Seen Elsewhere

Natalie Bennett has a fascinating post on bookshelves. Not the book on them, the shelves themselves.

A couple of generators for you. There’s a Merovingian Name Generator at Rum + Monkey. For the more artistic there’s also a Historic Tale Construction Kit (in English) at Adgame Wonderland (German).

I’ll clear out my clippings file as I’m clearly not going to find the time to write more on these:

• Patahistory on fictional history.Does it matter whether or not the past happened the way history says it does?

• The First Laugh: New Study Posits Evolutionary Origins Of Two Distinct Types Of LaughterThe plan was to tie this in with a review of The Singing Neanderthals, but that got sidetracked as I read more around Evolutionary Psychology to check I wasn’t missing something obvious and then I got caught up in Dylan Evan’s Emotion : the science of sentiment.

• On idiolect, there are notes on Reed Elsevier’s connections with the arms trade.Not sure if this means that Elsevier journals are offlimits to members of societies who enforce their ethical policies. (via Pharyngula)