Each question in the quiz presents some dialect options. You pick the option that feels most comfortable to you.
Most of the questions used in this quiz are based on those in the Harvard Dialect Survey, a linguistics project begun in 2002 by Bert Vaux and Scott Golder.
Just watched The Fugitive with the fam, then saw this.
Chef Eduardo Garcia lost his left hand after being electrocuted in a hunting accident in 2011, but has since gotten a Bluetooth-activated bionic hand. Though he’s still getting used to its 25 different functions, Garcia says the prosthetic comes with a few benefits to his trade — he can now pick up hot things without getting burned, and doesn’t have to worry about accidentally slicing his fingers.
Fantastic news for anyone with a place in their heart for the Atari 2600, Atari 7800 Pro System, ColecoVision, Magnavox Odyssey², or the Astrocade. The Internet Archive has posted playable emulations of all five of these old consoles on their site.
Wow.
Robert W. Wilson, a retired New York hedge-fund founder who committed his life to giving the fortune he made from investing to charities, has died. He was 87.
Other World Computing took a Mac Pro apart, stripped it to the very core, and shared the pics on their site.
This move gives just the slightest appearance of legitimacy to BitCoin. Interesting move on the part of Overstock.com. But perhaps this is all just PR and signifies nothing. Personally, I won’t be trading in my ready cash for BitCoin anytime soon.
As a science geek, I couldn’t help but be delighted by this bit of tomfoolery (via Reddit). In a nutshell, the idea is to place a hot dog on the floor of your microwave (so it doesn’t rotate), then cook the hot dog until it starts to bubble. Use a ruler to measure the length of the burn marks, throw some math at it, and voilà, you have an approximation for the speed of light.
Great infographic on the HTC web site details the number of hoops an individual device manufacturer needs to jump through in order to clear an update for release.
As you buy and read eBooks, your eBook device collects data on your reading habits. Do you tend to buy lots of books and only finish a small percentage? Do you stick with a single author? Do you binge-read?
This is a great story, via MG Siegler, who was there when it happened.
Jonathan Mann is a pretty talented musician and publisher of the “Song a Day” YouTube channel. MG Siegler is, among other things, a writer for TechCrunch. This story takes place in the summer of 2010, in the midst of Antennagate.
Steve Martin told a joke. It got mangled and misconstrued. Twitter exploded.
Yet another reason I so love hockey. To set the stage, the Sabres were hosting the Coyotes. The Coyotes scored first and held that lead all the way to the last bit of the game. The Sabres scored a nice little goal to send the game to overtime. Next goal wins.
Queue the video. Hilarious!
When I first got into computer science (lo those many years ago), Alan Turing‘s name was one held in reverence. Turing’s big giant brain hatched many of the abstract ideas at the root of the computing tree. The idea of a computer moving through its varied states, driven by algorithms, owes a lot to Turing’s fertile imagination.
I love hockey!
AHL referee David Banfield wears a GoPro helmet cam, giving an up close and personal look at what happens on the ice during a game. The video was shot during the annual Teddy Bear Toss game on Dec. 7, 2013, with the help of microphones on both Banfield and linesman Paul Carnathan, and was produced by the Checkers.
It’s been a great year for Apple.
Marcus “The Magnificant” Malone was a member of the original Santana lineup and played percussion on the first Santana album, released in 1969. Marcus fell on hard times, doing three years in San Quentin prison and ending up homeless on the streets of Oakland, California.
Simply incredible.
A week ago, Cuban-American artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada unveiled his latest public land-art project, “Wish,” as part of the Belfast Festival. “Wish” depicts a portrait of an anonymous girl spanning 11 acres of land that can only be seen from the highest points in Belfast or, for the best view, from an airplane. The face is formed from organic materials like sand, grass and soil, all of which were donated by local businesses.
This project took several years for Gerada to finish. He used satellite technology and manually placed 30,000 wooden pegs on the field, finally “drawing” the face with nearly 8 million pounds of soil, sand and rock.
The Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control in Zurich has developed the Cubli, an incredibly cool robotic cube made up of motors and momentum wheels that can hop up onto one of its corners and stay there, even if you give it a push.
Fascinating article on how your stolen credit or debit card info makes its way through the digital underground.
If you’ve used your debit or credit card at Target between November 27 and December 15, read this article. The most important takeaway:
Debit card holders: call your bank immediately. Debit card users should be especially vigilant. Credit card users won’t be out of pocket if they suffer fraud and contest the charges, but the opposite is true for debit card holders since fraudulent transactions may take their bank balance to zero.
Accordingly, Velasquez recommended that any debit card users who might have been Target breach victims immediately contact their card issuers and ask for advice. “Tell them you’re a victim of the Target breach,” she said. To help combat fraud, different institutions offer different options, such as putting passwords on accounts or changing PIN codes. “But alerting your specific financial institution is really the way to go, because they all have different rules,” she said.
I will definitely be trying this over the holidays.
Interesting side effect when Apple shuts down iTunes Connect for the holidays: Apps that are discounted as of today (December 21) stay that same price until iTunes Connect reopens on December 28th. Follow the headline link for a good list of discounted apps. Head over to AppShopper.com for more. Be sure to click the “Price Drops” tab.
This is brilliant. Eddie Vedder brings Jeanne Tripplehorn on-stage to cover the Stones’ classic “Shattered”. The twist is, Tripplehorn does it in a dead-on Julie Andrews voice. I couldn’t help thinking as I was listening to this, “Hey, I can finally understand the words.” Heh.
So very cool that we have a remotely controllable vehicle roaming the Martian surface. Sometimes I forget.
Was watching the 1982 remake of The Thing when I was struck by the incredible coincidence of one character named Mac (Helicopter pilot R. J. MacReady, played by Kurt Russell) and another character named Windows (played by Thomas G. Waites).
Another fun marketing stunt and some pretty great friends.
There’s something about watching these kids grow up in front of your eyes that tugs at your heart. Nice job, Dad (via reddit).
Love a good ad. This definitely hit the spot for me. Nice job, Cinesite.
Nice little Mac tip. Here’s one way to download an audio or video file when all you have is the URL.
David Pierce gives a nice little tour of Apple’s newest superstar.
It cuts a striking figure, despite its relatively small stature. It’s also incredibly dense, far heavier than I expected. Ten inches tall, 6 inches around, and about weighing in at around 11 pounds, it’s definitely meant to be held by its bottom instead of its top lip.