See how many of the 100 most common words in the English language you can guess in 5 minutes...

The 100 Most Common English Words

The essential fashion item if you are going to the Beijing Olympics to watch people compete in air made of Jello - a gas mask.

Gas masks are all more or less terrifying to look at, which is why some people get a kick out of them, creating artsy fetish masks, or artists create ironically cute masks such as Bill Barminsky’s Mickey Mouse mask.

The irony is on the artists, however, since genuine Mickey Mouse inspired gas masks were given to children in both the UK and the US, during wartime, to appear less scary.

From the archive:

On January 7th, 1942, one month after Pearl Harbor, T.W. Smith, Jr., the owner of the Sun Rubber Company, and his designer, Dietrich Rempel, with Walt Disney’s approval introduced a protective mask for children. This design of the Mickey Mouse Gas Mask for children was presented to Major General William N. Porter, Chief of the Chemical Warfare Service. After approval of the CWS, Sun Rubber Products Company produced sample masks for review. Other comic book character designs were to follow, depending on the success of the Mickey Mouse mask.

People say to me, "Whatever it takes."

I tell them, It's going to take everything.

And still I see a woman in row four, cutting an apple. With a four-inch knife.

Between the 5% tint on the windows, the gas masks and wires blocking my front view, the highly questionable steering, and the 35 pounds of liquid propane on the roof, I pretty much have my bases covered in the "constant rolling threat to all things living" department. The IV drip bag is real, although the blood is actually Mountain Dew and cherry pie filling.

... Here are the controls for Alexi. A lot of people ask what all the backlit switches do. "Well, most of them turn on other switches, which are also backlit" I tell them.

"You mean they don't actually DO anything?" They always ask me.

The truth is that I like how light up toggle switches look. So most of them just sit there, glowing away, looking cool, doing nothing.

unusual gas masks

Personal income growth slowed in 2007 in most of the nation's metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), according to estimates released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. On average, MSA personal income grew 6.2% in 2007, down from 6.8% in 2006. Personal income growth slowed in 208 MSAs, increased in 144, and remained unchanged in 11 MSAs.

The twenty slowest growing MSAs were all in the Great Lakes Region (Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin). Personal income growth in most of these MSAs was one-half the national pace or less as compensation declined in the durable goods manufacturing sector, often by substantial amounts. In some cases, compensation in 2006 had been boosted by the acceptance of employee buyout offers from automakers while 2007 compensation reflected a smaller workforce and pay concessions in the auto and auto parts industries.

From the archive:

A substantial portion of our workforce finds itself in direct competition for jobs with lower-wage workers around the globe, and leading-edge scientific and engineering work is being accomplished in many parts of the world. Thanks to globalization, driven by modern communications and other advances, workers in virtually every sector must now face competitors who live just a mouse-click away in Ireland, Finland, China, India, or dozens of other nations whose economies are growing.

"We're in so deep that it doesn't seem like anything will help," said Rebekah Ao, 33, a pregnant homemaker who lives in a new four-bedroom home in Avondale with her husband, Otto, a truck driver. The Aos, with $50,000 in income, owe a total of $607,000 on mortgages for two houses they bought since they moved to the Phoenix area about two years ago.

Personal Income for Metropolitan Areas, 2007

Atlanta is hosed, yes, but Ohio is really hosed.

The turmoil of the mortgage market granted a temporary reprieve from hearing about the woes of America's Rust Belt. That doesn't mean things are better. Despite a decade of national prosperity, the former manufacturing backbone of the U.S. is in rougher shape than ever, still searching for some way to replace its long-stilled smokestacks.

Where's it worst? Ohio, according to our analysis, which racked up four of the 10 cities on our list: Youngstown, Canton, Dayton and Cleveland. The runner-up is Michigan, with two cities--Detroit and Flint--making the ranking.

From the archive:

As no repairs have been carried out for 34 years, all of the buildings are slowly falling apart. Nature is reclaiming the area, as metal corrodes, windows break, and plants work their roots into the walls and pavements.

Andrucha Waddington directs this epic drama that explores how daughters ultimately become their mothers.

The bubble cycle has replaced the business cycle.

Income and net worth are two important factors in determining economic well-being in the United States. This report looks at net worth and asset ownership by various socioeconomic factors, including monthly income. The data come from the Survey of Income and Program Participation.

Welcome to the new Korean craze of "well-dying". In a country infatuated with "well-being" - living and eating healthily, even to the point where tobacco-makers offer vitamin-enriched "well-being cigarettes" - training companies are now offering courses on dying a good death.

We should expect a prolonged, grinding decline in home prices, back to more or less their pre-bubble inflation-adjusted levels.

America's Fastest-Dying Cities

Jeffrey Rosen reviews a new book about Gitmo:

Khan captures the bizarre culture of Guantánamo, where lawyers struggle to represent their clients — and to bring them chai lattes from the Starbucks on the base — in the face of military officials who try to obstruct her and the lawyers at every turn.

The fact that many of the prisoners Khan describes appear to have been innocent of the vague accusations against them, were imprisoned for years without formal charges or fair hearings and were eventually released by the United States without apology or compensation makes the abuse they suffered during years of imprisonment all the more outrageous. By giving us the perspective of the detainees, “My Guantánamo Diary” provides a valuable account of what we can now recognize as one of the most shameful episodes in the war on terror. It is hard to read this book without a growing sense of embarrassment and indignation.

The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me

What makes you depressed?

Seeing stupid people happy.

Q&A: Slavoj Zizek, professor and writer

Cambridge has a lot to offer the student. The academic demands are neither stringent nor time consuming. One is not compelled to go to lectures or forced to produce essays, though such activities are actively encouraged. Consequently, most students have time on their hands, The river is attractive and relaxing, the backs are inviting, punting is a novelty, parties abound, coffee is liberal: what a way to spend one's days.

I came to Cambridge in 1963 and rapidly became bored. Everything seemed so artificial and stultifying. It was a green-house existence with little possibility of escape. My depression grew by the day: I had to break out of it in some way.

Cambridge Nightclimbing

Dear Dr. Kierkegaard,

All my life I’ve been a successful pseudo-intellectual, sprinkling quotations from Kafka, Epictetus and Derrida into my conversations, impressing dates and making my friends feel mentally inferior. But over the last few years, it’s stopped working. People just look at me blankly. My artificially inflated self-esteem is on the wane. What happened?

Existential in Exeter

Dear Existential,

It pains me to see so many people being pseudo-intellectual in the wrong way. It desecrates the memory of the great poseurs of the past. And it is all the more frustrating because your error is so simple and yet so fundamental.

You have failed to keep pace with the current code of intellectual one-upsmanship. You have failed to appreciate that over the past few years, there has been a tectonic shift in the basis of good taste.

Lord of the Memes

H-P says it's working on an array of products, including notebooks, that use the very same type of finger-tapping interface popularized by Apple Inc.'s iPhone. H-P's so keen on the idea that it says it's trying to get touch-enabled notebook computers on the market within the next 18 months.

"We're focused on recognizing the potential of touch now," said Phil McKinney, the chief technology officer for the company's laptop-making Personal Systems Group. "We see touch as the almost preferred method for nontechnical users."

Touch Is the Future at H-P

VoIP is fun!

Jump-start your kid’s school routine with a special greeting from Hannah Montana™.

It’s back-to-school time. You know what that means—new clothes, new school supplies and a whole new school year. That’s why Wal-Mart wants to help you bring a smile to your young superstar with a surprise pre-recorded greeting from Hannah Montana™.

Ideas?

Opening a web-to-phone system to the public without authentication or constraints may be fun — but it’s also ripe for abuse. Without authentication of the sender, users are free to enter any source phone number they want, making it look like the calls are coming from someone else. There’s no opt-out mechanism or audit trail. Even attempts to constrain the system can be circumvented: You can change the recipient’s time zone and wake them up in the middle of the night, or back-date the wake-up call to have it placed immediately.

Now, remember Paul Graham:

Don't just not be evil. Be good.

Hannah Montana Wake-Up Calls