On January first the official club and tournament word list used by competitive Scrabble players outside of North America (SOWPODS or CSW or Collins) will change. The updated international word list contains 1532 additions and 145 deletions (pdf) of words of eight or fewer letters. There are no new two-letter words. New words of note: CLIT, CUMS, INBOX, MUNGE, QIN, SPLOG, VOIP, WIKI, XRAY No longer allowed: ACIDFREAK, FOOTROT, MOLEHUNT, PORNOMAG, VICTROLLA, WYSIWIG, YOS [more inside]
posted by jessamyn on Dec 30, 2011 - 76 comments

History of Western Philosophy, illustrated in huge scroll-down timelines. Kevin Scharp at OSU made these, based on work by Randall Collins, and they are great. Includes the influence of the Muslim world. He also has separate diagrams on a few specific issues, eg paradoxes, theories of truth, etc. This link goes to his fast-loading index page, where you can click to load the (big) charts. [more inside]
posted by LobsterMitten on Nov 11, 2010 - 43 comments

Now that the Canadian Oxford Dictionary hasn't published an edition since the 2nd in 2004, there's a challenger to the much-desired title of standard dictionary of Canadian English: ladies and gentlemen, the 1st edition of the Collins Canadian Dictionary. There's even a short-story contest to promote it: in your 1,000 words you have to include at least 10 from the dictionary.
posted by anothermug on May 29, 2010 - 44 comments

In an attempt to stay sober for the year beginning January 01, 2010, Jed Collins is posting a comic a day. Here's his page.
posted by sredefer on Feb 14, 2010 - 75 comments

Astronaut Michael Collins – "I really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance of 100,000 miles their outlook could be fundamentally changed. That all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument silenced. The tiny globe would continue to turn, serenely ignoring its subdivisions, presenting a unified façade that would cry out for unified understanding, for homogeneous treatment. The earth must become as it appears: blue and white, not capitalist or Communist; blue and white, not rich or poor; blue and white, not envious or envied."
posted by miss lynnster on Jul 28, 2009 - 60 comments

Can Detroit be saved? Its future is in their hands . Meet Detroit city council president Monica Conyers, whose children are chauffered to the pricey Cranbrook Schools in suburban Bloomfield Hills daily by on-duty cops, and who recerntly publicly rebuked a white Teamsters official for daring to speak the name of President Obama during a meeting. She also wasn't interested in the estimated 16,000 jobs that would be created by the proposed Cobo Hall expansion because most of those jobs would be filled by people who "don't look like her." [more inside]
posted by Oriole Adams on Apr 4, 2009 - 111 comments

Science & technology funding has an enormous long term impact on the economy, a fact that has not escaped China. Yet, Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Susan Collins (R-ME) have proposed cutting all National Science Foundation and Department of Energy Office of Science funding from the Senate American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, along with almost all other proposed funding of the sciences and technological development, as a part of a $77.9B reduction effort. Why? Well, you'll notice that Nebraska & Maine don't contribute much to science & technology in the United States, nor win many grants, and hence no bacon for Nelson and Collins. [more inside]
posted by jeffburdges on Feb 6, 2009 - 86 comments

The Times Online: Dictionary compilers at Collins have decided that the word list for the forthcoming edition of its largest volume is embrangled with words so obscure that they are linguistic recrement. Such words, they say, must be exuviated abstergently to make room for modern additions that will act as a roborant for the book. [more inside]
posted by Sailormom on Sep 22, 2008 - 47 comments

"It's been nearly three decades since Dirtbombs leader Mick Collins first picked up a guitar with the sole intention of "murdering the Eagles." Since then, the tall, bespectacled, deep-voiced rock 'n' roller from Detroit has been scorned, worshipped, categorized and just plain misunderstood — sometimes simultaneously — by a music world often more interested in labeling than listening." [NOTE: see hoverovers for link descriptions] [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite on May 19, 2008 - 22 comments

A celebratory and trippy US Bicentennial animation comissioned by the US Goverment. More from animator Vince Collins via
posted by Burhanistan on May 30, 2007 - 13 comments

Turn It On Again Tour announced - Banks, Collins and Rutherford tour again! Died and gone to heaven, I have! Never thought this would happen again in my lifetime. Phil, Tony and Mike haven't toured since pre-internet days.... Gosh, this is probably the very first announced (real) Genesis tour to ever hit the web...
posted by notmtwain on Nov 8, 2006 - 42 comments

“That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” [Audio] On 21 July 1969, four days after taking off from Cape Canaveral, and six and a half hours after landing Apollo 11 on the Sea of Tranquility, Neil Armstrong became the first human to step foot on the moon.

Without a doubt, the moon landing is one of the greatest accomplishments of mankind. For those who were alive thirty-seven years ago, the sight of Armstrong’s “small step” is one of the most iconic images of their lifetime.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow on Jul 21, 2006 - 45 comments