Project Bow's FAQ: Why is it called a lexigram when it looks like a word? At this point in his development, Bow no longer needs lexigrams. He is literate and he spells out his own words. Bow developed literacy at the age of five and half years. But before that, we used lexigrams. And our lexigrams looked kind of like this: Now, you might be thinking: "Hey, that's not a lexigram. So the question is: what is a lexigram and how do we recognize one? A lexigram is a symbol that stands for a word. Is the photo for the English word "banana" that I've posted above a "spelled-out" word or a holistic lexigram? Like beauty, whether or not something is a lexigram is in the eye of the beholder. Some Examples of Bow's Lexigrams in Both Hebrew and English Why use lexigrams? Chimpanzees cannot produce speech that humans can comprehend. In choosing lexigrams for Bow, I was following in the footsteps of Duane Savage-Rumbaugh and Sue Savage-Rumbaugh. For this reason, I chose lexigrams in three standard human languages. A Brief History of Lexigrams From Trademarks to Lexigrams
Plot Generator Free Words Free Words in Free Press Exciting news: Free Words Forever will be the inagural volume of the new Free Press library. This summer and fall you are invited to contribute to the creation of an open-access publishing house, a "Free Press," to be launched at Röda Sten contemporary art center in Göteborg, Sweden. A project of artist Sal Randolph, Free Press will accept all kinds of writing from the public; contributions in any language can be as short as a single word or as long as an encyclopedia and can include manifestos, statements, documentations, studies, stories, recipes, poems and whatever you can imagine. "Even in the age of the internet, book publishing is a walled garden where editors and commercial interests filter out most of what is written," says Randolph. All participating manuscripts will be published as printed books in the Free Press series, available in the project's library and reading room at Röda Sten, where events and discussions will also take place.
Report: Majority Of Time In Pool Spent Urging Others To Enter Pool NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ—Far outstripping the amount of time dedicated to swimming or games, a report released Wednesday by researchers at Rutgers University found that the average person in a pool spends the vast majority of their time urging others to enter as well. “Across demographic groups, we found that an individual will typically spend 80 percent of their time in a pool engaged in various efforts to coax others into joining them in the water,” read the report, noting that roughly half that time is dedicated to making the case that entering the pool will be “fun” or “refreshing” and about a third is allocated toward playful commands or taunts such as “Come on,” “Stop being a baby,” or simply “Just get in already.” “The smallest amount of time is reserved for more aggressive tactics such as splashing people from the pool’s edge or just reaching up and pulling them in if they get close enough.”
Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive ScrabblePlayers There is a great moment in WORD FREAK when the author, Stefan Fatsis, considers his obsession with Scrabble and wonders if it's healthy. In normal literature, such a moment might be devoted to doomed romance or drug addiction. There's something wonderfully nerdy about the fact that in WORD FREAK it involves a board game. Fatsis originally planned to write WORD FREAK as a journalistic account of an odd but harmless subculture. In retrospect, Fatsis' decision was not only incredible, but also inevitable. If this sounds like a typical underdog story, it shouldn't. Fatsis' knowledge of the Scrabble world is hard earned. Fatsis works hard to be seen as a typical Scrabble player, but he never quite blends in with his peers. Fatsis is aware of the extra help he receives from the Scrabble world, and he repays it with an ever more fanatical interest in the game. Early in the book Fatsis decides that WORD FREAK is going to be a personal account rather than a scrupulously fair piece of reporting.
Humorist Bruce Jay Friedman Is One Lonely Guy—as Anyone Can Plainly See Loneliness is expensive. It takes a lot of money to keep it going. You need throw pillows. You've got to have cookies, liverwurst sandwiches. You have to have a TV set to lull you to sleep. What about your ear-drops bill... So consoles Bruce Jay Friedman in The Lonely Guy's Book of Life, a sort of hot tub of chicken soup for men caught in the cross fire between the women's movement and a sexual revolution that everyone else is enjoying. William Paley, or some Lonely Guy sympathizer at CBS, has paid in the six figures for TV rights. The other question is whether author Friedman, Lonely Guy-wise, is a poseur. The other testimonial to Bruce's popularity is that so many writers like a colleague so comparatively unblocked. It all began in the Bronx, where he was the son of a garment factory manager, trying out his comedy style on dates. The Friedmans separated in 1970 and then finally gave up two years ago in what Ginger calls "the friendliest divorce in history."
AMERICAN MUSEUM OF BEAT ART The Daily Mash | It's news to us www.bulwer-lytton.com 404 Error Pages The Elephant's Memory Visual Sentences Home According to Math, the Worst Color Shirt to Wear on Star Trek Is Actually Yellow | The Mary Sue It’s a well known maxim that nobody wants to be a redshirt on Star Trek: The Original Series. The proud members of Operations, Engineering, and Security are the space-expendables, the first line of defense, the… well the ones who always get sent down with the away party full of more important characters and get murdered by the space monster of the week. Like, all the time. But what if, instead of considering this from the viewer’s perspective, you considered it from the perspective of a crewman choosing a line of work? What if you’re just a redshirt, and not “this episode’s redshirt?” Matthew Barsalou took this perspective and applied math to it, and lets just say that Kirk, Chekov, and Sulu might not be to happy about it. Barsalou’s findings were greatly informed by a bit of information missing from most Star Trek drinking games: the exact crew breakdown by color of the Enterprise NC 1701. Then he does a bunch of math. (via io9.)
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Funny people are more intelligent than their po-faced peers Albert Einstein attributed his brilliant mind to having a child-like sense of humour. Indeed, a number of studies have found an association between humour and intelligence. Researchers in Austria recently discovered that funny people, particularly those who enjoy dark humour, have higher IQs than their less funny peers. They argue that it takes both cognitive and emotional ability to process and produce humour. Not only are funny people smart, they’re nice to be around. In psychology we use the term “positive humour style” to refer to people who use humour to enhance relationships and reduce conflict. More negative humour styles, such as sarcasm, ridicule and self-defeating humour, do not offer the same benefits. Not only do funny people make other people laugh, they also laugh more themselves. Neuropsychological studies have found that experiencing positive emotional states, such as joy, fun and happiness, increases the production of dopamine in the brain. Humour for success