Following a series of recent service outages impacting CalMail, the UC Berkeley email system, Berkeley’s Information Services and Technology organization (IST) announced Monday that it was implementing a major change in communications technology, effective immediately. Dubbed “CowMail,” the new system will involve rapidly phasing out email and other forms of electronic communication in favor of [...]

This was the “SMS Joke of the Day” in the Times Of India yesterday:

“Charlie Sheen is really coming to Lilo’s [Lindsay Lohan's] defense. In fact, he’s set up a website asking the media to leave her alone. The site is doing good, it’s almost received as many hits [...]

Here’s a “niche blog” that contains a list of books “so old, obsolete, awful or just plain stupid that we are horrified that people might be actually checking these items out and depending on the information.” It’s a laugh riot…though with a sobering message. Check it out!

My favorite:

Absolutely hilarious, and fast gaining popularity: “the “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks.” My favorite sign:

Ever laugh out loud at the suggestions Google tosses your way when you enter a search term? If you haven’t, here’s the breakdown on how to proceed, from The Edge of the American West:

Go to Google.
Type in the beginning of a common phrase (e.g., “how do I..”, [...]

Ever wondered about the lettering conventions in comic books? This site explains just that! Find out more about asterisks, balloon tails, breaking borders, breath marks, and a whole host of other traditions!

Hat tip: Barbara Wallraff.

Behold, the one-finger keyboard! This is what it does:

Dasher is a one finger user interface that allows text entry without a keyboard.
Keyboards are inefficient for two reasons: they do not exploit the redundancy in normal … all » language; and they waste the fine analogue capabilities of the user’s motor system (fingers [...]

Want to know what kinds of jokes ancient Romans enjoyed? Well, you’re in luck! Prof. Mary Beard has just published a collected volume of more than 260 jokes, some 1,600 years old. According to Beard, the volume explodes the popular stereotype of Romans as “pompous, bridge-building toga wearers.” What comic figures are the jokes [...]

So “Janet Jackson”, a UC Berkeley graduate student, three other graduate students, and I had just wrapped up our presentations at the Expanding Literacy Studies International, Interdisciplinary Conference for Graduate Students at “the” Ohio State University in Columbus. It was a glorious day, bright and sunny, and we were thrilled that we were all [...]

April Fools from Google Gmail:

The easiest email could possibly be.

As more and more everyday communication takes place over email, lots of people have complained about how hard it is to read and respond to every message. This is because they actually read and respond to all their messages.

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/autopilot/index.html

hat tip: an email circulating at [...]

This has got to be the funniest Facebook-related image EVER:

It’s the story of Aeneas’ journey toward founding Rome, told via Facebook status updates.

So in Claire Kramsch’s Language and Power class we just got done reading an essay from John Austin, the British philosopher who gained much fame in the 1960s for speech act theory. And while there must be much to say about that even today (though somehow it seems so obvious once you think about it [...]

What kind of literacies are involved in being able to read a map?  Or being able to recognize geographical locations on a map?

ok I just wanted an excuse to link this video I found.  Although if this stimulates a discussion on map literacies, that would be great!

Contemporary linguistic theory hypothesizes that linguistic objects and rules within a speaker’s native language (NL) undergo a process called fossilization in which linguistic items, rules, and subsystems tend to retain elements… hah hah, tricked you!  latest xkcd:

and because I don’t remember the C&H reference:

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 don’t deny it

‘Twas the night before Christmas when Youki and Usree decided to do a bit of cross-continental liveblogging using Skype. They had planned to liveblog their views about a viral music video, an “Indian” version of the Twelve Days of Christmas (performed by an “animated” pop singer, Boymongoose), but, the “organic” nature of liveblogging, as [...]

Crazy Indian Video….Buffalaxed:

Youki: Usree, I came across this video and I was extremely reluctant to share it with you, because of how extremely offensive it was.
Usree: Extremely?
Youki: [Nervous laughter]
Usree: Okay…I love offensive…er “stuff.”
Youki: [Looking away, still nervous]: I actually saw it a couple of days ago. And uh wasn’t [laughter][ gonna send it to [...]

George Carlin, the legendary, irreverent comedian par excellence, arguably most famous for his “Seven Words You Can Never Use on Television” routine, died a few hours ago in LA. I’m not generally given to grieving for celebrities, but the news of Carlin’s death hit me hard. I discovered Carlin a mere three years [...]