books and muffin crumbs

Anne Fadiman (b. 1953) believes that if you truly love a book, you should sleep with it, write in it, read aloud from it, and fill its pages with muffin crumbs. Excuse me but I must leave this instant to buy some Muffins For Work.

Why did the chicken cross 125th Street?

"That’s what some East Harlem residents are trying to figure out. A bunch of chickens and a big white turkey appeared near the corner of 125th Street and Second Avenue last week and began pecking in traffic." The New York Times. Read more here.

Psychologically Sound Picture Book

Kate Kellaway, in a review of Children's picture books, 2-5 years (which appeared in the Observer on Sunday October 26 on p25 of the Features and reviews section) called How To Be A Baby: By Me, The Big Sister "the most psychologically sound, entertaining story to shore up the dented ego of an older child faced with a new baby." The Professor would certainly agree. The review is also in the Guardian online and you can read it here.

tech tips, basically

What are the basic computer basics-that-you-thought-everyone-knew? In a piece in the New York Times, Pogue lists some I had no idea about ... like if you hit the space bar it scrolls down one page's worth and if you add the shift key it goes back up. Cool. Also Google does maths for you. What about this Experiment. Try typing in this horrid head-achey equation: 23*15.3+15/3= (what does that even mean?) and then hit Enter. (On the computer, as we totally already knew of course, * means "times" and / means "divided by.") Want to know more? You can read Pogue's Tech Tips here and even add some of your own. Sorry excuse me but I have to go and practice my equations and scrolls now.