How to use this Page

Light occupies a central place in our understanding of the world both as a means by which we locate ourselves in nature and as a thing that inspires our imagination. Light is what enables us to see things, and thus to navigate our surroundings. It is also a primary means by which we learn about the world – light beams carry information about the constituents of the universe, from distant stars and galaxies to the cells in our bodies to individual atoms and molecules.

The post 6 things you didn’t know about light appeared first on OUPblog.

Driving home with her GPS last week, author Jennifer Weiner was inspired to write her first ghost story, Recalculating. She published the story today as digital Halloween treat.

It took Weiner five hours to draft the 35 page story about a haunted GPS device. In a matter of two days, the team at Atria Books edited the book and designed a cover. You can find the digital short for 99-cents on Amazon, on B&N and on iTunes.

What do you think? Here’s more about the book: “I was thinking of a darker, more dangerous kind of GPS. And then, I started asking the writer’s big question: why? Why would a GPS want to do a bad, bad thing? Just like that, I had a story. An abused wife. A dead husband who doesn’t want to stay dead. A gift-wrapped box in the attic…and a GPS that starts telling its new owner to make some seriously wrong turns.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

I recently had to record myself sketching for the nice folks at Graduates Payment System. I've never done anything like this before so there was a bit of a learning curve sorting everything out. I was given a written script and did some sketches before hand. Other than that, there was no plan. As you can see it had to be shortened quite a bit...



Here is the slower test version I made for myself:

Lady Gaga debuts new Polaroid line at CES (Grey Label, the first collection tied directly to Gaga as creative director, includes sunglasses with an embedded digital camera; a portable wireless printer that prints out mobile-phone photos; and a... Read the rest of this post

Greta stopped speaking to me.
Was it something I said? Did she disapprove of my infrequent trips to the mall? Was I spending too much time in parking garages, while she searched for me in vain? Was I spending too much time with Google Maps?
Did I ignore her once too often?
I’ve blogged before about my love affair with my GPS, Greta Garmin. It’s easy to develop a relationship with any machine that talks to you.
Whenever I miss a turn, or choose not to follow Greta’s directions, she says, “recalculating” in an exasperated, eye-rolling tone of voice. It’s like she’s thinking, You asked me for directions, or How hard can it be to turn when I say turn? But she never gives up on me. She has endless patience, not like SOME PEOPLE. She’ll recalculate till the cows come home. Or I do.
So you can imagine my concern recently when Greta’s voice began to falter, dwindling to a strangled, truncated croak. The screen directions were still there, but that requires me to take my eyes off the road and try to focus on that little screen. I might as well try and read a map.
Desperately, I tried the British voice, the male voice—none of them spoke to me, either.
My son has the same model Garmin. His has also begun to fail—in his case, the voice is fine, but the screen has dimmed until it’s nearly unreadable. He feels comfortable reading and wrangling electronic devices in the car. He’d rather have the screen than the voice.
Put the two together and you have one fully-functional Garmin.
It used to be when I headed out on a car trip, I would consult a map, plan my route, and carry multiple maps in the car in case I lost my way (as I often did).
With Greta aboard, I just launched, confident I could find my way there and back. School visit in a small town? Piece of cake. Find my conference hotel in a city filled with one-way streets? No problemo. Take back roads to the airport in a strange town? She has my back.
Without her, I feel cut loose, orphaned, like Hansel and Gretel without the breadcrumbs.
I contacted Garmin, only to find that Greta was eight months out of warranty. But they agreed to send a refurbished unit as a good will gesture.
And now she’s back—good as new, though just a little put out at being sent away. I’ll make it up to her. We’ll take some long road trips together—just the two of us.

I've been tagged by The Magic of Books as a Thinking Blogger. (Thanks, PJ Librarian!)

Robin Brande recently mentioned that she was sure I had been tagged, but, alas, not until this point. So here's the upshot:

Origins of the award can be found at the thinking blog.

The rules are:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if golddoesn't fit your blog).

I wanted to nominate thinking bloggers I'm not sure have been nominated earlier. If you've already been nominated, feel free to pass your nomination on to another thinking blog.

My nominations are:

Michele at Scholar's Blog for always making me think and for catching my typos.

Becky at Farm School, who always writes long and thoughtful posts on a variety of topics.

Kirby Larson for her Hot Women of Children's Literature series. (Oh, and for Hattie Big Sky, too.)

Kate's Book Blog--because Kate's posts on books are thoughtful and I always find a new recommendation over at her place.

Kimberley at lectitans--a newer kid/YA book blog, but a good one.