Slow Down! Why Some Languages Sound So Fast

Here's one of the least-interesting paragraphs you've ever read: "Last night I opened the front door to let the cat out. It was such a beautiful night that I wandered down to the garden to get a breath of fresh air. Then I heard a click as the door closed behind me."
OK, it becomes a little less eye-glazing after that, with the speaker getting arrested while trying to force the door back open. Still, we ain't talking Noel Coward here. All the same, this perfectly ordinary passage and a few others like it are part of an intriguing study just published in the journal Language — a study that answers one of the longest-standing questions about human speech.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2091477,00.html#ixzz1XNDzXeKC

David Hockney's iPad art

David Hockney explains why the iPhone and iPad inspire him. 

One day last summer I got a text message from David Hockney. It read: “I’ll send you today’s dawn this afternoon, an absurd sentence I know, but you know what I mean.” Later on it duly arrived: pale pink, mauve and apricot clouds drifting over the Yorkshire coast in the first light of a summer’s day. It was as delicate as a Turner, luminous as stained glass and as hi-tech as any art being made in the world today. Hockney had drawn it on his iPhone. 

See art and read the rest of the article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/8066839/David-Hockneys-iPad-art.html 

David Hockney to reveal more than 100 new paintings of Yorkshire in Olympic exhibition

David Hockney, Britain's greatest living artist, is hoping an exhibition of more than 100 new paintings of the Yorkshire countryside will become as famous as his work in California and the Grand Canyon. 

The 74-year-old, who moved back to his native Yorkshire to work on the landscapes almost 10 years ago, has been given his own blockbuster show at the Royal Academy of Art in London.

The exhibition of 180 pictures, the vast majority new, and of Bridlington, a seaside town in east Yorkshire, are to go on show from January as part of his 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

Employing a variety of mediums including water colour, oil paint, film, photography and even iPad, the work features the countryside of the Yorkshire throughout the seasons.

Mr Hockney, better known for his swimming pool scenes in California, said that he believed that his latest work was as good as anything he had done before.

"Every artist will always say that his latest work is his best," he said at the press launch of the exhibition in London.

Read the rest of the article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/8747531/David-Hockney-to-reveal-more-than-100-new-paintings-of-Yorkshire-in-Olympic-exhibition.html

Free speech is in retreat throughout the West

There's a sizzling piece by Mark Steyn in the current issue of National Review, which reveals quite how far democracies have gone in restricting free speech.
Citing, among many, the example of a musician on the Isle of Wight who was charged with racism after performing Kung Fu Fighting in the hearing of a Chinese couple, he makes the point that it is no longer possible to infer the legal status of words from the words themselves:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100103466/free-speech-is-in-retreat-throughout-the-west/

Downturn heightens pension crisis

Britain faces a retirement crisis after one in six people stopped paying into to their pension in the wake of the recession, official figures have disclosed. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/8747946/Downturn-heightens-pension-crisis.html

Modern Toilet: a toilet-themed restaurant chain in China

This toilet-themed restaurant chain proves it isn't a flash in the pan. Owner Wang Tzi-wei opened the first Modern Toilet outlet in Taipei 2004; there are now branches all over Taiwan, as well as in Hong Kong and mainland China. The pictures in this gallery are from a branch which has recently opened in Shenzhen

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/picturegalleries/7894303/Modern-Toilet-a-toilet-themed-restaurant-chain-in-China.html

‘Is It Just Me, or Do You Seem to Be Getting a Little Weird All of a Sudden?’

Watch this video on dating:

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/07/hipster_dating.html