I Need a Virtual Break. No, Really.

A nice little piece about taking a regular break from email, blogs, cell phones, PDAs, etc.: Mark Bittman, I Need a Virtual Break. No, Really., N.Y. Times, March 2, 2008.

Nathan Zeldes, a principal engineer at Intel (employees there read or send three million e-mail messages daily), is running a couple of experiments, one in which people spend a morning a week at work but offline, another in which people consciously reduce their e-mail output. Though he’s not reporting results, he’s encouraged and he says people are participating.

Paris and beyond in France

If I ever plan a trip to France, I can turn to Jake and Maureen Dear's blog, Paris and beyond in France, which has lots of recommendations for books, accommodations, and more. Ooh-la-la!

(Jake Dear is the coauthor of an interesting law review article on the influence of state supreme courts. See my post in Trial Ad (and more) Notes.)

English Medieval Legal Documents Wiki

Wow! Hazel Lord at USC has created English Medieval Legal Documents Wiki, "a collaborative database on the published sources of English medieval legal documents, and to provide links to the growing number of online sources currently being developed."

U.S. dementia rates are on the decline — Memory loss isn't inevitable

U.S. dementia rates are on the decline — Memory loss isn't inevitable, Seattle Times, Feb. 21, 2008.

Older adults today appear to have significantly less risk of memory loss and dementia than a decade ago, likely because they're better-educated, wealthier and receive better health care for cardiovascular disease, according to a nationwide study co-authored by a Group Health researcher.

Good news, right there on page 1! One interesting finding is that more education appears to delay the onset of dementia. But once dementia hits, the more educated people die sooner. What that means is that you might die about the same time, but you spend a higher percentage of your life with all your marbles.

Here's a model I like:

At age 87, Adrian Lawler of West Seattle could be a poster elder for how to keep the brain and body fit. Although he's participating in a healthy-aging study at Group Health, he says he's not trying to ward off dementia intentionally. But his sharp thinking could be a benefit of his active lifestyle, he said.

The retired Boeing engineer and teacher snow skis and hikes with his dog, volunteers at the blood bank and runs a small business on the side. He "keeps a good diet" and takes preventive medication for heart disease. And other than misplacing hearing aids occasionally, he has no serious memory lapses.

In other words, he suggested, if a person has a pet to walk, a hobby that requires intellectual inquiry and a volunteer activity that helps others, "you have a better feeling and you live longer."

NPR: Why Women Read More Than Men

NPR: Why Women Read More Than Men, Sept. 5, 2007 -- a look at the gender difference in reading, especially the "fiction gap."

Sousa video

Here's the Ballard Sedentary Sousa Band on the Seattle Channel, from Sousa's birthday, Nov. 6, 2008.

NFL Player Changed by Volunteering at Animal Shelter

A good-news news item: Gwen Knapp / NEW LEASH ON LIFE / Raiders' Cooper dedicates himself to care of abused and mean dogs at animal shelter, S.F. Chron., Feb. 5, 2008.

Fighting Bob La Follette made Wisconsin a leader in primary elections

Hudson Star-Observer | Randy's Ramblings: Fighting Bob La Follette made Wisconsin a leader in primary elections, Feb. 1, 2008:

You can thank America’s Dairyland and Fighting Bob La Follette, in large measure, for the presidential primary season you’re enjoying or suffering through or trying to ignore.

La Follette started the fight to nominate candidates through primaries after being snubbed by party bosses in his attempt to win the Republican nomination for governor in 1896.

The newspaper writer's source for his La Follette history is, of course, Nancy C. Unger, Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer.

Hunger for rock eating up supply of sand, gravel

Hunger for rock eating up supply of sand, gravel, Seattle Times, Jan. 13, 2008. A resource many of us generally don't think about much...

When I was preparing for my exam in Land Use Planning, Dean Spencer said that class could be summed up by two principles: (1) "It depends." And (2) "The gravel pit always loses." (See, one can retain important information from a class taken 27 years ago! I also remember Prof. Haar saying that zoning was like a quart of milk and a comprehensive plan is like a cow.)

Classic board games join newer versions at the family table

Classic board games join newer versions at the family table, Seattle Times, Dec. 22, 2007. Board games are cool -- and that's the Franklin family playing them!

HLS: Alumni Bulletin: Coming out party

Back in Sept. 2003 I went to a fun and moving reunion. The alumni magazine that covered it keeps getting misplaced, so I'm going to link to it and make a note here: Coming out party, Harv. L. Sch. Bull., Spring 2004, at 30.

O Tannenbaum Alternative Lyrics

The English translations of O Tannenbaum are often clunky, and not everyone enjoys slogging through the song auf Deutsch (as my cousin and I do).

So I got a special kick out of a skit on Prairie Home Companion recently that showed how a couple of classic poems fit nicely with the tune.

Bonus! The poems are both old enough to be in the public domain (see Lolly Gasaway's handy chart).

So hum along to the following -- perhaps you'll want to add them to your holiday repertoire!

Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (1923)

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.


My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.


He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.


The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Source: Representative Poetry Online.


For the next one you have to lop off a couple of stanzas (or cycle through more than once):

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

[Here I'd repeat the first stanza and stop.]

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Source: Bartleby. (Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885–1977). Modern American Poetry. 1919.)


PS You can also use the tune of "Hernando's Hideaway" or "Gilligan's Island."

Photo from NASA. During the Apollo program, a seedling tree from each state was taken to the moon and back. Washington's was this Douglas fir (our state tree), which is now on the Capitol grounds in Olympia. Click here for more about the "moon trees" around the country.

NEA report on reading, critique

The NEA came out with a report decrying the reduction in reading skills. Here a scholar shows some ways that the report presented the data in a misleading way: reading responsibly: nancy kaplan on the NEA's data distortion, if:book, Nov. 30, 2007.

Stars, stripes and seated forever

Hey, my band was in the paper! Stars, stripes and seated forever, Seattle Times, Dec. 8, 2007.

School officials unite in banning Wikipedia

School officials unite in banning Wikipedia, Seattle Times, Nov. 21, 2007.

FreeRice

Someone sent me a newspaper article about FreeRice and now I'm hooked. It's a fairly simply vocabulary quiz (with some fancy programming behind it that keeps it at a challenging level for you, whether your vocabulary is at a fifth-grade level or a lexinerd level. Each time you get a word right, the site's advertiser's (the ads are unobtrusive) will donate 10 grains of rice to the UN's World Food Program.

It's as absorbing as computer backgammon and I can even tell myself it's educational and supports a good cause!

What got me started was What's the Word? We Can Help Feed the Hungry, Wash. Post, Nov. 4, 2007. Thanks, MEDH!

Update (Dec. 14, 2007): Now they'll donate 20 grains of rice for each correct guess! It's still a fun game and now you can do a little more good.

Generation Y's Bad Rap

People make a lot of generalizations about the younger generations. I liked this little piece: Generation Y's Bad Rap, Bus. Week, Oct. 8, 2007.

Video: RSS in Plain English | Common Craft - In Plain English

I love this video: Video: RSS in Plain English | Common Craft - In Plain English.

Bill Patry on Why I Wrote a Treatise

Why would a professor sink years into writing a huge treatise? PrawfsBlawg: Bill Patry on Why I Wrote a Treatise.

Online Users Spending More Time Reading Content

Internet users are spending nearly half their online time visiting content, a 37% increase in share of time from four years ago, according to the Online Publishers Association (OPA). The OPA today announced a four-year analysis of its Internet Activity Index (IAI), a monthly gauge of the time being spent with e-commerce, communications, content and search.

Web Users Now Spend Half Their Time Visiting Content, Far Outpacing Time Spent With Search, Communications And Commerce, Online Publishers Association press release, Aug. 13, 2007.