"In the Heart of the Sea," which opens March 15, 2015, tells the true story that inspired perhaps the most celebrated American novel, Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick."  It's the tale of the Nantucket whale ship Essex, which sunk in 1820 after it was rammed by a sperm whale, leaving its crew shipwrecked in the South Pacific for 90 days.  The screenplay by Charles Leavitt, adapted from Nathaniel Philbrick's 2000 nonfiction book of the same name, functions as a kind of origins story for "Moby-Dick," with Melville as a character played by Englishman Ben Whishaw.  Chris Hemsworth has the role of first mate Owen Chase, who wrote an account of the disaster which Melville eventually read.  Melville's fictionalized version of the Essex story has inspired countless Hollywood retellings over the decades, with actors as varied as John Barrymore, Gregory Peck and William Hurt taking on the role of Capt. Ahab.  In Howard and Hemsworth's case, the story is told as it really happened.  Rebecca Keegan  http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-ca-sneaks-heart-of-the-sea-20150111-story.html

In English, we say fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen, so one would think that we would also say one-teen, two-teen, and three-teen.  But we don’t.  We make up a different form:  eleven, twelve, thirteen, and fifteen.  Similarly, we have forty, and sixty, which sound like what they are.  But we also say fifty and thirty and twenty, which sort of sound what they are but not really.  And, for that matter, for numbers above twenty, we put the “decade” first and the unit number second:  twenty-one, twenty-two.  For the teens, though, we do it the other way around.  We put the decade second and the unit number first: fourteen, seventeen, eighteen.  The number system in English is highly irregular.  Not so in China, Japan and Korea.  They have a logical counting system.  Eleven is ten one.  Twelve is ten two.  Twenty-four is two ten four, and so on.  Four year old Chinese children can count, on average, up to forty.  The regularity of their number systems also means that Asian children can perform basic functions—like addition—far more easily.  Ask an English seven-year-old to add thirty-seven plus twenty two, in her head, and she has to convert the words to numbers (37 + 22).  Only then can she do the math:  2 plus 7 is nine and 30 and 20 is 50, which makes 59.  Ask an Asian child to add three-tens-seven and two tens-two, and then the necessary equation is right there, embedded in the sentence.  No number translation is necessary:  It’s five-tens nine.  http://gladwell.com/outliers/rice-paddies-and-math-tests/

Imply and infer are opposites, like a throw and a catch.  To imply is to hint at something, but to infer is to make an educated guess.   http://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/imply-infer/ 

To imply means to state indirectly (to include a suggestion in a message). 
To infer means to deduce  (to extract a suggestion from a message). http://www.grammar-monster.com/easily_confused/imply_infer.htm

The Faroe or Faeroe Islands (in Faroese Føroyar) are 18 islands in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, northwest of Scotland and halfway between Iceland and Norway.  The Islands are a self-governing island territory of Denmark, although they politically aim for higher independence.  The Islands have a population of nearly 50,000, and a language and culture of their own.  When visiting the Faroes you are never more than 5km (3 miles) away from the ocean.  The countryside is dominated by steep mountains and there are about 70,000 sheep and some 2 million pairs of seabirds, including the largest colony of storm petrels in the world.   The Faroes were colonized by Norwegians in the 9th century.  According to history the first settler was Grímur Kamban, a Norwegian Viking who made his home in Funningur on Eysturoy in 825.  The Faroese population has largely descended from these settlers.  Recent DNA analyses have revealed that Y chromosomes, tracing male descent, are 87% Scandinavian.  However, the studies also show that mitochondrial DNA, tracing female descent, is 84% Scottish.  The Viking settlers established their own parliament called "ting" around 800.  Local tings were established in different parts of the islands. The main ting was established on Tinganes in Tórshavn.  About the turn of the millennium the Faroes came under control of the Norwegian king.  In 1380 the Faroes along with Orkney, Shetland, Iceland and Greenland, came with Norway into a union with Denmark.  At the end of the Napoleonic wars, by the Treaty of Kiel in 1814, Denmark was forced to cede Norway to Sweden, but kept the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland.  After a referendum, which led to a very small majority voting for independence, in 1946 negotiations took place between the two countries and the outcome was the Home Rule Act in 1948.  The Faroese were from then on responsible for most matters of government.  The parliament can legislate on matters of local importance, and Danish laws can be rejected.  The Faroes are still represented in the Danish parliament by two representatives.  Also, since 1970 the Faroes have had independent status in the Nordic Council.  Furthermore, the Faroes have their own flag (Merkið).  Unlike Denmark, the islands are not a member of the EU and all trade is governed by special treaties.  The Faroe Islands' primary industry is the fishing industry, and the islands have one of the smallest independent economic entities in the world.  http://wikitravel.org/en/Faroe_Islands

folderol  noun

nonsensical talk or writing; nonsense, foolish talk; mere nonsense; an idle fancy or conceit; a silly trifle  Etymology:  formed from meaningless syllables, the refrain of old songs  http://www.finedictionary.com/folderol.html

There are over 5,300 .gov domains.  About 1,300 of these are used by the federal government’s executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The rest are spread across states, territories, counties, cities, and native tribes.  This dataset is an interim release and a snapshot in time, taken on December 1, 2014.  The plan is for the complete dataset to be listed and regularly updated on Data.gov, replacing the current limited set."  See list at

https://github.com/GSA/data/blob/gh-pages/dotgov-domains/2014-12-01-full.csv

Canis Major is a constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere.  In the second century, it was included in Ptolemy's 48 constellations, and is counted among the 88 modern constellations.  Its name is Latin for "greater dog" in contrast to Canis Minor, the "lesser dog"; both figures are commonly represented as following the constellation of Orion the hunter through the sky.  The Milky Way passes through Canis Major and several open clusters lie within its borders, most notably M41, which covers an area around the same size as the full moon.  Canis Major contains Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, known as the "dog star".  It is bright because of its proximity to our Solar System.  See graphics at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canis_Major

shortened words found recently while reading novels:  “totes adorbs” (“totally adorable”) and "scrip" (description).

Jan. 19, 2015  SANDPOINT, Idaho—One of Idaho’s most talked-about deer hunts took place last month not in the state’s spectacular backcountry, but at an airport within the city limits of this mountain community.  Archers staked out camouflaged hunting stands on the grounds of the Sandpoint Airport after the city authorized bows and arrows to cull a herd of white-tailed deer that officials say cause safety concerns for pilots.  But none of the hunters killed a single deer—prompting the airport’s manager to ask state officials for another hunt this year.  Urban deer hunts are playing out across America as cities and towns attempt to curb surging numbers of the herbivores.  The U.S. population of white-tailed deer, the most common across the nation, has soared to about 30 million from about 350,000 in 1900—creating hazards including increased collisions between animals and aircraft, according to a 2014 Federal Aviation Administration report.  FAA figures show 1,070 collisions between planes and deer in the U.S. between 1990 and 2013, causing an estimated $45.6 million in damage and other economic costs.  Jim Carlton  http://www.wsj.com/articles/herd-on-the-runway-airport-brings-in-archers-1421705425

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1246  January 21, 2015  On this date in 1789, the first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth, was printed in Boston, Massachusetts.  On this date in 1899, Opel manufactured its first automobile.