Knowledge Project: April 2009

Friday, April 10, 2009

389 Years Ago

"A tyopgraphic journey through four centuries of black history."

I'm inordinately proud of this little titbit in the middle:
"Rhode Island becomes the first colony to ban the importation of slaves."

I love that small, big hearted, state.

Posted via web from Shirlene's posterous

Thursday, April 9, 2009

His name is John Maeda. He grew up in Seattle in a family of tofu makers, he's an electrical engineer from MIT by training, a prolific graphic designer by profession, author of the book "The Laws of Simplicity", TED presenter not once, but twice, father to five daughters. He totally transcends and shatters any label you try to put on him, and he seems like an absolutely awesome person.

He was inaugurated as RISD President on 12 September 2008, and his nifty, inclusive inauguration speech can be found here, which happens to be on Maeda's RISD blog, our.risd.edu. President Simmons, can you have a blog, too, please?

I found Maeda through his talk On Simplicity at TED 2007. Whimsical, beautiful, fun, inspiring. As a Mechanical Engineer wondering what to do with her life, I have more hope now.

I also found this little gem on our.risd.edu:

via our.risd.edu

*dreams about going to RISD*

Posted via web from Shirlene's posterous

Sunday, April 5, 2009

The richest fake things

People:

No.1: Uncle Sam

-Net Worth: Infinite, Source: Engraving

No.2: McDuck, Scrooge

-Net Worth: 29.1B, Source: Treasure Hunting

No.5: Hutt, Jabba The

-Net Worth: 8.4B, Source: Crime

No.13: Burns, Montgomery

-Net Worth: 0.9B, Source: Energy

No.15: Mr. Monopoly

-Net Worth: 0.8B, Source: Real Estate

Company:

No. 2: Acme Corp

-Net Worth: 348.7B, Source: Making EVERYTHING

(Source: http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/18/fictional-15-richest-characters-oped-fictional1508_cx_mn_de_1218fict15_land.html)

Posted via email from knowledge project

5 words that should be in the OED

Happification
Rejoicifying
Disrespectation
Swankified
Dictionarised.

Thanks, C! :)

How do new words come about in the Oxford English Dictionary, the self-exulted "definitive record of the English language"?

All of Oxford's English dictionaries aim to include primarily those words that have genuinely entered the English language. The use of a newly invented word by a single person is not sufficient to merit a dictionary entry (unless the person happens to be, for example, William Shakespeare or Jane Austen).
...There is nothing to stop you using an invented word - so long as you don't mind the fact that it will not be understood and will have to be explained every time. If it genuinely fills a gap in the language, then it may well catch on among a significant section of the population. It will then have become part of the language, and if it is used in print (or can be traced, for example, in scripts or transcripts of broadcasts), it will fall within the sphere of the OED's Reading Programme.

From askoxford.com.

So all I have to do now is become William Shakespeare. Or Jane Austen. Or, if you read the entirety of link above, Rudyard Kipling, Emily and Anne Brontë, J.R.R. Tolkien, or Edward Lear.

Choices, choices.

Posted via email from knowledge project

Saturday, April 4, 2009

How lazy can I be?

Purpose: Can you get stronger and grow new muscle by simply cutting yourself?

Background: How does all this weight lifting make us stronger? Supposedly the answer is you microly tear (microtear) your muscle when you use it, then new muscle grows on top of it. So if you combine this "fact" with the another fact that 'bigger is better', if I just knife my arm and make a huge tear, I'll have accomplished weeks of lifting in one day, right?

Methods: Internet

Results: False :-(

Discussion: Muscle grows from protein synthesis - but what triggers it? Muscle tear? As it turns out, muscle tearing is just the result of using muscle. That's it. The actual trigger for protein synthesis is the neural drive that stimulates muscle contraction. The more that pathway is used, the more some chemicals are released and those activate the genes for protein synthesis. So ends up, there's no short cut for this. Boo. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_hypertrophy)

Posted via email from knowledge project