From Dust to Dust . . .

Discover Magazine runs a nice series entitled "20 Things You Didn't Know About . . ." -- a list of twenty bits of often fascinating trivia about a wide range of subjects.

The September 1, 2006 column was "20 Things You Didn't Know About Death." Various tidbits include:

• "Burials in America deposit 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid—formaldehyde, methanol, and ethanol—into the soil each year." (In case you see this as a good argument for cremation, it throws "dioxins, hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide into the air." Oh well, as Dylan Thomas wrote, "Do not go gentle into that good night.")
• "There are at least 200 euphemisms for death, including 'to be in Abraham's bosom,' 'just add maggots,' and 'sleep with the Tribbles' (a Star Trek favorite)."
  
• " No American has died of old age since 1951." (The feds dropped that classification from death certificates in that year.)

If you are depressed about the harmful impact of your corpse on the environment, check out #8 on the list. There's a Swedish company that has it all figured out.

(The image of The Grim Reaper is from The Grim Adventures of Bill and Mandy, a series on the Cartoon Network.)

The New York Times for Free*

*For students and faculty, that is.

The New York Times Select is now available to faculty and students at colleges and universities for free.

All you need is a .edu email address.

A Select subscription allows access to the New York Times archive, where you may access up to 100 articles per month for free.

A number of other features come with this service, including access to op-ed and news columnists.

Here is a link to their sign up page.

The Death of Handwriting

Keyboards and keypads surround us. We type memos and reports and blog entries, we send emails, and we tap out text messages.

On the one hand, the rise of the computer seems to have increased the practice of ordinary people putting their thoughts in writing. On the other hand, it has also resulted in a decline of the handwritten word.

Physicians have long been notorious for poor handwriting--particularly on prescriptions like the one above, which is from the MethodistMD website.

In an article entitled "The Handwriting is on the Wall," The Washington Post reported last fall that

When handwritten essays were introduced on the SAT exams for the class of 2006, just 15 percent of the almost 1.5 million students wrote their answers in cursive. The rest? They printed. Block letters.

According to the Post, the problem is not just the proliferation of keyboards in our lives. Schools have significantly reduced the time spent on cursive, which was practiced as much as two hours a week in the 1940s and 50s. Susan Bowen points out in "Handwriting: A Key to Literacy" that

For years, colleges of education have largely ignored methodology of handwriting instruction. When more than 200 primary school teachers were asked if they felt prepared to teach handwriting, 90 percent responded that they did not. Very few, if any, colleges of education offer courses in the teaching of handwriting.

The concern from a number of educators is that the ability to write in cursive offers more benefits than simply producing legible handwriting. The Post notes,

The loss of handwriting also may be a cognitive opportunity missed. The neurological process that directs thought, through fingers, into written symbols is a highly sophisticated one. Several academic studies have found that good handwriting skills at a young age can help children express their thoughts better -- a lifelong benefit.

Perhaps not all is lost, however. The Guardian notes Patricia Lovett, fellow of the Calligraphy and Lettering Arts Society, says the death of handwriting has been "greatly exaggerated." Maybe so. Britain is now running a National Handwriting Competition.

On the other hand, it's probably a good thing I'm typing this entry. My handwriting is pretty bad.

Cocktail Party Chatter

Before you head off to your next cocktail party, take a look at Top 12 Movies in History That Were Ahead of Their Time to stock up on talking points. This highly debatable list from Alex Billington at FirstShowing.net identifies 12 movies "as being ahead of their time primarily because of their technical and visual effects achievements. Most of these became the staple for referencing great visual effects after they came out."

Yeah . . . we can't believe Billington omitted Blade Runner (1982, Dir. Ridley Scott) either.

Image-Editing for the Rest of Us

Sree Sreenivasan at Poynteronline publishes web tips designed to make the work lives of journalists more productive. In today's tip, Sreenivasan explains that he increasingly finds Adobe Photoshop (or even Photoshop Elements) to be more program than he needs.

As a result, he's been using free web-based photo editors, and he's narrowed his list to a few favorites:

• Picnik.com
• Snipshot.com
• Pixer.us
• Fauxto.com (pronounced "photo")

You can read Sreenivasan's entire article online, and two blog posts that compare the features of online photo editors are at Smiley Cat and Digital Inspiration.

Blue Monday

Today is January 22nd. If you are reading this post on a day other than the 22nd, consider yourself fortunate. You have survived Blue Monday. If you are reading it today, well, try to hang on until tomorrow. According to an article in thisislondon.co.uk, the entertainment guide of the Evening Standard, Blue Monday is "the unhappiest day of the year."

The Standard writes,

Unpaid Christmas bills, nasty weather, and failed New Year's resolutions combine to make January 22 the gloomiest in the calendar.

January 22nd was chosen based on a formula developed by Dr. Cliff Arnall, a psychologist at Cardiff University, who came up with the following six criteria:

• weather
  
• debt
  
• time since Christmas
  
• time since failing our new year's resolutions
  
• low motivational levels, and,
• the feeling of a need to take action.

Makes sense to us. Here is the full article.

Head, Heart, and Water Buffaloes

On Dec. 26, 2006, Phillip Greenspun posted an entry on his weblog entitled "Water Buffalo: Worst Possible Christmas Present Ever?" It seems that for Christmas, a friend had had a water buffalo given to a needy family in her name through Heifer International, a charitable organization dedicated to ending world hunger. Greenspun read the fine print on Heifer International's web site, however, and was disconcerted to discover a gift of $250 didn't actually purchase a water buffalo for a needy family. Instead, Heifer International explained,

Each purchase is symbolic and represents a contribution to the entire mission of Heifer International. Donations will be used where needed most to help struggling people.

Robert Thompson, who is living in China, read Greenspun's blog entry and was moved to ask local farmers if a water buffalo would, indeed, be a useful thing for a poor Chinese farmer to have. The answer was a resounding yes, and it led to Greenspun and Thompson collaborating to purchase one water buffalo for a needy family. Thompson also made a very moving short video, 4 Generations, which documents the process of buying and giving away the buffalo.

This story was then posted on Metafilter with the title "How Much is that Water Buffalo in the Window?" What is most interesting is the discussion which follows. Is Heifer International misleading the public? Did Greenspun and Thompson demonstrate the impact a couple of people can make when you cut through the bureaucracy and touch lives directly? Or is the counterpoint correct:

If you want to make a difference in the world at large, you work with large governmental and non-governmental organizations, shift policy and create systematic change. This is the kind of stuff Heifer.org's founders do/did. If you want to change one family's life and make it more interesting, and possibly more profitable, you give one water buffalo to one family and film it and make lots of 1st world viewers cry.

The issue is not an easy one to answer.

It's a Wonderful (and sometimes odd) Life

First released in 1946, It's a Wonderful Life has become one of America's best known and most loved films. George Baily is granted a chance to see what life for those around him would have been like without his contributions. What's not to like about Frank Capra's heartwarming tribute to the ordinary man?

Well, plenty, if you worked for the FBI in 1947 and you were worried that Communist infiltration of the movie industry was sapping the moral fiber of America.

A fascinating entry entitled "FBI Considered 'It's A Wonderful Life' Communist Propaganda" in Will Chin's blog on Wise Bread presents a redacted FBI memo detailing concerns about subversive elements in Capra's film. The memo reads, in part,

With regard to the picture "It's a Wonderful Life", [redacted] stated in substance that the film represented rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a "scrooge-type" so that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists.

In addition, [redacted] stated that, in his opinion, this picture deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people who had money were mean and despicable characters.

The Reel Classics entry on "It's a Wonderful Life" notes that although it was nominated for five Oscars, it didn't win any. More interesting is this observation:

After slipping quickly into obscurity, it began appearing on television occasionally in the late 1950s. But when the film's copyright lapsed in 1973, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE quickly became a staple of American TV programming between Thanksgiving and Christmas and belatedly earned its rightful place in the lexicon of American popular culture.

In other words, this classic film owes much of its place in American culture to the simple fact that it moved into the public domain. At the time "It's A Wonderful Life" was released, it was protected by copyright for 28 years, with the possibility of a 47 year extension. Recent changes in copyright law now protect such works for 90 years.

Here's an overview of the Copyright Extension Act from Wikipedia.

Miscellany

• An incredible home video clip of cars sliding out of control in the recent Portland ice storm
• Perfecting PowerPoint offers tips to improve a wretchedly used medium
• Best 50 Hacks for Your Life
  

Digital Camera Photographer of the Year 2006

Digital Camera magazine, which runs an annual online competition, has published the winners for 2006. (Pictured above, the winner of The Art of Travel category by Ly Hoang Long of Vietnam.) You can view the overall winner as well as the best photos in six categories.