Whoops, it's now happening overhead. Pulling plug but not closing Internet connection just yetl.

The purpose of the Antarctic Artists and Writers Program is to enable serious writings and works of art that exemplify the Antarctic heritage of humankind. In particular, the program seeks to increase public understanding of the Antarctic region, including the continent and the surrounding oceans, as well as the associated research and education endeavors.

The Antarctic Artists and Writers Program provides opportunities for professional artists and writers to travel to Antarctica - at research stations, field camps, and aboard ships - to make the observations necessary to complete their proposed projects. While the majority of award recipients are established artists and writers, the program also seeks to support early career artists and writers in an effort to broaden participation.

ML seems to collect a good number of creative types, maybe someone here will be inspired. Me, I figure I'm probably going to have to go as an employee for Raytheon Polar Services.

Having had a most-expenses-paid year in the Arctic, on salary in the US military....

Strictly being nosy, where did they send you? Reykjavik? Thule? Somewhere at sea? Adak? One of my uncles is living on Adak, he seems to be enjoying it.

BTW, I always admire the passion in your posts on political topics. Thank you for lacking the complacency gene.

Bring along a good supply of titanium white.

Actually, would regular oil or acrylic paints freeze up in the Antarctic? Would you need to get specially blended paints with antifreeze in the mix? Would brush bristles freeze hard enough to embrittle and shatter?

I don't know the answers to these questions.

I do know that Peter Kokh once wondered what kind of art lunar settlers would make if it was expensive to import materials from Earth.

He studied the minerals available in Moon soil, and figured out pigments and carrier that could be made from available substances.

Then he went out and obtained samples of these substances from chemical suppliers, played around to get the right consistency, mixed up a batch of paints, and made some paintings.

It wasn't the greatest of art, but I was delighted at the originality of the whole project-- that's Peter all over.

Actually, would regular oil or acrylic paints freeze up in the Antarctic?

i imagine acrylic would, being water & plastic based. oils, i'd think would work better, but i'm just thinking of how long they take to harden in room temperature. does oil have a lower freezing point than water?

It's Raining 300 Men

(Gacked from the Smart Bitches -- apologies if someone's already posted it else-fluorosphere.)

The clip is from an episode of a serial called 'The Chase' which was released on VHS tape some years ago, but not yet available on DVD. What intrigues me about this is the clip was presumably taken from that VHS release, which means it was included for that release and not excised from it, as I'd expected. Given how expensive it is to get the rights to music for such releases and how this has led to music bits having to be replaced or to it making it prohibitively expensive to release a show on DVD (WKRP In Cincinnatti), this surprises me. Did the surviving Beatles waive the fee because they liked the show (the reason they were going to appear as their older selves on Doctor Who in the first place), or does the shortness of the musical clip mean no fee is required? I note that new Doctor Who is getting around the problem by having in-house composer Murray Gold write the songs people were dancing to at the wedding in the last Christmas special.

I'm writing an encyclopedia of characters. I have three types of names: first name, last name (Sherlock Holmes); title, last name (Doctor Silence); and pseudonym (Captain Future).

What is the best way to list them? That is, what is the best order to put the names in so that a casual reader, flipping through the book, will be able to find a character?

a) last name, first name, for every entry? (Future, Captain; Holmes, Sherlock; Silence, Doctor).
b) last name, first name or title, and first name, last name for pseudonyms? (Captain Future; Holmes, Sherlock; Silence, Doctor).
c) last name, first name, title, first name, and first name, last name for pseudonyms? (Captain Future; Doctor Silence; Holmes, Sherlock).

Thanks in advance.

Hope that makes sense...?

So for your examples, I'd have:

Holmes, Sherlock -> article
Silence (Doctor) -> article
Doctor Silence -> See "Silence (Doctor)"
Captain Future -> article
Future (Captain) -> See "Captain Future"

The honours that the people give, always
go to those use-besotted gentlemen
whose numbskull courage is a kind of fear,
a fear of thought, and of their oafish mothers
('or with your shield, or on it') in their rear.
Spartans cannot retreat, why then their praise
for going forward should be left to others.

But we, actors and critics of one play,
of sober-witted judgment who could see
so many ways, and chose the Spartan way;
what has the popular report to say
of us, the Thespians at Thermopylae?

-- Norman Cameron

See it here!

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&saddr=new+york,+ny&daddr=Cardiff,+Wales

... young [Spartan peers] were put through an education system of astonishing severity which included being encouraged to steal and being whipped for stealing so unsuccessfully as to get caught. Cf. Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 17, and H. Mitchell, Sparta, p. 177f.

[The Persian Empire] brought justice; though the famously just Royal Judges make no appearance in our book, the formal trial of Orontas may serve as a reminder of this aspect of Persian rule.

An old college acquaintance of mine is in Antarctica right now. They appear to have plenty of time on their hands.

Fun poem. Fregano @#27: I like the question in that one, too.

Welcome back to America, abi!

Three hundred tasty Spartan men in line:
A hopless stand against the Persian might.
And in among them, ready too to fight,
Is Mary Sue, her armour polished to a shine.
Like Éowyn, with Aragorns to spare
(And yes, they're straight, or straight enough to suit,
With just that taste of half-forbidden fruit!)
They're doomed to die, but too in love to care.
The hour comes, the brotherhood contracts
Around the precious flower at its heart.
She will not leave; she wants to play her part!
She takes the lead in their heroic acts.
(But in this version, Sparta's heroes won
And Persia lost to the three hundred one.)

I blame the jet lag.

I didn't express myself well. Swan's previous post was in the David Honigsberg thread, and contained the same words as this one, including "Off topic" at the begining. While a newbie might not know there is no "off-topic" in an open thread, this shows the signs of a generic copy-and-paste with that phrase thrown in as an attempt at disguise.

Stephen Granade @ 50 and 127: Ah, good. So that's been fixed now.

And one ocean.
And one continent.

Have some strong coffee.

By the way, didn't Leonidas get suspicious when one of his boys insisted on wearing armor?

http://www.youtube.com/BBC

Just can't let the boys have their fun by themselves, can you? I didn't know the Battle of Thermopylae was a Title IX activity.*

Incidentally, is a "hopless" someone on a more stringent diet than a "hoplite"? Or is the answer "more coffee"?

* For the non-USians among us, Title IX is a Federal law that mandates the equal financial support of men's and women's athletic activities in state-supported colleges in the US. It's become quite controversial in the last few years as college budgets have been tightened. The controversy (I heard that mutter from the direction of the UK! The accent is on the first syllable, damn it!) has become focused on the claim of many male coaches and players that Title IX effectively discriminates against them.

And Netflix still hasn't replaced to messed up Season 2 DVDs that were supposed to have come out several months ago.

Posts may relate to the Opening Post, to a Particle or Sidelight, or to an ongoing topic of conversation at ML (dinosaurs and sodomy; politics; food and recipes; grammar, language, etymology; poetry; books; favourite television shows; bats in Susan's house; etc.). From there, posts may refer to previous comments. Posts that refer neither to the opening post, a previous comment, a Partical/Sidelight, or topic of ongoing discussion may also be appeals to (and responses from) the hivemind, "lookahere!" pointers at something of interest to the general ML community (usually with accompanying text explaining to whom this pointer may be of interest, which accompanying text refers to some Usual Topic of Discussion), updates or news from regular posters about some item of ongoing interest, running theme, or news about a member of the extended community.

What have I missed?

Let's see. You did include Susan's bats.... How about Bugs Bunny and cross-dressing?

A really obvious typo? (ducks and runs)

(Your list makes me wonder how many inappropriate things I've posted here. Eeep.)

Serge @ 62: I figured the other topics might be covered by "etc."

Perform; riff; entertain!

Rob (#56): Unfortunately, not for all of those interested; unless they've taken the Dr Who Season Three trailer off in the last few minutes, I don't think it's accessible to US (and possible non-UK) IP addresses - I got a 'this video is not available' error message. Sigh

Ah, yes, I'd forgotten that. OK, try here:

http://freemaagyeman.com/news/2007/03/29/bbci-red-button-video-clip

I don't *think* there are geographic restrictions on that site (though I could be wrong) and it's also got lots of other interviews and clips if you trawl around on it a bit.

For instance, Captain Future should be under "C", but Captain James T. Kirk should be under "K". Similarly Doctor Midnight, Doctor John Watson, Doctor McCoy, and Doctor Who (D, W, M, D, I would say). The hard part is persons with a variety of pseudonyms frequently used. Do you put him under Batman or Wayne? Worse, the Shadow, who had not only his nom de guerre, a "real name" and a "realer name", but a variety of false identities.

TexAnne @ 66: d'Oh! Of course! I plead being so bloody sick of my current project that discussion of knitting fills me with despair and disconsolation. Such discussions inevitably lead to thoughts of all the fun projects I will be able to do someday, which then run into sad thougts of too many narrow stripes, and all the ends I'm going to have to weave in if I ever come to the end of this stupid scarf.

It will be a very long time before I do anything with narrow stripes again, I think.

Finishing the scarf will make me happy indeed.

Faren's computer.

Aha - apparently Wilson used to draw in pencil and then finish the sketches as watercolours in his hut or on board ship. There is a brief life of Wilson here, which has plenty of illustrations. ("Discovery" and "Terra Nova" are the two Antarctic expeditions.)

There are a couple of notes about the size of Thor's hammer in the online Sandman annotations.

Regarding the scene mentioned, in Issue 26:

Symbolically, Mjolnir is an agent of destruction, fertility, and resurrection. It was used to hallow brides before weddings; its phallic nature is obvious here. It was also used to raise Thor's goats from the dead, and is able to shrink so that it may be hidden inside Thor's shirt as needed. Perhaps rubbing is how it is made to return to normal size.

And earlier, on Thor's first appearance in Issue 24:

Thor's weapon is the hammer Mjolnir. When Mjolnir was constructed by the dwarfs, a trick by Loki caused its handle to be too short to use properly. Now, Norse war hammers were two handed weapons, so Mjolnir's short handle simply means that it was too short to allow the hands to grip far enough apart to get good leverage. Thor was able to use the hammer without the "necessary" leverage because of his great strength. Some references, including Bullfinch's, make the mistake of assuming that Thor had small hands to fit the small handle, which leads to such amusing depictions as that given here. In fact, Mjolnir probably resembled Marvel Comic's depiction more closely (normal-sized, but clearly only usable one-handed) than this depiction.

Zombie goats?

On a completely unrelated note, the Slacktivist's current thread includes mention of a phenomenon horrifying on more levels than were available in Dante's Inferno:

Left Behind slash. *shudder*

If the two balls and long jumps don't work, just do a quick square knot to join the different colors and keep going. There's a way to knit the loose ends into the project as you go (I watched a friend do it once), but I've only used that technique with crochet projects.

(Barbara, I owe you for that one.)

You could do stripes lengthwise, then the ends would become fringe. (Then it would be stockinette and reverse stockinette, to get the ridges running along the length.)

P.J. Evans, since I'm over halfway through, I don't think I'll change the orientation of the stripes now. Maybe next scarf. However, since I have two scarves for winter wear, and I have the yarn and pattern for the next project (I'm not allowed to buy the needles until the dratted scarf is done), and it's a sweater (knit in the round), I think I'll hold off on lengthwise stripes for the time being.

In the case of the goats, this is not so much; one god, two big goats, plausible amount of roast goat, even given Thor's reported appetite.

Slidrugtanni, now, the magic pig whose flesh feeds the entire host of fallen heroes in Valhalla, that one takes some capacity for belief.

Big Man at the Bat

(A Song of our Great Land. Sung in the Year MDCCCLXXXVIII.)

The hopes were far from bright for all the Mud Town nine that day;
The score stood four to two and there was but one round to play.
And then when old "Zip" died at first, and "Wheels" did much the same,
A grim hush fell like thin mush on the home fans of the game.

A few weak souls got up to go with heads hung low. The rest
Clung to that hope which does not die but lives on in each breast;
They thought if only Big Man could but get a whack at that --
We'd put up one-to-one odds now with his hands on the bat.

But Flynn went up 'fore Big Man, as did no good James J. Blake,
And the first named was a weak sis and the next was but a cake;
So o'er our heads a black cloud, grim and full of cold rain, sat
For there seemed no chance at all that our Big Man might get to bat.

But Flynn legged it to first base, quite a shock to one and all,
And Blake, who no one cared for, tore the horse hide off the ball;
And when the dust had gone down, and the men at last could see,
There was J.J. safe at base two and old Flynn camped out on Three.

Then from each throat and pair of lungs rose up as one a yell;
It rolled down 'cross the plains and bowled the cows down in the dell;
It knocked the sides of hills and came to bounce back on the flat,
For K.C., mighty K.C., now had his turn at the bat.

There was cool ease in the way he stepped up straight to take his place,
There was pride in how he stood, and how a smile shone on his face.
And when as he turned to the cheers and did but doff his hat,
No strange eye in the crowd could doubt just who was at the bat.

Stands full of eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
And all their tongues did laud him when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while his foe, lithe on the mound, ground horse hide on his hip,
A gleam like knights of old shone in his eye and sneer-curled lip.

And now the hard-packed sphere flew at him through the air,
The big man stood and watched it like a king who could not care.
Close by his side, yet he flinched not as to the mitt it sped --
"That ain't my style," he told us. "Strike one," the score board said.

From the stands, so full of men and rage there rose an earth quake roar,
That washed forth like the storm waves on a far and storm-worn shore.
"Kill him! Kill that blind ump!" came a shout down from the stands,
And they might have done it, too, had not the Big Man raised his hand.

With a smile all great and pure which on his clean-cut face then shone;
He stilled the cries of blood lust; he bade the game go on;
He waved once to the mound and then once more the horse hide flew;
But still he paid it no mind and the score board said, "Strike two."

"Fraud!" cried the crowd as one man, and the far hills rang back 'fraud';
But one look of scorn from K.C. and the home team fans were awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw him flex and strain,
And they knew that sure, he would not let that ball go by him then.

The sneer is gone off from his lip, his teeth are clinched in hate;
He pounds hard like a mad zoo ape his ash bat on the plate.
And now the mound man holds the ball and now he lets it go,
And now the air is split by all the force that's in his blow.

Oh! in this glad land there's a place the sun shine's warm and bright;
The band plays in this place and in this place all hearts are light;
In this place men laugh loud and the kids all run and shout;
But there is no joy in Mud Town -- Big Man K.C. has struck out.

It was a spittle-flecked digest of the Insight article debunked awhile back.

I responded to everyone on the CC list with links to the CNN investigation and Snopes debunking.

I'm not totally down with Obama, but I'll be #$#$^%@ if I let crap like that go unchallenged.

singing do wa diddy diddy dum diddy do ...

I'm glad that I had a couple things I COULD complete successfully that made my day end with a positive).

(NSFW, for most values of W)

Just kidding. Talk about your BSG of the future (my future, anyway) as much as you'd like. If there's anything spoilery please please give advance notice...pretty please?

Without myself being a Baltarette, I can kinda guess that much of his appeal would be based on his close attachment to Six; he thinks of her almost constantly (whether he wants to or not) and often in very sexually-charged situations in which he's at her mercy. It's not quite romantic devotion, but it could be construed as such in some ways.

OTOH, I've only seen the first two seasons and a few isolated episodes of season 3, so I'm not entirely certain of his present situation.

(Can you tell I'm about to go back to school for Library Science?)

Deluxe Librarian Action Figure

I think they have some at my local independent bookstore. I'll look when I'm there tomorrow AM.

ethan - good luck with library school!

But IIRC someone around here mentioned (but could not explain) a fondness for Baltar recentishly... aha, here it was.

Three hundred naked men
Walking down the street...

We get the funniest looks from
ev'ryone we meet:
Hey, hey, we're the Spartans!
People say we're Spartan around
but we're too busy looting
to throw any booty down.

&c

You say yes, I say no
You say stop and I say go, go, go
Oh, no
You say goodbye and I say Helo
Hello, Helo
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say Helo
Hello, Helo
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say Helo

I say high, you say low
You say why, and I say I don't know
Oh, no
You say goodbye and I say Helo
Hello, Helo
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say Helo
Hello, Helo
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say Helo

(Well, you get the idea.)

...I don't know why you say Saul Tigh
I say Helo.

So, I went to my Admin user, went to Folder Options, and set the default viewers to something vaguely reasonable. This was fine...for the Admin user.

The limited user still has the Adobe POS. And of course the Change button on the Folder Options is disabled for the limited user.

How do I get rid of the stupid Adobe thing and set my limited user to open photos on a doubleclick with something reasonable? (Yeah, I can right-click and select two levels of menu to get to a reasonable viewer, but that's quite a PITA too.)

Did I say resolution? I meant, er, something else.

Phoo.

I suppose you could give your limited user admin rights (while off the network) for long enough either to make the license agreement acceptance stick or to change the file associations, then set the user's rights back to limited.

Alternatively, when you installed Adobe Reader, did it have a "custom" option that would let you choose which file types it associates itself with? I think it must have, because I've installed it too, and it's not associated with picture files for me, so I must have been able to stop it doing that. So maybe if you uninstall Adobe Reader it'll lose the associations, then you could reinstall with "custom".

Of course, being Windows, probably there's a way to change things by tweaking the registry, but probably also it's easier to do it some other way.

Except to say that, apropos of Bob Newhart, did you know the costume designer on The Bob Newhart Show was actually colorblind?

Tania #112: Thanks! Really right now I've been in my current state of inertia for so long that just putting together the (very simple) application seems impossible, so I think I'll need it.

I've had a similar problem with other software I've added. My kludge of a workaround:

-> log in as admin
-> change the permissions of the limited user
-> log in as the limited user
-> fix the @)(*% setting in whatever program it was
-> log out as the limited user
-> log back in as admin
-> and change the permissions of the limited user back to where they belonged

As I said, it's a kludge, but it fixed the problem.

In that case... How about an action-figure of Jane Curtin, also from The Librarian? When she shushes you...

glinda 132: Yes, that will work, but it seems to me that not even Microsloth could be stupid enough to design their OS in such a way that that's the actual solution. OTOH every time I think I've found the limit of MicroSoft stupidity I'm proven wrong, so maybe it really is the only choice.

Are you talking about a Conan the Librarian action figure? If there were such a thing, it would look a little like this
I bet you could make one out of a real Conan action figure.

not even Microsloth could be stupid enough to design their OS in such a way that that's the actual solution.

Wanna bet? To sort-of quote Scott Ambler, from his famous rant: "In what parallel universe is deleting my file without my asking and without telling me a feature?"

Back in Oklahoma, we had sirens mounted on poles that were dedicated to tornado warnings. Probably they'd've been used for nuclear war, too, but they never were--at least, they haven't yet.

That's a good question. Got any others?

adamsj@ 143: we had the same thing in the small central-Georgia town where I grew up. They called them CD sirens, used them for tornado warnings, and set them off every Wednesday at noon just to be sure they still worked. I don't know if they're still extant or not.

One of my dearest friends got her MLS from UIUC, or as she likes to call southern Illinois "flatland". She works as a youth/children's librarian and loves what she does. She also has a funny story to tell about when C.J. Cherryh moved to the greater Spokane area. But I digress (as usual). Get thee to a library school, the young minds of the world need your help! Then you can have friends that call when you're working the reference desk, disguising their voice, and ask really ridiculous questions, just to have fun.

*another famous librarian

OTOH every time I think I've found the limit of MicroSoft stupidity I'm proven wrong, so maybe it really is the only choice.

Never underestimate the stupidity of M$. (I know whereof I type; I'm embarrassed to say that I worked there as a contract tech editor eight or nine years ago.)

Fragano, 145: Wow.

Oh, I suppose you've got us, er, them, in there after all. Carry on.

The engineer whirled the hose around overhead like a lariat. IIRC, the mike was inside the duct at the fast-moving top end.

The difference in pitch, I believe, occurred at the end of each completed circle of the duct hose above the engineer's head.

GMail Paper

As usual, they've made me chuckle.

I just want to know how Google produces "96% post-consumer organic soybean sputum" in industrial quantities... I mean how does one get a consistent level of mastication and regurgitation necessary to produce a decent pulp analogue? And who [or what] is doing the actual work to create the stuff? [assuming I parsed that phrase correctly...]

Sadly Google itself is not forthcoming with this information, since searching on that phrase (at the time of this post) on Google produces no results, not even self-referencing the press release... Trade secret? or Conspiracy? And how are dinosaurs, sodomy, and zombies involved? (Just because all truly worldview-destroying conspiracies need to involve dinosaurs. And sodomy. And zombies for good measure.)

;-)

They're also offering a new free wireless internet via plumbing service.

I just got ThinkGeek's in my email a few minutes ago.

Slashdot has an April Fool story pending, it's rather silly.

I love this day. I can't think of anything this year that isn't cruel, so I suspect my April Foolery will be limited.

Hamster races canceled due to ordinance
Mayor allows recreational hamster racing

This doesn't answer your question on the origins of the Tardis sound, but if you feel like knowing far too much about hte history of the Dr Who theme, try

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Mark_Ayres/DWTheme.htm

Would anyone who's used Psions like to tell me that's a really good idea, or a really bad one? Alternatively, is there any machine being made these days that has the same form factor as the old Psions? I've certainly never seen one.

Ethan the Librarian

Cue narration by Mako, and music by Basil Poledouris...

zHeresiarch #151: Thank you. Now, let me see where I left my duppy runner....

"The secret things that men do when women aren't around."

That immediately reminded me that, the next time my wife is out running errands on her own, I should take advantage of that to do some weeding in the backyard.

unfortunately I missed this years
Saint Stupid's Day Parade, put on each year by the First Church of the Last Laugh. I guess I could costume up and parade tomorrow- that'd be a right proper act of stupidity.

Locus finally has their April Fool's stuff up, apparently Neil Gaiman is going to be canonized!

Looked at (their site), and got links to the Youtube of the 2006 Event, and some Flickr photos.

I enjoyed the fact that the 2005 Zombie Lurch in Madison, Wisconsin, was in fact a zombie protest march.

Favorite protest signs: "Zombies for Higher Education: Tastier Brains"; "Zombie--Mad Scientist Solidarity"; "Romero/Raimi '08"; the quote from Zombie Emma Goldman ("If I can't eat brains, I don't want to be part of your revolution"); "Argh"; and, of course, "Braaaaaaaaains".

...who will no doubt face stiff competition from the Republican Party.

The Sing-along West Side Story

Considering the subject matter, it probably wouldn't have the overall silliness of what my wife said it was like when they did a sing-along version of The Sound of Music. Besides, should yours truly start singing "I feel pretty", it might cause a rush for the exits.

--zRudyard zKipling

Has anyone here heard of "The Cambridge College Programme LLC" with US headquarters in the John Hancock Building in Chicago? My youngest just got mail from them (not yet opened). This wouldn't be THE Cambridge, surely?

There is I think a Cambridge College in Cambridge, MA.... It is not anywhere near the Harvard or MIT level.

In what Phil Dick novel did a character have some collector's item and a certificate of authenticity, which occasioned the characters discussing how the certificate could be a forgery, and so warranted its own certificate of authenticity, and so on ad infinitum?

200 miles above the Earth, halfway to space,
running 2 miles with every step, each footfall
matches one in Boston. Floating near a wall,
restrained by cords she runs a marathon pace
to match her sister on the ground. The grace
of motion changes without weight, but will enthrall
the viewers down below. She hopes that recall
of her run by kids will spur them on to race.
She's wise to help the young enhance their time,
using her place to lead them into winning
some measure of the grace she can apply.
But those of us who've watched the rockets climb
and hungered for the worlds' new beginning,
might wonder how this race will help us fly.

I liked the zombie reference, myself.

...who will no doubt face stiff competition from the Republican Party.

Arrrrrrgh. (The sound zombies make when they hear a bad pun.)

To run the simulacrum of a race
in microgravity high above the air,
eyes focused firmly on our sphere
feet on a treadmill in outer space;
that seems so odd in a small place,
a little hut located just up there
where burdens should be easier to bear;
this is a gesture of enchanted grace.
What thoughts come looking on this ball
where human life seethes and explodes,
while racing in a city far below?
Emotions formed running in free-fall
give sense and meaning to imagined roads
which we on earth may never truly know.

In what Phil Dick novel did a character have some collector's item and a certificate of authenticity, which occasioned the characters discussing how the certificate could be a forgery, and so warranted its own certificate of authenticity, and so on ad infinitum?

Could it be the Phil Dick novel in which characters entertained themselves by submitting the English-language titles of various works to translation computers, translating them into Russian and then back to English, and using a globe-spanning telecommunications/computing network to entertain acquaintances (whom they'd never met in person) with the results? (I don't actually think so, but I still love knowing that not only did PKD envision the Internet, he envisioned what people in boring jobs would use it for.)

On a side note, I have a modest proposal. Unlike Swift, I mean mine. Being innocent of the mechanics of Constitutional amendment, I have no sense of the practicality of this one's ratification, but it seems to me that just the threat of it would, in the words of Guy Grand, "make it hot for them."

It's actually feasible to drive to France from the US.

Just drive to Newfoundland, then take a ferry over to Saint Pierre and Miquelon, a small bit of populated French territory close to the coast of Canada.

The main problem is that you either have to take a very long ferry ride from Nova Scotia, or else drive all the way around the eastern dangly bit of Newfoundland, which is quite a long drive, and probably moose-infested.

#216: I remember that bit too, now that you mention it. Is that in Galactic Pot-Healer?

I've been at dinner parties like that, and the expression on Bast's face is exactly right.

On the Antarctic Artists thing, I saw an exhibition of some pieces from the New Zealand version in Christchurch a couple of years ago. I don't remember in any great detail, but it included some things made by a jewlery designer; an impractical but quite startling dress*; and an eerie whisting-wind type soundtrack.

* Mostly white

Neil @ 221: My father told me the following joke, which I later found in a 12th-century source:

Q: When a rooster wakes up in the morning, why does it stand on one leg?
A: Because if it picked up the other leg, it would fall down.

I never saw that story, and I really, really want to read it. It sounds like it might have been in one of those anthologies edited by Yvec N. Fybbs that I've been looking for ever since I found out about fandom. If so, I congratulate you on having seen it, and please let us know the outcome of your search, or if you remember any other interesting details of the work.

I too read that story, and I believe (if this helps) it put forward the idea that after the fall of civilization (WW3?) fandom was a natural locus of rebuilding because fans trusted each other and they had mimeograph machines. OTOH, there was also conflict between two fan organizations (forget which ones, and maybe it was democratic, electoral conflict). The story was in one of Those Big Collections, and my guess is it was originally published in the fifties or early sixties.

BTW,who's Frangano?

Jo Walton has now revealed that the photo is part of the cover design of her book, Ha'Penny, and inspired one of the scenes.

This feels kind of neat.

I feel a little sad, now.

But think of this. James Bond, as depicted by Fleming, lasted for 12 years, first novel to last.

Modesty Blaise started in the Sixties, and carried on as an active character until 2001.

But what if Modesty Blaise was a cover identity, for a string of female agents. They'd need training. Who do we know who recruits a series of glamourous women into the espionage business? John Steed.

And we all know where they end up when they retire.

I think I'll go and have a lie down.

I've found it, I think: "A Way of Life," by Robert Bloch, originally published in Fantastic Universe, May, 1956. Collected in "Out of My Head," an (alas) out of print NESFA collection. Good luck!

And we all know where they end up when they retire.

Yes, in a particular segment of the Glasshouse.

Be seeing you!

I'm just wondering how long it will be before I see one with the vanity plates "Steed" or "Mrs. Peel."

Check out E.M. Forster for an impressive prediction of the Internet from 1909.

Thanks for the suggestions as to the PKD book, folks; I'll look through them.

You can do square knots and snip the ends. However you will have to keep the ends from slipping free and ravelling -- which is a problem because yarn stretches. I've tried knotting without treating, but something gives way sooner or later. There is a commercial product called fray check that acts like fabric glue and is washable.

Or you could paint the knots with clear nail polish. However, you will have scratchy lumps.

Thank you. I like your poem too.

It'd appear that somebody hacked into their site and got some of my wife's credit info. Our credit card's company had noticed suspicious activity a few days ago, early enough that the card could be cancelled before any harm was done.

A friend of mine taught for one of these courses - at Jesus College, whereas the CCP seems to be at Queens' - when she was finishing her PhD, and it seemed like everybody enjoyed it fine.

So it depends what you are looking for, really. A nice summer programme with some (generally junior) members of the Cambridge teaching staff, scaled down for high-schoolers ... all you are really missing is the level of teaching and a slice of independence from what would probably count as the 'real' Cambridge experience.

So I have my doubts as to whether it's likely to be worth the money, and if you are at all interested you should look around a little more, because there are multiple programmes going on here all the time, some of which may be more immediately reassuring. And very few of them are likely to be administered by the University in any direct way. But they are probably not scams.

I should probably add - I do currently teach at the real Cambridge, although not in any of these programmes. (Although obviously you have no proof that this is me, and the university is terrible at keeping the details up to date.) Still, it's odd to see familiar graffiti labelled as anti-American , though, since I never really think of it that way.

[*] I suppose it's a good thing that the CCP claim not to use graduate students, although they can often be better teachers and have more time to prepare than do temporary or junior staff.

Remember those folks who were turned back by the cops at Gretna when trying to leave New Orleans after Katrina?

Court rules it was legal on the grounds that no court has established a right to intrastate travel.

Which Serenity character are you?

I remember something about how you were/are interested in island culture. This came across Marginal Revolution this morning:

Why do Jamaicans live so long?

One trick to using FrayCheck is not to let it air dry. Apply to whatever you want to keep from fraying, cover with a press cloth, and then press gently with a steam iron (on about medium, I think) until the FrayCheck has dried.

If you let it air dry, it dries hard (not quite as hard as clear nail polish, but close). If you steam-dry it, it's soft and almost imperceptible.

"...The Situation has everything: incompetent managers, back-stabbing co-workers, a giant grub creature, a fish with a human face, and a lot more besides..."

Mention of his name sets Perrett off on a heartfelt rant about declining standards of morality among drug addicts. "Junkies nowadays are really disgusting," he huffs, genuinely outraged. "In my day, being a drug dealer was a respectable fuckin' profession. Nowadays, it's something you really feel ashamed to be associated with, the way most junkies behave."

Ah, but did he die jumping out of his girlfriend's window when her husband showed up?

As for the young man himself, all he can offer them is the faint recollection of an abbey.

[I remain thoroughly disgusted with the biased "news" reporting available over the supposedly once "public" airwaves in this area. Clear Channel for a while had Air America on and then with no warning put on Hispanic -noise-... no, I do NOT regard Hispanic audio as necessarily noise, but the crap that Clear Channel spews out on those two stations, makes the English translations of whatever that long-running German serial SF that someone with only high school German classes could read, look like Fine Art in comparison...]

[Segovia's recorded performances I liked, for example.... that is NOT salsa crap-noise... and not to be found on Clear Channel, either...]

Susan @ #250: that is almost as appalling as the original incident.

The redoutable Abi? I'll be seeing that for myself on Monday evening. (Redoutable? Maybe it's the other one that you came across, the one from the Evil Universe, and you don't want to know what she uses for her book bindings.)

http://www.bikebiz.co.uk/news/25734/Carbon-fibre-famine-could-be-ended-by-carrots

See? Your mother was right - carrots *are* good!

Thank you for showing me those bindings, Tom, and for letting me in before the shop was officially open.

See you Monday evening!

The Bring Your Own Big Wheel Race down Lombard Street. It's the 7th annual. (I hadn't heard of it until today, and so must share.)

Santa, on a Big Wheel, on a Narrow Windy Road on a Steep, Steep Hill, on Easter. No worries, there. And I'm going to be eating chocolate or mayhap peeps while watching, just to make it perfect.

Mikescollection at Amazon

The seller appears to be someone selling off the book collection of the late, much-missed Mike Ford. Among other things, they're selling a $500.00 copy of Scholars of Night that is claimed to be a "personal copy of John M. Ford."

Is this legitimate? Where is the money going?

(Apologies in advance if this is a much-asked question. My Google-fu may be weak.)

Of course, the insomniac internet time-killing at 5:30 AM doesn't help with the jumpiness to begin with, but still...yikes!

I apologize- I have no speakers attached to the computer for exactly that reason, so I should know better than to not plug in the headphones and check.

Oy, yes, yikes.

You know, when I was four or five years old and had a bigwheel, I'd have been thrilled to know adults are allowed to take their bigwheels down steep streets. And I don't think me-of-then would quite understand why me-of-now isn't actually going to do it.

Dan Savage, being Dan Savage, encourages his readers to insert their own "available slots" joke.

I suspect the kids just heard more about the page program and how all the graduates of it say it was one of the greatest things that ever happened to them, rather than that they all want to have sex with repulsive hypocritical Congressmen.

Top 10 Reasons Geeks Are Better Lovers

[1] Well, book; he's 260 pages into the first one after 3 1/2 years of working on it.

Congrats!

I'm seriously considering canceling my cable TV service and getting the handful of shows I actually watch via downloads and/or DVDs.

Has anyone here used iTunes to download TV shows? How was it? Specifically, how are the download times? (I have DSL.) The picture quality? Prices? Are they really available 24 hours after first airing?

Are there any other low-cost sources for TV downloads I should use instead of/in addition to iTunes? I'm avoiding Bittorrent for copyright reasons.

Anything else I should consider before making a decision to drop cable?

Here's the link to NPR.

Redoubtable,
And Terrible
Without coffee,
That is abi.
Without a Peet,
She'll bite your feet.

(I blame the trip from New Mexico for this.)

Xopher wrote:
I suspect the kids just heard more about the page program and how all the graduates of it say it was one of the greatest things that ever happened to them, rather than that they all want to have sex with repulsive hypocritical Congressmen.

My impression was that they thought the sex might be somewhat distasteful (or it might not...it's nice to be wanted, and an old adulterer might know what he's doing in bed), but it would totally be worth it to have the attention of powerful people.
I could understand the decision, though I wasn't really tempted in that direction. The whole thing was way too scary for me, and I've never found the attention of externally powerful people to be all that much of a draw.

You might consider Netflix. We've been using it for several years, and only in the last few months had a satellite disk installed, largely because we could get HD on it. We weren't tempted by cable or sat before that. Also, Netflix' library is quite large; they have a lot of DVDs you'd only be able to find by searching awhile online.

Q: How many hipsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Ha! You mean you don't already know?

Q: How many hipsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Oh, I have that on vinyl.

BTW, I agree with the plug for Netflix as an alternative to cable. (Though I still wind up just letting the movies sit there and not watching them...)

But I'm also trying to figure out an alternative way to watch shows when they're fairly new, so I don't have to avoid spoilers for six months to a year while I wait for them to come out on DVD.

I quite like iTunes for TV, and even movies, though movies take several hours. TV shows generally take half an hour to an hour to download on my house DSL. They are quite viewable on my laptop and desktop, via iTunes or QuickTime MoviePlayer, or, we can connect a video iPod to our TV and watch there; it's quite acceptable.

dinosaur sex exhibit from museum in Spain.

Making Light are not the only people interested in the topic, apparently.

And then, embarrassingly, when I wrote them an e-mail asking if there were plans to extend the service to Mac users, I spelled "there" wrong. As in, I spelled it "their." And for a second, after I recovered from the shock (I never, ever do that and just yesterday visiting my parents I was talking with my mother about how irritating it is when people do that), I was like, no, it's OK, I'm just previewing it and I can edit it.

Not everywhere is Making Light.

I've generally been pleased with the image quality -- I'm watching the shows on my 15" laptop -- and given the size of the files (about 500 MB for an hour-long show), I'm not sure the quality would be that much higher on something obtained via bittorrent. (Though I've never tried the latter, so I could be quite wrong.) I have to admit that I download TV shows when I'm at work, so I don't have a good idea of the time a DSL download would take. I'm also using this as a way of catching up on US TV shows while living in Europe, after several years of not watching TV, so my experience isn't necessarily the best guide for answering the "Can I use this to replace cable?" question.

There are occasional free shows you can download, including some pilots, so you could use that as a way of testing the system out without paying anything (go to the iTunes main page, then scroll down to "Free on iTunes").

Diatryma (304): That's a thought. Hmmmm. Have to think about that one.

Todd (305): I wouldn't be getting rid of the television set, just the cable connection. On the other hand, I don't currently have a TIVO. (I still use videotape. How antiquated!) I'll have to check Amazon, to see if they have the selection I want. Thank you.

Oregonians may want to look for a copy of Friday's "The Oregonian." It has a nice cartoon profile of "The Last Good Morning's" author / artist.

The local ION TV (Family Friendly Pap Our Specialty) is running a Battlestar Galactica marathon.

Not the edgy modern version.

My, has time not been kind to it.

I saw at least one commercial touting the Book of Mormon, and I'm wondering if there's a connection.

I just switched back to watch the last two minutes of an episode. Jonathan Harris voicing a robot with a long sparkly robe, blue Christmas tree light brains, and a blinking mouth. Eh?

You'd have to try really hard to make something deliberately stupider than that.

My husband and I even got a free pass to it, thanks to some "use any time" tickets for the big multiplex in the next town over, a gift from a friend. And we emerged from the three-plus hours in a mostly empty theater (Easter weekend, here in hicksville) with one overall reaction: Whee!

PS: Did anyone watch the new Wind in the Willows adaptation on Masterpiece Theater last night? That was a lot of fun too, especially Hoskins' growl (as Badger).

A co-worked also liked them, but preferred "Planet Terror"; he said he found "Deathproof" to be too talky. I wonder if it breaks down along gender lines. I felt the talky bits in "Deathproof" were necessary to make us feel like we knew and cared about the women so as to give the last third of the film more drama.

I did like "Planet Terror" well enough, but it led to today's Making Light Open Thread Somebody Here Knows The Answer To This Question: At a certain point (zrygvat gnenagvab nangbzl, for those who've seen the film) I had to stop munching on my candy. For reasons I still cannot fathom, I stashed my M&M package in my pocket. The next day I neglected the pocket check before doing laundry.

So, how do you get melted-in chocolate out of heavy cotton pants? Anyone?

PS: Did anyone watch the new Wind in the Willows adaptation on Masterpiece Theater last night? That was a lot of fun too, especially Hoskins' growl (as Badger).

Yes, I watched it, and greatly enjoyed it. I could swear there were times where Hoskins was channeling Leo McKern. How very weird: Rumpole the Badger.

I have a lot of mutually contradictory information.

Joy of Cooking (1975) suggests "sponge w/ cold water or soak 30 min. or longer. Rub gently w/ soap and rinse. If stain persists, apply commercial grease solvent."

How to Repair Food (1987) says: "soak in cold water. Sponge in hot sudsy water. Bleach w/ hydrogen peroxide if necessary. Wash in hot water (warm for colored fabric)." [I feel the peroxide sounds a bit dangerous.]

Only thing that works at all for me is copious application of Spray'N'Wash, letting sit for long time before putting in the wash (after scraping off as much chocolate as possible). If it doesn't come out, try again *without* going through the dry cycle, since drying seems to set it even worse. Mind you, I never did get the chocloate gelato out that I spilled on a white skirt in Ravenna, but I blame that on having no Spray'N'Wash until I got back to the States three months later.

"For best results, try pretreating the area with drycleaning solvent and then place the affected area over several layers of white paper towels and blot.
If the stain remains, blot with a mild detergent and then rinse with water.
If these efforts still do not remove the stain, try using a solution of one teaspoon of white vinegar per cup of water. Rinse with water.
If all other methods fail, you may need to use a bleach, but remember to test for colorfastness. Any remaining stain may be removed by laundering according to the care label instructions."

Generally, you let the chocolate harden, then scrape as much off as you can, before you do the rest of the procedure. They say chocolate is more difficult than most stains.

I washed the pants in warm water, and the chocolate kind of melted into the fibers. I tried scraping the stain, and very little came off the surface. I didn't tumble dry them.

Maybe I'll try the vinegar and water and then Spray & Wash when I get home. They're not terribly expensive pants ($10 at Marshalls) but they are from the one brand that fits my freak-show lower half, and one that no one in SoCal seems to carry. I'd hate to lose them!

I'm looking for a suitable font which is documentable to the early 1900s (by 1914, or - better yet - by 1907). That means no "in the style of the era" dodges. It needs to be something that will enlarge nicely for posters containing only a couple of words ("tango" "one-step" "schottische") and be readable from a distance - nothing with too many curlicues.

I'd be happiest with something I happen to already have (surely one of the gazillion installed fonts on this Mac will work) or can get as shareware.

I know zippo about fonts, so I do not want to guess and then get sarcastic commentary from font geeks about how I've used a font that wasn't invented until 1975. I also don't have time to turn myself into a font expert in the next couple of weeks. But surely someone here already is one....?

Help?

I'm helping to clean out a house. It belonged to a relative who passed away at 91. We haven't had a tag sale estimator in (doubt it'd be worth it): we'll just use craigslist and a garage sale for most stuff. The cleaning triage (junk, donate, sell) is not difficult for most items because of time, the net and Ebay(1).

But I don't know how to approach / how to be ruthless in cleaning out:
1. The linen closet. Bedding, tablecloths, lace, towels, blankets. Most likely all from the 50's to the 80's, but could be as old as the 1910's. Likely all bought in the US, but some could have been brought from Russian or China (if the latter two then would date from 1910-1940s). Smells like mothballs. I can separate the polyester from the naturals (feel or flame test), and silk from the rest, but I can't tell cotton from linen.
2. The sewing room- fabrics from the 50's to the early 90's. Smells (and is) musty and dusty. Mostly polyesters.

To donate or put these out for a garage sale I feel like I'd need to run 20 loads of laundry, and I'm not keen on that(2). But I'm also not keen on just tossing it all. Searches online haven't been helpful, not compared to all the guides for furniture, kitchen goods, etc.

Should I care? Can I just toss away the musty stuff guilt free?

I think the main thing that stops me from just throwing out the musty stuff is analogizing to if it was the same volume of books. If someone else was cleaning out a book closet I'd be hopping mad to hear they just tossed them all(2). But used books aren't used linens, and are there people who care about old linens the way I care about books? I don't know. Do you?

Also,
Can you clean and how would you clean old leather that's got some mildew? I found a 14 foot python skin (likely bought in Burma or nearby in the 50s) that I'd like to keep *if* it can be cleaned.

-----------
(1) enough time removes the feelings of raw nostalgia or of being an interloper. Ebay removes the "it all could be hidden treasures" feel. Most all is worth $2 plus $5 to ship.

(2) I couldn't just put it out unwashed for free, because what if a craphound finds it? They'd just take it from addiction.

(3) knowing full well this is a dangerous analogy to make, because books to me: gold to Smaug. Although I can get rid of books that'd damage other books (mildew) or would damage the reader (not worth reading, could not in kindness let friends borrow).

"Planet of Terror" went on too long, even with the deliberately missing reels. It was, dare I say, a little too sophisticated in concept to be a wretched 70s B movie, even an updated one.

"Deathproof" was too farging talky upfront, but when it got moving it was a blast.

The trailers were hilarious. "Don't!" was just marvelous. I remember seeing previews in that mode at the Saturday morning horror double feature at the Glen Cove theater.

(Glen Cove WAS a grindhouse to some extent. Double features! "Asylum" and "The Legend of Hell House." "Vanishing Point" teamed with "Bless the Beasts and Children!" For one glorious summer, an older theater at the other end of town showed Italian SF movies and Mexican wrestling movies for $.50! And Sunn Pictures nature films. Ah, they don't make 'em like they used to. Thank God.)

I believe there's a bit of a market for lace and things that have lace or threadwork on them. Anything in that line would be worth at least taking to the charity shop if not somewhere perhaps more lucrative. (The older, the better, of course.)

I now really regret that my mother, a confirmed modernist with a complete lack of sentiment for objects, caused all my grandmother's hand-crocheted and/or hemstiched table runners to disappear.

Even very old linens and clothing can be rescued from must and stains with patience, as long as they're hand washable in cold water.

From my local extension service, this wisdom: To clean the mildewed leather items, take them outdoors, wipe them down with a soft cloth and rubbing alcohol diluted 1:1 and air dry. You might have to do this a couple of times. If mildew remains wash with a sudsy solution of leather soap, wipe with a damp cloth and air dry. The worst thing you can do is ruin the item, but if you don't clean it, it's ruined anyway.

If I were shopping the top two things I would want to know are:

Is the fabric in bolts, yard lengths, fat quarters, or is it a scrap-a-palooza?

How was it stored? Even if it's dusty and musty**, if it has been out of the light, that's better than being exposed to UV.

Since fabric is heavy and shipping costs add up, maybe a quick notice to your local fiber arts/quilting/costuming groups would get you the people who would be interested?

*Me, I'm a sucker for vintage Marimekko prints.

**I have fabric that has been in storage for only about five years, and I know I'm going to wash it again before I finally use it.

Then again, I don't know how fragile your snakeskin is, but like someone pointed it out, if you don't do anything it's trashed. Which would be a pity.

(It did for the leather in my bindery that got mildewed this last summer. This technique also works on paper.)

I wouldn't recommend the alcohol, not as a first resort - it dries leathers and skins out.

It's rare I run across a sciencefictional fantasy world written with that kind of startling clarity. If anyone has seen a thing like it, also, do tell.

They take their business pretty seriously and they've been around for ages, so I don't think they'd try to pass something off that wasn't legit.

Please be sure to change your trousers first.

And I second the recommendation to put all handworked pieces aside. Those can be worth money, depending on age and condition.

What TexAnne said, and you can include local college theater departments as well.

From Claire Schaeffer's Fabric Sewing Guide (it automatically falls open to the burn test page):

Cotton burns rapidly with yellow flame, continues burning, afterglow, smells like paper, resideue is brown-tinged end, light-colored, feathery ash.

Linen burns more slowly, smells like rope, ash maintains shape of swatch.

Does anyone else remember a story by Ursula LeGuin (all details hazy) that involved a number of women having a retreat at a station in Antarctica? One of them was from Brazil, particularly wealthy so helped subsidize it? Published in the New Yorker some time in the 70's? One spent much of her time in a chamber making ice sculptures which would never be viewed unless there in person (ah, before the internet and Flickr et. al.).

The Denver Public Library has bound copies of tNY that certainly span the possible years, but I'd appreciate any help getting closer.

Through the ensuing decades, comparatively unrelated things will pull me back to this story. Is there a term for this time-machine-surprise element?

Heck, how about a Waldo Tunnel Extension, shipping burritos from Tiburon to Burien? I'd take that in a hot second.

And yes, many of us who love fabric will buy even musty or stained pieces, provided they are otherwise in good condition, and the price is right...

Many thanks!

Mystery cat takes regular bus to the shops

In the US I don't doubt someone would call it in to a pound, where, in many areas, it would likely be killed.

I suppose I could test this, but I'm asking because I have neither sacrificial linen nor rope. Does burning linen smell like burning rope, or like raw rope?

In other words, I had a great time.

You should have tied a boat to him.

Burnt cotton smells like burning paper, has a large and steady amber or yellow flame, and leaves behind a small amount of soft gray ash. It ignites more quickly than linen, and when the flame is blown out, a travelling ember is left.

How do you define "handworked pieces"?

Do you mean lace? Other than (possibly) some of the lace, the only other obviously handmade stuff are patchwork sheets- sheets turned into sacks (like a sleeping bag) made of several pieces.

That was an odd moment, wasn't it?

My normal reaction* is to ignore the raving person, because attention just rewards their behavior. But ignoring a person yelling right behind you, who seems to be getting louder the longer he's ignored? Hard to do.

--------------
* learned from a summer of riding to work in a bus with a fairly high % of riders who spoke every thought out loud. Their commentary-gaze would sweep by every few minutes, unless you caught their attention.

I thought he was yelling that he was, not a Moor, but a moron, an utterance I could not disagree with.

That would have made him an oxyMooron. Take that, Xopher!

I also enjoyed that link to the Mystery Cat story. It's been a good week for cat lovers, what with a Cat Column from Jon Carroll on Monday and an ongoing series featuring the cat in Pickles. (Link is to the site that shows it in glorious color.)

Ba-da-bing.

Fragano @ 365... From the looks of him, I doubt that the gent in question would know where Venice is, or where he himself was at the moment. Then again, maybe he was a Method Actor who wanted to see if his performance was fooling anybody.

Kathryn was unflappable - even her grammar did not suffer.

(And Fragano, the last thing we wanted to do was encourage the man to talk to us. We were rather trying to discourage him.)

The roses and cattle will have to wait, today, as there has been some kind of burrowing mammal confluence, and the path under the rustic pergola has experienced such an upwelling of the sod that the male residents of this farmstead can no longer walk under it. So today, I must cut sod and regrade that part of the lawn.

(That eight-foot square of the pergola is planted to: roses Darlow's Enigma SE, Alberta SW, Felicite et Perpetue NW, Wisteria sinensis outside NE and Clematis viticella Barbara (Betty?) Corning inside NW and SW).

Act Now And We'll Throw In A Gilette Razor, Which In The End Times Will Be Traded As Currency

"Visions of barbershop massacres, book burnings, Muslims breeding like rabbits, polygamy, Europe under the domination of the bearded menace and an Amerostralian counteroffensive based primarily on a campaign of frantic boinking?"

Remember, these books may still be in copyright outside the USA, where Berne Conventions rules have applied for far longer.

"(scratchedout) multiply like rabbits"

And someone added...

"So do bigots, and they can't add or subtract either."

The same bigots' parents were the ones who were convinced that JFK would make everyone become a Roman Catholic. (I think, from here-and-now, that that one was spread by Nixon's campaign. It wouldn't have been the first time his people started an ugly rumor.)

And this is a bad thing how?

I can't wait until Tancredo's campaing is high-profile enough to start getting mocked by everything from The Daily Show to Law and Order. (Although, come to think of it, his base probably won't be able to provide him with much in the way of donations, unless the campaign treasurer starts accepting piglets and deeds to trailer homes.)

(Sorry, that was mean.)

It's elephants all the way down.

Indeed, it's not.

I also took Latin, albeit at a very late age as such things go.

Guess hell froze over.

Scalzi linked to this over on Whatever. Yowza. Lee Iacocca tears GWB a new one.

I like this quote:

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies.

Blogger Bioblitz, in which you the blogger pick a spot and inventory its life, write it up in your blog, and then send in the data and the link, and somehow a grand report is done of the whole thing.

Project Budburst, for the US only I guess, where you report the "phenological milestones" of selected plants in your area, like first flower, first leaf, etc. It only started this month so in my climate there's not going to be much to send in (our "firsts" happen in January and February mostly). But it's going to be fun looking for stuff to report.

I think this is one of the most exciting things to come down the pike in a long time.

-- Kurt Vonnegut, 1922 - 2007

Frogwatch USA

My copy is a copy decades old, but it's still in print, check Amazon et. al. Yes, it's a treasure trove.

Does burning linen smell like burning rope, or like raw rope?

Burning rope. Also kind of like burning grass (hay). We used to do burn tests on unlabeled fabrics when I taught Theatrical Costuming. Our area dean was showing around a group of Big and Powerful People when we thus engaged, and they hovered in the doorway as she gave brief intros and asked what we were doing. She then asked what we were testing?

"Hemp."

"Oh, great!" and they all trooped in. There was a brief moment in there when my universe tilted sharply sideways and then realigned, and I realized (again) what a wonderful woman she was.

#361 TexAnne:
...You could probably find a needlework or heirloom sewing shop somewhere. There's usually at least one person obsessed with old things on the staff.

Quilt shop personnel are also up on this stuff.

"I'm A Moor"

Othello was a successful military guy, right? What are the chances this walking derangement was instead saying, "I'm Amor"? In the hope that love might indeed conquer all? Watch out for those STDs.

If I drank, I'd want to mix up an ice9 for myself. I imagine that it's a drink that looks like frosted water, but is of sufficiently high temperature that it just about instantaneously hits your blood stream to knock you off your feet.

But instead I'll curl up with my Cat's Cradle and a cup of chamomile tea, thinking about a karass of others also curled up with their books.

or perhaps I'm Amur! I'm Amur!. Not everyday you meet a weretiger.

("Nooooooo!!!")

Meanwhile, Kathryn from Sunnyvale still hasn't said if she WAS unflappable during the whole incident. There was no danger, really, with all of us being around, especially Abi, who had had that cup of Peet's hours ago and thus was probably reverting to her redoubtable state.

",...must... have... Peeeetttt'sss..."

I think the only time Pepe le Pew made me laugh out loud was him pretending to be a sled dog. Le bow! Le bowwowwow!

Mais bien sûr.

Stephen Colbert, what have you wrought?

No more chocolate!

I'm very happy that the pants were saved.

Yes.

Have a good flight back to Scotland, and good luck on the move.

Still no Grindhouse for me, galdarnit. Tomorrow for sure.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

I just did something very strange: I went to the mall, bought a comic book (S8 issue 2!), went to the food court, got a slice of pizza, ate my pizza while reading a comic book in the mall food court, and then saw the Ninja Turtles movie. One part of all that was good; guess which one it was.

Oh, gods. I've just rearranged my entire morning schedule in seconds to plan to be at the comic shop when it opens.

Please tell me I'm not alone in this fangirlish glee.

You are not alone in your fangirlish glee. And #2 is gooooood.

I...will...not...get...into...Buffy...comics!!!!!

why?

i know why i won't, it's because i never followed the buffy series, & it'd take too long to catch up. but if you are up on your buffy, comics are cheap, really quick to read, & only come out once a month. where's the big commitment?

But he will fail.

The Slashdot response included spontaneous sonnetry:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two former drumsticks, turn'd to stone,
Stand in Wyoming. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And razor teeth and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those proteins read
Which yet survive, stamp'd in this lifeless thing,
The hand that mock'd them and the mouth that fed...

But T-Rex knew there could be no escape:
the beady eyes were watching them like hawks,
as furry things emerged from burrows; and, as
they quietly advance with knives and forks
the past takes on a terrifying shape:
were dinosaurs wiped out by Colonel Sanders?

Dinosaur--tastes like chicken!

The slayer training the others in teamwork: was I supposed to know who that was?

The one showing recent interest in comic books and drywall: is that the same one who was flirty with Xander in episode 1?

My mother is looking for a children's book she remembers from at least 40 years ago. All she can remember is that it was poetry, and one of the poems started with the line, "The Ibex is a most unusual beast." I've tried Google, and can't come up with it.

Does this ring a bell with anyone? I'd appreciate any input.

Question #2, sure looks like it, although her feather earring has moved from her right ear to her left.

Now I need to know too, because it sounds familiar. I tried Hillaire Belloc because that's the sort of line he has, but didn't find it: and I tried Edward Lear, and didn't find it. But somebody will do better than me, I'm sure.

Kurt Vonnegut, 1922 - 2007

Or--come to think--Shel Silverstein.

Get it while it's hot!

Many years ago my aunt (julia's mom as it happens) gave my parents a big wooden dresser. Contemporary horizontal model, very plain and unadorned.

It ended up in my teen-hood bedroom. It got soaked around the base from a flood, but I never looked really closely at the damage.

Against mild objections it followed me to California. I missed a chance to ditch it when I moved to Oregon.

A few weeks back I decided to finally ditch it. I moved the clothes to a wire-frame shelving unit, and vowed that this weekend I would be rid of it.

I moved it out to the landing, and in full daylight, with the drawers out, I saw the mildew, scratches and delaminated, chipping veneer. No way a charity would accept it.

So . . . bust it up? It turns out to be built like a brick shithouse. Screws. Dovetails. Solid wood panels. Someone with time and money could probably restore it . . . but I don't really want to take the trouble of finding the somebody.

Any ideas? Short of paying money to have it hauled away, or taking a sledgehammer to it?

Largest illegal black market of guns in Pakistan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9xf62PKC5M&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Evideosift%2Ecom%2Fvideo%2FLargest%2Dillegal%2Dblack%2Dmarket%2Dof%2Dguns%2Din%2Dpakistan

One may differ with the conclusions of the narrator, but it would be unwise to ignore the content of this video as a factor. This is the kind of factor some of us were thinking of when the US invaded Afghanistan. Winning short-term - very possible. Winning long-term - a lot harder to define and even harder to do.

But even if you don't want to think about heavy stuff, it's fascinating to watch. One of the interesting moments is the craftsman carefully engraving into a pistol slide "Made as China by Norinco".

"Now don't come in to my house," they said,
"By the hair of my chinny-chin chin!"
And off each went to his flimsy bed
And slept with a piggy grin,
And, as they were dreaming, a wolf so bad
Came to their small dwellings and blew
Oh! so very strong were the lungs he had
And the grasses and sticks, he did strew.

Ay, off on the winds of the Wolf they went,
And nothing remained in place--
Not one single stem or twig was unbent
To shelter a little pig's face,
And they wondered, they wondered, as they did flee
And they ran through the woods so thick:
Would they find shelter with Little Pig Three
Who they mocked when he built with brick?

[after Eugene Field]

You'd have to ask someone at Wildside Press - they reprinted it last year. Wikipedia has the ISBN - just google "eye of argon" and it's the first thing that comes up.

Something like Goodwill, where they teach people how to restore stuff on donated furniture, or a saw. (Permit me to vote for "not the saw".)

Breaking solid wood furniture with a sledge is a good way to wind up with a woodscrew in your kneecap.

(The Salvation Army guys tried to hit me up for money to dump the furniture I was trying to donate! Fortunately, the head of a large immigrant family living a few apartments down from me saw me struggling to get a big chair up stairs. She not only wanted the chair, but the bed, the desk, and the table . . . all heavy wooden beasts. Her sturdy sons moved it out the next day.)

However, I'll see if Goodwill has a (furniture) rehab program.

In any case, I bought a couple of pieces of molding this afternoon. I plan on staining them, rounding the ends, and tacking them with brads over the frayed bits of veneer. That, and a thorough vacuuming, might make the thing pass inspection.

(It remains a sturdy and useful piece of furniture; however, the twenty year old mildew stains visible from the back and bottom would be a real turn-off.)

The maker's mark says "Drexler" and numbers that suggest that it was made in 1960.

1 - Freecycle. There are many Oregon chapters. I unloaded a pair of ugly, unloved nightstands this way.

2 - Craigslist. I got rid of a box spring and an old sofa on the "Free" pages.

The great thing about these methods - people come and get your junk. List your dresser in both places. Link some pictures. Someone will want it.

The section in the second episode, at the border crossing between India and Pakistan, is pretty mind-blowing for anyone who has seen a formal parade by the British Army.

No, I have a fantasy world where quite a number of stories take place, everything from Heroic fantasy, to fairytales/folklore, ghost stories and so forth. It is a pretty adaptable world, and the Eye of Argon could be put into it.

submitting to one of those literary agencies would be a prank, and if there's one thing my various postings on this site have demonstrated it is that I am a very serious fellow.

I figure using the Eye of Argon as a serious literary component is the most evil thing somebody could ever do. In the future people will be Argoning threads by comparing Hitler to me.

Had to get that out somewhere.

* if you have a future traveling time machine in your hands, of course.

All this talk of chicken is making me think of putting shoes and a coat on and going to get some Popeye's. It's stopped raining, and the car is bound to be warmer than the condo (the heat pump died while I was at Minicon -- new heat pump Tuesday!).

I just took a hit from my inhaler and looked at my matched set of Ogden Nash books (Little, Brown, 1942 -- they were my mother's and she tucked bits of Nashiana in them -- good thing I took them to college with me!) and didn't find any titles with "ibex" in them.

An exquisitely extemely symmetric bipolar nebula, the "Red Square" nebula.

While I think they could've been a tad more creative with the name*, it is right up there with the hexagon in "universe surprises us with geometry" news.

---
* it'll be the Burning Man Nebula in the burner crowd.

After another good look, I decided that the thing ("PARALLEL BY DREXLER 9/60") would be too hard to bust up. Harder, in any case, than fixing it. And paying to have it hauled away would cost more than materials.

I called 1-800-SATRUCK and scheduled a pickup for next Saturday. I have that long to gild the lily.

I will take pictures this evening.

This morning I:

i) Glued down the loose veneer and the stuff the veneer clings to.

ii) Sanded and smoothed the edges of the molding that will cover the banged-up veneer on the bottom edge of both sides.

iii) Dabbed wood filler on the chipped spots that won't be covered by the molding.

iv) Sanded off and vacuumed up the black and white mildew spots from the insides and bottom.

v) Discovered that the guide rail for the bottom drawer was useless and warped. Bought two hardwood squares that, glued together, more or less match the guide. I'll notch the ends and glue it in later in the week.

vii) Stained the molding. The stain I had on hand is much too dark and ruddy, and more to the point the molding's wood grain doesn't look anything like the veneer's. But I'm not going to go crazy finding a match. The molding will hide and secure the veneer's rough edges. If a "picker" discovers the piece, all they'll need to do is pry them off .

It's hard to tell in that picture (and because of the limitations of the cake medium), but it's meant to be a UFO descending in a forested-type area.

Close up of the farged veneer. You can see how thick the wood underneath is in this shot. The amount of fiber in this piece Ikea could turn into a whole room of particle board flatpack stuff.

Literary agents
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Only at ML.

An exquisitely extemely symmetric bipolar nebula, the "Red Square" nebula.

Whoah. I was actually a co-author on a paper studying the central star of that object back in 1992, before I went to grad school. Hadn't thought about that in years.... (Alas, back then we had no idea about the amazing nebula around it.)

There's an even better picture of it here, at the home page of one of the authors.

For what it's worth, I believe they chose the name "Red Square" because it really is very similar to the previously known and well-studied "Red Rectangle", except for being more, y'know, square-ish.

See Ed Felten's remarks on Prof. Walter F. Murphy's complaint about being questioned at the airport. Prof. Felten is actually familiar with how the no-fly list works, having served on the Secure Flight Working Group.

Briefly, names get put on the list by a secret process:

In short, nobody outside the intelligence community knows much about how names get on the list.

The airlines check their customers’ reservations against the list, and they deal with customers who are “hits”. Most hits are false positives (innocent people who trigger mistaken hits), who are allowed to fly after talking to an airline customer service agent. The airlines aren’t told why any particular name is on the list, nor do they have special knowledge about how names are added. An airline employee, such as the one who told Prof. Murphy that he might be on the list for political reasons, would have no special knowledge about how names get on the list. In short, the employee must have been speculating about why Prof. Murphy’s name triggered a hit.

It is also true that if a no-fly list exists at all, false positives are inevitable. See Felten's further remarks.

Murphy writes: "I confess to having been furious that any American citizen would be singled out for governmental harassment because he or she criticized any elected official, Democrat or Republican." This would make me furious, too. However, the evidence that this has actually happened in Prof. Murphy's case is mighty weak.

There are stores in Seattle (e.g. Collective) that would know furiture restorers who might be interested in the piece, or who could clearly tell you that it's junk. There must be similar stores in Portland.

* OTOH, I'm not a professor at Princeton.

I just about done with my repairs. I just have to sand and stain a few patches near the base that I hit with wood filler. Oh, and nail in the re-created drawer rail.

I think it's now more than acceptable as a Salvation Army donation. I'm thinking of wrapping up the can of stain (just bought, a close match) and taping it inside one of the drawers so whoever buys it can persue things further.

Now I'm picturing it appearing on Antiques Roadshow, and the expert rattling off the things I did to it that reduce its value from $10,000 to $50.

I sent the pictures to my aunt. She replied that it was the only piece of furniture she'd ever bought new!

**********************************************
There needs to be a special hell for narcissists who slaughter the innocent.

'Personable' professor among shooting victims
By Greg Miller, Times Staff Writer
8:43 PM PDT, April 16, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Monday's session of the class in introductory German was nearly an hour old when the shooter entered the classroom in Norris Hall and fired dozens of rounds.

One of the first was aimed at the head of the teacher, Christopher J. Bishop, who wore his hair long, rode his bike to campus and worked alongside his wife in the foreign languages department at Virginia Tech.

Authorities had not publicly identified any victims as of late Monday, but colleagues confirmed that Bishop, 35, was among the 33, including the shooter, killed during the rampage.

His friends said they were struggling to comprehend the violent death of an instructor who was known for his gentle manner and generosity toward students.

"I don't think he was the type of person who had an enemy," said Troy Paddock, a close friend whose wife also teaches in the German program. "He was a very friendly person. He did weekly gatherings for students out of class to practice German where they could talk about anything. He was a nice and helpful person."

On the Web sites where he posted samples of the art he created with his digital camera, Bishop described himself as "mild-mannered" and "bespectacled." He was an avid hiker and movie fan, a Georgia native who paid close attention to the wins and losses of the Atlanta Braves.

Bishop wrote online that after earning bachelor's and master's degrees in German at the University of Georgia, he spent four years in Germany "where he spent most of his time learning the language, teaching English, drinking large quantities of wheat beer, and wooing a certain Fraulein."

Colleagues said the fraulein was Stefanie Hofer, the woman who became his wife. The two were the only tenure-track professors in the German program, according to Richard Shryock, the chair of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures.

[My father did museum-grade furniture restoration of antique furniture].

There's also the possibility of removing the veneer completely and using the wood below, in the case of e.g. mahogany furniture....

Suspects accidentally dial 911 while trying to reach drug dealer

Two Pomona drug suspects were arrested this morning after mistakenly dialing 911 when they were actually trying to reach their drug dealer, police said.

"No one said criminals are smart," said Pomona Police Sgt. Michael Olivieri.

The 911 call came in about 3 a.m. today. Police believe the suspects, Paul White, 38, and Ryan Ogle, 25, were trying to page their drug dealer with an emergency request, using the code "911." Instead, they got the emergency dispatch center.

Police traced the call and, as is standard practice, sent a patrol car out. Officers found White and Ogle standing next to the pay phone and a car outside the Pack A Bag convenience store, Olivieri said. A run of the car's license plates showed it was stolen. So officers moved in to arrest the pair in the 1000 block of West Mission Boulevard. A search turned up drug paraphernalia, a set of burglary tools and a shaved ignition key, Olivieri said.

http://www.tangentonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=386&Itemid=1

No? Me neither.

What a very strange article.

Dennis Kucinich declares intent to file Articles of Impeachment against VP Cheney

Like I said in my other comment spam comment today, I've been rereading Teresa's wonderful publishing-related ML posts, which she compiled (along with a whole bunch of useful publishing info links for the aspiring author) for Neil Gaiman here.

I also find it bizarre that Mr. Truesdale seems to think that, in order to be interesting (or daring or political or traditionally heterosexually male or whatever glowing descriptor he feels like using at the moment), fiction must be a) right-leaning and b) bereft of style.

And I am fucking sick of "the liberal elite."

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/53474366/

The anecdote is retold below the image.

> I also find it bizarre that Mr. Truesdale seems to think that [...] fiction must be a) right-leaning and b) bereft of style.

Well it is a significant market niche :(

> And I am fucking sick of "the liberal elite."

Hot buttons for me are "the chattering classes" and any reference to "latte sipping" or variants thereof. I just know what comes next.

We're sick of him, too.

Sincerely,

The Liberal Elite

You have a whale in your neighborhood, Teresa?!

COOL!

"...According to IMDB.com, there hasn't been a film called "Skeleton in the Closet" made since 1913. It's a natural horror title. I envision "Skeleton in the Closet III: The Search for Flesh." Yours for the taking..."

A heavy law it was, but one they made
Themselves, no tyrant's word. So when it came
To trial, they hearkened to it. They obeyed,
And died, and left, beside undying fame,
This legacy: the law we own is still
The law we make ourselves. Now jeer who will.

This is true. However, after a while, any reasonably observant person could begin to see patterns emerge in the kinds of people they find on the no-fly lists. It's not definitive proof by any means (for many reasons), but even the fact that the employee would see--or think they were seeing--such a pattern is suggestive.

And this one was not far behind. As it were. Work safe, despite the title.

i'm glad you came back.

Or is that Rocket Engineering, in which case Rocket Science is 18th century Celestial Mechanics and 50s chemistry, stuff which I learnt at school. I've helped build (teeny-tiny) rockets, and if I can do it, it can't be that hard, surely.

Or to put it another way, you don't have to be a Brain Surgeon to do Rocket Science.

</semi-serious>

Any Rocket Scientists reading, please feel free to make fun of my ignorance of rocketry.

* This comment might also go on Death Of A Cliche, but rather than confuse one of those two threads, I've put this tangent here.

Please forgive me, I'm having a rather silly moment.

I wanted to thank you for your detailed answer (in an earlier thread) to my question about slushpile statistics.

Your stats helped me make a big decision for myself:
I will not read raw blogs*. Reading raw blogs is like reading the slushpile. That one can spend all day reading raw blogs is no more relevant (or is exactly as relevant) as that one can spend all day gambling. The random reinforcement of a rare gem makes it (gambling, blog reading) more addictive, not less.

I couldn't in good conscience read a slushpile and then leave it, as is, for the next person to spend exactly as much time on. Similarly, if when reading blogs I cannot at the minimum provide- as Gary Farber does- a "read the rest scale," then I shouldn't be reading them.

---
* raw: not known to me to be consistently worth reading, either for quality or for personal connections.

I Am Not A Rocket Scientist (IANARS) but I used to work at a software company* where one engineer used to work at Jet Propulsion Lab, and another was a Pyrotechnic Engineer on the Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster. We had a complicated product that we used to say did require a Rocket Scientist to understand. When we said it was Rocket Science we meant it was complicated, hard to understand, and liable to bite you if you didn't pay attention.

* GemStone, the best job I've ever had. Also, the longest lived startup company ever. It was a startup from 1985 until 2001, at which point they laid all but 4 engineers and 3 managers off and sold the company to the managers. It's still around to this day, and they've even hired back some of the employees who were there before the layoff.

And also the "kids these days" thread. As I anecdoted there, my dad was experimenting with model rockets in high school. As a teenager he was able to violate an international treaty on missiles and related flying items. Then later on he worked on the Gemini and Space Shuttle programs.

All to say it doesn't take a rocket scientist to be a rocket scientist. Or that rocket science is that which a rocket scientist points to when asked 'what is rocket science?' Or brain science isn't rocket surgery.

"Wild Troll-Caught Chinook Salmon Fillets"

So, do they use their hands, or a gaff?

29 predictions, many remarkably accurate, including automobiles (even snowmobiles!), tanks, radio, TV, refrigerated food, take-out meals, air conditioning, shrink-wrapped fresh food, etc.

Also some real clunkers, such as mice and rats extinct, no wildlife except in zoos (hmm, maybe not such a clunker), peas the size of beets, all power from hydro, and more!

(Via kottke.org).

Via kottke, via long views, a href="http://www.yorktownhistory.org/homepages/1900_predictions.htm">Predictions of the Year 2000 from The Ladies Home Journal of December 1900

Highlights include:
"Prediction #9: Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later. Even to-day photographs are being telegraphed over short distances. Photographs will reproduce all of Nature’s colors."

and

"Prediction #10: Man will See Around the World. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span. American audiences in their theatres will view upon huge curtains before them the coronations of kings in Europe or the progress of battles in the Orient. The instrument bringing these distant scenes to the very doors of people will be connected with a giant telephone apparatus transmitting each incidental sound in its appropriate place. Thus the guns of a distant battle will be heard to boom when seen to blaze, and thus the lips of a remote actor or singer will be heard to utter words or music when seen to move."

*last post!

I'm still waiting for my pneumatic tubes. I mean, I've got the internet...

" Store Purchases by Tube. Pneumatic tubes, instead of store wagons, will deliver packages and bundles. These tubes will collect, deliver and transport mail over certain distances, perhaps for hundreds of miles. They will at first connect with the private houses of the wealthy; then with all homes. Great business establishments will extend them to stations, similar to our branch post-offices of today, whence fast automobile vehicles will distribute purchases from house to house."

Additional reading can be found on the Paleo-Future blog. The Ladies Home Journal article is here, with a full sized scan of the article. A german-language version of the article with really nifty illustration is here.

The original typography is really quite pretty. Do have a look.

Airports. Waiting rooms. Places where the only channel available is Fox, or CNN. (ISTR we did this a year or so back. Reruns?)

I think that much of the impact involves the connoations.

1. The failures can be very showy, very spectacular, and very fatal--see e.g. the book on Soviet space disasters. There was a Soviet disaster that involved an attempt to launch a very heavy-payload very large rocket. It didn't takeoff when it was supposed to. After a while a bunch of people came out of the secure areas to investigate, and that was when it blew up... and for many months following, the old USSR reported the deaths of prominent members of its space and rocketry industry on individual (bogus) bases reporting false times and locations of death.

2. The successes can be very showy and spectacular (Saturn V launches, successful shuttle launches, Hubble pictures, Moon landing pictures...)

3. It involves Great Challenges and Adventures --going into the unknown and using technology that is showy...

4. It is (used to be) state of the art, involving pioneering and developing New Stuff

5. High risk--see above

6. Glamor--invention, spectacular sucesses/failure, glory and agony, etc.

7. Visibility [what gets heard/seen by the public are the results, not the day to day years of preparation on any on-going basis....]

8. Lots of people regard calculus as religion or some such, mysterious stuff beyond their ability to comprehend well....

9. The mystique of the high tech college education, of years of study, and #8 above

Oh, wait, Western civilization may not be falling just yet. ABC asked for a pilot, is all, with no guarantee that it'll be picked up.

I want a disemvoweller for stupid TV shows. Vwls-B-Gn, I'd call it. You'd point it at your own television machine, and then the vowel-removing-ray would travel up the feed to the satellite, which would then prevent all further episodes from being transmitted with vowels intact. (What's that? Willy Wonka's explanation of how TV works isn't real? Oh fine, next you'll tell me that Trolley-Car doesn't really go visit King Friday!)

TxAnne, #511: Vwls-B-Gn! If only... We could hear actors grit, growl, and groan for real.

"Wh dn't y jst cll t vwl-rmvng r?"

PJ Evans @ 506: Airports, TV: Detroit, November 2005.

*Literally nothing in the entire world. Just kidding.

You're correct, though: Faux News does make even the finest food rather unpalatable.

Some of those predictions were pretty darn good for 1900. Tanks, cell phones...and the one about automobiles replacing horses completely was right in the bullseye.

'Dedication' or a cry for help? Or maybe it's like Max Headroom's episode where cops break into someone's place and gasp in horror when they find that this criminal. on top of everything, has an illegal off switch on his TV set.

* Or non-comparison
** Other favourites: Moveable Feast, Low hanging Fruit and Six of One and Half a Dozen of the Other

I've used some like those, because skimming the low hanging fruit is more fun than shooting monkeys in a barrel.

Molecular Biology has too many syllables to be a pleasing substitute.
Rocket Science isn't all that hard; the tough bits are all engineering (I say that as a proud holder of an Aeronautical Engineering degree). Although science that *uses* rockets gets all tricky again (I've met helioseismologists. They scare me).

More seriously, I think Paula Lieberman was spot on above.

(From the movie Hot Fuzz. I know what I'll be watching tomorrow night.)

You can tell more than one (cave)guy lives here by the tie on the bedroom door. No need for that if you live alone.

Girl Genius, as many of you know, is a webcomic about mad scientists; and among its many wonders there is a locket in which is concealed a cunning mechanism that does strange things to the person wearing it.

Hence this sketch.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6574547.stm

So sad for families and friends when people disappear and nothing is ever known. Tho' there's still an ongoing search for these. I'm remembering instances over the years on land, as well as at sea.

I might indeed be doing WWWF a disservice. But what else fits "news:Fox News Channel::sports:____"?

Years ago, my brother and I watched in fascination and disgust as a visitor's ratty, bad-tempered 15 year old terrier trotted into the living room, hopped on the couch, mounted a throw-cushion, and had at it. After a few minutes she sneezed, rolled on her side, then trotted back to where the grown-ups were talking.

I can easily imagine that creepy little mutt as a advertising model for that hump-target.

here (via)

The marvels of today's modern technology include the development of a soda can, which when discarded will last forever ... and a $7,000 car which when properly cared for will rust out in two or three years.

[I've put a longer post about this on my own weblog.]

Edge, before

Edge, after

Full Frontal, final

The flash brought out a lot of color that is actually hidden under layers of dingy.

And yes, the Salvation Army guys took it without a second thought. Also got rid of a bunch of video tapes, a stack of aluminum camping dishes, VHS storage drawers, and two office chairs.

Cleaning out feels good...

As one movie reviewer put it, "The movie '300' is to the actual historical events at Thermopylae what the movie 'Steel Magnolias' was to the actual historical events at Thermopylae".

A few references came up:

The first was Eridian Publishing, an e-book publisher that apparently published her how-to book and a single romance title by another author a few months after that thread dropped from our attention. The registrant name on the domain is Tina Adams.

The second was Fiction Promotions, which she's more open about owning. Doesn't seem so bad, although I'd hesitate to pay the designer of Eridian Publishing's web site to design one for me. The design is somewhat basic, and the 'buy now' buttons on the 'special reports' section do look familiar, as if they've been pinched from somewhere.

The third is linked from Fiction Promotions: Excerptalicious! (TM)(*), a book promotion / chain letter scheme that seems to claim the same kind of benefits as a pyramid marketing scheme. Only it probably doesn't make anyone anywhere near as much money as those schemes do. And she wants $97 to participate in this wonderful scam^H^Hheme.

(*): Seriously, it says "Excerptalicious! (TM)" in the title of the web site.

Lots of fiber, but I bet it's hard to chew...

Well, wool and silk are protein, although I wouldn't recommend them for dinner.

I will now go and put my eyes out with knitting needles....

"The high fat content of bogong moths – 38.8 grams of fat for a 100g portion, more then three times that of a hamburger, provide an energy dense food for indigenous groups in cold climates".

Let's move on from the needle-ss sparring. It's knit worth worrying about.

I got pulled over by the DHS security guys at LAX last week for a random spot check. To my embarrassment they found that my carryon bag contained a) half a tube of toothpaste, which they confiscated, and b) detectable traces of PETN explosive (probably left over from the day on the pistol range.) Buzzers go off. Enter lots more DHS guys. Not looking good.

Fortunately, the next item out of the bag was "Declare", which I'd just finished reading, followed by "Last Call", which I'd just started.

'Ah! You're a Tim Powers fan! Have you read, what is it, that one about Keats? "The Stress of Her Regard"?' says the DHS bloke. And we had a good five or ten-minute chat about Tim Powers, djinni, Kim Philby, Keats, Charlie Stross and HP Lovecraft, and then he apologised and I went off to catch my flight, leaving him writing down a note to self to get hold of "Declare" and "The Atrocity Archive" at the earliest oppportunity.

On the hotter side of things, chili lovers might be interested in a piece in the latest National Geographic (May) about Nagas -- more than three times the heat index of a chocolate brown habanera! Way, way too incandescent for me....

African American
Asian
Caucasian
Hispanic
Pacific Islander
International
Native American
Other

You had to pick just one, so I bagged the survey - presumably they don't want responses from any American mutts. And what precise race/ethnicity is "international"??

So much for my contribution to pet bereavement research.