Well, not that modern.  You still need to mail your forms in.  The Census Bureau is using social media to raise awareness of the 2010 Census particularly among young adults.

There are two pages on Facebook: U.S. Census Bureau has a sample of the form as well as when the forms will be mailed and when they should be returned. 2010 US Census Bureau posts information on jobs. 

If you are on Twitter, you can follow the Bureau at http://twitter.com.uscensusbureau.  They only started tweeting in late October so the number of followers and the number of tweets should increase as their activity ramps up.

The Census has uploaded 46 videos which have been viewed 17,275 times on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/uscensusbureau.

Another group the Census Bureau wants to reach through social media are ethnic groups traditionally undercounted by the Census.  Unfortunately, the only way to access information in languages other than English is by clicking through to the main website from Facebook, then scrolling to the bottom of the page.  I guess the Census Bureau's interest in "conversation" only goes so far.

Image by H is for Home under Creative Commons license.

Did you know that elephants have a secret language that humans can't hear?  Bob Simon, 60 Minutes correspondent, takes us into the rainforest to learn about these fascinating animals who have more in common with us than we thought.  The Elephant Listening Project at Cornell is working on a dictionary of elephant communications.

Do you think there other animals have their own languages ? Will they translate into concepts that humans can understand?

Image by exfordy under Creative Commons license.

Lake Superior State University has released its annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English due to "mis-use, over-use and general uselessness". The 15 winners of this dubious distinction, chosen from over 5,000 nominations, include "toxic assets", "shovel ready" and "teachable moment".  Words related to social media also appeared on the 2009 list: tweeting, retweeting and unfriending were all winners (or losers) this year.

I would have liked to see "going rogue" banished, but there's always next year.

What words did you get tired of in 2009?

"When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing."

Enrique Jardiel Poncela, Spanish author and playwright