In Spain, Entire Villages Are Up For Sale — And They’re Going Cheap : Parallels : NPR “Desperate times call for desperate measures, says Avelino Luis de Francisco Martinez, the mayor of Cortegada, a rural town in southern Galicia. An abandoned hamlet that’s part of his town isn’t for sale. He’s giving it away. “For free! Someone just has to promise to renovate the 12 ruined houses,” he says. “They’re beautiful — bucolic! Next to a river and an 18th century royal procession path.” The challenge? “We just need to find someone to live here in this century,” he says.” tags: weekly Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

It’s Okay To Be Smart • Physicist is both to my mouth and ears so awkward… ““Physicist is both to my mouth and ears so awkward that I think I shall never use it. The equivalent of three separate sounds of “i” in one word is too much.” Michael Faraday (1791-1867) was not fond of that new-fangled word “physicist”. Instead, he was an “experimentalist”, a “natural philosopher”, or simply a “scientist”. It seems a modern trend, this need to hyper-specialize both our questions and our means of answering them.” tags: physicist weekly Standardized testing: I opted my kids out. The schools freaked out. Now I know why. “She started out very soft and calm. “Mrs. McElroy,” she said. “We’ve just received word that your daughter isn’t going to take the TCAPs. We are so disappointed. Won’t you change your mind?”” h/t Boing Boing Standardized testing: I opted my kids out. The schools freaked out. Now I know why. “She started out very sof… http://t.co/Gtad7p3Xaz — Tom Woodward (@twoodwar) March 8, 2014 tags: IFTTT Twitter weekly testing tweet Writing From Photographs : Digital Literacy “It’s not that my memory improved but, instead, that I started archiving these events and ideas with my phone, as photographs. Now, if I want to research the painter whose portraits I admired at the museum, I […]