When I moved into my corner office, I was warned it would get warm, given it’s a SE corner surrounded by windows. I was relieved over the summer to find…
When I moved into my corner office, I was warned it would get warm, given it’s a SE corner surrounded by windows. I was relieved over the summer to find the warning wasn’t true — good building a/c plus a nice tree cover.
I didn’t know it was during the winter — with the heater on and the trees leafless — that it would get hot. 😛
A very cool site by a fan of Bewitched (and one rather obsessively fanatical about details, too). (via BoingBoing)…
A very cool site by a fan of Bewitched (and one rather obsessively fanatical about details, too).
(via BoingBoing)
I didn’t open the message, but I appreciated the subject line: As the winter sun sinks over the Coulee Lakes, hundreds of Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches suddenly appear, an undulating cloud that…
I didn’t open the message, but I appreciated the subject line:
As the winter sun sinks over the Coulee Lakes, hundreds of Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches suddenly appear, an undulating cloud that swarms into the upper levels of the basalt cliffs.
That’s one long subject line. But purty.
From the Top5 Parenting list. The Top 10 Signs Your Teen Has Too Many Piercings 10. He can receive satellite radio for free just by tilting his head and looking…
From the Top5 Parenting list.
The Top 10 Signs Your Teen Has Too Many Piercings
10. He can receive satellite radio for free just by tilting his head and looking south.
9. Her morning makeup routine doesn’t need much in the way of Clearasil but requires plenty of Brillo and silver polish.
8. When skinnydipping, he caught four bream and a water moccasin.
7. His audition for the Tin Woodsman in “The Wizard of Oz” was naked.
6. When the wind blows just right he whistles in harmony.
5. She trips over her earlobe.
4. You realize the best way to keep her in the house is by installing a giant magnet in her bedroom.
3. He’s not worried about the “no calculator” rule at school. He has a built-in abacus.
2. None of his friends will come over during a thunderstorm.
and the Number 1 Sign Your Teen Has Too Many Piercings…
1. When she laughs, milk squirts out of her nose. And eyebrows. And lips.
Let’s hope this particular fashion trend blows over in the next, oh, seven or eight years. 🙂
I don’t know that it should be a Wikipedia entry, but this detailed analysis of all eight timelines in the Back to the Future trilogy is pretty spiffy. Read it…
I don’t know that it should be a Wikipedia entry, but this detailed analysis of all eight timelines in the Back to the Future trilogy is pretty spiffy. Read it before it’s deleted.
The interface is a bit wonky, but this is a pretty good world geography test (each question is timed, though that’s not immediately obvious). I scored a 69 first outing….
The interface is a bit wonky, but this is a pretty good world geography test (each question is timed, though that’s not immediately obvious). I scored a 69 first outing.
More cool research on an ancient astronomical computer, which I remember being touted as “proof positive” in the old Van Daniken books that we’d been visited by extraterrestrials. The…
More cool research on an ancient astronomical computer, which I remember being touted as “proof positive” in the old Van Daniken books that we’d been visited by extraterrestrials.
The Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes called the world’s first computer, has now been examined with the latest in high-resolution imaging systems and three-dimensional X-ray tomography. A team of British, Greek and American researchers was able to decipher many inscriptions and reconstruct the gear functions, revealing, they said, “an unexpected degree of technical sophistication for the period.”
The researchers, led by Tony Freeth and Mike G. Edmunds, both of the University of Cardiff, Wales, are reporting the results of their study in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature.
They said their findings showed that the inscriptions related to lunar-solar motions and the gears were a mechanical representation of the irregularities of the Moon’s orbital course across the sky, as theorized by the astronomer Hipparchos. They established the date of the mechanism at 150-100 B.C.
Cool.
Through circumstances not all that interesting, Doyce raised the question to me whether I use my open tabs (and the Firefox abilities to reopen same automatically) in lieu of a…
Through circumstances not all that interesting, Doyce raised the question to me whether I use my open tabs (and the Firefox abilities to reopen same automatically) in lieu of a Bookmarks/Favorites file.
Mmmmmmyeah. A bit. Sorta.
I tend to keep a lot of tabs open, largely stuff I want to come back to short term. If I put it into Bookmarks/Favorites, I’d have to first remember to go look for it.
Things stay open until (a) I go past five rows of tabs (at which point my FF setup starts to scroll the tabs, which is annoying), at which point I clean some stuff out, (b) the tab-reopening stuff crashes, losing everything (rare), or (c) I spot something curious on a tab title, open it, and then dispose of that tab (and neighboring ones) one way or another.
So, right now, I have my first three tabs for my blog, Gmail, and GCal. Two tabs for Storyball stuff. For tabs for the Mountain Witch. Then a bunch of tabs for memes I mean to do sooner or later. Many more tabs that are left open for stuff I was reading but never finished or mean to blog about, or whatever.
Bookmarks are a bit more interesting (or less so, maybe). I have a massive Bookmarks (FF term; Favorites in IE) file. And I use maybe three or four items from it a month. The rest? Almost never used (or, in the case of one folder of Interesting Backup Material On Political Arguments I Expect To Have Some Day, never).
See, Google and my Blog are my Bookmarks. It’s faster for me to simply search for something in one place or the other (or both) to find (99% of the time) what I’m looking for.
I should really clear that other crap out. Except — who knows what wonders are there, that some day I’ll find the time and inclination and opportunity to look at? Bits of the past …
For those sites that I need to visit frequently enough — well, heck, that’s what my Links toolbar (IE term; FF calls it the Bookmarks toolbar) is for. And why I have about a hundred entries there. Which, yes, is insane, thank you for pointing that out.
So, yes, perhaps Doyce’s final observation — “Packrat” — is apt. Or accurate.
While folks (justly) condemn the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII as overreaction and scantly-concealed racism, and note that the service record of Japanese-Americans who served in the armed forces in…
While folks (justly) condemn the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII as overreaction and scantly-concealed racism, and note that the service record of Japanese-Americans who served in the armed forces in that conflict was exemplary, most folks don’t know that there was, at the very least, an “incident” that was seized on as justification for the internment — a single Japanese-American man’s actions that arguably led to over
a hundred thousand people being imprisoned.
As the Japanese pilot made his way back to the aircraft carrier, his injured plane fell behind. It soon became apparent that he would not be able to reach the carrier as it steamed away from Hawaii and back toward Japan. Instead he fell back on his emergency orders: he was to land on the uninhabited island of Niihau and wait on the north beach for an Imperial submarine to make rescue. On his first flyby however, he noticed a severe flaw in the plan. Contrary to Japan’s pre-attack intelligence, the tiny island
was inhabited.
Not a reasonable justification (in a vacuum) for what happened, but a lesson, perhaps, in how any individual’s actions can have profound ramifications beyond the moment.
A massive map of the United Federation of Planets. Like most translations of multi-decade, multi-creator, multi-media worlds, don’t poke too closely at the details for consistency. (via GeekPress)…
A massive map of the United Federation of Planets. Like most translations of multi-decade, multi-creator, multi-media worlds, don’t poke too closely at the details for consistency.
(via GeekPress)
For as media savvy as I am (or as I sometimes seem to be), I was a bit surprised by the number of these “100 Greatest Catchphrases” that I hadn’t…
For as media savvy as I am (or as I sometimes seem to be), I was a bit surprised by the number of these “100 Greatest Catchphrases” that I hadn’t heard (and, thus, the number of these I don’t myself use).
In a lot of cases, of course, it’s part of what I do or don’t watch. I don’t watch “Everybody Loves Raymond” or “The Larry Sanders Show,” so entries from that don’t mean much to me. On the other hand, some of those don’t sound familiar, which tells me that they haven’t entered the gestalt of the culture. Being a top-rated show and having a catch-phrase doesn’t mean that catch-phrase itself is popular or pervasive or a real part of “pop culture jargon.”
Top 20 Replies by Programmers to Testers When Their Programs Don’t Work You hear these a lot on tech support lines, too. (via GeekPress)…
Top 20 Replies by Programmers to Testers When Their Programs Don’t Work
You hear these a lot on tech support lines, too.
(via GeekPress)
A blog of illustrations from old magazines and books. Purty. (via Doyce)…
A blog of illustrations from old magazines and books. Purty.
(via Doyce)
Oh, yes. I’ve GMed games that went like this….
Oh, yes. I’ve GMed games that went like this.
Your geeky YouTube fixes for today. Another One Bites the Dust (via Randy) Darth Vader Being a Jerk (via Shamus)…
Your geeky YouTube fixes for today.
Another One Bites the Dust (via Randy)
Though Katherine has long outgrown the Wiggles (quickly hides all their music in case she develops a sudden yen for them again), it’s kind of sad to see this….
Though Katherine has long outgrown the Wiggles (quickly hides all their music in case she develops a sudden yen for them again), it’s kind of sad to see this.
The Wiggles have sadly announced today that Greg Page, also known as the Yellow Wiggle, is unable to continue performing with The Wiggles due to a chronic condition and has reached the decision to leave the group.
Greg has been suffering symptoms for many months, affecting his ability to perform. The condition is related to blood pressure and while in no way life threatening it affects his balance, breathing and coordination at unpredictable times and with varying severity. Greg has discovered he is genetically predisposed to this condition and that he now needs to focus on managing his health.
Greg is a founding member of The Wiggles and has devoted 15 years to the group. The whole band, crew, and all Wiggles staff, have expressed their sadness and their wishes for Greg to overcome his health problems.
The news release goes on to say that it’s “orthostatic intolerance,” i.e., his heart doesn’t compensate, blood-pressure-wise, for when he stands up or when other environmental changes occur. Yikes.
The group will continue to tour and record.
I poked fun at the Wiggles above, but that’s part-reflex — in reality, they’re a pretty cool group, and Katherine enjoyed (in her time) singing and dancing to their performances on the TV (Playhouse Disney).
Nowadays she’s much more into cheesy Japanese monster movies, like “Destroy All Monsters” and “”Destroy All Planets” (which, interestingly, have nothing to do with each other, or the Wiggles).
(via Steve)
Katherine has been on a huge balloon kick the past several days — blowing them like crazy, playing with them, etc. It alternates between being really cute and really annoying…
Katherine has been on a huge balloon kick the past several days — blowing them like crazy, playing with them, etc. It alternates between being really cute and really annoying (as she enjoys the sound of deflating balloons, too).
It’s actually good for her, though, building up jaw muscles and tongue and stuff like that — stuff she needs for her speech therapy.
Margie informed me this morning that Katherine had tied off her first balloon. Which is something I’ve never done before — so chalk that up as the first of many, many things I’m sure she’ll exceed me at. 🙂
One of the unexpected bonuses of the Christmas shopping season: new sig lines. Amidst the many thousands of t-shirts showing up in various catalogs, there tend to be a few…
One of the unexpected bonuses of the Christmas shopping season: new sig lines. Amidst the many thousands of t-shirts showing up in various catalogs, there tend to be a few pearls of wit that are suitable for transfer into the subhead of this blog, or my GTalk status line, or something like that. E.g.,
Can we declare a snow day?
Drum roll, please
Schroedinger’s Cat: Wanted, Dead or Alive
And other such bon mots.
I never said I was original, just creative.
This was a weekend for work, goshdarnit! The guest room remained to be finished! Christmas lists needed compiling, addresses sifted, cards filled out, gifts ordered! Laundry done! Instead, Margie and…
This was a weekend for work, goshdarnit!
The guest room remained to be finished!
Christmas lists needed compiling, addresses sifted, cards filled out, gifts ordered!
Laundry done!
Instead, Margie and I sat on our butts, more or less, and relaxed and recreated. Which I’m sure we’ll pay for, down the line, but it felt good nonetheless.
Now … work!
Got my “flu shot” yesterday. Being a guy who’d rather do nearly anything other than have someone stick a needle in my arm, I went for the “live, intranasal vaccine,”…
Got my “flu shot” yesterday. Being a guy who’d rather do nearly anything other than have someone stick a needle in my arm, I went for the “live, intranasal vaccine,” i.e., a squirt up the nose rather than a shot in the arm.
A relatively pleasant experience, all things considered. The nurse seemed surprised — Margie said the clinic she went to had lots of the nasal vaccines, but the one I went to had to break one of the fridge for me.
In theory, there’s a slightly higher chance of actually getting the flu from teh vaccine, since it’s live, but it also provides superior protection … and, dammit, no needle!