the roots of The War On Christmas run deep

Who knew the secular humanists had been working their plan since WWI?
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And as for the old canard that the use of Xmas means that we’re “X-ing out Christ” read on: surely a reporter for the National Review couldn’t be on the side of the atheistic hordes?
John J. Miller on Christmas on National Review Online:

How did Christmas become Xmas?

It’s Greek to us — literally. The Greek word for Christ is Xristos. That’s where the X in Xmas comes from. There’s a Christian website called www.xristos.com. Here’s what it says: Xristos is a transliteration of the New Testament Greek word for Christ “criston.” The Greek letter Chi ‘c’ was retained to insure a connection to the roots and original texts, as well as visually represent the centrality of the cross in all. The visual symbol Chi-ro is also employed at various places by Xristos, recalling one of the earliest practices of the Christian community.

So referring to Christmas as Xmas is no sign of disrespect, as many people believe. But it helps to know its origins.

Knowing origins, or the refusal to think things through, is how these arguments start, after all.
[tip]

analytics

I was lucky enough to get in on Google Analytics (née Urchin) before the registration for testers filled up. I have been running it for a couple of week and every now and again I take a look. (NB: it works in Safari if you resize the text and force the page to render once again after loading. Hat tip to someone somewhere who mentioned that.)

Below the fold is a grab of a recent day’s report.
Continue reading “analytics”

what does the LazyWeb know about iTunes?

So here’s my dilemma. I store my music files on an AppleShare file system, since the iBook I use lacks enough disk to hold it. All is well, most of the time, but occasionally, when iTunes syncs my iPod, it claims it can’t find some files. I can find them and, using Get Info in iTunes, restore iTunes’ awareness of them. Surely, there is some way to find unlinked files programmatically, and best of all, restore those links.

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on the merits of getting started

Crooked Timber » » Advice to Authors:

Here is one of the many footnotes from Susanna Clarke’s novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which Henry reviewed recently:

Horace Tott spent an uneventful life in Cheshire always intending to write a large book on English magic, but never quite beginning. And so he died at seventy-four, still imagining he might begin next week, or perhaps the week after that.

“Publish-or-perish” is hardly the best motto for good scholarship, but if the alternative is to perish without publishing at all then perhaps it might not be so bad. This footnote may find itself stuck above my desk come Monday. Or Tuesday, at the latest.

Referenced in the Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell seminar @ Crooked Timber.