Jacobean Iron-On Transfer Patterns: Twenty-Four Authentic Embroidery Motifs

Unda Ormesson

	Jacobean Iron-On Transfer Patterns: Twenty-Four Authentic Embroidery Motifs
	Published: 01 June, 1978
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	Author: Unda Ormesson

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Jacobean Iron-On Transfer Patterns: Twenty-Four Authentic Embroidery Motifs

Quiz: What Should You Really Fear?

In <cite>The Wisdom of Crowds</cite>, James Surowiecki told us to go with the flow. In <cite>Blink</cite>, Malcolm Gladwell advised that we trust our gut. In <cite>The Science of Fear</cite>, Canadian journalist Dan Gardner warns us to start second-guessing both the media-driven popular consensus and our instincts. Fatally bad decision-making occurs when the gut — the subconscious mechanism of self-preservation that got us through the pre-CNN epochs — identifies a media-amplified image, story, or statistic as a clear and present danger. The resulting inchoate sense of foreboding causes us to grossly overestimate the danger of highly unlikely threats (West Nile virus, terrorist attacks, abduction, plane crashes, shark attacks) and underestimate far more serious, if mundane, threats (car accidents). Our best defense against the media's (mostly) well-intentioned Chicken Littles? Do the math, Gardner tells us, and turn off the television. <OBJECT classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" WIDTH="526" HEIGHT="439" id="quiz"> <PARAM NAME=movie VALUE="/wired/archive/16.07/fear_factor.swf""> <PARAM NAME=quality VALUE=high> <PARAM NAME=bgcolor VALUE=#FFFFFF> <EMBED src="/wired/archive/16.07/fear_factor.swf" quality=high bgcolor=#FFFFFF WIDTH="526" HEIGHT="439" NAME="quiz" ALIGN="" TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"> </EMBED> </OBJECT> <!-- p>Quiz: What Should You Really Be Afraid Of? 1. What was the total death toll of the 9/11 terrorist attacks? a. 3,000 b. 4,595 c. 20,000 2. The most recent suicide bombing in the US was carried out by ... a. a foreign Muslim terrorist. b. a native non-Muslim terrorist. c. a foreign non-Muslim terrorist. d. a native Muslim terrorist. 3. Man-made and naturally occurring pollutants cause what percent of cancer cases? a. 2 percent b. 33 percent c. 62 percent d. 83 percent 4. Ratio of mad cow disease deaths in England to the number of BBC News stories about mad cow disease: a. 20:1 b. 10:1 c. 3:1 d. 1:1 5. Ratio of deaths from smoking to BBC stories about smoking deaths: a. 2:1 b. 1:1 c. 1:2 d. 8,571:1 6. How many people did the early '90s Ebola virus outbreak in Virginia and the 1995 outbreak in the Congo kill, respectively? a. 3 and 7,035 b. 0 and 255 c. 1 and 824 d. 12 and 11,700 7. Approximate number of deaths caused by 1998 civil war in the Congo: a. 2.9 million b. 900,000 c. 100,000 d. 255 8. An American student is 75 times more likely to be killed ... a. on campus. b. off-campus. 9. Chances that an asteroid 100 meters across, delivering the explosive equivalent of 3,500 Nagasaki bombs, will hit Earth in the next century: a. 1 in 5,000 b. 1 in 250 c. 1 in 100 d. zero 10. Age at which breast cancer is most likely to strike: a. 40 b. 50 c. 60 d. 80+ 11. Number of dead at which "compassion fatigue" starts to occur: a. 40,000 b. 50 c. 2 d. 500,000 Answers 1: B The approximately 3,000 who died in the initial attacks, plus the 1,595 who in the wake of 9/11 decided to drive instead of fly and as a result died in car accidents the following year. 2: b Joel Henry Hinrichs III, a Timothy McVeigh wannabe, blew himself up outside a full football stadium at the University of Oklahoma on October 1, 2005. The media barely covered it — the demographics of the bomber just didn't fit with the current foreign/Muslim narrative. 3: a; 4: C; 5: d; 6: b; 7: A; 8: b; 9: c; 10: d, then c, then b, then a — everyone picks the younger ages, because those are the cases we hear about most. 11: c Psychologist Paul Slovik shows that for any given incident, people are emotionally affected less with each death greater than one, so when you get to genocide-level numbers, they barely register on an emotional level. <img alt="" style="border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=36f3936e552eb1e27508f044a8c232e4" height="1" width="1"/> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=36f3936e552eb1e27508f044a8c232e4" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?a=SswkJH"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?i=SswkJH" border="0"></img></a><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=wY0cKJ"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=wY0cKJ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=KTbU0j"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=KTbU0j" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=v4goxj"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=v4goxj" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=VdIpcJ"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=VdIpcJ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/culture/~4/329477067" height="1" width="1"/>

Gallery: Top 10 Worst Aircraft Ever

<img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_worstplanes/tupolev144_t.jpg'></img>: In the 105 years since the Wright Brothers took to the air, dreamers, engineers and aviation buffs have designed every kind of airplane imaginable in a never-ending quest to fly higher, faster or further. Some were innovative, some were beautiful and some even made history. Others, well, let's just say they must have looked good on paper. Here's a tribute to some of those that surely looked better on paper. <h3>Tupolev TU- 144 </h3> The Concorde gets all the love, but Russia's Tupolev TU-144 was the first supersonic transport and the only commercial plane to exceed Mach 2. The "Concordski" was fast but plagued by bad luck. Three crashes -- including a dramatic mid-air breakup during the 1973 Paris Air Show -- relegated it largely to a lifetime delivering mail. It was mothballed in 1985 but briefly brought back a few years later as a research plane. <img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_worstplanes/comet_t.jpg'></img>: The Comet was the premiere commercial jet airliner and a landmark in British aeronautics when it first flew in 1949. Today it's better known for its atrocious safety record. Of the 114 Comets built, 13 were involved in fatal accidents, most of them attributed to design flaws and metal fatigue. <img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_worstplanes/h4hercules_t.jpg'></img>: The “Spruce Goose” was either a brilliant aircraft years ahead of its time or the biggest government boondoggle ever. By far the largest aircraft ever conceived -- its wingspan was 319 feet -- the Spruce Goose was intended to be a military transport plane. But it wasn't finished until well after World War II ended, rendering it both obsolete and irrelevant. It <a href="http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/11/dayintech_1102">only flew once</a>. <img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_worstplanes/lsw4_zubr_t.jpg'></img>: The Zubr was as useless as it was ugly. Not only was it incapable of flying with the landing gear retracted, the airframe was so highly stressed the plane could disintegrate without warning. If that wasn't enough, it couldn't take off with a payload much heavier than a few cartons of cigarettes. The Polish Air Force had a few in its fleet during World War II, but none of them saw combat. <img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_worstplanes/christmasbullet_t.jpg'></img>: Cool name, lousy plane. Dr. William Christmas didn't know the first thing about planes when he designed one for the U.S. Army Signal Corps, and it showed. He didn't think the plane needed wing struts, so of course the wings fell off during the plane's maiden flight in 1918. <img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_worstplanes/ug002647_t.jpg'></img>: With its carbon-composite construction, unique design and rearward-facing turboprop engines, the Starship was a groundbreaking aircraft. But it was slow, difficult to fly and a bear to maintain. It took to the air in 1989, but Beechcraft only sold a few of the 53 it built. <img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_worstplanes/pawnee_t.jpg'></img>: The Hiller VZ-1 hovercraft must have looked good on paper, because it sure didn't look good in the air. The idea was simple -- a fan provides lift and the pilot steers by shifting his weight. The Defense Department loved it until it saw the Pawnee in flight. It was good for just 16 mph and it tended to be uncontrollable. The project was killed in the late 1950s. <img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_worstplanes/a12_t.jpg'></img>: Defense Department projects are famous for cost overruns, and General Dynamic’s flying wing bomber was a doozy. The Flying Dorito was the most troubled of the stealth aircraft projects the Pentagon embraced during the 1980s, experiencing problems with its radar systems and use of composite materials. When the projected cost of each plane ballooned to $165 million, a Secretary of Defense named Dick Cheney killed it in 1991. <img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_worstplanes/b_e_2c_t.jpg'></img>: With its anemic engine, poor maneuverability and gunner blocking the pilot's view, the B.E. 2 was doomed from the start. German aces had no problem shooting them down during World War II, making it just about useless as a fighter. It had no problems against German Zeppelins, though, so the plane lived out its days attacking them instead. <img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_worstplanes/boeingxb15_t.jpg'></img>: The XB 15 was the largest plane ever built in the United States until the Spruce Goose came along. The heavy bomber was so massive it had passageways in the wings and bunks for the crew. But big planes need big engines and no one made one big enough to give the XB any kind of speed for its maiden flight in 1937. The plane maxed out at 200 mph, and the U.S. Army Air Corps killed the project. The only XB ever built saw duty as a cargo plane in the Caribbean during World War II. <img alt="" style="border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=d1b7de049617f4ebc0cbab10d1acfb47" height="1" width="1"/> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=d1b7de049617f4ebc0cbab10d1acfb47" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?a=ICMc42"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?i=ICMc42" border="0"></img></a><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=jKnYjJ"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=jKnYjJ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=wD9Edj"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=wD9Edj" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=yn5SPj"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=yn5SPj" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=OSTjBJ"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=OSTjBJ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/culture/~4/329477068" height="1" width="1"/>

Gallery: Japan's Hottest Celebrity Bloggers

<img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_japanese_blogger/shoko_nakagawa_t.jpg'></img>: If you go to Japan and tell people you're a blogger, they might assume you're a celebrity. While blogs are making incredible headway as a source of credible information in the United States, in Japan they are mostly thought of as high-profile diaries. "It's an evolution of Japan's diary culture," which dates back to the 8th century, says Ichiro Kiyota, an editor at Gizmodo Japan. "Celebrities say things on blogs that they can't tell the mainstream media, and we all read it so we can get to know them better." Japan's celebrity bloggers run the gamut in terms of popularity and topics they write about, but they have several things in common: They're good-looking, they're geeky and they love to blog. Here are our 10 faves. Name: Shoko Nakagawa Age: 23 Blog: <a href="http://blog.excite.co.jp/shokotan/">Shokotan blog</a> Claim to fame: Japan's new Queen of Blogging makes geeks go wild with her impressive otaku cred. Traffic: By some estimates 100 million pageviews per month.* Day job: Actress, singer, etc. Favorite topics: Nails, cake, cats, cosplayers, cellphone bling, sexy figurines. Most recently, she created worldwide buzz when she put a cat in her mouth. *Traffic is self-reported unless otherwise specified. <img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_japanese_blogger/kaori_manabe_t.jpg'></img>: Name: Kaori Manabe Age: 27 Blog: <a href="http://manabekawori.cocolog-nifty.com/">Kaori Manabe's Between You and Me</a> Claim to fame: The original Queen of Blogging was one of the first celebrities to exploit the influencing power of the web. Traffic: N/A Day job: Actress, book author, former swimsuit model. Favorite topics: Food she cooks; getting drunk. <img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_japanese_blogger/kyan_chiaki_t.jpg'></img>: Name: Chiaki Kyan Blog: <a href="http://kyanchi.blog73.fc2.com/">Kyanchi Everyday</a> Location: Tokyo Traffic: 25,000 pageviews per day. Day job: Bikini idol Favorite topics: Gundam; her cat; web video sites like <a href="http://www.nicovideo.jp/index.php">Nico Nico Douga</a> and YouTube. <img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_japanese_blogger/saito_t.jpg'></img>: Name: Noriko Saito Blog: <a href="http://d.hatena.ne.jp/dropdb/">DropB</a> Location: Tokyo Age: 25 Traffic: 250,000 pageviews per month. Day job: Web director of a media company. Favorite topics: Programming languages, iPhones, 12 reasons why she'd make a good wife (she can program; she's funny; she knows everything about <a href="http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2007/04/2channel">2channel</a>). <img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_japanese_blogger/asami81_2_t.jpg'></img>: Name: Asami Shinohara Blog: <a href="http://d.hatena.ne.jp/asami81/">iGirl</a> Age: 26 Location: Osaka Traffic: 120,000 pageviews per month. Day job: TV show host, manager of AuPair Japan. Favorite topics: Her blinged-out cellphone; her snack addiction; books she's reading (<cite>The Age of Turbulence</cite> by Alan Greenspan, <cite>Speed Reading Skills for Kings</cite>); her desire to be as beloved as a Mac product. <img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_japanese_blogger/yumi_t.jpg'></img>: Name: Yumi Fukuda Age: 25 Blog: <a href="http://yumiking.xii.jp/diary/">Yumiking Diary</a> Location: Tokyo Traffic: 13,000 pageviews per month. Day job: Journalist Favorite topics: Her new FOMA F906i mobile phone; pictures of her breakfast. <img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_japanese_blogger/johnny_t.jpg'></img>: Name: Johnny Kusakabe Age: 27 Blog: <a href="http://jo2inu.blog44.fc2.com/">Johnny Kusakabe's Case File</a> Location: Osaka Traffic: 3,000 pageviews per day Day job: Salaryman Favorite topics: Videogames; outrageous 2channel threads about eating cockroaches. He also has a parody blog called <a href="http://scatrawberry2.blog88.fc2.com/">the Shoutan blog</a>. <img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_japanese_blogger/matsu_t.jpg'></img>: Name: Yuko Matsumaru Age: 29 Blog: <a href="http://yaplog.jp/matsu-you/">Matsu-You's Eye</a> Location: Tokyo Traffic: N/A Day job: TV MC, designer, model Favorite topics: Lacy, romantic pink things (a pink Care Bears pouch, a shiny pink Zima). <img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_japanese_blogger/benjo_t.jpg'></img>: Name: Benijo Blog: <a href="http://lovecall.14.dtiblog.com/">Do You Like Geeky Women?</a> Traffic: N/A Day job: R&D at a social media consulting firm. Favorite topics: PHP and MySQL, debugging, making Japan's No. 1 geek databases. <img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_japanese_blogger/shuho_saito_t.jpg'></img>: Name: Shuho Saito Age: 32 Blog: <a href="http://shuiro.typepad.com/note/">Shuiro Note</a> Location: Tokyo Traffic: 5,000 pageviews per day Day job: Homemaker who used to work at Six Apart. Favorite topics: Fancy homemade lunch boxes; affiliate links to household items like pots, pans and mixers. <img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/07/gallery_japanese_blogger/yusuke_kamiji_t.jpg'></img>: Name: Kamiji Yusuke Blog: <a href="http://ameblo.jp/kamijiyusuke/">Kamiji Yusuke's Official Blog</a> Claim to fame: He holds the Guinness World Record for "most unique users on a personal blog in 24 hours." Traffic: 6 million pageviews per day. Favorite topics: Posts titled "Um," "Ah" or "Last Night" trigger an instant wave of thousands of comments by fawning fans. <img alt="" style="border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=aedbd3c98c5fb805e9739f302ad4ba7f" height="1" width="1"/> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=aedbd3c98c5fb805e9739f302ad4ba7f" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?a=3IL5YY"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?i=3IL5YY" border="0"></img></a><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=0r1PHJ"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=0r1PHJ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=iTEvKj"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=iTEvKj" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=DCMi2j"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=DCMi2j" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=LvXdyJ"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=LvXdyJ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/culture/~4/328550865" height="1" width="1"/>

Tea, Tennis, Faceless Aliens at Wimbledon

As the 2008 Wimbledon fortnight plays itself out, the event offers all of its traditional trappings -- immaculately mown grass, clean yellow tennis balls, breakfasts of strawberries and creme and well-dressed faceless alien androids. <img alt="" style="border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=58d422238bc86fd88735d99d54530464" height="1" width="1"/> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=58d422238bc86fd88735d99d54530464" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?a=YqqOi6"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?i=YqqOi6" border="0"></img></a><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=qF0cUJ"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=qF0cUJ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=8MMGUj"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=8MMGUj" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=54nmkj"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=54nmkj" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=OW6RkJ"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=OW6RkJ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/culture/~4/328204071" height="1" width="1"/>

Inside Jokes: Science Writer Jim Holt Explores Why We Laugh

What do you get when you cross scholarly research and dick jokes? Nothing to laugh at, normally. But science writer Jim Holt defies the Heisenberg principle of humor — you can't study it without killing it — in his book <cite>Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes</cite>. We caught up with him walking into a bar. Wired: One question you tackle is who invented the joke. Weren't we cracking wise back in the caves? Holt: No, the classic joke form — setup with incongruity, punch line that resolves the incongruity —seems to have come out of Greece and Rome. There's this guy in Greek -mythology called Palamedes who invented practically everything — numbers, currency, lighthouses, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He also supposedly invented the joke. And, of course, he was stoned to death. Wired: So where do new jokes come from? Holt: It used to be that all the jokes I got came from Wall Street. Now, with the Internet, they're sort of everywhere and nowhere at once. But the ideas for jokes are cultural — concepts that keep reappearing in different guises over the centuries. Wired: There are lots of theories about why we joke. Which do you find most plausible? Holt: Well, there's the superiority theory, that jokes express scorn for your inferiors — cripples and cuckolds and foreigners and the like. Plato said we laugh at vice. Then there's the Freudian interpretation, that it's all about sexual repression. Finally, there's the seduction theory, based on the observation that men do most of the joking while women do most of the laughing. Christopher Hitchens wrote a piece in <cite>Vanity Fair</cite> arguing that the only way most guys can impress women is to make them laugh. Wired: But your favorite explanation is a mashup of Kant and evolutionary biology, right? Holt: V. S. Ramachandran, the brain researcher, has a theory about the origin of laughter — that when you're in the jungle and there's an apparent threat, the first member of the kinship group to notice that it's not a real threat emits this stereotyped vocalization. And it's contagious, so everyone starts laughing. That's also the basis of the relief theory of humor, that there's a release of the energy you had summoned up to solve some puzzle. Kant said that the essence of humor is a strained expectation dissolving into nothing. Wired: Did you find any candidates for the perfect joke? Holt: I did find what might be the shortest possible joke: "Pretentious? Moi?" <a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=55fe67dc39e0ac8042a5af15e8f5a749"><img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=55fe67dc39e0ac8042a5af15e8f5a749"/></a> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=55fe67dc39e0ac8042a5af15e8f5a749" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?a=etphPn"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?i=etphPn" border="0"></img></a><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=BVPt8J"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=BVPt8J" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=8AZMTj"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=8AZMTj" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=IXcl4j"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=IXcl4j" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=cEjyBJ"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=cEjyBJ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/culture/~4/327828145" height="1" width="1"/>

Video: Pac-Man, Space Invaders Laser Body Mods

Forget tattoos. These days all the cool kids are using high speed laser etching machines to burn gaming icons onto their appendages. <img alt="" style="border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=efef430497fef09999851b575f34f457" height="1" width="1"/> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=efef430497fef09999851b575f34f457" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?a=gbNZGB"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?i=gbNZGB" border="0"></img></a><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=ZZNI4J"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=ZZNI4J" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=8nWXQj"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=8nWXQj" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=Z5oLjj"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=Z5oLjj" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=6HlJXJ"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=6HlJXJ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/culture/~4/327529355" height="1" width="1"/>

How English Is Evolving Into a Language We May Not Even Understand

The targeted offenses: if you are stolen, call the police at once. please omnivorously put the waste in garbage can. deformed man lavatory. For the past 18 months, teams of language police have been scouring Beijing on a mission to wipe out all such traces of bad English signage before the Olympics come to town in August. They're the type of goofy transgressions that we in the English homelands love to poke fun at, devoting entire Web sites to so-called Chinglish. (By the way, that last phrase means "handicapped bathroom.") But what if these sentences aren't really bad English? What if they are evidence that the English language is happily leading an alternative lifestyle without us? Thanks to globalization, the Allied victories in World War II, and American leadership in science and technology, English has become so successful across the world that it's escaping the boundaries of what we think it should be. In part, this is because there are fewer of us: By 2020, native speakers will make up only 15 percent of the estimated 2 billion people who will be using or learning the language. Already, most conversations in English are between nonnative speakers who use it as a lingua franca. In China, this sort of free-form adoption of English is helped along by a shortage of native English-speaking teachers, who are hard to keep happy in rural areas for long stretches of time. An estimated 300 million Chinese — roughly equivalent to the total US population — read and write English but don't get enough quality spoken practice. The likely consequence of all this? In the future, more and more spoken English will sound increasingly like Chinese. It's not merely that English will be salted with Chinese vocabulary for local cuisine, bon mots, and curses or that speakers will peel off words from local dialects. The Chinese and other Asians already pronounce English differently — in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways. For example, in various parts of the region they tend not to turn vowels in unstressed syllables into neutral vowels. Instead of "har-muh-nee," it's "har-moh-nee." And the sounds that begin words like this and thing are often enunciated as the letters f, v, t, or d. In Singaporean English (known as Singlish), think is pronounced "tink," and theories is "tee-oh-rees." English will become more like Chinese in other ways, too. Some grammatical appendages unique to English (such as adding do or did to questions) will drop away, and our practice of not turning certain nouns into plurals will be ignored. Expect to be asked: "How many informations can your flash drive hold?" In Mandarin, Cantonese, and other tongues, sentences don't require subjects, which leads to phrases like this: "Our goalie not here yet, so give chance, can or not?" One noted feature of Singlish is the use of words like ah, lah, or wah at the end of a sentence to indicate a question or get a listener to agree with you. They're each pronounced with tone — the linguistic feature that gives spoken Mandarin its musical quality — adding a specific pitch to words to alter their meaning. (If you say "xin" with an even tone, it means "heart"; with a descending tone it means "honest.") According to linguists, such words may introduce tone into other Asian-English hybrids. Given the number of people involved, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinglish">Chinglish</a> is destined to take on a life of its own. Advertisers will play with it, as they already do in Taiwan. It will be celebrated as a form of cultural identity, as the Hong Kong Museum of Art did in a Chinglish exhibition last year. It will be used widely online and in movies, music, games, and books, as it is in Singapore. Someday, it may even be taught in schools. Ultimately, it's not that speakers will slide along a continuum, with "proper" language at one end and local English dialects on the other, as in countries where creoles are spoken. Nor will <a href="http://chinglish.com/community/show/Chinglish+Dictionary">Chinglish</a> replace native languages, as creoles sometimes do. It's that Chinglish will be just as proper as any other English on the planet. And it's possible Chinglish will be more efficient than our version, doing away with word endings and the articles a, an, and the. After all, if you can figure out "Environmental sanitation needs your conserve," maybe conservation isn't so necessary. Any language is constantly evolving, so it's not surprising that English, transplanted to new soil, is bearing unusual fruit. Nor is it unique that a language, spread so far from its homelands, would begin to fracture. The obvious comparison is to Latin, which broke into mutually distinct languages over hundreds of years — French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian. A less familiar example is Arabic: The speakers of its myriad dialects are connected through the written language of the Koran and, more recently, through the homogenized Arabic of Al Jazeera. But what's happening to English may be its own thing: It's mingling with so many more local languages than Latin ever did, that it's on a path toward a global tongue — what's coming to be known as Panglish. Soon, when Americans travel abroad, one of the languages they'll have to learn may be their own. Michael Erard (<a href="mailto:author@umthebook.com">author@umthebook.com</a>) wrote about the spread of the Chinese language in issue 14.04. <img alt="" style="border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=0a8089f53a0c0cfb9289d5f1811855c9" height="1" width="1"/> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=0a8089f53a0c0cfb9289d5f1811855c9" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?a=gr127F"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?i=gr127F" border="0"></img></a><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=MxMUMJ"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=MxMUMJ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=NWsRPj"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=NWsRPj" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=EdMskj"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=EdMskj" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=84cXxJ"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=84cXxJ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/culture/~4/327132206" height="1" width="1"/>

Sex Drive: How to Keep the Fireworks Going From Afar

Many long-distance lovers have become experts in how tech can augment sexuality. No commuter couple should go without Skype, Twitter and mobile phones, while sex toys can take the repetitive stress injury out of a long-distance affair. But it's not much of a stretch to think that there's a bigger need (read: market) for "tele-amore" devices than there ever will be for <a href="http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/commentary/sexdrive/2004/09/65064">teledildonics</a> (online sex toys controlled by a lover from anywhere in the world). And yet we don't have a lot of options when we're looking for devices designed to arouse our emotions. Not everyone is comfortable enough with both sex and computers to get internet-enabled vibrators working, but we all want to interact with our partners in special ways. Despite the frenzy around social media applications, we still don't have sensual devices that extend that functionality beyond virtual space. All it would take is something like the <a href="http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/orb/orborder.html">Ambient Orb</a> hooked up to a desktop dot to get my heart racing. Joseph Kaye, a Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University studying human-computer interaction, developed the <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/intimateobj/">Virtual Intimate Object</a>, or VIO, to study the effect of low-bandwidth applications on long-distance intimacy. The VIO is a dot that sits in your system tray (Windows) or desktop (Mac) and monitors an identical dot on your partner's computer. When your partner clicks his or her dot, yours fills with color; as time goes by without a click, the color slowly fades until the circle is just an outline. In Kaye's 2004 <a href="http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~jofish/writing/alt-chi-i-just-clicked-to-say-i-love-you.pdf">study</a> (.pdf), five long-distance couples kept journals of how often they clicked the VIO and how using it made them feel. He notes that while he originally thought of the VIO as the source of intimacy, he realized that the journals quickly became an integral part of the experience for the couples. Just as dancing leads to necking which leads to spanking and then to the oral sex, what was enough on day one was merely adequate by day five of the study. By week's end, participants had several suggestions for additional functionality: a choice of colors, the option to play a sound, and the ability to replace the circle with their own set of graphics. They had become emotionally engaged not just with their partners, but with the application. If you can get all that from a 2-D dot, think what you could do with an object you can touch. Unfortunately, the closest thing I can find to that type of technology for consumers is the <a href="http://www.nabaztag.com/">Nabaztag rabbit</a>, a wireless device that connects with other Nabaztag rabbits over the internet. From a strictly romantic standpoint, they one-up the <a href="http://www.chumby.com">Chumby</a> and the <a href="http://www.tuxisalive.com/">Tux Droid</a> in that the rabbits can "marry" each other, so that when one partner moves their rabbit's ears, the paired rabbit's ears move the same way. Chat acronyms, make way for the semaphore signs of love. The Nabaztags are excruciatingly cute. I've wanted a set for years, but they weren't specifically designed for suitors. (Nor are they the seamless technical experience they claim to be, apparently: The <a href="http://www.nabaztalk.com/forum/">Nabaztalk user forums</a> provide a sobering counterpoint to the Nabaztags' slick product marketing.) The human-computer interaction folks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology seem to understand the connection between technology and emotion, but their clever projects -- like the <a href="http://web.media.mit.edu/~jackylee/cups.htm">Lover's Cups</a> that light up when a far-away partner takes a sip or the <a href="http://www.distancelab.org/projects/mutsugoto/">Mutsugoto</a> interactive art bed -- have yet to break free of academia and museums. Gadgets like teledildonics and sex machines that stimulate the body but shouldn't be used at work or in public only go so far. Sex tech doesn't have to be explicit to be effective: If you and your distant partner have been together long enough, you realize that tech that fosters intimacy, playfulness and common experiences has a much greater impact on the quality of your union than just having orgasms now and then. I want to glance at the shelf and see an object glowing warmly because someone special sent me a message. I want to let someone know I'm thinking about him, simply by stroking my fingers over a smooth surface. I know I'm not the only one who wants to interact through something sensual and swoopy and erotic that has no connection to business, chores or taxes. I want my ambient intimacy object. Are you listening, developers? There's a mountain of money to be made keeping long-distance lovers connected in our increasingly complicated world. See you in a fortnight, Regina Lynn - - - Regina Lynn is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1580052312?ie=UTF8&tag=reginalynnonl-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1580052312">Sexier Sex: Lessons From the Brave New Sexual Frontier</a>. She blogs at <a href="http://www.reginalynn.com">reginalynn.com</a>. <img alt="" style="border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=a128e8ffead16bebcb7b4945042d0a76" height="1" width="1"/> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=a128e8ffead16bebcb7b4945042d0a76" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?a=FiH26g"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?i=FiH26g" border="0"></img></a><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=JNHg7J"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=JNHg7J" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=CiK48j"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=CiK48j" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=qGVrRj"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=qGVrRj" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=kpgmsJ"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=kpgmsJ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/culture/~4/326353056" height="1" width="1"/>

Stage a Fireworks Show Safely

Lighter in one hand and crazy look in another? It must be July 4th and it is time to honor our forefathers and delight your neighbors by blowing stuff up with fireworks. Our fireworks tips will ensure your fireworks show is the best and safest one yet. <img alt="" style="border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=e42bf41f3bcda58fe13b37a14c1c9650" height="1" width="1"/> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=e42bf41f3bcda58fe13b37a14c1c9650" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?a=DlLnP0"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?i=DlLnP0" border="0"></img></a><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=MuOlCJ"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=MuOlCJ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=jleSGj"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=jleSGj" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=Dpzqfj"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=Dpzqfj" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=zckEHJ"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=zckEHJ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/culture/~4/326128018" height="1" width="1"/>

Fireworks: Coming Soon to a Screen Near You

The great outdoors is overrated. Explosive Fourth of July imagery is coming your way, couch potatoes, thanks to your TV or computer. <a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=3c083f47bbca9bb25334032b608f8d20"><img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=3c083f47bbca9bb25334032b608f8d20"/></a> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=3c083f47bbca9bb25334032b608f8d20" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?a=xYR3bG"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/culture?i=xYR3bG" border="0"></img></a><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=KENHyJ"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=KENHyJ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=yxSpuj"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=yxSpuj" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=4o70Vj"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=4o70Vj" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?a=q0mAKJ"><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~f/wired/culture?i=q0mAKJ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/culture/~4/326128019" height="1" width="1"/>

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