Here’s the problem with libraries. They catch on fire really easily.  As such, they were the prized targets of the invading hordes of antiquity – the model collections of knowledge of their times, whose only fault was their inherent flammability.  They were one-man, one-torch jobs.  But the hordes didn’t prize the library only for how powerfully it burned.  Back in those days, if you wanted to kill a culture, you killed its library. “If this is what happens to libraries, make copies,” says Brewster Kahle.  And it’s Kahle’s impulse to copy and preserve that prompted the Internet Society to induct the serial entrepreneur and digital archivist into the Internet Hall of Fame on April 23 in its inaugural year.  Kahle took the library of libraries — the internet — and made a couple of copies of it, and keeps making copies.  One he keeps in servers in San Francisco, the other in mirror servers in Alexandria, where the world’s most famous library burned 2,000 years ago.  (His data survived the Egyptian revolution unscathed.)  Through the Wayback Machine, you can see what the web looked like in 1996.  And 1997.  And 2011.  It’s just one arm of Kahle’s ambitious goal to provide the world with universal access to all knowledge.  His vehicle is the Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization Kahle founded in 1996, the same year he started analytics firm Alexa Internet, a pioneer in collaborative filtering, which he sold in 1999 to Amazon for $250 million.  http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/brewster-kahle/all/1?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Top+Stories%29

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

This week we sling the slang, To add to your diction a little tang.
Pit these words into your patter, Or let them into a letter.
But don't be a wiseacre, Leave 'em out of a thesis or paper.
wiseacre   (WYZ-ay-kuhr)  noun:  One who obnoxiously pretends to be wise; smart-aleck; wise-guy.  From Middle Dutch wijsseggher (soothsayer), translation of Middle High German wissage, from Old High German wissago (wise person), altered by folk etymology.  Earliest documented use:  1595.
suss  (suhs)  verb tr.:  To inspect, investigate, or to figure out.  By shortening of suspect, from Latin sub- (below) + specere (to look).  Earliest documented use:  1953.
lulu  (LOO-loo)  noun:  A remarkable person, idea, or thing.   
Perhaps from the nickname for Louise.  Earliest documented use: 1886.
jazz  (jaz) 
noun:
1.  A style of music characterized by improvisation.
2.  Etcetera (in the phrase: and all that jazz).
3.  Nonsense.
verb tr.:
1.  To enliven (in the phrase: to jazz up).
2.  To exaggerate or lie.
Of undetermined origin, perhaps a variant of slang jasm (energy, vigor).  Earliest documented use:  1912.

List of islands in the Mediterranean  Sicily (Italy) is the largest and Comino (Malta ) is the smallest.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_in_the_Mediterranean

The noun chord is a musical term (two or more notes sounded together); chord also refers to an emotion or disposition ("a responsive chord").  The noun cord refers to a rope or a bond, an insulated electrical cable, or an anatomical structure ("vocal cords").  http://grammar.about.com/od/alightersideofwriting/a/ChordCordGlossary.htm 

Andy Coolquitt is building a compound-style home near downtown Austin.  He repurposed parts from a merry-go-round for a grand staircase.  He dotted an exterior stucco wall with hundreds of beer-bottle tops.  He crafted his kitchen's rainbow-hued chandelier by gluing together rows of plastic lighters he found on the streets nearby.  On Sept. 29, the public will be able to take a longer look when what's billed as the first museum survey of his art, "Attainable Excellence," opens at the Austin Museum of Art/Arthouse, with a stop scheduled next spring at Houston's Blaffer Museum, which organized the show.  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444375104577591572840283772.html