Wicked Shiny Official
# Thu Apr 20 10:24:41 A great Ask Meta thread for those trying to keep up with the cool rad tight fresh phat cool words on the street. Thanks to the "miraculous preservative powers of irony", you probably don't come off as lame-sounding to kids as your elders did to you.
This and That
Tackling the language issues of gay/straight marriage
Love in the blogosphere - congrats Leonard and Sumana!
# Wed Apr 19 22:24:43 Best book cover, ever
Hidden Apple Poetry
Score: 10 out of 10 for style, minus several million for thinking you can rhyme "great" with "pirate".
# Fri Feb 17 09:09:31 Apple hid this bit of poetry inside OS X:
Your karma check for today:
There once was a user that whined
his existing OS was so blind,
he'd do better to pirate
an OS that ran great
but found his hardware declined.
Please don't steal Mac OS!
Really, that's way uncool.
(C) Apple Computer, Inc.
Roses of the Prophet Muhammad
Thus, Republican lawmakers decree that French Fries shall be known as Freedom Fries. In Iran, Danish Pastries become Roses of the Prophet Muhammad.
Who knew they would have so much in common?
Meanwhile, regular people just want to eat:
Could you serve an entire meal made up of such name-changed food? Roses, Freedom Fries, Victory Cabbage... what else?
# Fri Feb 17 08:55:11 When you are deep in the process of hating a country, even the mere mention of their name in an entirely different context can cause the insecure great unrest. Behold the power of words!
"I just want the sweet pastries. I have nothing to do with the name," homemaker Zohreh Masoumi told the sales clerk taking her order.
Peer Review
Via the fabulous Miss Snark who will spare no feelings in advising you on all matters related to finding and keeping an agent.
# Fri Feb 10 10:29:28 Are you an aspiring writer who wants a review of a chapter/idea/query letter, but lacking heartless honest friends or family up to the task? Try the Crapometer, if you dare.
Aargh!
# Tue Jan 10 14:32:16 How does your spelling of Arrghh! compare with the rest of the world?
WTF, LOL, ETC
# Wed Nov 23 11:26:30 An amusing exercise:
If, in some bizarre alternate history, chatspeak abbreviations like “LOL” had become popular long before there were computers and character sets, they might have, over time, become new symbols, like “et” became “&” and “at” became “@”. What might they look like?
Language is a Virus
# Fri Jul 08 23:53:59 Language is a Virus - online writing toys, games and gizmos. Have fun :)
Grace Lin and Rosemary Wells in Portland, Maine
Rosemary Wells gave a short talk. Her work process is interesting - she sets up a storyboard of however many pages the book will be. Then she prints out the story and cuts and pastes the words where she think they will go on each page. Then she paints the pictures. Then she goes back and takes words away - since the pictures will now tell part of the story, some of the words are no longer needed. It makes sense, but I never thought about working that way.
Of course, with some of my pictures, I'd probably have to add more words in to explain the drawings ;)
# Mon May 09 23:55:59 This past Saturday there was a "children's literature festival" in Portland, Maine. It was a good place to go on such a cold, rainy "spring" day. Along with a roomful of local authors and illustrators, they also had two of my current favorite authors, Grace Lin and Rosemary Wells. They have different styles, but I enjoy both of their works. I got to speak briefly with Grace Lin while she signed a book, and some local kids put on a play based on "The Ugly Vegetable Garden".
English As A Secondary Language
# Mon Mar 28 17:16:46 A new law enacted for parts of Ireland outlaws English on road signs, maps and official documents.
The new law says the government-run Ordnance Survey mapping agency must use only Gaelic names in the Gaeltacht area. The law does not apply to independent producers of maps, although they are expected to follow the policy.
Really, I expect independent mapmakers will produce maps with both languages for all the tourists? What is their incentive to do otherwise?
Music Listings Mr. Roboto
# Mon Mar 28 11:42:33 Ryan has "totally just invented the best format for music, ever". Excerpt:
Used Cars, Used Books, Used Clothes
I have modified my behavior along these lines when it comes to buying children's clothing. Certain brands have a very good used resell value on eBay. So, I am more likely pay a bit more than expected to pick up clothing from one of these brands, knowing that I can make up the difference (and possibly even do better) by reselling the clothes later.
# Thu Mar 17 15:08:38 An intersting question posed by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, at his ETECH talk
On Amazon, a used book and a new book are the same number of clicks away. The market for used cars means you can charge more for new cars, because of the resale value. Is this true of books? It's true of text-books in that you'll pay more for a textbook because you know you can sell it back at the end of the term. Will it be true of all books?
I think this could become partially true for books - certainly buying a used book via Amazon adds a lot of transparacy to the process, which is critical to gaining a critical mass of buyers. But I think you also have to factor in other habits of book buyers. If I buy a book and really like it, I would probably want to hold on to it - to re-read, cite from, lend to friends, etc. - instead of resell it. On the other hand, knowing that I could easily recoup a good percentage of my purchase price might make me more willing to buy more books experimentally, knowing I can dump the ones I didn't like or liked but not enough to go back to again and again. Or, I could just keep going to the library to get books :)
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