550 Free Audio Books: Download Great Books for Free. Download a Free Audiobook from Audible and also AudioBooks.com Download hundreds of free audio books, mostly classics, to your MP3 player or computer. Below, you’ll find great works of fiction, poetry and non-fiction, by such authors as Twain, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Orwell, Vonnegut, Nietzsche, Austen, Shakespeare, Asimov, HG Wells & more. Also please see our related collection: The 150 Best Podcasts to Enrich Your Mind. Fiction & Literature. Home - The Overview Institute. Nine Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Swear Words. Four-letter words have been around since the days of our forebears—and their forebears, too. In Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing, a book out this month from Oxford University Press, medieval literature expert Melissa Mohr traces humans’ use of naughty language back to Roman times.
NewsFeed asked Mohr what surprising tidbits readers might stumble upon amidst the expletives. Here are nine talking points from her opus for your next (presumably, pretty edgy) cocktail hour. (FROM THE MAGAZINE: Help! 1. About 0.7% of the words a person uses in the course of a day are swear words, which may not sound significant except that as Mohr notes, we use first-person plural pronouns — words like we, our and ourselves — at about the same rate. 2. Mohr’s work incorporates research by Timothy Jay, a psychology professor at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, who uncovered the 0.7% statistic above and has also charted a rise in the use of swear words by children — even toddlers. 3. 4. 5. 6. 99 Life Hacks to make your life easier! - Imeimei.
Heracleion Photos: Lost Egyptian City Revealed After 1,200 Years Under Sea. It is a city shrouded in myth, swallowed by the Mediterranean Sea and buried in sand and mud for more than 1,200 years. But now archeologists are unearthing the mysteries of Heracleion, uncovering amazingly well-preserved artifacts that tell the story of a vibrant classical-era port. Known as Heracleion to the ancient Greeks and Thonis to the ancient Eygptians, the city was rediscovered in 2000 by French underwater archaeologist Dr. Franck Goddio and a team from the European Institute for Underwater Acheology (IEASM) after a four-year geophysical survey. The ruins of the lost city were found 30 feet under the surface of the Mediterranean Sea in Aboukir Bay, near Alexandria. A new documentary highlights the major discoveries that have been unearthed at Thonis-Heracleion during a 13-year excavation. Heracleion Photos: Lost Egyptian City Artifacts Unearthed After 1,200 Years Under Sea Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation, graphic: Yann Bernard WATCH: Colossal Sunken Statues Of Thonis-Heracleion.
Resistance Is Useful: An Essay - flyingblogspot.com (tales from urban dilettantia) Five Geek Social Fallacies. Within the constellation of allied hobbies and subcultures collectively known as geekdom, one finds many social groups bent under a crushing burden of dysfunction, social drama, and general interpersonal wack-ness. It is my opinion that many of these never-ending crises are sparked off by an assortment of pernicious social fallacies -- ideas about human interaction which spur their holders to do terrible and stupid things to themselves and to each other. Social fallacies are particularly insidious because they tend to be exaggerated versions of notions that are themselves entirely reasonable and unobjectionable. It's difficult to debunk the pathological fallacy without seeming to argue against its reasonable form; therefore, once it establishes itself, a social fallacy is extremely difficult to dislodge.
It's my hope that drawing attention to some of them may be a step in the right direction. In any event, here are five geek social fallacies I've identified. There are likely more. Batman: Arkham Asylum Walkthrough (PS3) ConCarolinas. Snow and Smodcasts. Since you asked, yes, it's still snowing. Judging by the howling noises the winds are making around the house, I believe it's blizzarding. And it's the most serious snowstorm in these parts for 19 years.
I moved here 18 years ago, which means it's definitely the snowiest snowstorm I've ever experienced. ......................................................................................................................................................................So they're all together in one place, here are the three Kevin Smith Smodcastle Smodcasts: The interview is almost two hours of Amanda and me answering questions.
Then you get 50 minutes of Amanda. And then (mostly because it was getting really late) you get me reading for about 30 minutes. You can play them here for free, or you can buy and download them. Labels: and snow, kevin smith, snow, yet more snow. Wake Up, Geek Culture. Time to Die | Magazine. Looking back, we were American otakus, says comedian and author Patton Oswalt, who has a plan for reviving geek culture. Photo: Chris Buck; styling: Jill Roth; prop styling: Nanci Bennet; grooming: Paul Castro/Aim Artists I’m not a nerd. I used to be one, back 30 years ago when nerd meant something. I entered the ’80s immersed, variously, in science fiction, Dungeons & Dragons, and Stephen King. I can’t say that I ever abided nerd stereotypes: I was never alone or felt outcast.
In Japan, the word otaku refers to people who have obsessive, minute interests—especially stuff like anime or videogames. I was too young to drive or hold a job. Our respective nerdery took on various forms: One friend was the first to get his hands on early bootlegs of Asian action flicks by Tsui Hark and John Woo, and he never looked back. Admittedly, there’s a chilly thrill in moving with the herd while quietly being tuned in to something dark, complicated, and unknown just beneath the topsoil of popularity.