5 examples of how the languages we speak can affect the way we think

http://blog.ted.com/2013/02/19/5-examples-of-how-the-languages-we-speak-can-affect-the-way-we-think/

Coming and Going

I heard a Brazilian iron-ore magnate speaking on a BBC news program about how he had become so rich, and he said that at one point “the price of iron ore came from $10 a ton to $180 a ton.” I realized that there was a subtle mistake in English usage here: Even if the price is still $180 now, we do not say that the price came from $10 to $180; we say the price went from $10 to $180. But why?

http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2014/02/19/coming-and-going-2/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en 

My life in London's houseboat slums

Where do you live if you cannot afford London's soaring rents? I took the only home I could find: a tiny, mouldy room in a freezing barge on the Thames. And there are many desperate people in the same situation

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/23/london-houseboat-slum-rents-barge?CMP=fb_gu 

12 Hilariously Revealing U.S. Maps You Won’t Find in a Textbook

http://time.com/10850/12-hilariously-revealing-u-s-maps-you-wont-find-in-a-textbook/

10 Very Useful, Specific Words That Don’t Exist In English

But they should

Have you ever tried to express a complicated feeling or situation, but just couldn’t find the word you needed? Sometimes English just kind of falls flat when you need a really specific but succinct way to describe something.
This infographic shows 10 words that exist in other languages that we totally wished existed in English too.

http://time.com/14894/10-words-that-dont-exist-in-english-infographic/ 

Little Kids Aren’t Impressed with Rotary Phones

To these kids’ credit, they all recognize that what they’re looking at is a phone of some type. They don’t, however, know it’s called a rotary phone. Many of them don’t know how to dial with it. Most of them have no concept of the busy signal. Some get duped into trying to explain how to send a text message from a rotary phone.
Watch and feel old. Or young. Choice quote from one of the kids: “This was awesome like 20 or 10 years ago, and look how technology advanced! Now people don’t even know what this is!”

http://time.com/16120/kids-rotary-phones/ 

London's best walks

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/uk/london/10615191/Londons-best-walks.html

Is social networking making us stupid?

In a study published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface scientists have found that whilst mass connectivity through social media and the internet makes us look smarter it might be making us stupider.

https://royalsociety.org/news/2014/social-network-stupid/?LangType=2057

How Skype Is Sabotaging Your Long Distance Relationship

An hour into Her I was a mess. Though many have complained that they found it hard to empathize with the human-operating system relationship the movie depicts, I found the film all too real because it embodied the worst parts of a long distance relationship. From the little miscommunications that come from not being able to see your partner’s face to struggling to overcome the impossibility of physical intimacy to the panic that strikes when a call goes unanswered — they were all familiar problems.

http://time.com/7195/how-skype-is-sabotaging-your-long-distance-relationship/ 

What Students Think About Using iPads in School

All 870 students at Hillview Middle School in Menlo Park, Calif. will soon have school-issued iPads that they can use both at school and at home. The school has slowly rolled out the program over the past three years, trying to work out the kinks before issuing the expensive devices to every student. Before students can take the devices home, they’ll have to take a course to get their “digital driver license,” which includes digital citizenship and learning their way around the device.
Eighth grade students at Hillview have had their iPads since the beginning of the school year. Read more on how teachers are using the devices in class so far and their hopes for the future. Here, they weigh in on how the devices change what happens in class, how they think about learning and how they organize their school work.

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/02/what-students-think-about-using-ipads-in-school/

From hoodies to goodies: today's teenagers have the makings of model citizens

Contrary to the negative media portrayals, a new study shows young people are part of a caring-sharing generation
Good news, for those of you who had lost hope in modern society. According to a report by the thinktank Demos today's teenagers – or youth, as certain newspapers prefer to dub them – far from being antisocial hoody-clad riot-mongers, are actually highly concerned with social issues, keen to volunteer, and take fewer drugs and drink less alcohol than previous generations. This had led to someone who clearly has no real-life experience of the teenage psyche labelling them "Generation C" (C for citizen). Cool.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/16/hoodies-goodies-teenagers-makings-good-citizens-young?CMP=fb_gu