Dan Jones

Dan Nosowitz has a wonderful Atlas Obscura post called “Why Linguists are Fascinated by the American Jewish Accent”; here’s a bit of it:

But is really a religious or ethnic thing? Can we call it a “Jewish accent” rather than, say, a “New York accent”?

Scholars say, yes, there is an American Jewish accent, but it’s complicated. “Intonation has kind of been the red-headed stepchild of linguistics, where for a lot of time there was debate about whether or not it’s really part of the linguistic system, or whether it was something else overriding it, essentially,” says Burdin. It’s only been about 15 years since linguists—just a few of them, really—have begun systematically attempting to study the rhythm, timbre, intonations, stresses, and pauses of speech, and the study is still in its infancy. It is particularly murky territory in English, where melody is not as important as it is in other languages. But there are some groups whose speech, long having been described as sing-songy, is suddenly of interest to researchers breaking new ground in the study of prosody. Appalachian English is one of those. And Jewish English is another.

It describes the Mel Brooks-style version, then continues:

The other major American Jewish English accent comes from the more observant communities of Jews, the Orthodox and the Hasidim. This is sometimes known as “Yeshivish,” coming from the word “yeshiva,” generally referring to the schools for the organized study of Jewish holy texts. Yeshivish, like the more secular Jewish English of Mel Brooks and Woody Allen, has some ties to New York City, but is much more heavily influenced by Yiddish. Many of its most distinctive elements are actually exceedingly, almost unimaginatively direct translations of Yiddish phrases and intonations.

I love the word “Yeshivish,” and I love the illustrative videos, and the whole thing makes me intensely nostalgic for New York. Go, read, watch, enjoy, you won’t regret it!

Christmas sweater season isn’t far off, and we have two early examples that will surely make you the envy of every nerdy, ugly sweater enthusiast in your circle of friends. First up is this delightful knitted Batman “Christmas Knight” number featuring a bold Bat symbol, Gotham skyline and even the Batmobile. It is currently available to pre-order in limited quantities.

The BB-8 sweater hasn’t been released yet, but that should change soon. In the past we’ve seen this sort of thing on YellowBulldog in the UK and Merchoid in the states, so stay tuned.

Check out more pics below.

Texts From Superheroes

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During World War II, a gay mathematician leads a team of cryptanalysts as they work feverishly to break the Germans' notorious Enigma code.

I’ve accepted a part time teaching position at http://ift.tt/2cW893Y as a web development teacher (in addition to my day job). Guess it’s time to put those tweed patches on a leather jacket. http://ift.tt/2dkKvBG

The secret to forging authentic Damascus steel knives has long been lost, but Forseti Steel stays as true to the tradition as they can by commissioning smiths with Damascus ancestry to hand make all of their blades. The artists behind the enamoring water-like patterns of folded and pounded steel have all learned their skills and techniques from the generations that worked the metals before them.

In addition to paying tribute to the Damascus practice in technique and appearance, Forseti shows its respect for history's heroes, legends, and characters in their knives' names. The 9", walnut-handled Sentinel, for example, honors the Sentinels at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington. The Ironside, pictured above, reflects Forseti's image of Viking raider Bjorn Ironside in a curved drop point blade with an offset saw.

Take your pick from 6 stunning Forseti Knives offered at a 25% discount for a limited time.

Note: the Dude Exclusives online store is hosted and managed by Stack Commerce, a third party not directly affiliated with DudeIWantThat.com. All order, customer service, and general inquiries should be submitted through the Dude Exclusives Customer Support page here. Inquiries submitted through other contact forms or channels may not receive a timely response.

What is the most well-known Christian scripture verse? John 3:16 right? It’s become a bit cliché. It’s a New Testament passage that has found its way into pop culture, predominantly through college football, and I would wager it to be one of the top ten scriptures memorized by Latter-day Saints.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

You may have even skimmed past the latter half of that sentence because you’ve heard it a thousand times or more. I had too. But lately I see it with new eyes. With all the topics scrolling across your favorite cable news channel in mind, I have heard too many Latter-day Saints speak about “the world” as if it is something to be hated. Or if not hated, definitely something we should be distancing ourselves from. Yet here, in this most well-known verse, what does God think about “the world”? He loves it. This comes harder for us because we tend to simplify things into binary – black and white, good and bad, which is much easier. While we look out upon the surface of humanity in disgust, God, first and foremost, sees the world through the loving eyes of a parent.

The subsequent verse, 17, explains even more of God’s attitude toward the world:

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

This is the difference between God and us. He doesn’t sit back enthroned in yonder heavens pointing at His creations and shaking His head in cosmic disappointment. He hasn’t adopted a “lost cause”, separatist attitude. No, instead He sees suffering and goes to work in an attempt to save what He so clearly and desperately loves. My theory as to why He is able to so freely work and love, is that He has mastered the art of selflessness. He has been liberated from the chains of “me”.

These chains bind the world, and therefore, all Latter-day Saints. Some have loosened them, or at least work to do so, while others have befriended them and embrace them as if holding them captive. It is in the best interest of the natural man not to see outside of self. It’s true we feel we have too much to work on, and really we do. We chip away at our idea of sins that have burdened us for years, maybe even decades, failing to see in our obsession with self, that Jesus has already obliterated them. The good news must just seem too good to be true. We stubbornly continue to bear burdens that haunt us, which keeps us from God’s work, bearing the burdens of others.

God has provided a gift that is one key to unlocking the power to overcome this obsession with self. It’s a gift that you and I have taken for granted. I wonder too, if it’s a gift we may not fully appreciate due to our culture and what we teach about this gift. Growing up I had countless lessons on the topic of the gift of the Holy Ghost. It’s not that I wasn’t taught about this gift being the cleansing baptism of fire but, just as baptism sometimes is, the gift of the Holy Ghost was misconstrued as a one-time cleansing agent. The constant companionship that is promised is often accepted as a magic 8-ball that will tell us about our future or an unembodied whisper of caution in our ears when danger is imminent. While I don’t mean to denigrate the very real protection that personal revelation provides, the idea of a phantom bestie, there to fulfill your wildest dreams or act as your bubble to shield you from the world, only tightens the chains of self.

In his last General Conference address, Elder David A. Bednar spoke of the phrase, “always retaining a remission of your sins” stating:

Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost is an ordinance administered in the authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood. In the process of coming unto the Savior and spiritual rebirth, receiving the sanctifying power of the Holy Ghost in our lives creates the possibility of an ongoing cleansing of our soul from sin . . . made possible through the companionship and power of the Holy Ghost – even the third member of the Godhead.

This is why this gift is so precious and endows us with such power. Constant companionship means constant burning away of our dross. It is an everlasting fire that is steadily refining. This is made possible by the atonement of Jesus Christ who has invested in our potential to progress toward godhood. Understanding that the gift of the Holy Ghost is a constant sanctification is what enables us to focus outward and go about our Father’s business to save.

Now whom do we attempt to save? Often, if we are completely honest with ourselves, we naturally choose to focus our effort on those we deem to be deserving of it. This usually begins with those closest to us; family and friends, maybe my neighbor but who knows? I don’t know them very well. Certainly not a stranger. I don’t know what they’ll do with my love. Maybe they’ll buy drugs with it! In the book of Luke, chapter 17 we have an account of ten lepers who came to Jesus to be healed of a disease that cast them from society, “they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Jesus does indeed extend His mercy to all ten but only one returned, and “fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks.” One could say that the other nine were undeserving of Jesus’ mercy. Do you not think He knew the hearts of the nine before healing them? Yet He still healed.

That isn’t fair, is it? Justice was not served in the account of the ten lepers. If it was, only the leper who expressed gratitude would have been healed or Jesus would have cast leprosy back onto the ungrateful nine. Often times we are still obsessed with the justice of the old law. This is why we deify a captain who, as great as he was, lived according to the old law, while we sometimes ignore actual deity who fulfilled the old and expressed the new:

Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

Mercy, the blanket term for benevolence, forgiveness and kindness, is our instruction. God is merciful and we each can be an extension of that mercy. He is also just but His perfect knowledge makes justice perfect. We mortals, on the other hand, tend to turn justice into a seesawing battle for self, due to our limited understanding. If we take the instruction to be merciful seriously, our journey will naturally bring us to seek to understand the motivations behind the actions of others.

When it comes to understanding, our forerunner Jesus Christ has already blazed this trail. All we have to do is follow. He went to the ultimate extreme so that He could understand and in turn, lift and succor. The great Jehovah of the Old Testament “descended below all things” (D&C 88:6) in order to understand, “that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities” (Alma 7:12). By doing this, He set the standard of seeking to obtain ultimate empathy and understanding. The highest form of understanding is experience. God is God because of His experience. Yet sometimes we can’t even be bothered to think about what the plight of another might be like. We are often damned by our own limited sphere of experience, so if we can’t experience directly, we may need to descend below others in humility so we can look up and be taught by their experiences.

Applied to our society, these ideas are often realized through the idea of social justice. While protesting the killings of black citizens by police and the subsequent lack of punitive action, members of the recent Black Lives Matter movement often shout, “No justice, no peace!” These incidents were the drop that caused the cup of brimming frustrations to spill over from a community that, whether you agree with their actions and ideologies or not, feel marginalized. But is justice really the answer? The shooter in Dallas, who killed five police officers in retaliation, may have erroneously thought he was evening the scales of justice, an eye for an eye. I’m not saying this movement shouldn’t demand justice, rather that the fact that a group of our brothers and sisters feel they have to cry out for it in the first place, exposes an ugly blemish on a nation many refer to as a Christian one.

Many have responded to these cries for justice with the phrase “all lives matter”. On the surface this sounds great. Of course all lives matter, especially to the Creator of those lives. Although I’m sure well intentioned, this response to suffering is justice in human hands. It is meeting need with negligence. Mercy, on the other hand, demands more from us all. It would take the care and time to understand the Black Lives Matter movement and see that their very name is a call of questioning, “Why don’t you think we matter? Why don’t you see us?” In the popular young adult novel A Monster Calls, the protagonist, Conor, is bullied in what could possibly be the cruelest of ways. Conor comes to a point in his story in which all he craves is to be seen and understood, even if it means through cruelty. At least when being bullied, he’s not ignored. So rather than continue his physical assaults, his bully deduces what will hurt most and so he tells Conor coldly, ”I no longer see you.”

Think of your moments of darkness and hopelessness, when you dropped to your knees and cried out in a panic to God, “I need you! Where are you? Please, hear my prayer!” What if the cosmic response was, “All prayers matter.” The fact is they do. God would be correct and just in saying so, but God does more. He offers more than pointing out the obvious. In little personal, sacred moments of clarity, He assures you that His eye is on the sparrow but His heart is yours. He responds: “Daughter, I hear you. Son, I see you.” Should not our response to the cries for help in our society be similar? “Sister, I hear you. Brother, I see you.” This is social mercy.

Some may cynically label this social mercy as a patronizing mission to stroke the ego of those with a savior complex, but this accusation is often only a bandage over the wound that festers when we choose to neglect our fellow men and ignore the whispers to invest in them by caring. The natural man is a comfortable man and caring often demands being a little uncomfortable. This is human justice trying to force its way back into the story by assuming that focusing on others cannot be altruistic. So we sacrifice the higher law for the one that makes more sense to us, the path of least resistance. We do need to be vigilant and try our best to be sure our motives are pure, but even if imperfect, when they lead to actions that reflect the example of Christ, our motives can be purified in Him.

We Latter-day Saints, constantly on fire with the gift of the Holy Ghost, should not be running away and seeking shelter from the world in fear. Or standing aloof, dealing out unholy judgment from afar. We should be blazing trails in the direction of the Prince of Peace, providing and preaching charity and compassion. We can love our covenants and preserve them, becoming ourselves preservatives in the process. We can throw ourselves into the world and love the hell out of it, causing the whole to rise. This reckless but sincere love will lead to advocating for social mercy, which will cause a craving to understand. Understanding will shed new light, which will grow brighter and brighter until the perfect day, and until then:

No mercy, no peace.

Observations that unequivocally link seismicity and wastewater injection are scarce. Here we show that wastewater injection in eastern Texas causes uplift, detectable in radar interferometric data up to >8 kilometers from the wells.

We infer that an increase of >1 megapascal in pore pressure in rocks with low compressibility triggers earthquakes, including the 4.8–moment magnitude event that occurred on 17 May 2012, the largest earthquake recorded in eastern Texas

The continent has shifted by 4.9 feet since the last adjustment was made to GPS coordinates in 1994.

All of the Earth’s continents float on tectonic plates, which glide slowly over a plastic-like layer of the upper mantle. And the plate that Australia sits on has been moving relatively fast, about 2.7 inches a year (northward and with a slight clockwise rotation).

This type of shifting is coming more into focus as GPS systems get more accurate. The most advanced technology can now pinpoint a location to a matter of inches. Although most consumer cellphones don’t have that level of accuracy (yet), the technology is being used in other ways, including by farmers who spray fields with precision agriculture and self-driving vehicles.

Micro Blaster Q-Tip Bow – Great for cleaning coworkers ears from afar!

Earlier this year, Google officially revealed its voice assistant known as Google Home. Now word on the street is that Google plans to launch Home as soon as October.

Google has an event planned for October 4, where it’s believed they’ll not only announce the new Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones, but also reveal more about the Home assistant, a still-unannounced Google Wifi home router, and the Chromecast Ultra, which, if the rumors are true, will support 4K UHD streaming.

Now, according to a report from Android Police, Google Home will cost $129 — quite a bit less than the Amazon Echo, Home’s major competitor. That wouldn’t be too surprising and could give Home a big boost.

As for the price of the Chromecast Ultra, today’s report states that will cost $69. The current Chromecast costs only $35, so that’s quite a price hike. But if Google can sell the features and supported platforms, it might work well. The report also indicates Google will continue to sell the regular Chromecast after the Chromecast Ultra goes on sale.

Do you plan on buying any of Google’s upcoming products?

A lot of tiny particles moving around and interacting with each other or with you have a certain appeal to them. If you are ever in a situation where you need to work with a lot of particles, Particles.js will serve you well. As is evident from the name, it is a JavaScript library that can help you create particle systems. Moreover, it is lightweight, easy to use, and gives you a lot of control. 

In this tutorial, I will cover all the features of the library and help you get started. This tutorial is the first part of the series and will cover just the basics. 

Installation and Usage

First, you need to host the library. You can either upload it on your own server or use jsdeliver CDN like me. 

<script src="//cdn.jsdelivr.net/particles.js/2.0.0/particles.min.js"></script>

You also need to create a DOM element where Particles.js will create the particles. Give it some easily identifiable id , for referencing later.

<div id="particles-js"></div> 

Now, to create a basic system of particles with default settings, you just need a single line of JavaScript to initialize the library. 

particlesJS();

The particles are by default white. They are also interconnected with thin white lines. So, if you are not seeing anything right now, just change the background to something else. Here is my CSS for styling the particle div:

#particles-js {
  background: cornflowerblue;
}

Try clicking somewhere inside the demo below. After each click, Particles.js will generate four more new particles.

Setting Custom Options

Even though it took just four lines of code to create the previous demo, the end result might not be what you are looking for. To me, the particles seem to be a little bigger in size and densely packed. Maybe you want the particles to be of a different shape or have a random size. Particles.js allows you to set all these and many more properties in JSON which you can refer to during the initialization. General syntax for calling the function will look like:

particlesJS(dom-id, path-json, callback (optional));

Here, dom-id is the id of element where you want the particles to appear. path-json is the path to the JSON file with all configuration options, and callback is an optional callback function. Instead of a path, you can directly put your JSON code in the second parameter.

Let's try to create snowfall using this awesome library. At first, our function will look like:

particlesJS("snowfall", 'assets/snowflakes.json');

I have removed the callback function and changed the DOM Id to a more specific name. The snowflakes will mostly have a spherical shape. They will fall downwards and have a non-uniform size. Also, unlike in our first demo, they won't be connected by lines.

Moving Particles Around

In the beginning, our snowflakes.json file will have the following code:

{
  "particles": {
  
  },
  "interactivity": {
    
  }
}

All our configuration options related to physical properties like shape, size, and motion will go inside particles. All the configuration options that determine the interaction behavior will go inside interactivity.

I am setting the number of particles to 100. This will generally depend on the available space. As previously discussed, I will also set the shape to circle. At this point your file should look like:

{
  "particles": {
    "number": {
      "value": 100
    },
    "shape": {
      "type": "circle"
    }
  },
  "interactivity": {
    
  }
}

I am using a value of 10 to set the size of snowflakes. Since snowflakes vary in size, I will set random to true. This way the snowflakes can have any size between zero and the maximum limit that we specified. To disable or remove all the lines that link these particles together, you can set enable to false for line_linked. 

To move particles around, you will have to set the enable property to true. Without any other setting, the particles will move haphazardly as if they are in space. You can set the direction of these particles with a string value like "bottom". Even though the general motion of particles is downwards, they still need to move a bit randomly to look natural. This can be achieved by setting straight to false. At this point, snowflakes.json will have the following code:

{
  "particles": {
    "number": {
      "value": 100
    },
    "shape": {
      "type": "circle"
    },
    "size": {
      "value": 10,
      "random": true
    },
    "line_linked": {
      "enable": false
    },
    "move": {
      "enable": true,
      "speed": 2,
      "direction": "bottom",
      "straight": false
    }
  },
  "interactivity": {
    
  }
}

With the JSON code above, you will get the following result:

Changing Interaction Behavior

If you hover over the demo above, you will notice that the lines still exist but only show up temporarily during hover. To remove them completely, you can set the enable property for the onhover event to false. Try clicking inside the demo above and you will notice that each click generates four particles. This is the default behavior. You can also change the number of particles using the particles_nb property under push. I have set this number to 12 in this case.

You can also determine whether to detect the events on the window or canvas using the detect_on option. 

Here is the complete code for the JSON file :

{
  "particles": {
    "number": {
      "value": 100
    },
    "shape": {
      "type": "circle"
    },
    "size": {
      "value": 10,
      "random": true
    },
    "line_linked": {
      "enable": false
    },
    "move": {
      "enable": true,
      "speed": 2,
      "direction": "bottom",
      "straight": false
    }
  },
  "interactivity": {
    "detect_on": "canvas",
    "events": {
      "onhover": {
        "enable": false
      }
    },
    "modes": {
      "push": {
        "particles_nb": 12
      }
    }
  }
}

As you can see, I did not have to specifically enable the onclick event. It is enabled by default. Similarly, I could remove other options like "detect_on": "canvas" under interactivity and "straight": false under move. I have kept them so that starters don't get confused about things like why the particles are not moving in straight lines.

You can try out different values to modify the snowflakes in this CodePen demo.

Final Thoughts

Getting started with Particles.js is easy. If you have never worked with particle systems before, this library will get you started in no time. This tutorial was just a basic introduction to the library. In the next two tutorials of this series, I will cover all the aspects of this library in much more detail.

If you have any questions regarding this tutorial, please let me know in the comments.

Twitter may soon have a new owner. The social media network has struggled in recent times, with new features failing to take off as hoped. The company has juggled executives and experimented with new initiatives, more or less with no effect. Now the company may be gearing up for a sale, shifting responsibility to a new owner. Several companies are in the mix, but the most notable is Google, as the tech giant has reportedly shown interest in purchasing Twitter.

Twitter’s stock rose more than 20% as the news broke that the company was considering selling. Whether it be to Google or another company, investors are interested in the possibility. Another high-profile company looking at Twitter is Salesforce, which showed interest in purchasing LinkedIn in the past. Now that LinkedIn is off the table, Salesforce is going after Twitter, which caters to a different, but still influential, audience.

There’s no word on how soon a sale might happen, but we’ll keep you posted on the situation.

http://theawkwardyeti.com/comic/fraction-traveled/

They call it the Chill Sack only to avoid the lawyers' C&D letter or profit-sharing demands from a major corporation. But you can go ahead and call this giant 8-foot bean bag chair built for two (or three!) like it is: The Netflix & Chill Sack.

In addition to large-butt- and Jabba-the-Hutt-friendly dimensions, Chill Sacks are wrapped in a micro suede cover that looks like it will feel as snuggly as the fabric softener bear. And if you decide to get real, real, extra snuggly on it, the cover is removable and machine washable.

The Chill Sack comes in a handful of different colors, and measures 34" tall x 96" wide x 96" deep. Oh, and so it weighs 130 pounds instead of 830, it's filled with shredded memory foam instead of beans or pellets.