It seems the ability to speak started evolving from fish. The rudimentary capabilities of neurons and brain structure indicate this. Read a LiveScience article, and the Cornell University publication about Professor Andrew Bass that is heading up the team in this research.
I’m offically ashamed
Pictures of me as a kid and as an adult
Young Me Now Me is a fascinating web site. It has pictures of people. One picture is when each person was young, the other is a current picture of the person in the same pose. I can’t stop looking at them.
The Future of Literature
Penguin Books has commissioned 6 authors to tell 6 digital stories, one each week, for 6 weeks. The last one, and I think what is going to be the best one, is coming up on April 22. This is the future of literature, where a linear paper-based model is no longer applicable to the way people think (or at least the way young people think).
Check out We Tell Stories, and read at least Hard Times, and 21 Steps. I can’t wait till the last one comes out.
Judge orders convicts to learn English
A judge in Pennsylvania has ordered 4 robbers who needed translators to learn English in one year or get put in jail for two years.
WILKES-BARRE – Learn English or go to jail.
That’s the succinct directive Luzerne County Judge Peter Paul Olszewski Jr. made as part of his sentence to four criminals on Tuesday.
The defendants – Luis Reyes, Ricardo Dominguez, Kelvin Reyes-Rosario and Rafael Guzman-Mateo – all needed translators when they appeared in court to plead guilty to criminal conspiracy to commit robbery. It led to Olszewski leveling the unusual condition.
He sentenced them each to four to 24 months in the county prison, but paroled three of them because they have already served at least four months.
But in order for them to avoid the 24 months in prison, Olszewski ordered the men to learn to read and write the English language, earn their GED, and, within 30 days of release, get a full-time job while on parole. The defendants, who range in age from 17 to 22, are to return to court in one year with their parole officers to take an English test, according to Olszewski’s order.
“If they don’t pass, they’re going in for the 24 (months),” Olszewski said.
This is from the local newspaper.