Tweet Trove 5 (13-20 December, 2009)

Arts, Culture, Literature

OPEN Magazine | Silent Bestsellers (Indian Writings in English) : http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/books/silent-bestsellers

Fantasy & Sci-Fi Magazine Art: http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/36092/fantasy--sci-fi-magazine-art

Travel - 25 Authentic Asian Experiences: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1934455,00.html

10 worst phrases to use at office: http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/worklife/12/16/cb.worst.phrases.work/index.html?eref=rss_latest

Education, e-Learning

@thoughts: My Learning 2009: http://simply-speaking.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-learning-2009.html

What Matters Now: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/12/what-matters-now-get-the-free-ebook.html. Free e-book of ideas from 70 thinkers.

Humor

Google confirms the loneliest number: http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2009/12/17/google-confirm-1-loneliest-number/

The most frequently asked question in webinars and workshops: http://brandon-hall.com/janetclarey/?p=1623

Internet, Science and Technology

Top 10 Astronomy Pictures of 2009: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/12/15/top-ten-astronomy-pictures-of-2009/

The many uses of Twitter (+ The Six Twitter Types): http://www.ngonlinenews.com/news/many-users-of-twitter/

The idiot's guide to Google Wave: http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/the-idiot-s-guide-to-google-wave-655127

Five Technologies That Will Keep Shaping the Web in 2010: http://sixrevisions.com/web-development/five-technologies-that-will-keep-shaping-the-web-in-2010/

100 Incredible Lectures from the World’s Top Scientists: http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2009/06/18/100-incredible-lectures-from-the-worlds-top-scientists/

Tweet Trove 4 (6-12 December, 2009)

Apologies for the delay in posting this one - No connectivity for most of yesterday and when finally I could access the Internet, data seemed to be percolating through thick molasses.

Arts, Culture, Literature

Classic Twitterature - University of Chicago students reinterpret great works of literature into Twitter-speak: http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local-beat/Classic-Twitterature-78848847.html

When bad covers happen to good books: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/books/review/Queenan-t.html?_r=4&ref=books

Are Writers Using TMA (Too Many Acronyms)? : http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=78&aid=173933

Business and Economics

The wonderful world of Walt Disney (infographic) : http://www.busmanagement.com/news/walt-disney-productions/

Education, e-Learning

How iPhone Could Reboot Education - Abilene Christian University has a go: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/12/iphone-university-abilene/

Top 125 Workplace eLearning Posts of 2009: http://www.elearninglearning.com/wpblog/top-elearning-posts-2009/

Humor

Parenthood be not proud: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/12/04/traister_parenting_makes_me_dumb/index.html

Facebook suggestions (ahem) : http://xkcd.com/672/

Internet, Science and Technology

In the Brain, Seven Is A Magic Number: http://www.physorg.com/news178220995.html#top

Gallery: The Year's Most Amazing Scientific Images | Popular Science: http://www.popsci.com/science/gallery/2009-12/gallery-years-most-amazing-scientific-images

BusinessWeek -Beware Social Media Snake Oil: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_50/b4159048693735.htm?chan=magazine+channel_top+stories

11 Google Chrome Extensions, For Starters: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/05/11-chrome-extensions-for-starters/?utm_source=feedburner

Etcetera

"Can you break your culture of silence?" - Sunitha Krishnan's fight against sex slavery: http://on.ted.com/287S

If you can save some trees, why not save some lettuce? http://cafehayek.com/2009/12/save-the-spinach.html

Tweet Trove 3 (29 November-5 December, 2009)

Arts, Culture, Literature

Top Words of 2009: http://www.languagemonitor.com/news/top-words-of-2009

Business and Economics

Do prostitutes want prostitution to be legal? Is a pimp no different than a corporate manager? More Q&A: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/superfreakonomics-book-club-sudhir-venkatesh-answers-your-prostitution-questions/#more-22489

The dark side of Dubai: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html

Education, e-Learning

The Psychology of Achievement In Playing Games: http://www.pixelpoppers.com/2009/11/awesome-by-proxy-addicted-to-fake.html

e-book: Theory and Practice of Online Learning (caution: 484 pages; pdf): http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/99Z_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf

Discursive Learning:Knowing "What is missing in educational curriculum is this sense of play, this sense of tinkering." http://discursive-learning.blogspot.com/2009/11/knowing.html

EnerCities - The First Serious Game On Facebook: http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2009/12/enercities-first-serious-game-on.html

Humor

Elementary My Dear Watson: http://www.thedoghousediaries.com/?p=1096

Why Twitter? http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-11-24/

If the Bible was magazines: http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1795235

Internet, Science and Technology

Is slavery the new green energy? http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/03/cycling-energy-slavery

How our brains build social worlds: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427370.500-how-our-brains-build-social-worlds.html?full=true

TwHistory: http://www.twhistory.com/?page_id=2. Intriguing use of Twitter.

An alternate oral history of the last decade - If Al Gore had won: http://2010.newsweek.com/essay/if-gore-had-won.html

The journey of a tweet -- How 'tweets' become worldwide news within a matter of minutes? http://www.ngonlinenews.com/news/the-journey-of-a-tweet/

Periodic table - social media elements: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eyecube/3302969531/sizes/l/, Internet: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dullhunk/2053007240/sizes/l/, 28 more periodic tables: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/redeye/2009/12/not-your-grandmothers-periodic-tables-30-charts-that-have-nothing-to-do-with-chemicals.html

The Seattle Times is using Google Wave to catching a killer: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/30/google-wave-manhunt/

Etcetera

The World's 18 Strangest Roads: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/transportation/4338387.html?page=1

What TED didn’t get about India: http://www.financialexpress.com/news/column-what-ted-didnt-get-about-india/539729/0

Rectangles Vs. Triangles: The Great Sandwich Debate : http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120914097

Top 100 global thinkers: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/11/30/the_fp_top_100_global_thinkers?page=full

Tweet Trove 2 (21-28 November, 2009)

Arts, Culture, Literature

"Publishing is changing. I’m ready to see what it turns into and change my expectations with it." http://bit.ly/1weHjv

How Twitter Makes You A Better Writer: http://www.copyblogger.com/twitter-writing/

Business and Economics

The amazing world of Coca-Cola (infographic): http://www.busmanagement.com/news/coca-cola/

Education, e-Learning

Educational games and interactivities from National Geographic: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/games

2009-2014 forecasts of the US market for e-learning: http://tinyurl.com/ydypry8. (Caution: pdf)

A Quick Guide to Social Learning - 100+ examples of the use of social media in learning: http://c4lpt.co.uk/handbook/examples.html

Humor

Top 20 Unfortunate Lessons Girls Learn From Twilight: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/11/twilight-lessons-girls-learn/

Internet vices: Twitter is crack cocaine? Facebook = cranberry vodka? http://www.patrickmoberg.com/internet-vices/

The Chronicles of Narnia? http://xkcd.com/665/

8 ways to kill an idea: http://www.samiviitamaki.com/?p=336

Internet, Science and Technology

Evolution of storage (infographic) : http://www.flickr.com/photos/7979419@N02/4131812966/sizes/l/

The story of the Titanic Gulp - big *is* beautiful: check out this lovely piece on how whales dine: http://bit.ly/6aBfh6

"Wikipedia is now part of the establishment" Fears over future of Wikipedia as 49,000 volunteers leave site: http://bit.ly/6PnDHN

A useful compendium: Jane Hart's Guide to Social Learning: http://icio.us/db40th

Evolution vs. Intelligent Design: 6 Bones of Contention: http://bit.ly/6mpg6N

Google Image Search meets the Visual Thesaurus: Google Image Swirl -- http://image-swirl.googlelabs.com/

Top 5 Misconceptions About The LHC : http://bit.ly/8tBx8G

Silence! The Last of the Giant Radio Telescopes Is Listening to the Universe http://bit.ly/1x4wzo

SETI: Building a Better Alien-Calling Code -- http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/better-seti-code/

Tweet Trove 1 (15-21 November, 2009)

This is the first Tweet Trove — a selective digest of the links I posted on Twitter in the last week. To read all my tweets (including the inane ones) or to follow me on Twitter, head on over to my Twitter page—InkScrawl.

Books, Reading, Writing, Popular Culture . . . (Basically, Literature and Arts)
"One of the essential joys of reading is the serendipitous encounter with a new word." http://bit.ly/1lEEsB

The best way to think of "The best way to think of . . ." http://bit.ly/5ns7g

Single-word advice on how to be a "real" writer: http://bit.ly/HTput

Robert Crumb explores the Bible's dark side in comic book Genesis: http://bit.ly/3w49NU, Sample artwork: http://bit.ly/1BPekY

Enid Blyton banned from BBC for nearly 30 years because the corporation thought she was a "second-rater" : http://bit.ly/JAwX0

Enid Blyton was banned from BBC for 30 years. How could they resist? http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/nov/16/enid-blyton

The "complex perfume of aging books" may soon be used to help preserve valuable ageing titles: http://bit.ly/1iz21M

Oxford Dictionary's Word of the Year 2009: Unfriend http://blog.oup.com/2009/11/unfriend/

Ten Common Phrases That Could Soon Be History: http://www.steverubel.com/ten-common-phrases-that-could-soon-be-history

Internet, Social Media, Web 2.0 (In other words, Science and Technology)
Are you good enough to join Google? 15 Google Interview Questions (That Will Make You Feel Stupid) http://bit.ly/31uoMV

Lines in the Sand: http://bit.ly/15ugwv, a good analysis of Google's “Don’t be evil” & 6 principles for companies building services online.

The History of the Internet in a Nutshell: http://bit.ly/3R5kW8

Which Social Media tool for which worker? McKinsey answers. http://icio.us/wuatze

The nine tribes of the Internet - A Pew Internet Study http://icio.us/f3zmth

The Man Who Made You Put Away Your Pen: http://bit.ly/2QklHO

Humor
How to survive the end of the world, Emmerich style :) http://bit.ly/1IfeFF

Some joker once said, “I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it.” http://abstrusegoose.com/209

What to do when a curious pigeon is trapped inside ur multi-million dollar, govt-issued nuclear briefcase: http://www.pigeonimpossible.com/

Religion, Spirituality, Philosophy
Would Jesus save aliens? http://bit.ly/37Fusy

Etcetera (The usual "Miscellany")
Why are Post-it notes sticky? For adding information to things in unanticipated ways: http://bit.ly/1FkJgs

London's Big Ben Loves Bengalis?

(click the picture for a larger image)

Does the Big Ben find the Bong of its dreams? Follow the Big Ben on Twitter to find out.

Opium of the People

What I always suspected:

Benny Shanon's drug-focused reading of the Bible proves Moses saw God because he was stoned.

What about other religions and prophets? Don't you agree most of them (ok, all of them) in today's world would have been either in a rehab clinic or receiving psychiatric treatment?

Link via: Ajeya Row

What a Waste. . .

. . . of a fantastic drink: The Many Uses of Vodka.

Do you Dress Like a Douchebag?

Click to view larger image.

Well, do you?

Why you Need Unlimited SMS-Texting Plans

Finnish Road Administration has introduced smart "Text-to-Pee" toilets in Western Finland. Restroom visitors have to SMS/text "open" to let themselves in.

The Procrastination Flow Chart

You can check this . . . . now
. . . or later.

Mmm, Mmm . . . Gross?

Jellied eels, Reindeer Paté, boiled three-week-old fertilized duck eggs eaten straight out of the shell, stewed and seasoned silkworm pupae — gourmet delicacies or punishment?

Read: The Most Curious Canned Goods Found Online

Bon appétit!

The Greatest Mysteries in Science

LiveScience in August 2007 (Ya, I came across these only today) did a series of articles on The Greatest Mysteries in Science today. These were arrived at by asking several scientists. To the scientist's suggestions LiveScience added a few of their own to come up with 15 articles. Read all of them, but don't miss the following:

Who Are You?

What Causes Gravity?

Why Do We Desire Things?

What Drives Evolution?

How Did Human Culture Evolve?

What Makes a Scientist?

If you Want to Reach for the Stars . . .

Wouldn't it make sense to do that from a point on the Earth closest to outer space?

And where would such a spot be?

Surely it would be the top of a mountain. So which mountain on Earth would get you closest to outer space?

If you thought it was Mount Everest, you thought wrong.

How we I Blog

From: gapingvoid.
I was browsing thorugh the Gapingvoid archives today and came across this old and excellent post on How to be Creative. And promptly blogged (ctrl + C & ctrl +v) it.
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.
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(But seriously and I am sure most of the bloggers must have experienced this at some point of time or the other -- Whenever I read something interesting or overhear an interesting conversation or for that matter anything else, the first thought that comes into my mind is "Hey! That's interesting." And the second thought almost always is, "Maybe that can be made into a blog post." It's reaching dangerous levels, that habit. Off late I have had a couple of my friends and colleagues telling me that they are wary about what they talk to me and constantly try not to say anything that they suspect will turn up on my blog the minute I get some time free.)

Why we Need Hardline Religious Leaders. . .

Some hardline Muslim clerics in Australia are encouraging their followers to cheat the tax system because they consider paying income tax contrary to Islamic law.

Now, will some right-thinking religious zealots (of whichever religion) in India stand up and do their religious duty? I am willing to renounce atheism and accept and pray to whatever god it is that you want me to.

Which Author Shares Your Birthday?

Ever wonder which author shares your birthday?

This interactive Author's calendar is the kind of thing that will ensure enough entertainment and time-wasting on days when you don't feel like doing anything particular or productive in office. Who can resist the temptation of doing the entirely pointless exercise of finding out the author they share their birthday with? And once that is done, what about your friends? And colleagues? And imagine how much you start believing in divinity and agree that maybe there really is some meaning and purpose to our existence when you discover that your evil boss and Thomas Hardy were born on the same day and that slimy project manager who drones on and on in interminable meetings shares his birthday so aptly with Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust.

Find out which author shares your birthday.

And then ponder on the significance of it.

Meanwhile let me figure out the import of sharing my birthday with Leon Trotsky and Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones).

Dan Brown Refuses to Revise The Da Vinci Code. . .

. . . After James Cameron claims, in a documentary, to have found the burial site of Jesus, Mary Magadalene, and their son in an ancient family cemetery in Jerusalem.

Word Perfect

Tired of using the same old, boring MS Word? Word Perhect is the program for you.
Any program that asks you to "make sure your alarm is set for the next appointment before taking a nap," and seriously informs you when you click Save — "Sometimes things get lost," and that features a bored icon that advises you to "Go and play outside" is surely worth a try.

Try Word Perhect here.

Link via Geetha Krishnan.

Chuckney

1. Take a de-boned turkey.
2. Stuff the turkey with a de-boned chicken.
3. Stuff the chicken with a de-boned duckling.
4. Remember to fill the gaps with breadcrumbs or sausage meat.
5. Slowly cook all this layered poultry by braising, roasting, grilling, or barbecuing.
6. Eat your Chuckney.

Or you could make a Turducken. (Pics)

If you are feeling particularly peckish, you could have a bustergophechideckneaealckidgeverwingailusharkolanine.
And if you have skipped a few meals you might want to get on the outside of the traditional Bedouin wedding dish.

Eyes gleam, the mouth waters, and IMMENSE HUNGER comes as I visualize this apogee of carnivorous cuisine.

Why do people send me such links* on the day the food in the office pantry has been particularly unappetizing?

Warning: If you can't stand the sight of meat and poultry, please refrain from clicking on the links.
Or has this caution come too late?

*Link via: Baby Pat