10 non-work-related items that I found fun or interesting

via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Modernist architecture - cold, alienating - was widely loathed. Postmodenism was but a fig leaf for it. Enter the authentic genius of Frank Gehry...more

Funology
This site is aimed at children, or those with an infantile sense of humour, but – and it is a BIG but – there are also lots of fun things to do with your child. The ubiquitous bicarbonate and vinegar volcano, play dough from flour and oil etc etc
Check it out for yourself www.funology.com

via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Today’s most centralized empire-state, China, could be undone by its cities. Controlling cities, not countryside, is the key to the Middle Kingdom...more

via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Every metaphor starts out as a wild beast, waiting to be tamed by usage, writes Carlin Romano. Even the word “metaphor” is a metaphor...more

via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
The satirical economist. John Kenneth Galbraith delighted in mockery. No sacred tenet was safe from his ridicule. But a sneer isn't an idea... more

via the How-To Geek by Asian Angel
Play Blockgineer
Having had a quick look at this I thought that you might appreciate, as I did, the detailed “how to play it” provided in the original blog post.

via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
A nose for history. Napoleon's cologne, the resurrected stench of a Viking latrine: Can odour offer a sense of the past? Take a whiff...more

via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Science fiction used to be more overtly political. Now, says Benjamin Plotinsky, it tends increasingly to employ Christian allegory... more

via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Adverbs like surprisingly, predictably, and ironically tell the reader what to value in a sentence before he has read it. Even William Zinsser had to learn to avoid them... more

via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
It is a truth universally acknowledged that over the years so many millions of people keep coming back to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice... more

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