Libraries are sources for a wealth of information old and new After writing a weekly column for 30 years and never missing a deadline, Greg has been laid up with a bad back. He hopes to be back next week, and to take up the slack. Meantime, here is one of hi...
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Greg Hill / At the LibraryFairbanks Daily News Miner
Reading fiction is a good way to put a spark in brain activity FAIRBANKS — “Your Brain on Fiction” is a fascinating New York Times article describing how stories “stimulate the brain and even change how we act in life,” with author Annie Murphy Paul providing ...
Author makes any subject funny, from bathrooms to men in heels It’s surprising how things taken for granted originated as something entirely different. For example there’s Louis XIV, the French Sun King of the 17th Century, whose reign was marked by many exces...
A cocoa shortage would be good for one’s tooth enamel FAIRBANKS — A recent Scientific American article by scientist Harold Schmitz and his colleagues looked at the looming cocoa shortage and found reports indicating that “demand may outstrip supply in...
1 month ago | 0 | 3 |
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Greg Hill / At the LibraryFairbanks Daily News Miner
Awful royal rulers often had huge book collections FAIRBANKS — When mad King George III was deemed legally bonkers, his dissipated son, the eventual George IV, ruled in his stead as Prince Regent for so long, from 1811 until 1820, the era became kn...
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Greg Hill / At the LibraryFairbanks Daily News Miner
Books are still revelant in an increasingly digital world FAIRBANKS — Two centuries ago there lived a modest Italian librarian who could fluently speak 39 languages. This was Guiseppe Caspar Mezzofanti, a child prodigy who became a Cardinal, astronomer, a...
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Greg Hill / At the LibraryFairbanks Daily News Miner
Best not to use a butter knife to remove a stomach hernia FAIRBANKS — Sometimes initiative is called for, as in 2010 when a Swedish man named Jonas deeply sliced his leg open on the sharp edge of a cook stove while doing home renovations and, according to...
1 month ago | 0 | 1 |
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Greg Hill / At the Library Fairbanks Daily News Miner
Graphic literature, comic art attracts young readers FAIRBANKS - “Ollie and Quintin” is the best comic strip you’ll never see in this newspaper. Its gentle, surrealistic rhythms and sucker-punch laughability are reminiscent of Bill Watterson’s “Calvi...
2 months ago | 1 | 0 |
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Greg Hill / At the LibraryFairbanks Daily News Miner
Some use toilet paper to set records, some for clothing design FAIRBANKS — Recent musings in this space about the record being broken for folding a single piece of toilet paper led to a surprising number of reader comments, but I was pulling my punches. For e...
2 months ago | 0 | 1 |
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Greg Hill / At the LibraryFairbanks Daily News Miner
Technology-inspired words changing shape of our language FAIRBANKS — Does your dongle dangle? It’s OK if it does, according to BusinessDictionary.com, which states that while a “dongle” was “originally slang for a plug-in module to protect software,” now...
2 months ago | 0 | 1 |
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Greg Hill / At the LibraryFairbanks Daily News Miner
Finding the roots of the term ‘goat roping’ FAIRBANKS — I know from experience how goats smell, act and sound. Once I roped goats, or more accurately, threw ropes at goats. Still, I’m more of an expert than most on “goat ropes” as in “a mess...
2 months ago | 0 | 0 |
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Greg Hill / At the LibraryFairbanks Daily News Miner
Word creativity allows us to express our ‘flexitarianism’ FAIRBANKS — Libraries and booksellers have a symbiotic relationship in that library patrons buy lots of books after trying out the library’s copy. For example, I bought Joy Manning’s “Almost Meatl...
3 months ago | 0 | 0 |
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Greg Hill / At the LibraryFairbanks Daily News Miner
It’s never too late — or early — to start challenging your brain FAIRBANKS — A series of photographs on the theme “My Favorite Museum Exhibit” is running on BoingBoing.net, a popular blog devoted to new trends. The growing list ranges from Tillamook, Oregon’s 30...
3 months ago | 0 | 0 |
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Greg Hill / At the LibraryFairbanks Daily News Miner
Banning books is counterproductive to education, success FAIRBANKS — Reading how the state of Arizona has banned Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” from its schools as part of its general banning of “ethnic studies” books has left me grateful for encountering s...
If you listen carefully, you may hear a ‘skeuomorph' FAIRBANKS — Recipients of Anu Garg’s A.Word.A.Day email missives know how consistently informative they are. Logophiliacs ought to subscribe to it at Wordsmith.org, for Garg trots out some doozies,...
3 months ago | 0 | 2 |
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Greg Hill / At the LibraryFairbanks Daily News Miner
Some rules in life are unwritten, others are clearly stated FAIRBANKS — Whose curiosity wouldn’t be aroused by learning about the new Chinese “World Chocolate Wonderland?” Roald Dahl’s immortal Willy Wonka was conjured by reading about “China’s first theme ...
4 months ago | 0 | 3 |
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Greg Hill / At the LibraryFairbanks Daily News Miner
Study poses the question: Is Google changing the way we think? FAIRBANKS — “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” a seminal 2008 Atlantic Monthly article by Nicholas Carr, describes the author’s realization that his thinking patterns were changing because of his heavy...
4 months ago | 0 | 3 |
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Greg Hill / At the LibraryFairbanks Daily News Miner
Technology keeps evolving, taking libraries along with it FAIRBANKS — Delving through dusty boxes of the library’s historical records has left me musing about innovations, and fittingly filthy. Many technologies have come and gone in my two decades on the...
4 months ago | 0 | 3 |
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Greg Hill / At the LibraryFairbanks Daily News Miner
Holiday gifts are a long-standing worldwide tradition FAIRBANKS — When door prizes were handed out at the borough employees’ holiday party a few weeks ago, I walked away with the coveted clock that’s a breadbox-sized replica Corvette engine, which com...
Internet insecurity and evolving slang keep things uncertain FAIRBANKS — The Internet Age is also the Age of Uncertainty. The Internet has altered the way we communicate and socialize, but, along the way, scads of promised innovations never reached fruition....
5 months ago | 0 | 1 |
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Greg Hill / At the LibraryFairbanks Daily News Miner
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