Still more from the weird news files: Text message essay baffles British teacher

LONDON, England (Reuters) — An English essay written by a British teenager in text messaging short-hand has reignited concern among teachers that literacy standards are under threat.

Now that text messaging has begun to gain popularity here in the States, I fear for future generations…

Via one of the communities on my LiveJournal friends list: Caring for Your Introvert: The habits and needs of a little-understood group.

Pointless but fun link of the day: ProfQuotes— amusing quotations uttered by professors and teachers throughout the world. Yes, I’ve submitted a couple so far; you should be able to identify which are mine pretty easily.

Sad news for all of us who have either participated in or followed the National Spelling Bee: long-time National Spelling Bee pronouncer Dr. Alex Cameron died of natural causes earlier this week.

May you rest in peace, Dr. Cameron.

Two amusing news stories via the always enjoyable ObscureStore.com:

Homeless man gets shocking tax bill – Nearly six million dollars. That’s insane. The best part, I think, is the fact that the IRS found a staggering $18 error in their calculations…

What’s in a name? – Quite a bit, if you share your name with a famous celebrity.

Grah. I’ve already ranted about audio being used in web ads… and apparently, the situation is only going to become even worse.

Thanks for interrupting our MP3s, advertisers!

Yay! At long last, Bitstream’s Vera fonts have been released in a beta version; pick them up at the Gnome web site.

How fast and how far does information travel? That was one teenager’s science fair experiment— and even I’ll admit that it’s a noble and clever idea. Unfortunately, in such situations, information travels far faster than many ISPs’ e-mail quotas allow…

How have I, a college student in Georgia, gone so long without realizing that the Brothers Chaps, of Homestar Runner fame, are from Atlanta? (And how come I discovered this via the website of a college in California, for that matter?)

Oh, and the latest Strong Bad e-mail is just classic. They just keep getting better and better, I tell you…

Yet more news from the “it pays to be able to spell” department: Alert clerk foils check-cashing scam. To quote:

HICKORY – Two men who couldn’t spell were foiled by a clerk who could.

Police say two men tried to pass a counterfeit payroll check bearing the name, Boryhill Furmiture on Monday afternoon at Lowes Foods off U.S. 321.