Category: Uncategorized

I’m part of the distributed BoingBoing network, as seen here. So far, it’s working . . .

[/usr/home/paul]# grep -c dbb /opt/weblogs/httpd-access.log
180

so far today, two hailstorms (the second one, currently underway, has hailstones the size of marbles bouncing off, well, everything), thunder (real thunder, not the anemic little rumbles we usually get) and lightning.

And snow in the forecast. Better stock up on provisions tomorrow.
Now playing: About The Weather by Magazine from the album “Rays And Hail 1978-1981” | Get it

Spies, Lies and Wiretaps – New York Times:

Just trust us. Mr. Bush made himself the judge of the proper balance between national security and Americans’ rights, between the law and presidential power. He wants Americans to accept, on faith, that he is doing it right. But even if the United States had a government based on the good character of elected officials rather than law, Mr. Bush would not have earned that kind of trust. The domestic spying program is part of a well-established pattern: when Mr. Bush doesn’t like the rules, he just changes them, as he has done for the detention and treatment of prisoners and has threatened to do in other areas, like the confirmation of his judicial nominees. He has consistently shown a lack of regard for privacy, civil liberties and judicial due process in claiming his sweeping powers. The founders of our country created the system of checks and balances to avert just this sort of imperial arrogance.

What’s gotten into the water supply over at the Times building? This is pretty strong stuff.

Making Light: The life expectancies of books:

Have you ever heard of Harold Bell Wright? How about Mazo de la Roche? Mary Roberts Rinehart, Lloyd Douglas, Irving Bacheller, Frank Yerby, Coningsby Dawson, Warwick Deeping? These were all notable authors in their day. Some of their books were no better than they should be, while others were genuinely praiseworthy; but all of them spent some time perched on top of the commercial heap.

All gone, now. We shall none of us escape obscurity.

Teresa’s widely-cited musings on the life expectancy of books is full of insight and information (and the Usual Suspects in the comments sparkle as well).

Her piece comes on the heels of this by Tim O’Reilly on the economics of publishing, especially for short lifespan books like his.

Seems to me there’s good reason to read both, but I’m too tired now.

<update> I meant to say there was some overlap to be explored, given the two different markets (popular fiction and tech books). But I was too sleepy to even get that right.

Dear Novelist,
You did it.
Despite everything else going on in your busy life, you managed to pull off the creative coup of writing a 50,000-word novel in just one month.
When the going got tough, you got typing, and in four weeks, you built vast worlds and set them in motion. You created characters; quirky, interesting, passionate souls with lives and loves and ambitions as great as yours. You stuck it out through the notoriously difficult middle stretch, and pressed onward as 80% of your fellow writers dropped out around you.
And now look at you: A NaNoWriMo winner. And the owner of a brand-new, potential-filled manuscript. It’s an amazing accomplishment, and we’re proud to have had you writing with us this year.
Continue reading “crossed the tape”

Nancy Pearl, local — and national — celebrity, is the first person who I heard refer to the “50 page rule.” If you pick up a book, either at someone’s recommendation or through your own devices, it’s OK not to finish it, but try to get through 50 pages before deciding. A good idea: if the author doesn’t hook you right away, give them a chance, but don’t feel obligated to slog through the whole thing.

Freakonomics passes the test. I read the first 50 pages as soon as I sat down to see what it was like. Informative and fun. There’s been a lot written about it, but it’s worth a first-person experience.

So I finished it later that night. Highly recommended.

I found an old clipping last week from the Wall Street Journal letters page, sometime in the early 1980s. The writer had saved his high school entrance exam from 1911, taken in rural Indiana, and sent along a sampling.

• In what state and on what waters are the following: Chicago, Duluth, Cleveland, and Buffalo? State an important fact about each.
• Name and locate two countries in the following are important products: wheat, cotton, wool, coffee.
• Write on the Panama Canal, telling who is building it, its location and importance.
• What causes the change from day to night and from winter to summer?
• Name five republics, three limited monarchies, and one absolute monarchy.
• Name the classes of sentences on the basis of meaning or use. On the basis of form.
• Write a sentence with its verb in the active voice; change to passive voice.
• What is meant by inflection? What parts of speech are inflected?
• Write sentences containing nouns showing six case relations.
• Write a model business letter of not more than 40 words.
• What is the length of a rectangular field 80 rods wide that contains 100 acres?
• A wagon is 10 feet long, three feet wide, and 28 inches deep: how many bushels of what will it hold?
• A rope 500 feet long is stretched from the top of a tower and reached the ground 300 feet from the base of the tower: how high is the tower?
• In physiology, name three kinds of joints and give an example of each.
• Give the structure of a muscle and of the spinal cord.
• Define arteries, veins, capillaries, and pulse.
• Write a brief biography of Evangeline.
• What do you think the author of “Enoch Arden” aims to teach us?
• What kind of a man was Shylock?

I couldn’t answer a lot of these now, and I am thrice the age of a potential high school entrant.

What’s interesting about these questions is the amount of local knowledge, civics, economics they cover. Knowing what cities lie on what bodies of water and what crops are grown where requires you to understand the wider world in ways many of us don’t today.

Of course, they also cover a lot of archaic stuff: who know what a rod is or how many bushels will fit in a 35 cubic foot wagon? Just for your edification, a bushel is 2150.42 cubic inches.

And a rod? Go work that one out for yourself.

Suggest some updated versions of these questions in comments, if you like.

I want one.
Continue reading “is there anyone who hasn’t yet received a GMail invite?”

This is one of two days of the year when standing a raw egg on end is easiest (I don’t want to claim it’s the only time it’s possible).

OK, so maybe this is the only time we have ever tried it.

Went sailing on Puget Sound (or the Whulge) yesterday, from Edmonds to Kingston. Beautiful day for it, though my youngest Able Seaman succumbed to seasickness and chundered on the coaming . . . .

Interesting to see that the Edmonds to Kingston ferry has a Coast Guard escort — two extremely fast patrol boats with 50 calibre machine guns fore and aft — while the return trip is unprotected.

As the master and commander of our vessel pointed out, if one were wanted to target a passenger-carrying ship and saw both (since they pass each other on their runs) would you choose the one with 2 zippy little escorts or the other one?
Continue reading “your tax dollars at work”