Dec. 2, 2013  What happens to your digital life after you die?   It’s a question not many consider given how embedded the internet is in their lives.  The typical web user has 25 online accounts, ranging from email to social media profiles and bank accounts, according to a 2007 study from Microsoft.   But families, companies and legislators are just starting to sort out who owns and has access to these accounts after someone has died.  The issue came up recently in Virginia, when a couple, seeking answers after their son’s suicide, realized they couldn’t access his Facebook account.  Now Virginia is one of a growing number of states that have passed laws governing the digital accounts of the deceased.  Meanwhile, technology companies are forming their own policies regarding deceased users.  While still in the early stages, the laws and policies taking shape so far indicate that designating one’s “digital assets” may soon become a critical part of estate planning.  The implications are widespread, considering that today nearly all American adults are online and 72% of them, along with 81% of teenagers, use social media sites.  In the digital world, posting photos, drafting emails or making purchases are activities that don’t solely belong to users.  They belong, in part, to companies like Facebook and Google that store information on their servers.  In order to access these convenient online tools, users enter into agreements when they click on — but often don’t read — terms-of-service agreements.  Maeve Duggan  http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/02/what-happens-to-your-digital-life-after-death/ 

inoculate  (i-NOK-yuh-layt)  verb. tr.  1.  To treat with a vaccine to induce immunity against a disease.  2.  To introduce an idea into someone's mind.  3.  To safeguard or protect.   From Latin in- (in) + oculus (eye; bud, referring to grafting of a bud into a plant of a different type).  Earliest documented use:  1420.

pratfall   (PRAT-fawl)  noun  A humiliating failure, blunder, or defeat.   A pratfall is literally a fall on the buttocks.  The word is figuratively used to describe embarrassing errors or failures.  From prat (buttocks, fool) + fall.  Earliest documented use:  1939.

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

Toledo is home to the largest collection of lithophanes and the only museum worldwide dedicated to the art — the Blair Museum of Lithophanes.  The museum is home to more than 2,300 lithophanes and has approximately 750 lithophanes on display at all times.  A lithophane is a three-dimensional image in translucent porcelain that was a popular European art form in the 19th century.  Many lithophanes were displayed as part of lanterns, as candle shields or as fire screens during the Victorian age.  In addition to those forms, the museum has lithophanes displayed as night lights and lamp shades as well as in beer steins and tea warmers.  Skilled craftsmen carved images into beeswax with tools similar to dental instruments.  The deeper the beeswax was carved the more light that shone through and the lighter the image.  Upon completion, the carved beeswax was used to create molds for the porcelain.  Once a mold was created a lithophane image could be replicated a number of times.  The museum’s largest flat lithophane, an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, is 15 inches by 10.75 inches.  Most of the lithophanes at the museum are smaller, however, measuring roughly 5 inches by 7 inches in size.  Most lithophanes are monochromatic, but some lithophanes have been painted, Carney.  Painted lithophanes are rare, but the museum has some on display.  The Blair Museum of Lithophanes was founded by Laurel Gotshall Blair, a local businessman.  Blair began collecting lithophanes in the 1960s and ran a lithophane museum out of his home in the Old West End.  When Blair died in 1993, he left his entire collection of lithophanes to the city of Toledo.  After nearly 10 years of efforts, the museum was opened at its current location at 5403 Elmer Drive in the Toledo Botanical Garden.  Kristen Criswell  http://www.toledofreepress.com/2010/09/14/blair-museum-of-lithophanes-houses-2300-treasures/ 

The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (German: Nussknacker und Mausekönig) is a story written in 1816 by E. T. A. Hoffmann in which young Marie Stahlbaum's favorite Christmas toy, the Nutcracker, comes alive and, after defeating the evil Mouse King in battle, whisks her away to a magical kingdom populated by dolls.  In 1892, the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov turned Alexandre Dumas père's adaptation of the story into the ballet The Nutcracker, which became one of Tchaikovsky's most famous compositions, and perhaps the most popular ballet in the world.  The Nutcracker (Histoire d'un casse-noisette, 1844) is a somewhat watered-down revision by Alexandre Dumas, père of the Hoffmann tale.  This was the version used as the basis for the Tchaikovsky ballet The Nutcracker, but in the ballet, Marie's name is usually changed to Clara.  Read plot summary and see a variety of nutcracker images at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nutcracker_and_the_Mouse_King 

Alexandre Dumas born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (1802–1870) also known as Alexandre Dumas, père, was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure.  Translated into nearly 100 languages, these have made him one of the most widely read French authors in history.  Many of his novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne: Ten Years Later were originally published as serials.  His novels have been adapted since the early twentieth century for nearly 200 films.  Dumas' last novel, The Knight of Sainte-Hermine, unfinished at his death, was completed by a scholar and published in 2005, becoming a bestseller.  It was published in English in 2008 as The Last Cavalier.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Dumas,_p%C3%A8re

Discworld is a comic fantasy book series written by the English writer Terry Pratchett, set on the fictional Discworld, a flat disc balanced on the backs of four elephants which, in turn, stand on the back of a giant turtle, Great A'Tuin.  The books frequently parody, or take inspiration from, J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft and William Shakespeare, as well as mythology, folklore and fairy tales, often using them for satirical parallels with current cultural, political and scientific issues.  The series is popular with more than 80 million copies sold in 37 languages.  Since the first novel, The Colour of Magic (1983), 40 Discworld novels have been published as of November 2013^[update].  Pratchett, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, has said that he would be happy for his daughter Rhianna to continue the series when he is no longer able to do so.  The original British editions of the first 26 novels, up to Thief of Time (2001), had distinctive cover art by Josh Kirby; the American editions, published by Harper Collins, used their own cover art.  Since Kirby's death in October 2001, the covers have been designed by Paul Kidby.  Companion publications include eleven short stories (some only loosely related to the Discworld), four popular science books, and a number of supplementary books and reference guides.  In addition, the series has been adapted for the theatre, as computer games, as music inspired by the series, and repeatedly for television.  Newly released Discworld books regularly top The Sunday Times best-sellers list, making Pratchett the UK's best-selling author in the 1990s, although he has since been overtaken by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.  Discworld novels have also won awards such as the Prometheus Award and the Carnegie Medal. In the BBC's Big Read, four Discworld novels were in the top 100, and a total of fourteen in the top 200.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld 

Botanically speaking, bulbs are geophytes, which are herbaceous plants with underground storage organs.  Geophytes don't just include true bulbs, but also those that we collectively refer to as bulbs, which are in fact corms, rhizomes and tubers.  A true bulb, such as an onion, consists of fleshy layers of leaves that store food for the developing plant.  Corms, such as gladiolus, contain a solid mass of stem tissue, rather than concentric rings of leaves.  The fleshy portion at the roots of a canna is called a rhizome, which is a general term for a stem that grows horizontally.  Some of the best known rhizomes are ginger, bamboo and many irises.  Then there are the tubers, the most well-known of which is the potato.  A potato is technically a stem tuber, meaning that it's actually a swollen stem, or more correctly, the swollen tip of a rhizome.  Paul James  Find more information and pictures at http://www.hgtv.com/landscaping/understanding-bulbs-corms-rhizomes-and-tubers/index.html 

A beloved musical about a magical nanny, an epic about the first astronauts, a silent film with a Native American cast and a sci-fi thriller loosely based on Shakespeare's "The Tempest" are among the 25 motion pictures to join the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.  This year's selections that span the years 1919-2002, include 1964's "Mary Poppins"; 1983's "The Right Stuff"; 1929's "Daughter of Dawn" and 1956's "Forbidden Planet"; as well as 1952's "The Quiet Man"; 1994's "Pulp Fiction"; 1966's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"; 1989's "Roger & Me"; and the 1966 documentary "Cicero March," which examines a confrontation between blacks and whites in an Illinois town.  Under the terms of the National Film Preservation Act, the librarian names 25 pictures to the National Film Registry that are "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant.  The film must be at least 10 years old.  This year's selections bring the total in the National Registry to 625.  Susan King   http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/la-et-mn-national-film-registry-20131218,0,1122309.story