12 Letters That Didn’t Make the Alphabet

You know the alphabet. It’s one of the first things you’re taught in school. But did you know that they’re not teaching you all of the alphabet? There are quite a few letters we tossed aside as our language grew, and you probably never even knew they existed.

Read the full text here: 

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/156077#ixzz2FIWr6Za9  

London buses to offer NFC contactless card payments

London buses are to start accepting contactless payments from Thursday.

Passengers on the city's 8,500 vehicles will be able to buy tickets by swiping a credit, debit or charge card by an NFC (near field communication) reader.

Transport for London follows Stagecoach which began installing NFC equipment on its buses in 2009.

TfL also operates the Oyster smartcard scheme which uses an earlier RFID (radio-frequency identification) technology.

The buses' Oyster card readers have been upgraded to be compatible with both types,

Smartphones that can mimic contactless cards should also work with the equipment.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20694027 

The 50 Coolest New Businesses In America

Year after year, cities across America continue to surprise us with new, innovative, and downright awesome businesses.

This year we've already brought you the coolest new businesses in Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco, and now we've gone nationwide, finding the hottest restaurants, boutiques, startups, and everything in between across the U.S. 

There's a corner store with a bike-through window, a mobile shop that sells vintage clothing from a 1960s trailer, America's first pizza museum, and a Chinese restaurant that serves dumplings that look like Pac-Man characters.

Some of the businesses are based in brick and mortar stores, while others—like food trucks and mobile shops—sell their wares on wheels. We've also included several online-only businesses.

From San Francisco to New York (and everywhere in between), we've found the coolest new businesses in America that opened or expanded within the last year and a half. Email MNisen@businessinsider.com if we left off your favorite.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-50-coolest-new-businesses-in-america-2012-12 

What's the loveliest word in the English language?

It was the linguist JR Firth who, in 1930, coined the term phonoaesthetics to refer to the study of how words sound. I came across it recently when, 26 years later than most, I heard Marlow ask in Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective: "What's the loveliest word in the English language, officer? In the sound it makes in the mouth? In the shape it makes in the page? E-L-B-O-W." (And yes, for anyone else who didn't know, it is where the band got its name.)

The film Donnie Darko offers a tip of its hat, too, in the lines of Drew Barrymore's character, teacher Karen Pomeroy: "This famous linguist once said that of all the phrases in the English language, of all the endless combinations of words in all of history, 'cellar door' is the most beautiful." The famous linguist was none other than JRR Tolkien, and he made the claim in his 1955 lecture English and Welsh.

There's also Robert Beard's The 100 Most Beautiful Words in English. Although you're unlikely to agree with them all, Beard's list does help make some phonetic links: the B and L common to bungalow, elbow and one of my favourites, for example. Long vowels and liquid sounds such as L and R have been considered particularly beautiful since the ancient Greeks, but I'd love to know where B fits in.

So, in no particular order, here are five that for me illustrate Tolkien's description of the phonetic pleasure of words as "simpler, deeper-rooted, and yet more immediate" than any practical or structural understanding of their sense.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mind-your-language/2012/may/25/mind-your-language-loveliest-word 

10 Buzzwords to Take Off Your LinkedIn Profile

More than 50 million people have joined the ranks of the social-media site LinkedIn since the networking hub released its list of overused buzzwords last year. Yet the lessons appear to still be lost on many of the site’s 187 million members, who are still sullying their online profiles with generic, less-than-compelling descriptors.

One of the best ways to recognize a word that’s not up to par is to consider the minimum ability it promises. Take analytical, one of only two new words to make the top 10 this year, ousting the equally unhelpful dynamic. Whereas dynamic promised potential employers that you would produce motion of some kind, analytical merely tells them that you will examine things closely and determine essential features. If the job entails finding the 10 differences between two cartoons depicting farm animals, you’re their guy.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/12/04/10-buzzwords-to-take-off-your-linkedin-profile-now/ 

Kommunikationspause Daimler löscht auf Wunsch Mails seiner Mitarbeiter

E-Mail ist für viele Angestellte längst kein willkommenes Kommunikationswerkzeug mehr, sondern eine ständige Belastung. Bei Daimler will man dem nun abhelfen, zumindest im Urlaub - wer will, kann dort künftig alle E-Mails löschen lassen, die während seiner Abwesenheit ankommen.

Der Betriebsrat habe die Regelung zusammen mit der Unternehmensleitung verabschiedet, teilte Daimler am Freitag in Stuttgart mit. Start soll Anfang 2013 sein. Nach Angaben einer Daimler-Sprecherin kann künftig jeder Mitarbeiter bis hin zum Manager davon Gebrauch machen. Damit Anfragen nicht ins Leere laufen, verweise eine Abwesenheitsnotiz auf den zuständigen Vertreter.

http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/daimler-loescht-e-mails-im-urlaub-a-868960.html

Kulturausflug nach Yorkshire: Kunst zwischen Kötteln

Bei dem Wort Yorkshire denken viele unweigerlich an den gleichnamigen Terrier. Andere erinnern sich an den kaum minder bekannten Pudding, jene englische Sättigungsbeilage zum Sonntagsbraten. Die Grafschaft im Osten Englands steht auch für unberührte Natur, liebliche Hügel und unendliche Weiten. Was die wenigsten aber wissen: Yorkshire hat auch Kulturfreunden ganz Besonderes zu bieten.

http://www.spiegel.de/reise/europa/yorkshire-in-england-moderne-kunst-in-der-englischen-grafschaft-a-868724.html 

Going digital: The new look of business cards

The business card isn’t dead. It’s just evolving.

A cottage industry of startups has sprung up around the slow but steady transformation of the business card from something you keep in your wallet to something you keep in your smartphone.

With more and more people carrying tiny computers in their pockets, the limitations of the traditional cards are glaring. Perhaps the most obvious is the decidedly static nature of paper-based cards.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/career-advice/going-digital-the-new-look-of-business-cards/article5532361/ 

South Korean men get the make-up habit

South Korean men have a particular kind of image - hard-drinking, hard-working and prepared to fight bravely for their country. But now major cosmetics companies are seeing a different side to Korean manhood - a growing interest in skincare products, and even foundation.

Two years of compulsory military service and centuries of Confucian culture have left many South Korean men with a deeply traditional sense of gender - something young Korean women often complain about these days.

So their new appetite for skincare and make-up comes as a slight surprise.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/64522000/jpg/_64522745_cukes_think624.jpg