Today marks the 40th anniversary of the launch of WorldCat, the world’s most comprehensive online library database. Few of those involved in the creation of WorldCat would have guessed that 40 years later, thousands of librarians and catalogers around the world would have cataloged more than 1.7 billion items.
via WC40.
“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit†is probably the most popular sentence in the world that is not meant to be read. “Lorem Ipsum†(shorthand for the entire, seemingly endless body of Latin text) is the green screen of the publishing world — placeholder copy used by designers to replicate how a block of text will look and how many words it will fit before swapping in the fully written article. This apparent gibberish, however, has been used for this purpose since the 1500s, and its foundation goes back even further. According to lipsum.com:
It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 B.C., making it more than 2,000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the citations of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of “De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum†(“The Extremes of Good and Evilâ€) by Cicero, written in 45 B.C.
James Salter Wins the 2010 Rea Award…
Rea Award for the Short Story is a lifetime-achievement prize bestowed annually on “a living American or Canadian writer whose published work has made a significant contribution in the discipline of the short story as an art form.â€
This year ’s jurors praised Salter as “the most stylish and grave and exact of writers.â€
The winners were:
* Best Novel (1813 ballots): Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis (Ballantine Spectra)
* Best Novella (1467 ballots): The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang (Subterranean)
* Best Novelette (1469 ballots): “The Emperor of Mars†by Allen M. Steele (Asimov’s, June 2010)
* Best Short Story (1597 ballots): “For Want of a Nail†by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s, September 2010)
* Best Related Work (1220 ballots): Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It, edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O’Shea (Mad Norwegian)
* Best Graphic Story (1263 ballots) Girl Genius, Volume 10: Agatha Heterodyne and the Guardian Muse, written by Phil and Kaja Foglio; art by Phil Foglio; colors by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)
* Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form (1755 ballots): Inception, written and directed by Christopher Nolan (Warner)
* Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form (1466 ballots): Doctor Who: “The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang,†written by Steven Moffat; directed by Toby Haynes (BBC Wales)
* Best Editor, Short Form (983 ballots): Sheila Williams
* Best Editor, Long Form (898 ballots): Lou Anders
* Best Professional Artist (1304 ballots): Shaun Tan
* Best Semiprozine (1112 ballots): Clarkesworld, edited by Neil Clarke, Cheryl Morgan, Sean Wallace; podcast directed by Kate Baker
* Best Fanzine (870 ballots): The Drink Tank, edited by Christopher J Garcia and James Bacon
* Best Fan Writer (814 ballots): Claire Brialey
* Best Fan Artist (993 ballots): Brad W. Foster
* John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (1138 ballots): Lev Grossman
The Flynn effect has always been tinged with mystery. First popularized by the political scientist James Flynn, the effect refers to the widespread increase in IQ scores over time. Some measures of intelligence — such as performance on Raven’s Progressive Matrices in Des Moines and Scotland — have been increasing for at least 100 years. What’s most peculiar is how scores have increased:
1) Scores have increased the most on the problem-solving portion of intelligence tests.
2) Verbal intelligence has remained relatively flat, while non-verbal scores continue to rise.
3) Performance gains have occurred across all age groups.
4) The rise in scores exists primarily on those tests with content that does not appear to be easily learned.
via Are Smart People Getting Smarter? | Wired Science | Wired.com.