Never mind. LiveJournal is giving me the world's most useless error message today:


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Putting grammar back in grammar schools: A modest proposal

'Tis and 10 other fun proclitic words

Flying Saucers Comics

Painted Ships on Painted Oceans: an Accidental Map of the Doldrums - This is very cool.

Thousand-Year-Old Vineyards Found in Spain - Traces of ancient vineyards that date back 1,000 years were discovered in the terraced fields ( Read more... )

Being right or being happy: pilot study - Which kind of reminds me of my “justice versus peace” parable I sometimes tell. (Via David Goldman.)

Was Dickens’s Christmas Carol borrowed from Lowell’s mill girls? - A new discovery by literary scholars highlights an unexpected inspiration. (Thanks to Dad.)

Stunning photography of man's mightiest shame ( Read more... )

Queen Pardons Computer Pioneer Alan Turing - The UK’s treatment of Alan Turing was one of the great crimes of the 20th century. Of course, persecuting a war hero to death for being gay was the proper, moral thing to do at the time, consistent with conservative thought then and now. Which is why conservatives are always on the wrong side of history ( Read more... )

Subruncinator - (Via Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

Neanderthals Could Talk Like Humans, Bone Reveals

Massive Lake Found Under Greenland Ice - It wasn’t me, I swear.

Study: Fall of the Soviet Union may have saved the Arctic

Billion-dollar climate denial network exposed - A network of 91 think tanks and industry groups are primarily responsible. One ( Read more... )

Learning a language is like learning to drive a car, and studying linguistics is like learning to become a mechanic.

Interactive dialect map

5 lies you were told about grief - (Thanks to Lisa Costello.)

Let’s Talk About Death - The conservation project. (Thanks to Lisa Costello.)

How to change the world $1 at a time - Guerrilla bank marketing ( Read more... )

In which our collaborate novel Our Lady of the Islands, written by me and Shannon Page, finds a home

Jade par Jay Lake - A French review of the French translation of my book Green. Some complaints, but I interpret the Google Translate version as generally positive.

Textopornographie: France creates its own word for 'sexting' - Of course they did ( Read more... )

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Tolkien - Daniel Larison is very unhappy with Peter Jackson. I pretty much agree with his points, though I am perhaps less vociferous in my articulation thereof.

Literary self-loathing: How Jonathan Franzen, Elizabeth Gilbert and more keep it at bay - Really? Yeah, maybe for them, but I’m with Scalzi on this one. ( Read more... )

Interview: Jay Lake - Ken Scholes interviews me for Lightspeed.

Hobbit's Gollum Lacked Precioussss Vitamins - An offbeat study, released on Sunday, which concludes that the evil characters in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" lost their battle against men, elves and dwarves because they suffered from vitamin deficiency. Uh… Rickets. Yeah. (Via David ( Read more... )

Desolation again strikes Tolkien-themed street signs - Ah, Portland. (Via Dad.)

Alfred Shaheen: Pioneer of the Hawaiian Shirt - Oooh! (Via ( Read more... )