The Golden 80s

I was working with lots of tables last week. Information scattered on many pages was rearranged and put on tables for more clarity. Because I was focusing on tables for most part of last week, I decided to dig a bit about tables and their structure. Broadly, there are two types of tables: Formal and informal . The formal tables are the ones we are familiar with and often encounter in user manuals . Tables that have proper titles and column headings belong to this type. Information in these type of tables can stand on its own. These tables are usually placed closer to the text. I feel the common look-up-a-value table is a an example of a formal table. Informal or in-line text tables do not have columns or titles. They are part of the text and are self-explanatory. For me, they look a bit odd in documents. Decision tables allow the user to take a decision and distance tables show data or values related to categories. Structure of a Table A table is identified by a brief and a desc...

The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next-Emerson (found in The God Delusion by acclaimed scientist Richard Dawkins). Georges Perec's novel, The Void , is written without the letter "e". Man is a wretched creature and death is a certainty- Thomas Bernhad Ella Minnow Pea is a novel written by Mark Dunn. Letters start missing from the chapters in this novel. All excess is ill, but drunkeness is of the worst sort. It spoils health, dismounts the mind, and unmans men-William Penn Cladogenesis is the way evolution proceeds-by an elaborate and complex series of branching events or episodes of speciation .

When did the word “green” came to be widely associated with the environmental movement? In Century of New Words, John Ayto cites examples from 1971. The adjective was used to refer to environmentalists, who were “green” in their approach. In the 1970s, the colour green was associated with the protests against nuclear power stations in Germany, says the author. It was in the early 90s that I came across this word. The Earth Summit at Rio in 1992 was the driving force. Words like “ hotspots ,”“sustainable development,” and “recycling” became the buzzwords of the decade. Other terms that become hits included global warming, greenhouse effect, nuclear winter, renewable energy, bioremediation , acid rain, pollution, smog, oil pollution, biodiversity, and extinction. Newspapers splashed several “green” stories and ran campaigns to caution people against the impending environmental doom. Green organisations and politicians brought green issues to the public arena by pitting development again...