New Words for a New Year

The Washington Posts “Style Invitational” asks readers to take any word from the dictionary, and alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. These are this year’s winners:

1. Bozone (n.) The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

2. Cashtration (n.) The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

3. Giraffiti (n) Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

4. Sarchasm (n) The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.

5. Inoculatte (v) To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

6. Hipatitis (n) Terminal coolness.

7. Osteopornosis (n) A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

8. Karmageddon (n) It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.

9. Decafalon (n.) The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

10. Glibido (v) All talk and no action.

11. Dopeler effect (n) The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

12. Arachnoleptic fit (n.) The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.

13. Beelzebug (n.) Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

14. Caterpallor (n.) The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you’re eating.

Originally found via email ThatFridayThing.

Lightning man’s trousers ruined

When writing a blog, the most important part is the headline. This is what people see first and decide whether to click on the headline and read, and are therefore crucial. It’s also true of internet news (or newspapers) who tempt people into their pages with a few words.

This article about a man in Devon has a great headline, followed by a zinger of a first paragraph:

Lightning man’s trousers ruined

A man whose house was struck by lightning jumped out of bed to find that his trousers had been hit too.

Who wouldn’t want to read more?! What exactly happened to the trousers? I must find out!

SlideShare - YouTube for Powerpoint

Have you ever created that perfect PowerPoint presentation that you just wanted to share with everyone but didn’t want to email a 10MB file out? No, neither have I, but some people have.

SlideShare is a new service that lets you upload any office document and view and share them in a YouTube/Google Video kind of way.

Whilst a great service, the user agreement grants SideShare ownership rights. Plus there is currently no way of having private presentations, so corporate sensitive presentations will still have to be emailed, or you could use Adobe Connect Professional, or arrange a Webex meeting, or just go and turn up at someone’s office with a laptop. Or just use a pen and paper.

Thanks to TechCrunch UK who also point out the beta tonicpoint service.

What’s in a name?

There’s been a lot written about choosing names for blogs and websites. The guys at problogger have this.

But I thought I’d share with you how we came up with Life Goggles. I say ‘we’ as although I came up with the final name, it wasn’t easy and many names were banded about. I wish I could say it came to me in a flash of inspiration and epiphany, but it didn’t. It came from writing a lot of random words down and finding some good ones that meant something.

But Life Goggles is perfect. I suppose Life Spectacles or Life Glasses may have said the same thing, but ‘goggles’ epitomises the quirky way the writers look at the world. So that’s that, job done.

Well nearly. I wanted a tagline as well. Like at www.ipoints.co.uk ‘where online shopping adds up’ or www.doughdough.com ‘Edible gifts by doughdough’ Smiles by you’. Hang on, not that cheesy.

Currently we have ‘Dedicated to finding things that will change your life…’ and that’s true, we are. Although I haven’t posted anything yet on the subject, I will soon. However I wanted the tagline something like ‘Viewing life through futurespective lenses’. But it was pointed out to me that no-one will know what that means, so I thought I’d explain it now and hopefully the time will come when the tagline is embraced.

So I’m coining the phrase ‘futurespective’. It’s simple, instead of looking back, we look forward. Everything we do is tinted with ‘what’s new’ or ‘what will that mean for the future’. That’s not to say we’re not happy with the world at the moment. Actually that’s a bit of a lie, we’re not at all, but it’s better to look forward to better things.

So here’s to futurespective. Embrace it. We have.

A revolution in reading

Well okay, not quite a revolution, but for my first blog I thought I’d talk about a subject heavily involved in blogging - reading. We all spend hours and hours a day reading but how much do we take it in?

This blogging site is dedicated to new stuff and while reading can hardly be called new, I think reading slower and appreciating it is. Personally I read very fast and I think I’m missing something. I have to turn back pages in books as I realise a new character was introduced and I didn’t pay enough attention. However today it really hit home. I read this article (no, I couldn’t find the video either, but I’ll have another look for it I promise): http://tinyurl.com/e7rrs

There’s a quote on the article that says:

“The sooner these websites are taken to account over the availability of such videos the better.”

FromApesToMen, Manchester

Now replace the word “availability” with “quality”. That’s how I read it. I thought ‘FromApesToMen’ was complaining he couldn’t see enough action. And worse, reading about Steve Irwin’s funeral today, I thought I read that he was being “fed to crocodiles” when it actually said the funeral will be held “where he fed crocodiles”.

So the moral is to take some time, read a bit slower and appreciate what someone else has written just for you. And millions of others probably, but in my case, just for you. No morals next time I promise. But you better be reading carefully, there’ll be a test at the end.