The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Jakob:

#97, #101, #104: I've just checked a couple of books on my shelf, and all of them crucially have text to this effect:

"...without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser."

Which suggests that the legalese is aimed at booksellers rather than consumers.

Another comment on the level of discourse here is that the Vatican Astronomer turns up to advise on Latin tags...

Didn't CMU do a big push to get women into CS, that raised the numbers from single-digit percentages to near-parity?

Google suggests this was it: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/index.html; I've not read the book myself, but one the lecturers in my department has used it for seminars on computing culture.

Dave Bell #900: My pedantry compells me to point out that 'Untergang' is masculine, and so the title is 'Der Untergang'.

Michael Roberts #895: the English-languge title is 'Downfall', and there shouldn't be any trouble finding it on DVD - amazon seems to have it in stock.

HelenS @90: I think there's a number of things going on here - the clothing company Thor Steinar originally had a logo based on two runes. Designs using runes like this are often used by neo-nazis, being all 'Nordic' and 'Aryan' &c. After protest, the company (which denied any neo-nazi connotations) changed its logo to a Norwegian flag.

I assume that inge is referring to in #85 is Helly Hansen, which uses the Norwegian flag on some of its clothing. As far as I can tell, any association of this brand with neo-nazis is incidental, due to the aforementioned 'Nordic' fixation. The company was founded in Norway in the 19th century, but the fact that it uses a 'HH' logotype as its trademark no doubt provides a frisson of something-or-other to the unpleasantly-inclined.

'Plans are useless, but planning is indispensible' -Dwight D. Eisenhower

On that basis, the Allies did far better than the Germans - Allied airpower had wrecked any chance of them getting forces to the beaches unless they were actually parked in the dunes. And once that opportunity was gone it became a battle of the buildups, where the vastly superior Allied logistics system and tac air could crush the German forces - even offloading directly onto beaches after the Mulberries were severely damaged.

I may have been overly hasty - it seems to have disappeared from the Beeb's news ticker. Damnnit.

As I type, Obama's on TV saying he's going to charge people over the torture programme. I believe this calls for a HELL YEAH!

I'm not sure Dog Soldiers ever suspended my disbelief, but it is one of my favourite horror films ever. How can you not love a film that has your werewolf-hounded squaddies barricade themselves into the abandoned farmhouse and then utter the immortal line: "Put the kettle on - we could all do with a brew" ?

dcb #104: The NS website seems to be down, but looking at format of the url it looks like there are some repair works ongoing near Brussels.

The Belgian railway site seems to suggest getting a train from Tilburg at 10:37 and changing at Roosendaal for a train which gets into Brussels for 12:45.

If you can get the website to work, feel free to email me the message and I'll let you know what it says.

Helaas ben ik al sinds jaren niet meer terug naar Nederland geweest, en ik denk niet dat ik de vrije tijd heb om naar Amsterdam te gaan.

Maar veel plezier, en gefeliciteerd!

Madeline Ashby #160: I don't recall the prose in particular, but I'd not have described my experience of 'Blindsight' as like unto a hot bath. A bath of liquid nitrogen perhaps, that chills to the bone...

Well, if you count Pasteur as being the (co-)inventor of Germ Theory, then he's fairly high on the list.

Another candidate might be Paul Ehrlich, who came up with the idea of 'magic bullet' drugs that would treat particular conditions.

SamChevre @218: although Haber's work on nitrogen fixation probably qualifies him, he's also known as the father of chemical warfare.

Having the cute bank teller flirt with me that morning.

And one with more recent ramifications: A lecturer's chance remark, which led me to the Smithsonian and a friendship with one of my fellow interns, which last year led me to starting a postgrad degree in something I love and am good at.

Earl Cooley #118: Is there any provision for postponing a US election? I mean, what if 9/11 had been 11/20 instead? In which case I don't see it's much difference to a no-confidence in parliament. Which I'm not sure has ever happened so as to encumber the handling of a national emergency.

Albatross #115: Pace the 9/11 commission, the Bush administration could have had years to prepare for power, and would still have made an almightly screwup of everything.

Presumably the film company has kept a sufficiency of the puppets; expecting J. Random Blogger to be custodians for posterity seems a little... unwise.

Re Disney Pooh: The reason I so dislike their version is that it lacks all the beauty and charm of the original Shepherd drawings, but, like the Heart of Gold's drinks dispenser, has enough of the original to be profoundly uncanny.

SKapusniak #103: IIRC, the Second Reich was Kaiser Wilhelm's, 1871-1918, and the First the Holy Roman Empire (yes yes I know, neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire...)

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