We've updated our Video, Answers, and Slideshow features. More developments are on the way!
We are having a very busy spring on HubPages! Last week, it became possible to
convert an existing Hub to a Video, which means that you can introduce this new format to pages that already see significant traffic.
This week,
Ari Lamstein is finishing
a much-requested improvement to Answers on HubPages that enables us to leave comments on individual Answers. What's more,
Edward Zhang is giving our slideshow feature a makeover, moving slideshows to an overlay on Hubs themselves and making them more attractive, engaging, and easy to share.
We have also been refining the new Hub design within the Fashion and Beauty Topic and will soon be testing a very different design on Technology Hubs to see which performs best. Because Hubs are the bread and butter of HubPages, we are working hard to make absolutely sure that any site-wide design changes are as powerful and positive as possible.
Meanwhile, we have been absolutely loving the wonderful ways in which people are using our new Video feature and Special Layout Options. For additional tips on making the most of our Recipe Capsules by creating great online recipes, check out the Pro Tips section of the newsletter below.
Read to find step-by-step directions for hand painting monograms on cloth dinner napkins. This budget-friendly, DIY craft idea is super easy to make while adding an elegant and personal touch to your home decor.
Why exactly are first cars are so memorable? Your first car represents freedom and independence. Your first car is likely also memorable for the adventures you had while you owned the vehicle.
The two Tomlin Trucking rigs arrived at the same time, coming back from their Houston run. Richard climbed down from one cab and A.A. from the other. They were stopping for breakfast and to drop off two cases of wine sent by Carl for Speakeasy...
Picking a career can be a really difficult decision to make. This is why it is a good idea to use a tool like a personality test to find career choices. With a personlaity test you can learn your personality type and which careers match you best. With knowledge like this picking a career will become a much easier task.
The Theory of Evolution predicts that all life descended from a single common ancestor. In the metaphor of the Tree of Life, this organism represents the trunk from which emerged the three branches of all life on Earth. Scientists studying the origins of life refer to this hypothetical organism as LUCA, or the Last Universal Common Ancestor.
Television can be informative, interesting, entertaining, and thought-provoking--but it can also take over your life. Here are my reasons for living (mostly) TV-free.
Why growing up as a military brat is a unique experience. My childhood as a Navy Junior, daughter of a career Naval officer and Annapolis grad shaped me more than I ever knew
Strange foods that people eat include fried pickles and head cheese. But how about the downright weird foods like corn smut, fertilized duck eggs and coffee beans picked out of civet poop? Learn about some really unusual food that Americans eat.
These three quizzes spanning Barbie’s birth through the present day will test your knowledge of Barbie hair, homes, and history. Show off how much you know and compare with your friends!
The brain is a marvellous piece technology. We rely on our brains in everything we do, say, think feel, hear and see. It sends messages to every part of our body prompting an action. But now and then the messages sent seem to be illogical.
Ribbons are waving in the wind and the earth is bursting forth with life. Flowers are in full bloom and wildlife is blossoming, as well. Perhaps you are looking forward to a full-blown Beltane ritual on May 1st this year. Whether practicing in a group or solitary, you may want to incorporate some traditional and unique Beltane goddesses into your Beltane ritual.
Selling a house is a big undertaking and for a successful house sale in these lean times, staging a home can be of great value. Updating the kitchen and bathroom are also well worth the money.
although the hour was early, the bright sun was up and there was almost one hundred percent humidity in the air, and yet there was no rain in sight. Days and days had passed since Spring had Sprung and still there had not been any rain for sometime....
This article gives you 10 easy and healthy recipes for homemade dog biscuits and cookies. These recipes use natural and safe ingredients that are common in the kitchen. They're safe and delicious!
I have heard many theories on the fruit of The Tree of Knowledge. It seems that people are just dying to know just which fruit was forbidden by God. The forbidden fruit is mostly referred to as an apple but was it an apple? Where do people get their arguments about what they believe was the fruit of The Tree of Knowledge? And why are many so determined to learn just what this fruit was?
The statement "cotton kills" echoes through a myriad of outdoor organizations, trail guides, and is repeated by hiking experts everywhere. This article shows the dangers of cotton and why it shouldn't be worn for backpacking or hiking.
Eco green companies are continuing to explore environmentally friendly and sustainable natural fibers to make bio-based products. Check out more than 13 different raw plant and agricultural waste residues that are being explored and utilized like: banana fiber, coconut coir fiber, bagasse, elephant dung and more.
Driving from New York to Myrtle Beach requires a long road trip through the mountains of West Virginia. Our family's road trip to a Myrtle Beach vacation, along with tips and tricks for making a road trip successful. Stop and see the New River Gorge Bridge on the trip to Myrtle Beach, or stay at a halfway point and break the drive up into two days!
Do you want to write an amazing recipe Hub using our new Recipe Capsules? Here are some best practices to consider:
Be sure to express your expertise and share proof that you actually made this dish yourself.
Provide a summary of instructions at the beginning using an Instructions Capsule and go into depth with Text and Photo Capsules below.
Take as many photos (ideally without flash and with natural light) of the dish and the process of creating it as possible, and include them in your Hub.
Display a photo of the finished dish at the top of your Hub as the Hub's first photo.
Each week, 18 Hubs from three different Topics are nominated in the HubNuggets competition, a special program on HubPages designed to highlight the work of promising new Hubbers. The Hubs are rounded up and voted on by the community over a period of five days. Once the time is up, nine winners are chosen, featured in the newsletter, and awarded with special Accolades.
Are the days of putting pen to paper and handwriting a letter obsolete? Don't let the unique tradition of letter-writing fade. Handwritten letters have a unique charm. You can take time to think about what you want to say. You can keep letters to read again and again. Responding by letter is very different to the immediacy of a text message or an email.
Try it sometime.
A hub that offers a quick and easy way to write summaries for students who have homework to do or adults who have job related tasks. The answer is to include the 5 w's: who, what, when, where and why.
Author Susan Dean from Crawfordsville, Indiana, has written and released two books in the series called, ‘Rise of the Spyres’. The series is a work of fiction about a hidden war between two races; the Spyres and the Telkins, placed in the present day. Both races have powers, the Spyres use them for good and the Telkins use them for evil.
Explore the fragility of you own memories. Topics such as source amnesia, cryptomnesia, and recovered memories are explored - and the real-life implications discussed - in this glimpse into the human mind.
John Bowlby has been known as the "father" of Attachment theory. According to Bowlby the formation of attachments depends on early experiences with significant others.
A new National Battlefield Park has discovered a little known piece of American history in time for its 200th anniverary. Find out how the bloody battles inspired a rally cry "Remember the Raisin!"
Have you ever wondered if your friends are real or fake? How can you tell the difference, and what do you do once you discover one of the people you trusted weren't all they appeared to be. I've been burned and while evaluating my life I compiled this list of the top eight characteristics most likely found in fake people.
You love your dog unconditionally and you know you and he/she will be there for each other no matter what. Try treating your husband a little bit more like you treat your dog and I think you'll see a long happy marriage full of the same...
For this article, I will state all the logical reasons why cohabitation is a bad idea, of which there are plenty. While I can show Bible verse after Bible verse stating that extramarital sex is a sin, I will not be using them to construct my argument. After all, why should someone who is not a Christian care how Yahweh feels about cohabitation?
Aya Katz, From The Ozarks, 926 Fans, 179 Hubs, Joined 3 years ago
An Interview with Aya Katz
A mother, linguist, primatologist, and writer shares more about her lates novel
You introduce yourself on HubPages as a linguist, writer, and primatologist. In this interview, I'd like to focus mostly on your writing, but before we go forward, can I ask you about the linguist and primatologist aspects of your life? How did you get started with each pursuit? What do you do with regard to linguistics and primatology?
I have a Ph.D. in linguistics from Rice University. My dissertation was about cyclical grammaticalization – the way in which languages recycle linguistic units over and over again, making them serve a different grammatical purpose each time, but over time, they end up playing pretty much the same role again. If I had to explain it in a nutshell: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Human language changes all the time, but it is not making any progress. There is some sort of rule of conservation in effect.
A central question in the study of linguistics is: “Is language innate? Is it unique to humans? Can anybody learn it, even a chimpanzee?” It was always my hope that one day, I would get to investigate this problem myself.
I adopted Bow, a male chimpanzee, in 2002 when he was a month old, and by the time he was five, he had a breakthrough. He began to spell out words, and he had grammar. But it's a long, complicated story, and there is probably not enough time for it in this interview. Suffice it to say that there is a proof problem, and that Bow's achievements have not yet been recognized by the academic community.
In your HubPages bio, you share that you had a list of goals as a child. Number one on that list was to write a novel. Why was this important to you?
That's a hard question to answer! It seems deceptively easy, but it's actually very hard to say why. Why do birds sing? Why do beavers build dams? I needed to write a novel. I had been writing all my life, if by writing we mean, composing stories in our heads, or putting words together into poems. My authoring began before I was literate. I was two when I composed my first poem. I said it out loud, but my father wrote it down.
I think in our literate society, we get confused sometimes, and we get to thinking that typing the words on a laptop, or on a typewriter, or scribbling them down with a pen, or using a stylus on cuneiform tablets is what being “a writer” is all about. But being a writer is composing the text, whether it ever gets written down or not. There was oral literature long before the alphabet was invented.
I had some stories running in my head as a girl, and I wanted to perfect them, and to work through the ideas that I was struggling with, and the best way to do that would be to write a novel.
Of course, I also hoped it would be published, because I wanted to share it with other people, even people I would never meet and generations yet unborn.
That's immortality!
You're currently in the midst of debuting a new novel titled Vacuum County. Is this your first novel?
No. My first novel was
The Few Who Count. It's available on Kindle now.
If I had to answer quickly, standing on one foot, I would say it's about a popular uprising in a small, rural Texas community after a local politician manipulates the IRS to go after a wealthy, but unpopular man. Or I would say it is a love story, just like Beauty and the Beast, in which the love takes a long time to blossom. Or a story about noblesse oblige, like The Lion King, about someone who was born to rule, but didn't want the job. Or I would say it's a cross-over story about Nabal the Carmelite, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and Hannibal of Carthage. It is all those things! But you'd have to actually read it to see how.
I was writing Vacuum County before the ATF besieged the people at Mt. Carmel and before that compound and all the people in it were burned to death. And yet, paradoxically, Vacuum County is also about that. I didn't know about the Branch Davidians and the Mt. Carmel compound, and yet I was writing about a place called Carmel in an area that was very close to Waco. I knew there was going to be a siege by Federal forces before it actually happened. So in a way, Vacuum Countywas also a little bit like a prophecy.
In addition to writing Vacuum County, you've published some children's books. What inspired them?
In Case There's a Fox is a picture book that I wrote for my daughter when she was four. It's about looking for a fox who never shows up.
When Sword Met Bow is the story of how my daughter related to Bow when I first adopted him. There are lots of candid photos of them in the book, and it's a good book to give a child who is about to have a new brother or sister.
A really good review of When Sword Met Bow is
the one Ripplemaker wrote, after she took the book to the preschool where she works and read it to the children there.
My third children's book, Ping & the Snirkelly People is a chapter book about a Chinese six year old learning English in an American classroom by total immersion. The story was inspired by my own experiences as a six year old Israeli girl thrown into an Illinois classroom in first grade with no knowledge of English. Here is a Hub that relates to those experiences titled
How to Learn a Foreign Language: Issues in Second Language Acquisition and Pedagogy.
A lot of my writing deals with cultural identity and language use in a cultural context, so in a way reading Ping & the Snirkelly People might be good preparation for reading Vacuum County. Even though the book is intended for children and uses simple language, it deals with some difficult concepts, and some reviewers suggest reading it before allowing your child to read it, as it might be overwhelming. Iscribble has written about that
in a review of the book.
What relationship does HubPages have with your book and novel writing career?
HubPages is where I learned most of what I know now about keyword research, internet marketing, publishing online, and the different outlets that are available to us as writers. I had run a small press before, and I continue to run Inverted-A Press, but before joining HubPages I would not be able to put out such professional products as I can now.
It was on HubPages that I met sunforged who taught me many things about internet marketing and who designed the cover of Vacuum County. My online friends Jerilee Wei and SweetiePie are people who have contributed materially to my success, and I met them on HubPages. John Daulton and Glen Startpoint are two other people I would never have met if not for HubPages. It's a great place to meet people and make professional contacts. My association with Daniel Carter, which came through HubPages, resulted in his writing the music to my play, The Debt Collector. The HubPages experience was als
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