I recently spent a week at the Oregon coast, sitting in front of a laptop, working on a book. In the middle of the first day, I realized I was missing a critical office supply — my Swingline stapler — and I really needed to staple some print-outs together. The only stapler available in the remote coastal town was a pathetic plastic mini-stapler which could only handle ten sheets at a time. This got me thinking: what’s my minimum required set of office supplies to do meaningful work? If I was stranded on a desert island with some writing to do, what would I need?

I believe that in order to write a book, I need: a laptop, a laser printer (double-sided printing preferred), 8.5″x11″ printer paper, a stapler, a decent pen (I like the gel pens), a decent chair to sit in, and a flat surface. I have tried writing without the printer and paper, but I just don’t notice the same things reading from the screen that I do reading paper.

What’s your minimum required set of office supplies?

I’m such a sucker for stories like this. Maybe it’s because my grandpop was a Chief of forestry in India, and kept an abandoned bear cub in his house for a few months when my mom was a child; or perhaps it’s because I read Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals a few too many times as a kid, but I love ridiculous stories of people keeping big game as pets. The Daily Telegraph has this lovely story of Jessica the hippopotamus, who lives with some rangers in South Africa. Apparently, she washed up very ill on some banks near their house (weighing a scant 35lbs at the time), and they’ve nursed her back to health. In fact, she looks very healthy in the pics below. In addition to drinking coffee every day, and loving to snuggle up with their dog, the hippo enjoys frolicking in mud and then joining the couple in bed (to date, she’s apparently broken three bed frames!). In any case, you can read all about the her exploits here. Link via the always terrific TheCellar.

Note: the hippopotamus should in no way be confused with the terrific hip-hoppopotamus, located here.

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Note 2: Oops! While doing a bit of editing, I accidentally posted this under Jason’s name… I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a grandfather in India. That said, be sure to check out his great sports disease post below.  

It might not be as widespread as Gehrig’s ALS, but sadly, Steve Blass Disease has taken its fair share of victims. The disease, named after former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Steve Blass, refers to an athlete’s sudden and inexplicable loss of ability. Blass got the unfortunate ignomy of having the disease bear his name after his career derailed when he lost the ability to pitch strikes. Until that point, he’d built quite a resume, acquiring 18- and 19-win seasons, making the All-Star team in 1972 and helping the Pirates win the 1971 World Series. Then, in 1973, the wheels came off. He tripled his ERA, walking 84 batters in 88 innings and striking out only 27. In short, he just couldn’t pitch. He was sent to the minors in 1974 and, after a failed attempt to make a return, retired before the 1975 season, becoming a sales representative for a ring company.

What’s remarkable about Blass’ downfall is that there’s no explanation. He didn’t have any injury, there was no event that shattered his confidence. he just…stopped. The dreaded Steve Blass disease has struck plenty of other athletes, all without reason. The reigning theory is that it’s all mental- one mistake leads the player to start overthinking a simple act, like kicking or throwing a ball. But can a simple brain fart stop an athlete’s performance? Well, Yogi Berra did once reportedly say “Ninety percent of this game is half mental.” However, baseball genius and sports psychology-non-believer Bill James would chalk up that explanation as a modern-day equivalent to witchcraft. There is, as of yet, no known cure, but I’m sure someone, somewhere, is trying to line up Jerry Lewis to host a telethon.

So, who else suffers from this tragic, tragic disease? More after the jump…

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Hey, don’t get all bent out of shape about it. It’s just a fact — at least according to Norwegian scientists — that older siblings tend to have IQs about 2.3 points higher than their junior sibling. Likewise, that junior sibling, should he or she have an even-more-junior sibling, is probably a bit smarter than that person. Turns out that IQ tests are mandatory for people entering the military in Norway, so statisticians had hundreds of thousands of young people’s IQ tests to sort through, and came up with this little theory (published in New Scientist). So what’s the reason? It’s not genetic, it’s social:

Older siblings might have a higher IQ because they act as surrogate parents from time to time, tutoring their younger siblings in certain situations. Another possible explanation is that parents have more time and resources to invest in their firstborn child. As a result of this, the eldest child usually has the most one-on-one time with its parents, and receives greater exposure to their sophisticated vocabulary.

They also note that second-born children whose older sibling(s) died early in childhood scored on par with other firstborn kids; on average, all were 13% more likely to be of “above-average” intelligence than their younger siblings. Now, I’m sure some of you will disagree based on personal experience, and I think I speak for everyone when I say, we’d love to hear some stories about dumb things your older brother/sister has done. Let’s see if we can turn this thing around!

I’ve written posts in the Wrap before about coining new words, if you recall my Default Song post, for example. Recently, in one of my novel-writing classes, I had a student who kept using the word download in a sci-fi novel set in the far future. I said to her: “It’s the future; the word download is so 2003, why not invent your own word for downloading information from the ether; why not invent your own language the way Madelaine L’Engle did in her classic, A Wrinkle in Time (if you’re not familiar with the novel, time travel was made possible by wrinkling through space.)

This got me thinking about coining new words again, which made me think: hey, I bet our loyal Word Wrap readers have a whole pantload of words their heads just waiting to be coined. So let’s see how creative you are. I’ll send the top three new words over to Wordspy and maybe you’ll even make history for an authentic, new coinage. Now, I can’t promise the good folk over at Wordspy will list your word without an official citation, but then again they might! And if this post gets spread around the net long enough, someone’s sure to cite your hot, new word, I’d say. So what are you waiting for? Show the world your very own word.

I’ll start the coinage rolling with egrex: \ee-grex\ vb 1. to exert oneself with such physical force that the veins in one’s forehead, neck and arms show through the surface of the skin. 2. The absolute hardest one can push or pull at/on an object. [e.g. He egrexed, but alas, the closet door would not budge.]

This is an emissions-free, human powered forklift, made by green-forward Soceadth. Sometimes those spinning classes are just too much, right? Sometimes one needs to see those joules of energy really produce! This wondrous Japanese invention will set you back about $1615, but still better than a real, new one (they hover around the $20k range), but you can get a used one for $3k! When you finally have your dream lift (and you’re certified, of course), then you can wear those “Have You Hugged a Forklift Operator Today?” stickers. Once you’ve been properly misunderstood, you can take out your aggression & demonstrate your passion for all things fork and lifting-related at one of the various forklift rodeos across our great land. Expect events such as the ones at the Utah Manufacturers’ Associations first forklift rodeo: “safety inspection, a zigzag course, an obstacle course and a trailer loading and unloading event.”

Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero series (warning: a few coarse words are used) gently leads you through a process to achieve that most desirable number next to your Inbox message count: ZERO. Part of the most excellent 43 Folders site, the Inbox Zero bookmark has been staring me in the face for months, but I haven’t brought myself to actually read it until now. (The first step of solving my email problem is admitting I have a problem….)

As someone who receives hundreds of messages a day, and who has 222 messages currently in his Inbox — all of which have been left in there because I feel I need to do something with them — I need email help. So I’m working through the Inbox Zero series, trying to change my habits.

From the second article in the series, Articles of faith:

Less can be so much more

I used to think one-line email responses were the height of rudeness. If someone took the time to type me a 20-paragraph email, I always felt I had to respond in kind. It’s like that horrible feeling at the holiday gift exchange when you realize that the present you brought cost a tenth of what your colleague spent. Well, get over it, because it ain’t the same thing.

In an environment where attention is the economic equivalent of cash, you aren’t doing people any favors by sending gothic novels. And taking your cues for etiquette, propriety, and efficiency on a message-by-message basis will quickly land you in a very bouncy room with a fresh box of crayons.

I’ll report back in a few weeks. Care to join me on a journey to Inbox Zero?

Aside from sexuality-altering Teletubbies and questionable role models like Joe Camel, there are few more effective ways of messing with our kids’ minds than through bedtime stories. (Remember Why Mommy is a Democrat and Help! Mom! There’s a Liberal Under My Bed!? If not, reminisce with this post from last November.) As with many things, however, it seems in this department too the Russians have us beat. Witness this book, published in the 90s and marketed to parents of misbehaving kids. Here are a few juicy excerpts, scanned and loosely translated by our comrades at Englishrussia:
“You haven’t cleaned up your room? Then ugly monks will come to take you soon.”
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The summer solstice is the point at which the Earth’s northern hemisphere is tilted the furthest toward the sun, usually (but not always) on June 21st, as it is this year. The sun is at the highest point for us, as shown in this analemma. The celebration of the solstice, or Midsummer has taken place since men first noticed the point of the year with the most daylight. In some countries, the pagan celebrations of old were replaced by a feast day for St. John the Baptist on June 24th, but many of the ancient solstice rituals remain.

Wiccans call this day Litha, or sometimes by the Druidic name Alban Heruin, or “the Light of the Shore”. To this day, Neo-Druid ceremonies take place at Stonehenge near Salisbury, England.

More solstice celebrations from all over, after the jump.
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Any sinophiles in the blog? If so, you’re going to love these free ChinesePod podcasts put out by a new language teaching company called Praxis. I know what you’re thinking, it sounds like one of those made-up evil company names usually reserved for action movies starring Tom Cruise or Matt Damon: “There’s a mole working for Praxis and we’ve got to figure out who, and quick!”

But trust me when I tell you that over 250,000 people around the world are tuning in regularly to get their fill of practical, high frequency Mandarin dialogs. A good chunk of those people are also paying for the premium service, which allows you to Skype chat with teachers.

Pretty cool to think that all you need is a broadband connection to bone up on your Chinese. And Praxis isn’t content with just Chinese, they’ve also got a second service running now called SpanishSense and will soon expand into other languages, as well.

Meanwhile, the only thing I know how to say in Chinese is ni hao. If you know others, feel free to drop some other important phrases in the comments for the sino-curious.