The Eggcorn Database

The word eggcorn was coined collectively by the linguists who write at the excellent group blog Language Log. Linguists collect usage examples. Unlike language teachers or the often self-styled grammar experts who complain in the press about the decay of English, they are not picky: the actual, real-life use is what counts, and the most interesting bits — those that might reveal something about how real people apprehend their language — often stretch the received rules of correctness.

In September 2003, Mark Liberman reported an incorrect yet particularly suggestive creation: someone had written “egg corn” instead of “acorn”. It turned out that there was no established label for this type of non-standard reshaping. Erroneous as it may be, the substitution involved more than just ignorance: an acorn is more or less shaped like an egg; and it is a seed, just like grains of corn. So if you don’t know how acorn is spelled, egg corn actually makes sense.

http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/

Guitar Skills - Erik Mongrain

Erik Mongrain plays an amazing composition on the guitar in a unique way.

http://www.igdb.co.uk/pages/videos/erik_mongrain.htm

The future of telecom is in Wales

The city of Cardiff may seem like an unlikely place for a technological revolution, but in a few months the capital of Wales will be home to a new kind of telecommunications network that could drastically change the way phone calls, Web pages, e-mail and other data are shipped to and fro.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/07/news/companies/pluggedin_fortune/index.htm

Britain embraces the bicycle

Britain is in the grip of a cycling revolution as clogged roads, concern at global warming caused by air pollution and the quest for improved fitness persuade millions to opt for pedal power.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/transport/article656400.ece

Plan for cloaking device unveiled

"What you're trying to do is guide light around an object, but the art is to bend it such that it leaves the object in precisely the same way that it initially hits it. You have the illusion that there is nothing there"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/5016068.stm

The Fundamental Question

The existing of the world-whole is not a mystery, but a miracle, and a causeless and purposeless occurrence. The world-whole exists even though it could not exist, and it exists without its existence being caused or having a purpose. There is nothing here to wonder about, only to marvel at and despair over.

http://www.hedweb.com/witherall/existence.htm

The Zero Ontology - David Pearce on Why Anything Exists

... the real, "substantial" world (the world of physical things) is ultimately indistinguishable from the void ...

http://www.hedweb.com/witherall/zero.htm

Why does anything exist?

"God made everything out of nothing.
But the nothingness shows through."
Paul Valéry

http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/nihilfil.htm

World's Shortest Marketing Plan

I've seen a lot of marketing plans in my day--99.9% of them were way too long. This length is perfect for most products and services.






http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/05/the_worlds_shor.html

http://kellyodell.blogspot.com/2006/04/worlds-shortest-marketing-plan.html

Global anti-smoking drive 'making history'

"In short, the world has begun to reclaim clean air as the social norm. For too long, the tobacco industry has spent billions to normalise, market, and glamorise a behaviour that is now recognised as a tragic drug addiction"

http://www.inthenews.co.uk/news/global-anti-smoking-drive-making-history-$1075648.htm

How to ace your next test

There's nothing like getting a test back and seeing an "A" on the top of the page. Here's how you can make it happen.

http://www.wikihow.com/Ace-Your-Next-Test

Dorodango

Hikaru dorodango are balls of mud, molded by hand into perfect spheres, dried, and polished to an unbelievable luster. The process is simple, but the result makes it seem like alchemy.

http://www.dorodango.com/

Dolphins 'know each other's names'

Dolphins may be closer to humans than previously realised, with new research showing they communicate by whistling out their own "names".

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article714144.ece

ComputeSoup - Web Computational Engine

This web site allows users to evaluate expressions (including those which have variables – each with one or more values), and display the results in an easy-to-read table. Many standard mathematical constants and functions are available for use in the expressions, as well as a collection of special purpose functions for a variety of computational chores (for example, calculating race pace, refinance and mortgage payoff strategies, performing integrations, calculating the number of calories burned by various workouts).

http://www.computesoup.com/

Dot-Matrix Graffiti Bike

Joshua Kinberg's internet-connected, sidewalk-printing graffiti bike got him a lot of attention ahead of the 2004 Republican National Convention; he was Boing Boinged, Slashdotted and featured on CNN and in Popular Science.

...

http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/04/kinberg_0410

Welsh Birdspotting Game

http://www.rspb.org.uk/youth/play/popup_rook_welsh.asp

Brazil tribe prove words count

When it comes to counting, a remote Amazonian tribespeople have been found to be lost for words. Researchers discovered the Piraha tribe of Brazil, with a population of 200, have no words beyond one, two and many.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3582794.stm

The Shaving Cream Racket

"In fact, it is not our protector. Shaving cream is destroying your skin, turning it into a whining, pathetic, dependent, beaten, insipid layer of pasty pulp. Your skin has become the fatted calf that has been killed, the lamb slain on the altar, the virgin sacrificed in some ancient cannibalistic ritual of an uncivilized people."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/tucker/tucker65.html

13 things that do not make sense

“If the results turn out to be real, the implications are profound. We may have to rewrite physics and chemistry”

http://space.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18524911.600

Help out in a crisis - with ICE

A Cambridge-based paramedic has launched a national campaign with Vodafone to encourage people to store emergency contact details in their mobile phones.

By entering the acronym ICE – for In Case of Emergency – into the mobile's phone book, users can log the name and number of someone who should be contacted in an emergency.

http://www.eastanglianambulance.com/content/news/newsdetail.asp?newsID=646104183