints have worn away. Find out how shining a light on the statues can be all that's required to see them as they were thousands of years ago."



Click the title bar to see more images and to read the article

'Talking' Ping Pong Balls

No corkscrew? No problem!

Better busy than doing nothing, scientist proves

The secret to happiness is keeping busy, research has found. 

"Keeping the mind occupied with tasks - no matter how meaningless - staves off negative emotions, the study found. 

However, the bad news is that humans seem hard-wired to be lazy in order to save energy, according to Professor Christopher Hsee, a behavioural scientist at Chicago University.'

In a study 98 students were asked to complete two survey. After they had completed the first they were made to wait 15 minutes to receive the next one.

They were given a choice of either handing in the first survey nearby or at a more distant location they had to walk to. Whichever option they chose, they received a chocolate bar.

Two-thirds (68 per cent) chose the lazy option.

Those who had taken the walk reported feeling happier than those who had stayed put.
Prof Hsee concluded keeping busy helped keep people happy.

He said the findings, reported in the journal Psychological Science, had policy implications.
"Governments may increase the happiness of idle citizens by having them build bridges that are actually useless", he proposed.

At the individual level, he advised: "Get up and do something. Anything. Even if there really is no point to what you are doing, you will feel better for it."

He added: "Incidentally, thinking deeply or engaging in self-reflection counts as keeping busy, too.

"You do not need to be running around, – you just need to be engaged, either physically or mentally."

The academic revealed he had tested the principle by getting a research assistant to carry out pointless tasks.
"I know this is not particularly ethical, but he is happy," he said."

 

Bath entrepreneur 'holds the key' to internet security

A Bath entrepreneur has been selected to safeguard the future of internet security across the world.

"Paul Kane - who lives in the Bradford-on-Avon area - has been chosen to look after one of seven keys, which will 'restart the world wide web' in the event of a catastrophic event.



Paul Kane on the right

Mr Kane, based at the University of Bath's SETsquared Innovation Centre, will be the key holder for Western Europe.

Six other people from across the globe have also been asked to look after a key.


In the event of a security breach - such as a terrorist attack - Mr Kane may be required to travel to a secure location in the US.

Here he will meet five other key holders, to recover the master signing key."

Universal translator?

Long live the Chevette

Image via Wikipedia

My first car finally made it onto a Time magazine list! Unfortunately, it's the 50 Worst Cars of All Time list.

Actually, we were a Chevette family. My father had a yellow one like that pictured. I had a tan one. My mother had a powder blue one, which I inherited after mine became a Flinstonemobile (the floor underneath the pedals rusted out and went away in short order). Even my then-girlfriend purchased one in turquoise (the relationship didn't last long...and the Chevette might have been a contributing factor).

I'm not sure of this after all of these years, but I believe the car cost $1600.00 new. I do remember that the speedometer topped out at 80 MPH.

"I include the Chevy Chevette only to note that even the most unloved and unlovely cars have their partisans. There are Pacer fan clubs and Yugo fan clubs, and if there is a Chevette fan club, let it begin with me. My girlfriend in college had a diaper-brown Chevette three-door hatchback, as bare bones as an exhibit at the natural history museum. It had a 51-hp engine and a four-speed manual transmission and not much else. It was loud and it was tinny, but we drove that car across the country three times and it never failed us. Once I got a 85-mph speeding ticket in it. That was on the down slope of the Appalachians, but still. The last time I saw that Chevette it was still plugging along. Vaya con Dios, old paint."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1658545_1658533_1658523,00.html#ixzz0vPte9l5B

Pilot Handwriting

Image via Wikipedia

 

Pilot Pen has created a free method for you to turn your handwriting into your own computer font. See the video here. The site also has a grid for you to download, to write your handwritten letters and numbers into, which you can then post back to the site by either capturing with a scanner or webcam! Their software then converts your handwritten characters into your own personal font. Pretty neat.  

 

So, the Pilot 78G fountain pen isn't the only great thing from the company. :-)

 Click on Pilot Handwriting above to go to the website.

Incredible shrinking proton raises eyebrows - physics-math - 07 July 2010 - New Scientist

Incredible shrinking proton raises eyebrows - physics-math - 07 July 2010 - New Scientist

Bobby Fischer Is Exhumed

"The remains of Bobby Fischer, the American chess champion, were exhumed Sunday night in the cemetery of Laugardaelir Church in Iceland, according to a report in The Reykjavik Grapevine.


The exhumation was ordered to see if Fischer is the father of nine-year-old Filipino girl as part of a fight over his estate."

Further details here.

Declaration of Independence

Goof Appears in Declaration of Independence

"With one smudge of a feathered fountain pen back in 1776, American
history changed forever." 

 

 

Of course, Jefferson didn't write with a fountain pen -- feathered or otherwise! :-)

 

 Read the details by clicking on the title bar

 

Travel: Channeling His Inner Hound

Japan’s Far Right Blocks Screenings of ‘The Cove’

Image by TheMattKid via Flickr

Japan’s Far Right Blocks Screenings of ‘The Cove’
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Published: June 18, 2010



The Oscar-winning documentary depicts dolphin hunting in Japan in a way that has angered fringe groups.

Linda Schurman on Coast-to-Coast AM with George Noory

My long-time friend Linda Schurman (I used to babysit her son when I was about 13...so a few years ago!), is a world-renowned astrologer.

I just listened to her latest guest appearance on the #1 radio show in America, Coast-to-Coast AM with George Noory. Linda once again did a fantastic job and I wanted to link to her website, The Soothesayer and new book What Next: A Survival Guide to the 21st Century.





Whether you subscribe to astrology or not, Linda's book is a captivating read, and spends a fair amount of time on economic conditions planet-wide...a subject that she's made something of a study over the past 40 years.

Personally, I can attest to the veracity of her astrological predictions, as many years ago she foresaw that I would turn out to be an extremely intelligent and devastatingly handsome member of my species. I think she was talking about homo sapiens.

What Is I.B.M.’s Watson?

“Toured the Burj in this U.A.E. city. They say it’s the tallest tower in the world; looked over the ledge and lost my lunch.”

"This is the quintessential sort of clue you hear on the TV game show “Jeopardy!” It’s witty (the clue’s category is “Postcards From the Edge”), demands a large store of trivia and requires contestants to make confident, split-second decisions. This particular clue appeared in a mock version of the game in December, held in Hawthorne, N.Y. at one of I.B.M.’s research labs. Two contestants — Dorothy Gilmartin, a health teacher with her hair tied back in a ponytail, and Alison Kolani, a copy editor — furrowed their brows in concentration. Who would be the first to answer?

Neither, as it turned out. Both were beaten to the buzzer by the third combatant: Watson, a supercomputer."

Read the entire NY Times article by clicking on the title bar.

Daily affirmations

Now this is the way to start the day! I'm not sure about climbing up on the sink though.

Raygun Gothic Rocket Fuses Sci-Fi and Art

Classical? Music

Steal This Ebook: Let’s run an experiment and see if piracy is harmful to sales.

An interesting approach to generating buzz and possible book sales.

Baby sloths...awwwwww

Meet the sloths from Amphibian Avenger on Vimeo.

Pixel's Revenge timelapse showreel

Pixel's Revenge timelapse showreel from David Coiffier on Vimeo.

Michelangelo's secret message in the Sistine Chapel: A juxtaposition of God and the human brain

"At the age of 17 he began dissecting corpses from the church graveyard. Between the years 1508 and 1512 he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Michelangelo Buonarroti—known by his first name the world over as the singular artistic genius, sculptor and architect—was also an anatomist, a secret he concealed by destroying almost all of his anatomical sketches and notes. Now, 500 years after he drew them, his hidden anatomical illustrations have been found—painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, cleverly concealed from the eyes of Pope Julius II and countless religious worshipers, historians, and art lovers for centuries—inside the body of God."



Read the rest of the article by clicking on the title bar for Scientific American

Scientists in the US have succeeded in developing the first synthetic living cell

"The researchers constructed a bacterium's "genetic software" and transplanted it into a host cell.



The resulting microbe then looked and behaved like the species "dictated" by the synthetic DNA.

The advance, published in Science, has been hailed as a scientific landmark, but critics say there are dangers posed by synthetic organisms.

The researchers hope eventually to design bacterial cells that will produce medicines and fuels and even absorb greenhouse gases.

Craig Venter defends the synthetic living cell

The team was led by Dr Craig Venter of the J Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) in Maryland and California."

Gorilla School: Damian Aspinall's Extraordinary Gorilla Encounter

Spock beams down to Vulcan, Alberta, Canada

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Spock comes home.

TVKim- Watching: Kim's Picks- A 12-year-old's flash of genius

TVKim- Watching: Kim's Picks- A 12-year-old's flash of genius

Posted using ShareThis

Mercury high in Japanese town that hunts dolphins

May 9, 10:11 AM (ET)

By JAY ALABASTER

TAIJI, Japan (AP) - "Residents of the dolphin-hunting village depicted in Oscar documentary "The Cove" have dangerously high mercury levels, likely because of their fondness for dolphin and whale meat, a government lab said Sunday.

The levels of mercury detected in Taiji residents were above the national average, but follow-up tests have found no ill effects, according to the National Institute for Minamata Disease. The tests were done on hair samples from 1,137 volunteers of the town's roughly 3,500 residents.
"The results suggest there is a connection between hair mercury levels and eating cetaceans," Director Koji Okamoto told reporters at town hall.

Mercury accumulates up the food chain, so large predators such as dolphins, tuna and swordfish tend to have the highest levels. The latest studies published by the Japanese government show that meat from bottlenose dolphins had about 1,000 times the mercury content of that from sardines."

Read the entire article by clicking on the title bar

Neanderthal genome reveals interbreeding with humans

Image via Wikipedia

"How closely are Neanderthals related to us?

They are so closely related that some researchers group them and us as a single species. "I would see them as a form of humans that are bit more different than humans are today, but not much," says Svante Pääbo, a palaeogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, whose team sequenced the Neanderthal genome."

Breaking News: Series Of Concentric Circles Emanating From Glowing Red Dot

Breaking News: Series Of Concentric Circles Emanating From Glowing Red Dot

184-year-old Adams letter found

"A letter written by President John Quincy Adams about burial plans for his father and mother was rediscovered in the basement of Quincy City Hall."



Read more by clicking on the title

More from Eyjafjallajokull

"As ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano continued to keep European airspace shut down over the weekend, affecting millions of travelers around the world, some government agencies and airlines clashed over the flight bans."



One of the spectacular photos of the volcano. Click on the title to see more.

Collector’s ink hobby draws pen customers

Click on the title to read the article about Robert Bradford and Bradford Ink.

How you should take pen to paper, and why

How you should take pen to paper, and why

By EDWARD A. IANNUCCILLI

"I fell in love with fountain pens when Miss Casey taught us penmanship in the third grade. My penmanship was just promising — my letters were small, did not slant enough, and hugged the bottom line, never quite reaching the one above."

Read the article in its entirety here.

Duplicity

A quote from the movie 'Duplicity', spoken by Paul Giamatti as the character Richard Garsik: "Who writes with a fountain pen? How friggin' pretentious is that?" :-)

How a mosquito operates - Winsor McCay

A bit long for our modern sensibilities, but this must have been amazing for 1912!

Table tennis mittens

Finally, what we've all been waiting for...table tennis mittens!



See them in action by clicking the title

Next Big Thing in English: Knowing They Know That You Know

Haskins Laboratories
An M.R.I. of a brain highlighting areas used during reading.

"Why do we read fiction? Why do we care so passionately about nonexistent characters? What underlying mental processes are activated when we read?"

Click the title bar to read about this fascinating study

How your brain remembers the future

"IT'S like remembering the future. Our brain generates predictions of likely visual inputs so it can focus on dealing with the unexpected.

Predictable sights trigger less brain activity than unfamiliar stimuli, bolstering the view that the brain is not merely reactive, but generates predictions based on the recent past. "The brain expects to see things and really just wants to confirm it now and again," says Lars Muckli at the University of Glasgow, UK."

Click the title to read the full article

Cars vs. cosmic rays

Luis Alvarez / AP
Electrical consultant Antony Anderson holds up an electronic chip from an
acceleration pedal assembly during a news conference at the National Press Club
in Washington to discuss Toyota's sudden acceleration problems.

"Could cosmic rays affect electronics here on Earth? Yes, absolutely. Could cosmic rays be what's causing the mysterious accelerator problems in Toyota cars? Maybe. That's one of the reasons why a NASA engineering team has been called in to assist in a federal investigation."

Click the title bar to read the full article

The day the Earth froze: An hour-long storm started a mini ice age

"An hour-long hailstorm from space bombarded the Earth 13,000 years ago - plunging the planet into a mini-ice age, scientists claimed today.

The catastrophe was caused by a disintegrating comet and saw the planet sprayed by thousands of frozen boulders made of ice and dust.



The collisions wiped out huge numbers of animal species all over the world, disrupted the lives of our stone age ancestors and triggered a freeze that lasted more than 1,000 years."

Read more by clicking the title bar

HOW DOES OUR LANGUAGE SHAPE THE WAY WE THINK?

By Lera Boroditsky

"For a long time, the idea that language might shape thought was considered at best untestable and more often simply wrong. Research in my labs at Stanford University and at MIT has helped reopen this question. We have collected data around the world: from China, Greece, Chile, Indonesia, Russia, and Aboriginal Australia. What we have learned is that people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how we see the world. Language is a uniquely human gift, central to our experience of being human. Appreciating its role in constructing our mental lives brings us one step closer to understanding the very nature of humanity."

Being married to a someone from Hong Kong and a woman, I can attest to the conclusion above. :-)

Read the rest of this fascinating study by clicking on the title above.

A lovely voice

While watching/listening to Bob Dylan videos on YouTube earlier this week, I found this lovely cover version of "Make You Feel My Love", by a young Irish woman named Kiera Dignam. Although she's using primitive accompaniment for this video, that makes the voice that shines through even more impressive.



I wrote to her to express my appreciation, but also to request that she record 'Fields of Gold' (I had linked Eva Cassidy's version on my mother's memorial website), and Kiera was happy to oblige. Although she's in a band, I'd love to hear her with appropriate accompaniment!

Presidential signing pens

Many people were fascinated by the ritual of President Obama's signing of the healthcare bill (politics aside). He used 22 pens to sign his name (which is why his signature is far from 'free-flowing')!

The pens appear to be Cross Townsend rollerballs.

Neptune may have eaten a planet and stolen its moon

"NEPTUNE may have polished off a super-Earth that once roamed the outer solar system and stolen its moon to boot. The brutal deed could explain mysterious heat radiating from the icy planet and the odd orbit of its moon Triton."

Virgin Galactic spaceship makes first test flight

(Reuters)
"The sleek, six-passenger ship, called VSS Enterprise, remained attached to its carrier aircraft throughout the two-hour, 54-minute flight.



Virgin Galactic, an offshoot of billionaire Richard Branson's London-based Virgin Group, has collected about $45 million in deposits and fares from more than 330 aspiring amateur astronauts, each of whom will be charged $200,000 to experience a few minutes of suborbital spaceflight."

Image via Wikipedia

Click the title to read the full article

2010 Winter Paralympics

Take a look at more stunning photos here.

Ping Pong song

The Cove

I wasn't really aware of this documentary until it won the Oscar last week. It's going to be very difficult for me to watch.

Fields of Gold

Beautiful photos, a beautiful song (by Sting), sung by a beautiful artist...the late Eva Cassidy.

Sheaffer Pen Commercial Vivian Vance 1950's

A Medal for Dylan From the White House

Image via Wikipedia

A Medal for Dylan From the White House
Compiled by Dave Itzkoff

The White House continues to pay tribute to Bob Dylan, right, in every way it knows how — whether or not Mr. Dylan is there to receive the honor. On Thursday, two weeks after he appeared in the East Room as part of a concert to commemorate Black History Month, Mr. Dylan was named one of 12 recipients of the National Medal of Arts, only this time he was not in attendance.