"Punctuation Rebellion", or How I Stick it to the Man

For a while now, I've been refusing to put trailing punctuation inside of quotation marks, unless the trailing punctuation is an integral part of the thought delineated by said quotation marks. That rule about keeping the punctuation inside quotations is stupid and blunt and I hate it. Right on, this article.

Professional writers, what do you think about this? Are there rules that YOU would break for the greater good of all humankind, if you weren't so terrified of being reprimanded for insubordination?

Ca plane pour moi

slow


fast

Civilization

Video installation by Marco Brambilla for the Standard Hotel in NY. The journey from Hell to Heaven plays as you ride the elevators. Video and interviews here.

Mobile Post Test

Secret Leaders of the Rebellion

I refer to this document a lot, and I finally remembered to post it. Or maybe I've already posted it, and couldn't find it. Anyway. Using new information in the Star Wars prequels, the author, one Keith Martin, reinterprets the original trilogy--most interestingly by suggesting that R2-D2 and Chewbacca are the ones really running the show. Excerpt:

Chewie persuaded Han to do business with Jabba the Hutt so he could make regular runs to Tattoine, where Chewie could pass messages between Kenobi and Organa. When R2's urgent message came through only days before, the only way for Chewie to get back to Tattoine in time was to make the "mistake" that forced Han to dump his cargo to avoid capture. As a down side, this led to Solo's getting a death mark out on him from Jabba the Hutt. Chewie was a bit upset about the need for that but figured they weren't going to be dealing with Tattoine for much longer.

En route to Alderaan, R2 and Chewie play stop-motion chess. This is the latest in a series of games they've played over the year in the back rooms of space stations and cantinas across the galaxy, but this is the first time they've done it in front of their respective straight men, so they put on a big show.

Lose You..

New Peaches video

A few things collected from the internet this week

I wish I had the strength of will to fact-check this myself

This, is a fucking awesome walrus

The Perry Bible Fellowship

School lunches from around the world!

I believe the story for this was a guy asked his girlfriend to draw what happens during her period


And the title of this one is apparently "Rebel Rebel"

Have a good weekend, P.o.T.!

Mrs. Brisby vs Mrs. Frisby

From today’s Times

Editorial
Gene by Gene
Published: June 5, 2009

Over the years, scientists have developed many strains of genetically modified mice, many of which incorporate human versions of similar mouse genes. But there is something different in a recent experiment performed at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Scientists there have created a strain of mouse that contains the human variant of a gene, called FOXP2, associated with several critical tasks, including the human capacity for language.

What makes this different is how fundamentally human — and unmouse-like — language really is. Something essential to us, something defining in our species, has been implanted in a rodent.

FOXP2 happens to work pretty well in mice. Those with the new gene in place do in fact communicate differently with each other, by using slightly lower-pitched ultrasonic whistles. The nerve cells they grow in one region of the brain are also more complex than those in unaltered mice. These may sound like modest results, but they are striking. They help clarify the function of FOXP2, and, in doing so, they help scientists better understand what constellation of genes produces the capacity for language in humans and, thus, how we differ from our nearest primate relative, the chimpanzee.

What takes some getting used to is the idea of exploring what humanness really is — how complex and how little understood — by transplanting our genetic signatures, gene by gene, into other species. And there is another question hovering over this experiment: Just how alien to themselves do these transgenic mice become? To that question, scientists are bound to find no answers, until, perhaps, mice can speak for themselves.

Original article from Cell. A bit dryer and less enthusiastic about the possibility of a live action remake.