litotes asyndeton and other obscure linguistic terms

http://www.rinkworks.com/words/linguistics.shtml

rinkworks also has the redneck dialectizer, which is very funny

http://rinkworks.com/dialect/

Albatrosses, nurdles and gyres - and the story that links them all.

LA Times - Plague of Plastic Chokes the Seas
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-24677341/

...The sheer volume of plastic inside a chick can leave little room for food and liquid.

...Of the 500,000 albatross chicks born here each year, about 200,000 die

...Albatross fly hundreds of miles in their search for food for their young. 

...About four-fifths of marine trash comes from land, swept by wind or washed by rain off highways and city streets, down streams and rivers, and out to sea.

...The average American used 223 pounds of plastic in 2001. The plastics industry expects per-capita usage to increase to 326 pounds by the end of the decade.

...The qualities that make plastics so useful are precisely what cause them to persist as trash.

...About 100 billion pounds of pellets are produced every year and shipped to Los Angeles and other manufacturing centers. Huge numbers are spilled on the ground and swept by rainfall into gutters; down storm drains, creeks and rivers; and into the ocean.

...Also known as "nurdles" or mermaid tears, they are the most widely seen plastic debris around the world

...The pellets, like most types of plastic, are sponges for oily toxic chemicals 

...Some pellets have been found to contain concentrations of these pollutants 1 million times greater than the levels found in surrounding water. As they absorb toxic chemicals, they become poison pills.

...Moore has tried, without success, to get manufacturers to improve their efforts to clean up spills of pellets that wash off lots and into storm drains. He considers beach cleanups a waste of time, except to raise public awareness of the problem. In his view, the cleanup has to start at the source — many miles inland.

..."This is a plastic sand dune," he said. "It's very slippery, very roly-poly. What makes them so good for the factory makes them good for getting into the ocean."

Photo from http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/midway/#CF000774%2015x20

Street View by snowmobile, bicycle, and trolley

Capturing images for street view - didn't know they used snowmobiles, bicycles, and trolleys!

http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/mobile/learn/cars-trikes-and-more.html


Sent from my iPhone

Bread and circuses

Bread and circuses
"... is a metaphor for a superficial means of appeasement. In the case of politics, the phrase is used to describe the creation of public approval, not through exemplary or excellent public service or public policy, but through diversion, distraction, and/or the mere satisfaction of the immediate, shallow requirements of a populace"...
"This phrase originates from Rome in Satire X of the Roman satirist and poet Juvenal (circa 100 C.E.)...identifies the only remaining cares of a new Roman populace which cares not for its historical birthright of political involvement."
"...reference to the Roman practice of providing free wheat to Roman citizens as well as costly circus games and other forms of entertainment as a means of gaining political power."



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Quotation on a high calling from Joseph Conrad

Such fine writing:

"From the hard work of men are born the sympathetic consciousness of a common destiny, the fidelity to right practice which makes great craftsmen, the sense of right conduct which we may call honour, the devotion to our calling and the idealism which is not a misty, winged angel without eyes, but a divine figure of terrestrial aspect with a clear glance and with its feet resting firmly on the earth on which it was born."

http://www.online-literature.com/conrad/notes-life-and-letters/20/


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Captain Sellenburger ditching flight into Hudson river - computer animation

They had very little time to react, as you can see in this re-creation.

makeviolins.com

How cool is this? A summer course where you make a violin. You learn techniques, take the materials gone to continue working for a year, then return the next summer to finish the instrument.

http://www.makeviolins.com/


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How plastic transmits pollution to birds - the story of nurdles.

Plastic resin pellets ("nurdles" - the preproduction form of plastic resin that's shipped to manufacturers) absorb and concentrate PCB and other toxins to a million times their ambient level in the water; the pellets resemble plankton and are ingested by birds. See at 6:27


How BIG is the problem?
In the Pacific, a giant rotating swirling mass of tiny plastic particles is known as
"the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Eastern Garbage Patch floats between Hawaii and California; scientists estimate its size as two times bigger than Texas "
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/oceanography/great-pacific-garbage-patch.htm

Thee pictures will astound you.

Bluetooth forehead thermometer | Popular Science

http://m.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2012-08/new-bluetooth-standard-lets-devices-communicate-without-draining-power


-Tom.