September 2008
41 posts
I added a few more photos to the ‘eight months’ set — photos I pulled off my cell phone this afternoon. Oh, and Picasa apparently re-enabled the feature that lets me post a little preview here. So here you go:
Around 8 months
Trickster Central →
The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the... →
The classic book of typographic design applied to the Web
This is a test post written on my iPod touch with the new Wordpress app.
You can find some new photos of Nathan on the Picasa site. I can’t post a preview of the images here, however. Picasa did some upgrades and apparently eliminated that export feature. Here’s the link, though: http://picasaweb.google.com/superjaberwocky/Around8Months#
Nathan is just about ready to start crawling, it seems. I’ve written before how he likes to worm his way across the floor. Well, he’s gotten very good at this and can cover the entire breadth of the apartment in just a few seconds, which is a little annoying when I leave him in his room to get something done in the kitchen real quick. (I used to have a minute or two to get things done; now I...
They've Got Mail - The Current →
Commentary from the Atlantic on Sarah Palin’s choice to use a personal e-mail account to conduct state business and the hipocrisy this shows in her views on government transparency.
Microsoft has done away with the quirky ads featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates, prompting suspicion that the nigh-nonsensical ad campaign was a flop. But Microsoft spokespeople told the Associated Press that it was always the plan to pull the ads at this time and replace them with ads that actually have something to do with Windows.
Brian Heater at PC Magazine, wrote that the original ad...
Well, it’s official. At 2 a.m. this morning, a passerby reported a fire at Huntley Project High School. By about 5 a.m., the school was pretty much destroyed. The photos from the still-smoldering Billings Gazette story are pretty good. Take a look if you like.
I’m not sure what to think or say right now. I’m not really sad. I’m a little surprised. I’m more interested than anything, especially...
Huntley Project School fire :: Billings Gazette photo gallery
Source: billingsgazette.net
Firefighters from Worden, Shepherd, Lockwood and Billings battle a fire at the Huntley Project High School in Worden early Thursday. LARRY MAYER/Gazette Staff
Commentary: How to prevent the next Wall Street crisis
Source: www.cnn.com
Many seem taken aback by the depth and severity of the current financial turmoil. I was among several economists who saw it coming and warned about the risks.
Palin staff won’t testify in trooper probe, AG says
Source: www.cnn.com
Aides to Gov. Sarah Palin won’t comply with subpoenas issued by state lawmakers investigating the firing of Alaska’s former public safety commissioner, since Palin “has declined to participate” in the probe, her attorney general says.
Palin aide says Obama backers politicizing Alaska investigation
Source: www.cnn.com
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will not cooperate with a “tainted” legislative investigation into the firing of her public safety commissioner, the McCain-Palin campaign announced Monday, accusing supporters of Democratic rival Barack Obama of manipulating the probe for political motivations.
Martin K. Tytell, Typewriter Wizard, Dies at 94
Source: www.nytimes.com
Mr. Tytell’s knowledge of typewriters was a boon to American spies during World War II, a tool for the defense lawyers for Alger Hiss and a necessity for literary luminaries.
Innocence and Experience →
Casanovaâs first orgasm, Hitlerâs famous mustache, Bob Hopeâs last jokes: for every thing, there is a season. Herewith a compilation of great moments in precocity, endurance, and…
Psychologists at the University of Montreal will soon begin studying Internet addiction.
Their study will focus on teens who don’t leave home, who don’t have relationships with other human beings and who “only speak in the language of the characters they play iwth in network video games” — no doubt a subtle prod at MMORPGs, such as World of Warcraft, and their copious jargon.
Professor Loise...
The Justice Department may sue Google over its upcoming advertising partnership with Yahoo, the Wall Street Journal reports. The department has hired high-profile lawyer Sandford Litvack and has been deposing witnesses and gathering documents about the deal for weeks.
Under the ad partnership, Yahoo would show the valuable Google ads along with its own ads. The prices will be set by auction and...
Jonathan Yardley at the Washington Post wrote a little praise for Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style a couple of days ago, which drew some criticism from Jan Freeman at the Boston Globe and some follow-up criticism from various bloggers across the Web.
It make me think about the “little book.” I’ve owned a copy since my freshman year at college. It was the fourth edition then, as it still...
Jonathan Yardley - A 'Little Book' Bursting With... →
The article in the Washington Post that started a while line of invective on language and writing blogs across the Internet. Jonathan Yardley praises “The Elements of Style” in this back-to-school…
Return of the living dead →
Anti-praise for a little book that I happen to enjoy, “The Elements of Style.” Do I use the book religiously? No, but I like it, and I feel a little defensive when people like the Boston Globe’s Jan…
A U.S. district judge has ruled that a Michigan-based company cannot publish an encyclopedia about the popular Harry Potter novels because the reference books uses too much of author J.K. Rowling’s original material.
The material for the Harry Potter Lexicon was taken from a Web site operated by Steven Vander Ark, a former school librarian. Rowling herself once praised the Web site, but said...
Print Journalism Squeeze Hits Campuses →
Campus newspapers are struggling with the newspaper industry’s slow-down too. Many are cutting back on their print editions or switching to online-only production. Others, at least those partially…
New E-Newspaper Reader Echoes Look of the Paper →
A new E-Ink device slated to be released next year by the Plastic Logic company has a screen the size of a sheet of copier paper and can wirelessly update its contents, taking us one step closer to…
A new iPod, just in time too, because we were just thinking of buying a new one for my wife. This means that now we have to wait a few months until things calm down before we buy her new iPod, or else we have to hunting for a store that will still be carrying any of the older (and hopefully cheaper) models.
I suppose I can’t blame Apple. They do this sort of thing every year at about this time,...
Why is the Internet so infuriatingly slow? →
Slate magazine takes a look at the traffic congestion threatening to give the Internet a massive coronary and a few of the not-so-palatable solutions that ISPs are suggesting.
Is Cuil killing the Internet?
Source: blogs.zdnet.com
The Google-killer search engine, Cuil, widely regarded as a powerful failure, now seems to be killing the entire Internet, one Web site at a time.
It was about this time of the year in 2000, the heady days before 9/11, before downloading .mp3s was really illegal. I was just starting college and having my first real experiences with fast Internet service.
Back at home, a small town about 30 miles from Billings, Mont., I’d had the Internet since 1996, but there wasn’t much to see out there. Plus, you couldn’t hope to see very much of it...
For some reason, the news today that cartoonist Lynn Johnston has chosen to reboot her popular “For Better or for Worse” strip has… affected me. It’s not like I read the comic strip; I haven’t read the funny pages with any regularity since the days of “Calvin and Hobbes,” but I did read the strip in my local papers every time I looked at the comics. I thought it was unique that the characters in...
THE SLOT: Sharp Points →
A page full of interesting notes on writing style, from guidelines for ellipses to the use of percentages and multiplier words.
Writers, Visible and Invisible →
An essay by Cynthia Ozick on how all true writing is done in isolation. Few people have ever seen a true writer because of this. All we see is a ghost or reflection of that author, a different and…
Just right for the garden: a mini-cow →
Miniature breeds of cow, no taller than a German shepherd, are becoming popular with people who want to combat rising food prices. They produce about 16 pints of milk a day and can be a family pet…
Important work can be done while daydreaming →
Daydreaming may be the default mode of the human brain, scientists say, making this action that many people see as lazy or unfocused essential to humanity and creativity.
A quick note today while things are fresh in my mind. We used to say that when a story was covered extensively by the media that a lot of ink was spilled on its account. Of course, this refers to the decidedly old timey process of actually writing something in ink… you know, with a pen…by hand. Remember?
Anyhow, I’ve seen in more than one online post the new phrase “spilled electrons” or “to...
Pop!Tech →
From the site, “A network of remarkable people, extraordinary conferences, powerful ideas and innovative projects that are changing the world.”
September has come to Bozeman and brought with it rain and the cooler temperatures that I absolutely love about fall. Before we know it, the snow will be falling and winter will finally be here.
Nathan has started to feed himself crackers and has taken a liking to quite a few new foods. He eats plenty of bananas but will also so for squash, sweet potatoes, apple juice, pear juice, pears,...
Grammar News - The New York Times →
The New York Times’ topic page on grammar and usage.
Instapaper →
Microsoft patents Page Up / Page Down functionality
Source: www.engadget.com
Here’s one straight from the far left corner of left field. Microsoft has not only filed for, but actually received a patent that essentially amounts to Page Up / Page Down functionality. More specifically, …
The curse word ‘Battlestar Galactica’ created
Source: www.cnn.com
Lee Goldberg thinks Glen A. Larson is a genius, and not because the prolific television writer and producer gave us “Knight Rider” and “B.J. and the Bear.”
Link by Link - Don’t Like Palin’s Wikipedia Story?... →
The day before Sarah Palin was announced as John McCain’s running mate, a Wikipedia user made dozens of seemingly positive and mostly substantial edits to Palin’s Wikipedia article. It is uncertain…
‘In a world’ voiceover master dies at 68
Source: www.cnn.com
Don LaFontaine, the voiceover king whose “In a world …” phrase on movie trailers was much copied — and much parodied — has died, according to media reports. He was 68.