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  Have a Happy Thought: Have you ever been frustrated with a thing, or surprised that someone else hasn’t already solved some issue? So you spend like 10 minutes knocking together just the bare bones of a solution that will work for you… And then put it out to the world, only for it to be taken up by an entire field of researchers. (I’ve definitely done the first part, but maybe not the second part!!) That’s what John C. Wells did in 1982, when he was trying to help define vowel sounds in the English language.   Now, anyone who has ever spoken with an English-language speaker from another country, or perhaps even a different part of the same country, is aware that vowels in English are… slippery, at best. What Wells was trying to do was come up with groups of words that, as long as they are said by someone with the same accent, use the same consistent vowel sound. While someone with a different accent would use a different (but still consistent) vowel sound across those words....

  Have a Happy Thought: Some of us learned proper cursive writing in school. I would venture to say that none of us fully remember how to write in cursive. Fewer of us can probably easily read something written in cursive from over 100 years ago. Calligraphy from around the time of the invention of the printing press is... even worse. It was difficult enough to understand that in 1655 an author brought together a bunch of examples of over-the-top calligraphy into one book, so that centuries later we could marvel at just how unintelligible it was.   Here’s an example of “easy to understand”: Advanced calligraphy readers may be able to decipher these: But I can pretty much guarantee that you can’t say for sure which letters these are:   What I can agree on is that these were artists, experimenting with a fun medium.   And leaving us all baffled as to what they were writing.   Speakin...

Have a Happy Thought: For Earth Day (March 22 nd ) this year, six women were awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize, long called the “Green Nobel Prize”. The Goldman Environmental Prize honors the achievements and leadership of grassroots environmental activists from around the world, inspiring all of us to take action to protect our planet. The prize goes to six people each year, representing the six inhabited regions: Image: representation of the six regions for prize consideration: Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands & Island Nations, North America, South & Central America. Source: Overview of the Prize - Goldman Environmental Prize While this is the first time that all six winners are women, this prize has a much more equal gender ratio than the Nobel Prize: Goldman (Green Nobel): 112 women out of 239 total Nobel Prize (all fields): 64 women out of 967 total   All that aside, the real story is the amazing ...