A student has invented a device for hand-free, no-attention "perfect pint" pouring that will empty a can of lager into a pint sleeve without your having to take your eyes off the football.
1895 8th grade test
1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication?Link (via Kottke)
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u'.
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e'. Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: Bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono,super.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: Card, ball, mercy, sir, odd,cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences, Cite, site, sight, fane,fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced andindicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.
Update: If you're thinking of writing to me about Snopes saying that this is false, go re-read the Snopes entry. They don't dispute the authenticity of this document, only the conclusions drawn in the modern introductory text.
Kim Jong Il's fanatical food fetish
Kim insists that his rice be cooked over a wood fire using trees cut from Mt. Paektu, a legendary peak on the Chinese border, according to a memoir written by a nephew of Kim's first wife. He has his own private source of spring water. Female workers inspect each grain of rice to ensure that they meet the leader's standards. (The nephew, Lee Young Nam, who defected to South Korea in the 1980s, was assassinated by suspected North Korean agents in Seoul in 1997.)The former South Korean Ambassador says this is a good thing: "Kim Jong Il loves life. He is a drinker, a womanizer, a gourmet. To start a war requires an ascetic like Hitler who doesn't care if he lives or dies. But I can't see Kim starting a war that he will surely lose." LinkKim's refined palate is not merely a matter of idle gossip, but the subject of serious study by political psychologists trying to understand the North Korean leadership.
Jerrold M. Post, a psychiatrist who founded and was the longtime director of the CIA's Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior, says Kim's obsession with eating the best food comes from being the son of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, revered by the propaganda machine as a god-like figure. Post diagnosed the younger Kim as a malign narcissist in large part based on information about his eating habits.
"This is how you prepare food and water for a god."
Ian sez: This is an update to the post on Kim Jong Il's food fanaticism. The link is an excerpt from a book by his former cook (who is now hiding) and it's very interesting. It's from the Jan/Feb issue of Atlantic Monthly, and I believe it's the only part of the book available in English.
Eric sez: " In reference to your post on Boing Boing about Kim Jong-il and his food habits, I thought you might as enjoy these:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/DK21Dg03.html
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/DK22Dg01.html
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/DK23Dg01.html
I read those a few weeks back and I figured those were what this post was going to link to.
FastCompany's terrible linking policy
Due to the large volume of requests we receive, we do not have a reciprocal linking program. However, if you like, you may link to us at no cost. This option requires the execution by you and Fastcompany.com of a one-page Web-linking agreement. Please download and sign the agreement and fax it to 617-738-5055, attn: G+J legal, Fastcompany.com. As soon as you receive back the agreement signed on behalf of Fastcompany.com, you may begin linking to our content.Here's some of the spectacularily clueless "linking agreement" Fast Company thinks it can force linkers to sign off on:
For good and valuable consideration, effective upon the duly authorized signatures of Owner and G+J below (the "Effective Date"), G+J hereby grants to Owner a non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to create a hyperlink from the Linking Site to Inc.com from the Effective Date, unless and until such permission is terminated by G+J upon notice to Owner, subject to the following terms and conditions.There are a lot of stupid organizations that have policies like this, but very few of them have the close relationship to the Web that FC has. The disturbing thing here is that FC's credibity as an authority on the Web lends credence to this bizarre and damaging idea of needing permission to link. Link (Thanks, Jordon!)Owner hereby represents and warrants that: (i) any content displayed on the Linking Site shall not infringe upon or misappropriate any third party intellectual property or other proprietary rights, shall not invade any third party rights of privacy or publicity, shall be free from any libelous or obscene material, shall be accurate, and shall not otherwise violate any applicable law, regulation or non-proprietary third party right; (ii) the Linking Site does not and will not contain any harmful software code or viruses; (iii) Owner has duly registered the domain name of the Linking Site with all applicable authorities and possesses all rights necessary to use such domain name; and (iv) Owner shall use its best efforts, including any and all then-available technology, to prevent Internet users from downloading any content from Inc.com.
Update: Well, this is the kind of slow company that Fast Company has put itself in: Sellotape forbids linking to their site -- this is the kind of idiotic behaviour that Fast Company should be able to sell itself on: "Buy a sub to Fast Company and learn how not to be as stupid as Sellotape!" (Thanks, Reyhan!)
Hinterland Who's Who: short nature films from my childhood
"Hinterland Who's Who" was a series of 1960s-era short nature films that used to air as interstitial material on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation when I was a kid, maddeningly interrupting the cartoons. There was a very funny sendup of these on an old SCTV episode, but other than that, I haven't seen these since I was a small child. Until today. Now they're all on the Web. Now, the Internet is complete.
Link
the latest
latest episodes
