→ “Repo! The Genetic Opera” - There are just so many things wrong with this: She Who Must Not Be Named will be starring in a movie version of "Repo! The Genetic Opera", "set in 2056, when the human race is almost destroyed and survival depends on organ transplants." I might've actually been interested in seeing it if she weren't in it... (Who am I kidding? How could I not see a rock opera with that premise?) For additional info, see the website of the Broadway production. :/: 3 Comments &187;
→ Should we simplify spelling? - The Beeb pitted a spelling reform advocate against a linguist who is against such change. Spelling reform for English based on links between sounds and letters has to relate to a single accent... This disadvantages once again children with non-standard accents, say those who would naturally spell "bath" as "barf". It also cuts accents of English off from each other; a Londoner would not be able to read Geordie, a person from Sydney a letter from someone in Ottawa. The cost of any change would be astronomical. [While I like this quote, the real reason I excerpted it here is because it has an example of gapping in it :)] :/: No Comments »
→ Linguistics in a Primary School - Linguist Kristin Denham (Western Washington University) talks about bringing linguistics into a primary school setting. :/: No Comments »
→ “I’m not sure how I feel about prescriptivism when I’m the victim” - Dinosaur Comics, one of my favorite webcomics, takes a (hilarious) look at prescriptivism and precision of language. :/: 4 Comments &187;
→ On Serious Literature - SciFi legend Ursula Le Guin responds to Slate's implication that genre fiction is a "decaying corpse". A great (very) short story. :/: 2 Comments &187;
→ The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs - I know I'm about a year late on this, but I love Fake Steve Jobs. :/: No Comments »
→ Signs from God - A brief slide show on the cultural history of church signs :/: No Comments »
→ Email Bankruptcy - Got a backlog of email so bad you'll never get through it all? Declare email bankruptcy today! :/: No Comments »
→ Ok, here I go, I’m going to make this whole website right now on this dry-erase board. - (via Danny) :/: 3 Comments &187;
→ Go Meat! - I love Hillshire Farms' new tv ad campaign. It's just quirky enough to drive traffic to their website (gomeat.com - I mean, who *doesn't* want to see what that is?), but also manages to explain what the product is. Visit the site and click on "view the TV spots". :/: 1 Comment »
→ If telecommuting is so easy, why do we travel for work more than ever? - E-mail and mobile phones aren't substitutes for face-to-face contact at all [...] they are complements to it. From one of my favorite columns, The Undercover Economist. :/: No Comments »
→ Bahamavention - One of my favorite new ad campaigns, for Bahama vacations. Check out both the videos and the print ads on the site. :/: No Comments »
→ “Fritalian” - This is perhaps my favorite advertisement ever, part of the new "America Runs on Dunkin" campaign for Dunkin Donuts. Other videos from the campaign (all featuring music by They Might be Giants, and voiceovers by John Goodman!): "Alarm Clock Catastrophe" (another favorite), "Doin' Things Is What I Like To Do", "Job Interview", "Human Interest", "Get Your Eight Year Old Out Of A Tree", "Pleather", "A Ton Of Stuff", "Early Fishin'" :/: 3 Comments &187;
→ “Train” Global Warming Ad - I really like this tv ad, for fightglobalwarming.com . There's another one I saw a few days ago (perhaps not for the same website, but for an eco-friendly group) with a father talking to his son as he puts him to bed... If you know where I can find it, let me know. :/: No Comments »
→ The People Who Owned the Bible - An interesting little horror story about copyright (just in time for Halloween!) Danny sent me a few years ago. I found it when I was cleaning up the remnants of an old blog I used to keep. It's really worth the (short) read. :/: 1 Comment »
→ The Fix - Sho points me to the Washington Post's The Fix - very much like the Election Scorecard I talked about here. Be sure to check out the interactive Midterm Madness, which lets you visualize who controls the houses of Congress based on your picks for individual races. :/: 1 Comment »
→ Slate’s “Election Scorecard” - Just in time for the midterm elections, a website I've been hooked on for the last few weeks that outlines recent changes in polls. I especially like the "momentum meter". :/: No Comments »
→ ARRRstralopithicus - Why the newly-found Lucy-like Australopithecus Afarensis child might be strangely attractive to... a female pirate? [Note to non-linguists, "hyper-rhoticity" basically means that there are lots of Rs] :/: No Comments »
→ Red Hat should produce voting machines - At least, Luis Villa thinks so. I'm inclined to agree. :/: No Comments »
→ Why has the Ramsey case knocked the “real” news off the air? - This Salon.com columnist has an interesting take. And it mentions Karl Rove. On a side note, checking my favorite foreign news source (the BBC News website), the Ramsey case barely even gets a tiny link on the far side of the page. Not even a photo! :/: 4 Comments &187;