http://feeds.reference.com/click.phdo?i=17201be8b5331b3673d3cb28c460fbe3

http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/archive/2009/07/10.html

In one of my most paranoid states, I'm convinced I've got Alzheimers, especially when I forget important stuff like people's names or whether or if I fed the dogs while I was talking to a friend on the phone.  My husband claims I say things I don't remember saying, which may be true or may be a clever way to get me to do things.  But those worries go completely out the window when I recall various useless factoids when I visit Liquid Planet and get a double stamp on my frequent buyercard.

You see, I've been hired as a technical reviewer for a course.  I have to admit that going through the course is a lot more interesting and fun than I thought it would be.  You see, for the first time a bunch of useless information that has been rattling inside my brain is actually useful, and the fact that I can recall it and then look up the references on the web or in my books is kind of cool.  Take Yersinia pestis, or, Bubonic Plague.  The disease is simply fascinating, though I wouldn't want to contract it.  Here are some factoids I know about it:

--  The Black Plague during the Middle Ages wiped out somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 the population in areas, causing widespread labor shortages.

--  The labor shortages caused by the plague eventually ended feudalim and gave rise to democracy due to the rise of a middle class who earned wages and demanded higher payments.  When you have a class of freemen with money and land, they start demanding more rights and greater equality.

--  The plague years peaked from 1348 to 1350, doing the worst damage, however, there have been about 100 other outbreaks of plague that were less widespread.

--  Dogs and other canines are resistant to plague; cats are not.

--  Some of the population has immunity to AIDS and smallpox and it has been theorized that the Black Death may have somehow naturally selected individuals because of a genetic variant. 

-- Some have theorized that Black Death may not have been bubonic plague or may have been a combination of bubonic plague and other diseases such as anthrax. 

--  Plague shows up routinely in praire dog colonies in Colorado.

-- Plague is transmitted through flea bites of the black rat.

--  It was called the "blue death" in Medieval times.

--  People didn't know what caused the plague during the "Black Death" and thought it had to do with bad air or vapors. 

--  There are three forms of plague: the bulboe plague, the pneumatic plague and the septicemic plague.  All will kill you in horrifying ways and your likeliness of survival without treatment is slim to none.

--  The Roman Catholic pope was sequestered with smoke and incense to ward off the bad vapors.

-- The flagellates were people who believed that god was punishing the world for sins, so they took to beating themselves with whips in the hopes to purify themselves.

See?  This is all very interesting, and yet, worthless. 

Unless you're doing reviews of material that mentions the Bubonic Plague

I can't make any sense of what this new SoundExchange settlement actually means for DNA Lounge. Is someone going to come knocking on my door asking for an additional $25,000 per year because of our webcasts? Given that A) we are already paying ASCAP/SESAC/BMI for them, and B) the webcasts produce zero revenue. If you think you understand this crap, please explain it to me...

"Not your primitive primate, Prime-8 mimics the way boys play. Prime-8's intense interactivity is powered by a battery of sensors that allow him to respond to people and his environment. Outbound sight and sound sensors help Prime-8 maneuver around obstacles, respond to questions with grunts and growls, and express himself. A fast-paced, powerful and fun gorilla robot with a strong personality, his personality radically transforms from a friendly, funny gorilla with warm blue eyes to a ‘Gone Bananas!' robot, beating the floor and roaring from the top of his lungs, with circuits crackling and furious red eyes."

"On the other end of the robot spectrum is Penbo, an adorable interactive and waddling penguin robot who surprises little girls when she lays an egg. When the egg is opened, out comes Bebe - a tiny baby penguin that will chirp and communicate with its mother. Penbo is aware of her surroundings, loves to dance, plays games and talks with Baby in Penguish, her own language; she responds to touch with blinking eyes, flapping wings, and cooing sounds and is a perfect robot companion for little girls to nurture."

Page 145 of Family Man now online!

Better late than never!  Here’s this week’s page of Family Man:  relative calm as compared to the frenzy of new information that’s appeared over the last few updates.  Still plenty of mystery, though.  As always.

Also of note with this update – I’ve switched over my online store services to Shopify, and have added some items, including the first ever piece of Family Man merchandise.

I’ve developed a great relationship with a local printer, who does wonderfully faithful giclee (high-end digital inkjet)  art prints – they’ve done such a great job with prints from the Lady Parts show that my only problem has been keeping them in stock.

So I’ve decided to start offering an experimental print-on-demand service for all the pages of Family Man to date.

If there’s a page you’ve really enjoyed and would like to have in a frame-ready physical form at the original size I drew it – 9×12 (or bigger, for that famous library page!), you can now buy it from me, and I will run over to the printer and ask him to please calibrate and print it just for you.

I’m starting things off at the low-low price of $25 per page (on archival paper, $40 on fancy watercolor paper).  It’s safe to say the price probably won’t drop anytime soon, so here’s your chance to get in on this before I decide it’s a big ole hassle!

Oh yeah, also, those chicken stickers are still at the store. Never gonna stop pushing these.  I love them so.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IgniteSeattle/~3/9rdfRbLpDFM/

http://www.igniteseattle.com/?p=201

Editor’s Note – this post is completely ripped off of Brady’s post on the Ignite main site.

Scott Berkun is a great public speaker. He travels the country speaking on project management, innovation, design and lately on how to speak. As an offshoot in his research on his upcoming book he put together this Ignite talk on Why and How to Speak.

He’s summarized the talk in this excellent blog post on Speaker Confessions (where he’s chronicling his new book):

• 300 seconds kicks ass. This is super short, which means it’s easy to practice . There is no excuse for not practicing until it feels good. It also means you have to be tight in your points. 300 seconds equals 10 television commercials. You can make great points in a short time if you refine your thoughts. The entire sermon on the mount can be read in about 5 minutes and The Gettysburg address takes about 2 and a half minutes.
• Figure out your points before you make slides. Talking about something for five minutes is easy – really, give it a shot once or twice before you make a slide – it will help you sort out what you want to say. You only need Four or five solid points to go 5 minutes. And practice with a timer before you make a slide. You’ll quickly discover how unlikely it is to run out of things to say during an ignite talk.
• It is ok to breathe. There is no law that says you must fill every second with talking. When you practice, practice breathing. Take a moment between points. Like whitespace in visual design it’s the pauses that make what you do say stand out clearly. Give yourself a slide or two that’s for just for catching up and taking a breath.
• Pick strong stories and big themes. What do you love? What do you hate? What is the best advice anyone ever gave you? Pick stories with big themes, since they require less introduction. What are the 5 most important things to know about X that no one talks about? The stronger the topic & title the easier the work is. Top 10 lists can work, but making 10 points is extremely hard – aim for 5 or 6.

He’s got several more points at his site.