It Is Regrettable That

Chuck III

2011-02-09T15:20:00.004-05:00

OK, so, here's the deal (with myself): I am not reading the AV-Club discussion of Chuck versus the Honeymooners, nor watching Chuck versus the Role Models, until I write up my own (eagerly awaited) impressions on them. Why am I doing this? Because, you see, the world clamours for my, undiluted and unaffected, thoughts on this year-old episode, and will not be content if they hear only me

An exercise in visualisation

2011-02-09T14:59:00.005-05:00

Many people think that the only neighbourhood of a dense subset of \(X\) must be the entire space \(X\). There's a counter-example that's so easy it's all one can think of afterwards, so that one soon forgets how hard it is to visualise: let \(q : \mathbb Z_{> 0} \to \mathbb Q\) be an enumeration of \(\mathbb Q\), and consider \(U_1 := \bigcup_{j \in \mathbb Z_{> 0}} (q_j - 1/2^j, q_j + 1/2^j)\

Chuck redux

2011-02-05T23:06:00.004-05:00

Do you know how to pronounce ‘redux’? I don't, and, although the answer is trivially easy for me to find out, nonetheless I don't; somehow it's fun to have these questions in life—that or I'm lazy. Well, if it's pronounced ‘reducks’ (as in “he ducks when the crane first comes at him, and then he reducks on the return path”), then the title is almost a rhyme; but if it's pronounced ‘redo’ (as in

Chuck

2011-02-04T22:55:00.005-05:00

This used to be quite a good blog. I was reading some old posts the other day, though what brought me here I don't recall, and came across some musings on Magritte, and, wow, that's not a bad analysis—not, by any stretch, art criticism, but there are interesting ideas, and that hysterical (in the sense of overwrought, not funny) essay by Hillier was well worth recalling (I had completely

Browser statistics

2009-06-24T20:51:00.005-05:00

I loves me consulting some StatCounter statistics, hoo boy, yes I do. Maybe if I post from time to time, I'll even get some visitors! Anyway, I couldn't help noticing that a vast majority of you are here using what StatCounter thinks is Safari 1.2. A quick Google hunt informs me that the number that Safari advertises in its UA is not the same as the one that one sees under Safari > About, but

iTunes ToS update

2009-06-24T20:35:00.003-05:00

I just downloaded something from iTunes today after a couple of weeks away from it, and noticed that they'd updated their ToS. Big surprise, right? (I don't download from them very often—I've become an eMusic junkie (although their recent we'll-give-you-music-you-don't-want-for-more deal has me reconsidering), with amazon.com for the tracks that aren't on eMusic (Drag City, we miss you!)—but it

Deep thought

2009-03-21T19:56:00.001-05:00

GIYF is a 2-step quine.

No telecom amnesty (for now)!

2008-03-14T19:03:00.003-05:00

I am joyous, over the roof, ecstatic about the recent house vote against providing telecom immunity. As Glenn Greenwald at Salon writes, opponents of immunity have long, and reasonably, believed that defeat was inevitable; so, although this is not yet a victory, at least it's a step forward rather than a step backward, and that, in the current environment, is something to cheer. So, happy,

Hurrah!

2007-08-27T11:06:00.001-05:00

Gonzales is gone-zales! (OK, it's no Gonzo is gonzo, but it's something.)

Misplaced outrage

2007-07-04T16:48:00.001-05:00

Hey, how about that! Three posts in a row with no blogger-created content! It's OK, though: A (err, self-, sorry) link at MacOSXHints has sent my traffic through the roof, which makes me feel quite the blogger, or would, anyway, if more than two of the people who came for my X.4.10 entry had stayed around to see anything else. Anyway, here's the first sentence of an eMusic review of Pecker's

Irony

2007-07-04T15:26:00.000-05:00

The BBC has an article up today, in which they report on the National Archive's worry that data stored in old proprietary formats are being, and will continue to be, lost as the programmes that could read them cease to be available. Here's the article, and here's a screen capture: Setting aside the facts that this seems to be an awfully belated reaction (did some popular programme just cease to

Free shipping

2007-07-01T14:57:00.000-05:00

I'm shopping for stereo systems right now on amazon.com (despite my co-author's, I think farcical, assurance that "stereos are déclassé"); and, stereos being heavy, am keeping out a keen eye for shipping costs. It seems, however, that amazon.com is having some sort of free shipping promotion (I can't find the details anywhere), so now's a good time to buy. All that being said, I'm not sure what

Tribute

2007-06-20T19:32:00.000-05:00

By the way, there was mentioned in the comments to my post I Am a Terrible, Terrible Person a note from naper271 to the effect that she had put up an homage on her own blog. I thought I acknowledged this but don't seem actually to have done, so I thought I'd put it here in a post rather than in the comments to a post from four months ago: I can think of little that would be more flattering than

Mac OS X.4.10 and USB drives

2007-06-20T18:53:00.001-05:00

UPDATE. I now believe that the procedure described here wasn't actually what solved my problem. Sorry. See the detailed update below. (I refuse, here and elsewhere, to use the term 'Mac OS X 10.4.10', so I switch occasionally between Mac OS 10.4.10, which grates because it omits the familiar X, and Mac OS X.4.10, which grates because it's hideous and internally inconsistent.) Well, as has

For Ping

2007-06-10T14:13:00.001-05:00

For reasons that you (probably) know, I thought you might enjoy this: I was recently in central London (more about that later, maybe) and needed to get to Heathrow. I took the Piccadilly Line tube from Russell Square. We proceeded one stop, to Holborn, where we stopped for a long while, after which the engineer announced -- these things always come out garbled, so it's hard to say for sure, but

"Our security system is fully impregnable"

2007-06-04T12:58:00.000-05:00

From a c|net article on Internet taxes: Sen. Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, said Wednesday that he'd like "to see an impregnable ban on taxes on the Internet." As a wiser man than I has said, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." UPDATE 20 June 2007. Although it didn't occur to me at the time, I should say that this remark is particularly surprising

eBay

2007-06-02T15:35:00.000-05:00

"Well," say my legions of devoted fans, "Loren doesn't post, and I understand he must be busy; but I do wish he would post something. In fact, if only he would post -- mmm, what would be best? Oooh, I know! If only he would post about his customer service experiences!" Well, legions, you need wait no longer. I'm in my approximately once-a-year eBay phase (trying to pick up a few Nick Cave

Enough!

2007-04-10T13:23:00.000-05:00

This is enough silence, and enough of noticing comments (such as naper271's on my last post) only after they have been around for a month. I will, I will, I will take to updating again. Only, uh, not today, because I'm busy. But tomorrow. Or possibly the next day. Well, it's weaselly, but I've said it publicly, so at least it'll be publicly embarrassing until I do something about it (or

I am a terrible, terrible person

2007-02-28T01:51:00.000-05:00

Three whole comments, and I was away for so long and neither moderated them nor turned off comment moderation .... (I could have sworn I turned on the option to get mails when visitors left comments, but apparently not.) Moderation is off now, so at least that problem won't recur. Naper271, if you chance to look in any time soon, I track my visitors using StatCounter, and have been quite

Magritte

2007-01-14T23:31:00.000-05:00

My posts about Magritte seem to be the single draw for this site -- at least, they seem to be the only way that people stumble here through Google. (Well, one person got here by searching for 'why I like this work' -- about which I feel I can (and maybe eventually will) say something, since, as with most academics, I have a high degree of job satisfaction -- but even that only found a sentence

Damn it!

2007-01-01T10:12:00.000-05:00

Now Death to the Extremist, too. Steven Cloud, stay strong! UPDATE 25 April 2007. No, Stephen Cloud, no! Don't move! You and I both know that this will be the beginning of the end!

Loren the content-slaughterer

2006-12-23T00:07:00.000-05:00

Somehow, it is my ability -- which I only hope humbly that I will always use for good -- utterly to kill any regularly-updating web site. Although I've forgotten the exact reason for each of the notches in my website-killing belt (a rugged and manly adornment with which I am always girt while browsing), I have felled such lofties as Not My Desk, Spamusement, and (apparently) Permanent Monday,

Used videos on amazon.com

2006-11-20T15:09:00.000-05:00

Hurrah! Time to break my two weeks' silence with uninteresting content! I was recently looking at the listings for With a Friend Like Harry on amazon.com, and saw in the Used list that one seller offers the following comments: Brand New! Factory Sealed! US Retail DVD! SORRY, BUT WE CANNOT SHIP THIS ITEM TO ILLINOIS. Customer service is our #1 priority. We ship your order from Illinois within

The math

2006-11-07T22:06:00.000-05:00

I've wanted for a while to post about Rove's NPR appearance on 24 October, but was waiting until I had the time to write a nuanced and clever piece on it. However, this being election night, the time is nigh (if not upon us) when either no one in my readership will care what he said, or no one will be able to bear to read it; so, in the window of opportunity left to me, I would like to point to

Excellence

2006-11-04T17:07:00.000-05:00

I am again at my mentor's house, having been once more, frightening as it is, left with the responsibility for the care of his children. The older of the two children is watching some sports-related programme on television, which was interrupted a moment ago by a commercial for something NFL-related. "How", the narrator of this commercial wondered, in a deep voice and with portentous tone, "do

More Magritte

2006-11-01T19:07:00.000-05:00

I have been trying for some time to find a good scan of L'homme au journal, one member of the troika of my favourite Magritte works (the other members being the previously-discussed La durée poignardée and La reproduction interdite, on the second of which more below); but, unlike most other Magritte works (which have been relatively easy to find online), this one appears to be nowhere available -

Fractran

2006-10-30T22:33:00.000-05:00

The idea of encoding an arbitrary finite string of integers as a single fraction (by looking at a product of primes to appropriate powers) will probably not be new to any mathematician, and certainly not to any logician; but I think the idea that this encoding can be put to any practical use will probably be a surprising one. Of course one's value of 'practical' can differ, but John Conway has

Battle of the text editors on QDB

2006-10-26T20:29:00.000-05:00

The decisive victory of vi over emacs in Google Trends being deceptive (whatever one thinks of the various text editors, it cannot be believed that the film Rocky VI has anything to say about any of them), one must turn to another source. Since I am addicted to QDB anyway, why not check what the fine folks who submit quotes there think of the two editors? Thus: emacs vs. vi 1. 1 I agree with

Tell your story well, but quickly

2006-10-26T15:57:00.000-05:00

As happens to all good things, Wired magazine's article featuring six-word stories by famous sci-fi writers turned up on Metafilter, where, as one would expect, the meme was taken up and propagated with alacrity. The results (358 comments as of this post!), some of which (for example, wendell's remarkable series and, though the spirit of it is different, this punctuation-themed story) are

Prolific readers

2006-10-11T22:12:00.000-05:00

I've just, apparently, made the acquaintance of someone in Redmond who, eager to see all that can be seen in my blog, has been reading entries at the rate of about one every ten seconds. Hello, sir and/or madam! Your implicit criticism about the too-short length of my entries is well taken, and it won't happen again. (Also: Don't worry! I consider it highly likely that this blog will be here

ToS from avis.com

2006-10-10T12:52:00.000-05:00

When one rents a vehicle from Avis, one "may be asked to sign a declaration attesting to specific criteria, among them: .... The renter/authorized driver has not, within the last 36 months failed to report or leave the scene of an accident." Hmm.

Fantastic fables

2006-10-05T09:49:00.000-05:00

The great mass of people know of Ambrose Bierce through his Devil's Dictionary; but it is my opinion that his Fantastic Fables also are worthy of some attention. Herewith, three of my favourites. "The Foolish Woman": A Married Woman, whose lover was about to reform by running away, procured a pistol and shot him dead. "Why did you do that, Madam?" inquired a Policeman, sauntering by. "Because

Won't somebody think of the ...?

2006-10-02T22:15:00.000-05:00

Won't somebody think of the congressmen? This is, frankly, just amazing to me. I mean, lying, corruption, torture -- these are all the Republican family values we've come to expect -- but pedophilia? That is to say, not just pedophilia, but pedophilia practiced by the fucking pedophile who was head of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus? (Really! -- this link should

Four impressions after babysitting

2006-09-30T23:11:00.000-05:00

I was called upon today to baby-sit my mentor's children. Here are some impressions from that adventure. A five-year-old child can be excused for once, or even several times, addressing one of his father's boring friends by the name of another, rather than by his own name. However, when I am so addressed on every occasion -- indeed, several times (despite my gentle reminders to the contrary)

Creative use of frequent flyer miles

2006-09-30T15:22:00.000-05:00

I created a post with lots of (boring) content yesterday, right? So no one can blame me if I put up a post today with just a link to a news story, sans even any analysis, right? Certainly they can't! Since no one reads this, no one will ever know to do so! Anyway, herewith the single link which is, shamefully, the content of this post. P.S. On further thought, I've got some analysis after

Utilities for the Mac

2006-09-29T12:40:00.000-05:00

The first Macintosh computer I used was an Apple IIe, in elementary school; though I barely remember it, my impressions of it are reasonably positive (probably because it was on the Apple IIe's that we played Oregon Trail, at which I used to be pretty good). The next time I used a Macintosh, I think it must have been running one of the very early versions of Mac OS -- System 7, or whatever was

Geography

2006-09-28T23:46:00.000-05:00

I was always a little weak on geography in school, but I think I would have remembered this. (Thanks, Slashdot!)

A programmer's definition

2006-09-20T21:22:00.000-05:00

... and now for something completely different (courtesy of www.vim.org): UPDATE 3 October 2006. In reply to those who asked, I should mention that, although at least the second image above is probably illegible -- or whatever is the analogue of illegibility for pictures -- at the displayed size, following the link underlying either one (or indeed any picture on this blog) will take one to

Linguistic embarrassments

2006-09-20T17:01:00.000-05:00

I have always thought that 'concision' was much more elegant than the clumsy formation 'conciseness'. Today, I started reading some articles on Perl, where, I suppose predictably, I found the concept of concise-itude referenced repeatedly -- and always it was the latter word that was used. Well, I gritted my teeth, much as I do when I find yet another example that people just haven't learned

Witty introduction

2006-09-16T11:17:00.000-05:00

I've been trying for a long time to think of some way to add my own stamp to the laugh (and shock of recognition) this remark gave me, but, since I can't, I think I'll just pass it on without any further comment. The context (for those who don't like to scroll up) is a Metafilter thread on the thoughtcrime registry recently established in Ohio for people who may, or may not, be child molesters,

Attempting the impossible

2006-09-16T09:34:00.000-05:00

As a previous entry on art may have made clear (if in a slightly back-handed way), I am a tremendous fan of Magritte's. Knowing this, my wife bought for me last Christmas a Magritte monthly calendar, which I decided to take in to my office. (After all, there is probably no better person than a researcher stuck on a problem to understand the true meaning of la durée poignardée.) This venture

Won't somebody think of the ...?

2006-09-16T09:30:00.000-05:00

From an article on PDF vulnerabilities (which, not unlike the recent article on Macintosh wireless vulnerabilities, charmingly reassures us that we should be very, very, very afraid, without being entirely clear about, say, how we can resolve the security problem, whether other configurations than the one discussed (Windows with Adobe Reader and Internet Explorer, as near as I can tell) are

I'm Your Man

2006-09-11T22:56:00.000-05:00

I'm just back from seeing the Leonard Cohen documentary I'm Your Man at the Michigan Theater. This title, taken together with one of that of one of the movies playing at State Theater (which is about half a block away), makes for an interesting combination. (I would have preferred getting pictures of the marquees, rather than just listings from Moviefone, but, unfortunately, I'm Your Man

Milestone

2006-09-11T19:49:00.000-05:00

Woo-hoo! In just under four months, I have achieved the remarkable statistic of 100 visitors. (While it may not sound much to you, just think -- that's more than 0.8 visitors a day!) Thanks, everybody! Thanks, A. C. and J. P., you loveable scallywags! Thanks, me, for occasionally reloading the page eight times in a row to check small edits, while forgetting that I hadn't blocked my IP

Ann Arbor buses

2006-09-09T20:31:00.000-05:00

Given that the lion's share of my (staggeringly massive) traffic seems to come from Europe -- of which again by far the majority is people from England looking for information on Those Two -- I suspect whingeing about buses in Ann Arbor will not find its perfect audience here; but nonetheless the spirit moves me to comment. Why, why, has the perfectly functional and unobtrusive ding (followed,

Amazon Unboxed

2006-09-08T12:30:00.000-05:00

I know I'm a bit late on the scene with this comment, but there was a sentence in an article about online movie rentals which appeared shortly before Amazon Unbox débuted which I found a little strange: The reason Amazon will have content from most major studios, while Apple may have only one, comes down to price, insiders said. Because it also sells DVDs, Amazon has agreed to studio demands

Envy

2006-09-08T12:23:00.000-05:00

Perhaps it is just that I have had my expectations lowered by the clever headlines with which such newspapers as Chicago Tribune spin-off Red Eye decorate their front pages ('Super Manny!' cried a recent headline on the apparently front-page worthy trend of men who work as nannies -- heroes all of them, naturally, unlike, one presumes, the women who do the same job, because, come on, 'Womanny'

Unusual search terms

2006-09-06T23:51:00.000-05:00

One of my favourite running jokes in Christopher Livingston's old site Not My Desk was when he would detail the bizarre search terms that had brought people to his site. When I started this blog, it was easy to believe that my purpose in doing so to communicate my deepest, innermost feelings, on, for example, missing 'n's, but really, if I am honest with myself, what I wanted to see was what

The case of the car manufacturer(s) and the missing 'n'(s)

2006-08-24T12:43:00.000-05:00

I have long since reconciled myself to the Mazda Millenia. "Why not", I'm sure people said to themselves, "buy a car with a misspelt name, seeing as the world will end at the turn of the [ahem] millennium anyway?" However, it now appears that, if one gives an industry an inch (or, say, a missing letter), they will take a mile (or, say, the same missing letter again). I have just discovered

Wondermark

2006-08-11T11:13:00.000-05:00

Wondermark hits the nail on the head today. Somehow, topical humour is immeasurably enriched when it is delivered by denizens of archaic clip-art.

Things That Sound Dirty but (Probably) Aren't #469

2006-08-09T14:10:00.000-05:00

"This is a service course, and I'd just like to know how we're supposed to be servicing these people."

Time Machine in Leopard

2006-08-08T00:00:00.000-05:00

I have a startling revelation. Wait for it, wait for it -- Steve Jobs engages in hyperbole! Specifically, here's a quote from http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/timemachine.html: As you make changes, Time Machine only backs up what changes, all the while maintaining a comprehensive layout of your system. That way, Time Machine minimizes the space required on your backup device. Since backups

More graffiti

2006-08-07T23:10:00.000-05:00

The walls of the men's bathroom in Rendezvous Café here in Ann Arbor are a rich source of graffiti. Today I saw one which clearly belongs in any respectable collection. It is a three-part epic, which I will now relate. La première partie: I wish I was angry. La deuxième partie: It's "were", you fucking cock muncher. Use the correct subjunctive mood. You live in America, where we go to

The press does what?

2006-08-07T22:45:00.000-05:00

The current administration evidently not being frightened by An Inconvenient Truth, one wonders what would be the plot of a horror movie which would frighten them. Setting aside any such juvenile speculation as whether they would be horrified by a movie about gay marriage, or would rather watch it under the covers with the lights off 1, one can only imagine that perhaps the most terrifying plot

La condition humaine

2006-08-04T15:00:00.000-05:00

I recently (well, not so recently now -- it can sometimes take me a long time to finish up one of these entries) went to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and enjoyed myself much more than I expected to do. The West Building (the one with -- I suppose one says -- "classical art", as opposed to the East Building, successfully to navigate which one needs to be able to identify what

QDB

2006-07-28T12:59:00.000-05:00

Although the quotes at www.bash.org can frequently be a bit too crude for my taste, or else just rehashes of old jokes which the submitters have (I suppose) tried to infuse with new life by casting them as apparently spontaneous outpourings of wit, I find quote #376790 sublimely funny.

Jury questionnaire

2006-07-27T11:01:00.000-05:00

I just received a jury questionnaire (yeah, a chance to perform my duty as a citizen!), on which question 11 wonders: 11. ARE YOU PHYSICALLY OR MENTALLY ABLE TO CARRY OUT THE FUNCTIONS OF A JUROR? Or? Further -- I am tempted to reply 'yes' to the question 12. IF YOU ARE OVER 70 YEARS OLD, DO YOU WISH TO CLAIM EXEMPTION FROM JURY DUTY? (just because "If I am over 70 years old, then I wish to

Favourite graffiti

2006-07-21T16:03:00.000-05:00

My father likes to 'collect' license plates wherever he goes -- in the sense that he writes down the interesting ones, not that he skulks about with screwdriver in hand. In a similar sense, I like to collect bathroom graffiti. In the men's bathroom of a restaurant near the University of Toronto (I can't remember the name), there was a real wealth of graffiti, but one particularly caught my eye:

The everyday usefulness of mathematics

2006-07-21T13:05:00.000-05:00

Metafilter recently had a discussion of mathematics as applied to moving -- the neatest thread I've ever seen there. I am reminded of the story told by Ralph Boas about a mathematician who, watching movers try in vain to manoeuvre a large couch through a narrow doorway, sat down and worked out to his own satisfaction that it could not be done -- only to find, on returning to announce his

Some signs

2006-07-21T12:51:00.000-05:00

The first sign I wish to mention is one that I saw during my recent stay in Las Vegas (ugh). During a foolish attempt to move a foot or two, I naturally encountered a slot machine, which bore (roughly) the following warning on its side: Warning: Nevada state law prohibits use of or loitering near slot machines by people under 21 years of age. Ignoring the rather welcome fact that, for the first

A bumper sticker I'd like to see

2006-07-21T12:49:00.000-05:00

"I'm pro-dictatorship, and I don't vote!"

An open letter to documenters of Python

2006-07-12T21:27:00.000-05:00

I am not much of a programmer, and I have programmed not a line of Python, so I won't comment, except in parentheses, on such things as its relative merits with respect to Perl (in which I have programmed) and its forced indentation (yecch). However, there is a quick lesson in order. The following object: ' is a single quote. The following object: '' (two ['] characters) is a double quote. A

A visit to the post office

2006-07-05T17:07:00.000-05:00

My wife (who is not a US citizen) will soon be travelling to Sweden (and Rome and Venice and Paris and Frankfurt and Stockholm and London), and I was helping her apply for a Swedish visa. Since, unlike all the other cities mentioned, London doesn't allow travel on a Schengen visa, we applied separately (with a separate wad of dollars) for a UK visa; and, though I am not too happy with the price,

Table tennis terminology

2006-06-21T12:14:00.000-05:00

I find awkward, and I know (courtesy of www.bash.org) that some people deplore the habit of, constantly referring in one's blog to 'a friend' or some such (rather than naming said friend). If there are other people in my story, it makes back-references difficult -- the constant refrain of 'my friend', 'that friend', 'the friend I mentioned' &c. is difficult to decipher -- if not actually

A quick lesson in percentages

2006-06-19T18:38:00.000-05:00

Dilbert is simply being modest. As he is certainly perfectly aware, given that his budget was cut by 10% and then he came in 10% over this revised budget, he spent only 99% of the funds requested, not all of them. Since Scott Adams is deeply concerned with my point of view, I looked for a contact link, but, funnily enough, he seems to have forgotten to include it.

This is your tracking number

2006-06-16T20:34:00.000-05:00

I was at the post office yesterday (of which more, theoretically, later), behind someone who was shipping a package. The clerk rang up the postage and did all those other fun things clerks do, before giving the customer his tracking number and saying, for the benefit of the slow ones in the class, "This is your tracking number." Of course I've heard this phrase many times before, but something

War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength ...

2006-06-11T09:16:00.000-05:00

... and suicide is an act of war. I don't like just to post a link and leave it at that, but neither do I know how to comment on this except through enraged and astonished sputtering, which doesn't translate too well to a blog post. (The news story, incidentally, repeatedly quotes the military's assertion that the suicides were in fact an act of 'asymmetrical' warfare, which I accepted -- why,

Conflict in Egypt

2006-06-04T23:59:00.000-05:00

Despite my best efforts, my first reaction on hearing about riots among Coptic Christians in Egypt after several Christian churches were attacked by a knife-wielding Muslim was not to think "What a shame. If only the differing religions of the world could learn to tolerate one another." but, rather, to picture one Muslim saying to another "Cheese it, it's the Copts!"

Anti-sub-inter-intra-super-pro-...

2006-06-03T16:16:00.000-05:00

Homosexuals of the world, rejoice, for 'conversion therapist' Richard Cohen (who is 'ex-gay') can cure you. In order, for example, to cure you, the homosexual male, of wanting to be held by a man, he will hold you. You can also exorcise your, or at least his, anger by beating up a pillow. (That link points to, and most of the information in this post comes from, Crooks and Liars). Of course,

Verbs with unusual suffices

2006-05-27T00:39:00.000-05:00

In mathematics, when we make an arbitrary linear algebraic group into a semisimple one, or a presheaf into a sheaf, we call it semisimplification, or sheafification. I am ashamed to say I got very worked up about this -- not ashamed, that is, because I got worked up, but rather ashamed because I was completely in the wrong. When thinking about the words 'semisimplification' and 'sheafification'

Inhofe!

2006-05-22T09:24:00.000-05:00

As far as I know, there's no tag in HTML, or I would've used that. Today, when I went to read the Ironic Times (America's Premier News Source on Mondays), I saw a story headlined "English declared 'national' language". It is sometimes hard for me to tell, in today's world, what in satirical newspapers is completely exaggerated for comic effect, and what is an actual,

More legal agreements

2006-05-21T15:26:00.000-05:00

I have another post in the works -- about NPR interviewers, and why why why can't they ask follow-up questions when administration or other official spokespeople blow them off -- but, in the meantime, I just can't wait to post the following gem, to which one must agree before submitting a visa application to the UK: I am aware that it is an offence under the Immigration Act 1971, as amended by

Terms of Service

2006-05-18T20:47:00.000-05:00

It has long been my practice -- for my father instilled in me a sense of the importance one should attach to contracts -- actually to read the various terms of service-type documents with which one is nowadays presented prior to every transaction, of goods or information, more advanced than ordering a meal. (Perhaps some fast food places would do well to have an EELA -- end eater license

The amazing dexterity of Loren

2006-05-16T13:26:00.000-05:00

Lately, I have been playing a lot of table tennis with a good friend of mine here in Ann Arbor. I also played quite a bit a few years ago, and, though I got up to a sufficient level of competence that I didn't consistently embarrass myself while playing, I was never very good. Of course, when I resumed playing after two years' break, I was even worse; but we have been playing every week day, or

It is regrettable that ...

2006-05-14T23:49:00.000-05:00

... I have come, only ten or twelve years late, to the blogging party. (According to Wikipedia, the first "online diary", as apparently these objects were originally known -- before the nomenclature ascended to the incontrovertible bliss of the word 'blog' -- was started in 1994; although, tantalisingly, this information comes without any mention of what the site was, by whom it was run, and