Self-Healing Technology
2007-04-28 00:02:00
I love self-healing technology! It's kind of like skin. Cut it and it bleeds. But if you wait a while, it repairs itself. The mechanism is a mystery to most of us. But the results are the same: effortless repair, often just about as good as new.Three examples:1) My Sirius satellite radio receiver: A few months ago, I left it plugged into my car's lighter outlet overnight, and I forgot to turn it off. Three unfortunate things happened:It drew down all of the power from my car's battery, thus requiring me to get a jump from Beth's MINI.It blew one of my car's fuses, thus requiring me to replace an automotive fuse for the first time ever.The display died. So I spent a few months driving around with no visual indicator telling me which station I was tuned to, who was singing or talking, what song was playing, what the current score of the hockey game was, etc.,...Since then, I have made a real effort to remember to turn off and unplug the receiver after each trip (less because of the
Read more: Healing
, Technology
Spring Thaw -- a new photograph
2007-04-27 00:39:00
The daffodils in the back yard started opening a couple of days ago, and today I noticed some other flowers (species unknown to me, of course) on the front lawn. I've taken some shots of them, but before I start posting the flowery bits, I figured I might as well post a shot from a few weeks ago: melting ice on a calm stretch of a local waterway. I've actually done more color experimentation on this one than I normally like to do. I happen to like this version best:I killed the color and then enriched the black with a little hint of blue. If you'd like to see an alternate version, with the color actually punched up pretty significantly from how it was shot, click here.Critiques, as always, are welcome. Let me know which version you prefer...and whether you think either is any good or whether they're both just awful.
Read more: Spring
, photograph
Capsule Review: The Ice Storm
2007-04-25 23:14:00
Here's another of those little "Staff Recommendation" reviews that I write for the book store:The Ice Storm
, directed by Ang Lee.Sigourney Weaver, Kevin Kline, Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood, Tobey Maguire, Joan Allen, Katie Holmes. If you're a movie fan, these names should mean something to you. This low-key gem may actually be the best piece of work any of them has ever been associated with. We named our first dog after the Katie Holmes character. "Libbets? What kind of a name is Libbets?!?" The movie is centered around a couple of families during a strange and tragic Thanksgiving weekend in the 1970s. It probably won't make you cry, it may not make you laugh, but it might just leave you in awe.
Read more: Capsule
Another Photo I'm Proud Of
2007-04-25 02:04:00
I'm also pretty proud of this photo:This is the New Hampshire state amphibian, the spotted newt (Notophthalmus viridescens).
Read more: Photo
, Proud
Maybe My Favorite Photo
2007-04-18 04:13:00
Of all the photographs I've ever taken, this one very well might be my favorite:For some reason, it just strikes me as being particulary gorgeous, albeit pretty limited in its color range. I hope you like it. As always, comments are welcome--pro or con.
Read more: Photo
, Maybe
, Favorite
Another Keiko Photo available
2007-04-17 23:23:00
In case anyone wants to see a fifth photo of Keiko, one has been featured on today's installment of the Bird A Day Blog. Thanks, Bird A Day!
Read more: Photo
, available
New Blogging Strategy, Newton Baby Picture, Two Reviews
2007-04-16 23:07:00
I know that I haven't been the most regular blogger. I would like to do something about that. I doubt that I'll get to the point where I'm posting something new on a daily basis. But I would like to post something new at least a few times a week. So, I've devised a new strategy.While I certainly don't want to turn this into a photo blog, I have come to realise that my photography is what's getting me more hits than anything else. (Why doesn't my dictionary project seem to capture anyone's attention? I don't know. I've found it absolutely fascinating!)So what I'm going to start doing is posting photographs more regularly, particularly when I don't have anything else to contribute for a few days. Some of these will be old photos that I haven't previously posted, but that I happen to like a lot. Some will be new photos. For today, an old picture of Newton
, from when he was still a little baby, 4 1/3 years ago.Strategy
shift number 2:For the bookstore, I sometimes make staff r
Read more: Blogging
, Picture
, New Blogging
Pictures of Keiko
2007-04-12 05:51:00
My sister requested that I post some pictures of our bird, Keiko. So here he is:He's a blue headed pionus. Actually quite pretty. He's camera shy, though. I took over 70 shots and ended up with only about 20 that I thought were any good. From those, I chose to post these four.
Read more: Pictures
The Dictionary Project, Status Update
2007-04-08 22:57:00
It occurred to me recently that some of the dictionaries in my testing are out of print. For example, the Random House Unabridged Dictionary
, Second Edition is no longer available. So I checked the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition, which I believe is just a slightly updated version of the same dictionary, with a name change stemming from a merger. The results of that test: the same. So #15 is basically just #2, renamed. I've gone back and color coded the titles in previous blog entries to indicate which are currently in print and which are not. Blue indicates in print. Dark red indicates out of print.I've also checked a few more dictionaries in the last couple of weeks. A couple are "on the record", meaning that I had my list with me and was therefore able to take an official count. Others are "off the record", meaning I worked from memory and don't have official tallies. In all cases, I have been satisfied that the dictionaries tested are inferior to th
Read more: Project
, Status
, Update
We Have a Winner! And We Have a Winner!
2007-03-18 21:48:00
It's been an extraordinarily long time since I last posted. Let's just say work has been hell and has sapped me of what energy I would have invested in blogging. I hope things will be improving soon.Good news: I made a pledge to New Hampshire Public Radio, which earned me entry into a drawing to win some fabulous prizes. Lucky me! I was the grand prize winner. The prize: A vacation to Moab, Utah (airfare and fancy lodging included). We were just in Utah last year. From what we saw, it's a stunningly beautiful place. We didn't go to Moab, though, so this will be a different experience. We're looking forward to it. We'll probably go a bit later in the year, so it's not quite so warm during the days.On the Dictionary Project front, we have a clear winner now. The New Oxford American Dictionary (which I had previously reported having high hopes for) managed to include all 26 of the non-bonus words. From what I've seen, it's a spectacular piece of work--definitely the next diction
Blithering
2007-01-14 01:49:00
1) I discovered the other day that the car dictionary does not include another of my favorite words: Luddite. Beth was unfamiliar with this word. (She claimed it was a fake word, just as I claimed that bumf was a fake word when she first introduced me to it. I have since come to greatly appreciate it.)2) Part of me wonders whether I should provide definitions for the words in question here in my blog. More of me thinks: (a) You're reading this blog on the internet, where information is always available to you. You can find it yourself with a few mouse clicks and keystrokes. (b) Maybe if you don't know any of my test words, you'll check your own dictionary (or dictionaries, if you have multiple). Maybe you'll get your own ire up if you discover that the dictionary you've trusted for years is really quite inadequate. I'll admit that there may be nothing terribly outrageous about a dictionary's editors choosing to omit anhedonia. On the other hand, I can't bring myself to justify
Ants!
2007-01-12 06:24:00
Our friends Kuki and Gary were kind enough to get us an interesting jelly-based ant farm as a gift. We ordered harvester ants to occupy it. They arrived earlier in the week. I believe we have 14 survivors from the journey, and they've started tunneling. Fascinating little beasts, really. Anyway, here are some pictures:
Another Progress Update
2006-12-28 23:45:00
Well, it's been a while, but I have now added dictionaries 9 and 10 to the table. Number 10 is Beth's hardcover dictionary that I had previously mentioned as being misplaced. Beth unearthed it while cleaning in preparation for a small party to celebrate her birthday. Note: It's not the current edition (third has now been updated to fourth). I do intend to check the fourth edition one of these days. For now, this will serve just fine. I was quite impressed by how well it performed on my little test.More impressive still is number 9, which I would rank as my current top pick. It is the new leader in the hit count, and the color illustrations are quite nice. Number 9 missed on ninjutsu and Scientology, but it was the first to hit on habanero!I've copied the table to this entry so that you don't have to scroll down to the previous entry if you've been following the progress of the project. If you haven't been following the progress, I would certainly encourage you to scroll down and
Read more: Update
Another Progress Update
2006-12-05 03:43:00
I added two more mass market paperback dictionaries tonight (numbers 7 and 8) to the table below. They both outperformed the previous mass market dictionaries, but neither was able to reach 10 hits in 26 tries. Early indications suggest that I'm just not going to be able to recommend any small dictionaries. They all seem to be pretty lousy, in my view.
Read more: Update
Progress Update
2006-11-29 02:15:00
Just in case anyone is tracking my progress on the dictionary comparison project, you might be interested in knowing that I have added two more mass market paperback dictionaries to the table: numbers 5 and 6. As might be expected, they both fall short of any of the hardcovers I've checked so far. Nevertheless, they are both far superior to the original dictionary that sparked this little endeavor.I've also started checking two additional mass market paperbacks, both of which show early promise of ending up with higher hit counts than the two I've added to the table today. Stay tuned.
Read more: Update
Some Photography (and Happy Thanksgiving!)
2006-11-23 23:38:00
It seems that quite a large percentage of the hits that my blog has been getting recently have come from people who found my bleeding heart photograph in Google and apparently wanted to see a larger version. Well, for all you photo nuts out there, I've decided to post a few more of my favorite shots from the last several months. Enjoy!The plants are from our garden, the waves are from a pond in New Hampshire, and the rock formations are from the Zion area of Utah.I'm no botanist, so I don't know the identity of any of the plants. If you can identify any of them for me, I'd appreciate it.Note: If you're interested in using these images for your own purposes, please ask permission first. I'll probably be very happy to grant it and I'll certainly appreciate the courtesy. And keep in mind that I do have the originals, so if you want higher resolution, I can provide it. Whereas, if you just swipe it from the web, you'll have a maximum of 431 pixels in width to work with. Also, some
Read more: Happy
, Thanksgiving
On Dictionaries, part 1
2006-11-22 02:49:00
We own multiple dictionaries. I wouldn't say it's a collection, as such, but we're in possession of at least 5 different dictionaries, and we actually have two copies of two of them. One of those that we have two copies of is a miserable mass market paperback with a cover that brags:The #1 New York Times BestsellerOver 25,000,000 Copies in Print!This is, of course, Webster's New World Dictionary, Fourth Edition.I'm a bit fuzzy on why we landed on this particular dictionary the first time. All I recall is that we wanted a dictionary in the car. I suspect that very little thought went into a selection process at the time. The second copy was purchased in an airport, and despite my knowledge that it's so pathetically lacking, I bought it because it was the only dictionary available at said airport.I was recently dismayed to discover that this dictionary does not include the word curmudgeon. It may not be the most frequently used word in the English language, but it's certainly in
Finally, Some Elvis Pics
2006-10-18 01:48:00
As mentioned a while ago, Beth and I went out to Vegas for wedding anniversary #3 to get our vows renewed with Elvis
. Here are some pictures from that occasion:All very tasteful, no?
Read more: Finally
In Memoriam, Mark Cassorla
2006-09-03 03:40:00
We just got back home last night from another vacation, this one to Texas. This vacation was interrupted by a side trip I had to make to bury my cousin Mark, who decided that he needed to kill himself on Monday morning. It's hard to express all of the feelings this has drudged up. But I feel as if it's somehow my responsibility to try to say something appropriately solemn.I always thought of Mark as "Marco". I'm not really sure whether this is because I grew up hearing other people calling him Marco or not. As I've mentioned before, I'm cursed with a horrible memory. So I honestly can't say whether anyone else ever called him Marco, although in my mind's ear, I can pretty clearly hear it rolling off his father's tongue. I'm also not sure whether I ever called him "Marco" to his face or whether the nickname resided strictly in my head.What I can say is that in some sense I always felt closer to Mark than I ever felt to any other relative. I don't know how to explain it except
Another New Adventure
2006-08-14 00:01:00
Let's add to the list of "things I know, from experience, to be difficult": Learning how to ride a unicycle.As my big birthday present this year, I got a brand new unicycle. We assembled it, disassembled it, cut a few inches from the the seat post, and reassembled it so that it's the proper height for me. That was almost 20 days ago.Since then, I have tried practicing, or practiced trying, or just spent some time on most days trying to make some incremental progress towards being able to ride the thing. As it turns out, it's a fairly exhausting process. While I haven't been timing my sessions, I think it's safe to say that I don't likely manage to put in more than about 10-15 minutes of practice in any given day. I can say with a fair degree of confidence that I am doing better than when I started. I feel even more confident in saying that I'm really not very far along at all.I'll get there eventually. But for now, it's a slow process and I'm still leading up to whatever I wi
Read more: Adventure
NaNoWriMo is Coming Again
2006-08-11 00:49:00
Last year, probably around this time, a couple of sentences popped into my head, and I knew that these would form the opening lines of my first attempt at National Novel Writing Month. The sentences were as follows:Angelique was thin in a way that resembled tall. Her husband, Laszlo, was short in a way that resembled broad.I had no title in mind, nor did I have a premise. All I had was two sentences. I was confident that they constituted a fine start. True to the spirit of the exercise, I did not commit those sentences to paper (nor did I type them into a computer, nor did I utter them aloud) until November 1. And that's where my journey began.I am plagued by a terrible memory, and so I knew that there was a high likelihood that by the time November 1 rolled around, I might well forget those sentences. They might be superseded by something better (or by something worse). Or I might just start NaNoWriMo
with a blank mind, having to manufacture a whole new start when November began.But
Read more: Again
More Minor Tragedies
2006-08-09 04:32:00
I've been thinking for some time about some of the little things in the world that count as (or that should count as) tragic. (See my previous post about "Walking on Sunshine".) Note: These are not seriously tragic issues that are about real human suffering. They are minor things that don't have any really major implications. They are minor tragedies, with the emphasis on "minor".Tops on my list: Churches that have "hours of operation". There is something horrible about the notion that churches and synagogues (and mosques, I assume) have locks on their doors and that certain people hold the keys and that the doors are sometimes locked. It's a symptom of the world we live in, and I understand it. However, I believe in my heart that this is a very sad state of affairs. These places should offer sanctuary. They should be places of refuge. That's not a part-time endeavour. To my way of thinking, it's an all-or-nothing proposition. (All-or-nothing in terms of when this sanctuary is off
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An Update and A Random Observation
2006-08-05 05:39:00
O.K.So it's been a while since my last post. In the intervening time, we took a little vacation to Las Vegas and surrounding areas (Zion and Bryce in Utah, and a quick trip into California to visit my aunt and uncle). Zion and Bryce are spectacular. Vegas is a spectacle. And California was on fire! (We saw lots of smoke from wildfires and were close enough that we actually saw a dump of fire retardant from a helicopter.) Fires notwithstanding, California was inspirational, as we passed by (through) a huge wind farm. How people can say that those windmills are an eyesore is completely beyond my comprehension. I think they're beautiful, partly because of the pure aesthetics and partly because of what they represent.While in Vegas, we renewed our vows on our third wedding anniversary with a giant Elvis as the officiant. (Perhaps I'll post a picture or two sometime.)Since then, we've had our first official house guests in the new house. Chris and Petra came to visit a week ago. They ha
Read more: Update
, Random
, Observation
Things Heard on the Radio
2006-07-01 00:17:00
A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to NPR and I heard reporter Libby Lewis giving a report in which she mentioned Lewis Libby. Not especially interesting, but I thought it was mildly amusing....Yesterday, I listened live to G.W. Bush's press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi. I believe this was within a couple of hours of the U.S. Supreme Court essentially saying that Bush's plan for his captives (or are we supposed to say "detainees"?) in Guantanamo Bay is unwarranted and illegal. Before he started taking questions, he did some speechifying. During this segment, he said the following (in regards to having spoken with a Japanese woman whose daughter was apparently (from what I gather) abducted from Japan and brought to North Korea in what was surely an illegal act):It also reminded me about the nature of the regime -- what kind of regime would kidnap people, just take them off offshore, you know[?]Note: I've copied this quotation directly from the White House web s
Read more: Heard
, Radio
A Family of Loons
2006-06-25 21:54:00
Yesterday, Beth was working and I was not. After I joined her for her lunch break, I swiped her car, loaded it up with my kayak and gear, and went out to Grafton Pond. I spent about an hour and a quarter on the water. As I was heading back to shore, I came across a family of two adult loons and one baby:My photographic skills are not quite brilliant, but I'm happy enough with these shots that I'm willing to share them.I believe these are the first loons I've ever seen in the wild. Awfully pretty birds, they are.
Read more: Family
Elevating the Pun to an Art Form
2007-04-30 01:03:00
According to Samuel Johnson, the pun is "the lowest form of humour". I've always been inclined to agree.To me, the pun has always seemed like a character type.A Lyle Lovett lyric goes like this:You are a lonely, weak, pathetic man.*My favorite lyric from any Smiths song goes like this:So you go and you stand on your ownAnd you leave on your ownAnd you go home and you cry and you want to die.**If puns were people, these are the kind of passages that would seem entirely appropriate for describing them.I have no real pity for the pun, no matter how much disrespect is thrown at it. The pun seems desperate, but not especially pitiable. I'm not saying that there aren't clever puns out there. Surely, there must be. But on the whole, as a class, puns are insipid. Is there a better word to describe them? I doubt it.However, there is one area of human endeavor where I truly believe the pun has been raised to an art form: The mystery novel title.There seems to be an entire subgenre of mystery
Crocuses -- a new photograph
2007-04-29 02:04:00
Here's one of those shots from a couple of days ago. Beth has identified the flower variety as crocus. We have white ones and purple ones in bloom at the moment. I really like that they're on such short stems. Staying so close to the ground, I think they seem a perfect flower to "peek" out from all of the winter deadness, early in the spring season (relatively speaking). It's a nice contrast, I think.
Read more: photograph
Winter Thorns -- a new photograph
2007-05-02 04:12:00
I'm going back to wintertime for this photograph
. It's not quite as good as I would like, but I think it's interesting enough.
Read more: Thorns
Getting a Little Political -- Part 3
2007-05-06 05:05:00
I watched some of the Republican debate the other night. There was a point at which the questioner asked for a show of hands of who does not believe in evolution. Much to my disgust, some hands went up.I didn't catch whose hands those were, but I checked the New York Times online edition for the transcript, and they reported that the hands that went up belonged to Brownback, Huckabee, and Tancredo.Assuming that the NYT transcript is correct, and assuming that the question's intent was clearly understood*, and assuming that we're not dealing with a semantic issue of what "believe in" means...these three men should automatically be deemed unelectable.So here's where the semantic issue comes in:Does "believe in evolution" mean "accept that evolution is a process that actually occurs"?or...Does "believe in evolution" mean "put your faith and trust in evolution"?If it means the former, then Brownback, Huckabee, and Tancredo are addled. If it means the latter, then that's somewhat accep
Getting a Little Political -- Part 2
2007-05-06 03:57:00
Second topic: How is it possible to be willing to vote for Hillary? To use a gender-inappropriate term, Hillary was cuckolded. She was cuckolded more publicly and more embarrassingly than anyone else has ever been cuckolded in the history of the world.That's not her fault.Her husband is (or am I to believe that he's reformed and should I change that "is" to a "was"?) a lecher. That's no secret. It never was. I think we pretty much all knew it going in.I remember having a conversation with a friend who was volunteering for his campaign in 1992. I asked her whether she thought he was merely the best of the available choices or whether she honestly believed in him and trusted him. (Her answer surprised me greatly. To me, even then--before he was elected, before all of the scandals broke--it seemed quite obvious that he should not be considered a fine, upstanding, decent member of the community, worthy of admiration and respect. To put a word on it, he was a slimeball. That has no beari
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