From Abenaki to Xhosa, Hmong to Hungarian – Word2Word provides a huge database of links to free online language courses.
An essential bookmark for anyone considering another language.
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The Senseless Censorship of Swearing
Expanding on concepts from his latest book, The Stuff of Thought, Steven Pinker discusses swearing and the superfluous censorship of today’s media.
[S]wearing is not just a puzzle in cognitive neuroscience. It has figured in the most-famous free-speech cases of the past century, from Ulysses and Lady Chatterley to those of Lenny Bruce and George Carlin. Over the decades, the courts have steadily driven government censors into a precarious redoubt. In 1978, the Supreme Court, ruling on a daytime broadcast of Carlin’s “Filthy Words” monologue, allowed the Federal Communications Commission to regulate “indecency” on broadcast radio and television during the hours when children were likely to be listening. The rationale, based on rather quaint notions of childhood and of modern media, was that over-the-air broadcasts are uninvited intruders into the home and can expose children to indecent language, harming their psychological and moral development.
Previously: Pinker on swearing in civilised societies.
via Link Banana
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Time’s 100 Best Novels: 1923–2005
2005 saw Time produce a list of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923.
There are some greats there, but I’ve read embarassingly few of these: at least it’s giving me more material to add to my ever-expanding reading list.
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The Journey of North Pacific Pollution
The North Pacific Gyre is the ocean current vortex responsible for transporting huge amounts of pollution into the ocean from the land alond the Pacific coastline.
In this Greenpeace animation, we can see how trash moves around the Pacific over a 6-year period, eventually accumulating as the Pacific’s ‘trash carpet’.
It’s also worth noting that this so-called ‘trash carpet’ is estimated to now be the size of Texas, and in these areas the surface water contains six times more plastic that plankton biomass.
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World War II Posters
Ridiculous, shocking, hilarious, offensive: just some of the many adjectives you could use to describe these excellent World War II posters.
She may look clean—but
Pick-ups
“Good-time” girls
Prostitutes
Spread syphilis and gonorrheaYou can’t beat the Axis if you get VD
Always good advice!
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Overcoming Stigma with Personal Incentives
Elizabeth Pisani, author of The Wisdom of Whores, writes about HIV from various perspectives: social, scientific, and political. In a recent article she notes how personal incentives are enough to overcome the stigma of HIV-infection.
Malawi is suspending its payments to HIV-infected civil servants because so many uninfected people are trying to cash in. A third of Malawi’s 120,000 civil servants have registered as HIV positive. That puts HIV prevalence among government workers at twice the national rate of 14 percent.
It reminds me of stories that surfaced in China when the government started providing free schooling for the kids of people with HIV. China being China, it wasn’t long before there was a secondary market in HIV-infected blood.
Stigma exists because we allow it to, because we reinforce it by tiptoeing around it. The bulldozer of personal incentives can break through stigma in exactly the same way as it can break through corruption, poor productivity and other areas of human endeavour. If we have to bribe our way into greater openness about HIV, why not?
via Chris Blattman
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Storing Fruit and Vegetables Correctly
Unsure what fruit and vegetables emit ethylene when they ripen? Wondering whether or not broccoli should be stored in the refrigerator or in a cool, dry place? You need Divine Caroline’s food storage cheatsheet. Never again will you store onions and potatoes together or be bewildered when it comes to correct fresh food storage.
Storing fresh produce is a little more complicated than you might think. If you want to prevent spoilage, certain foods shouldn’t be stored together at all, while others that we commonly keep in the fridge should actually be left on the countertop. To keep your produce optimally fresh (and cut down on food waste), use this handy guide.
via Lifehacker
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Colin Powell on Muslim-Americans
This past weekend saw Colin Powell endorse Barack Obama for president on NBC’s Meet the Press.
However, the most important and touching part of his speech came when he discussed Muslim-Americans:
Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion that he is a Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.
I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture, at the tail end of this photo essay, was of a mother at Arlington Cemetery and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone, and it gave his awards – Purple Heart, Bronze Star – showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death, he was 20 years old. And then at the very top of the head stone, it didn’t have a Christian cross. It didn’t have a Star of David. It had a crescent and star of the Islamic faith.
And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan. And he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was fourteen years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he could serve his country and he gave his life.
via Link Banana
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A Capitalist Manifesto and Capitalist Values
“The financial crisis is not the crisis of capitalism. It is the crisis of a system that has distanced itself from the most fundamental values of capitalism, which betrayed the spirit of capitalism.” – Nicolas Sarkozy
Two excellent articles on the future of capitalism:
A Capitalist Manifesto, Judy Shelton for The Wall Street Journal
What are the basic principles that we can forge together toward this “true capitalism” […], this market economy that utilizes the power of genuine competition to serve the needs of individual producers and consumers? It is a capitalism that accords primacy to the entrepreneur — that compensates hard work, innovative solutions, stalwart commitment and personal discipline. The values that define the character of individuals should find expression in the policies that underpin the legitimacy of governments. Honest capitalism requires the following…
Traditional Capitalist Values, Eliezer Yudkowsky for Overcoming Bias
Making money is a virtuous endeavor, despite all the lies that have been told about it, and should properly be found in the company of other virtues. Those who set out to make money should not think of themselves as fallen, but should rather conduct themselves with honor, pride, and self-respect, as part of the grand pageantry of human civilization rising up from the dirt, and continuing forward into the future.
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The Economics of Faith
When a recent survey found that 44% of adults have switched their religious affiliation, the Christian church realised that it has a bad case of declining “brand loyalty”. Now, in order to combat this, they have started to employ “mystery worshippers”.
The Wall Street Journal profiles Thomas Harrison, a mystery worshipper, and uncovers the strange—yet profitable—world of spiritual consumerism.
Mr. Harrison belongs to a new breed of church consultants aiming to equip pastors with modern marketing practices. Pastors say mystery worshippers like Mr. Harrison offer insight into how newcomers judge churches. […] In an increasingly diverse and fluid religious landscape, churches competing for souls are turning to corporate marketing strategies such as focus groups, customer-satisfaction surveys and product giveaways.
via Rudius