FW: no comment

 observation from my friend John:

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Words of 2010

from World Wide Words:

The New Oxford American Dictionary is as usual first out of the gate with its Words of 2010. 

The runners-up included TEA PARTY, VUVUZELA, WEBISODE, and CROWDSOURCING. 

The winner is Sarah Palin's error in July of writing REFUDIATE in a Twitter posting when she meant "repudiate". 

The editors say they won't add it to the dictionary, though they commented that "From a strictly lexical interpretation of the different contexts in which Palin has used 'refudiate', we have concluded that neither 'refute' nor 'repudiate' seems consistently precise, and that 'refudiate' more or less stands on its own, suggesting a general sense of 'reject'." 

I think that means they see some merit in it. They also make the point, not passed on in news reports, that Sarah Palin wasn't the first user - there are examples in books and newspapers going back decades. 

Incidentally, the Huffington Post take on the story was headlined "Palin Exonerized by New Oxford American Dictionary".

George Washington sets aside Thursday, November 26 as "A Day of Publick Thanksgiving and Prayer."

 General Thanksgiving

By the PRESIDENT of the United States Of America
A PROCLAMATION
 
WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houfes of Congress have, by their joint committee, requefted me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to eftablifh a form of government for their safety and happiness:"
 
NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and affign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of thefe States to the fervice of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our fincere and humble thanksfor His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the fignal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpofitions of His providence in the courfe and conclufion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have fince enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to eftablish Conftitutions of government for our fafety and happinefs, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are bleffed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffufing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleafed to confer upon us.
 
And also, that we may then unite in moft humbly offering our prayers and fupplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and befeech Him to pardon our national and other tranfgreffions;-- to enable us all, whether in publick or private ftations, to perform our feveral and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a bleffing to all the people by conftantly being a Government of wife, juft, and conftitutional laws, difcreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all fovereigns and nations (especially fuch as have shewn kindnefs unto us); and to blefs them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increafe of fcience among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind fuch a degree of temporal profperity as he alone knows to be beft.
 
GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand feven hundred and eighty-nine.
 
(signed) G. Washington
 
 
image of original document at:
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/firsts/thanksgiving/original.html

Humorist Calvin Trillin on the Real National Dish for Thanksgiving

Calvin Trillin's Campaign to Make Spaghetti Carbonara the National Dish for Thanksgiving 

  the real story of the first Thanksgiving
[The following has been shamelessly excerpted from "Third Helpings," by Calvin Trillin. ]:

I have been campaigning to have the national Thanksgiving dish changed from turkey to spaghetti carbonara.

It does not take much historical research to uncover the fact that nobody knows if the Pilgrims really ate turkey at the first Thanksgiving dinner. The only thing we know for sure about what the Pilgrims ate is that it couldn't have tasted very good. Even today, well brought-up English girls are taught by their mothers to boil all veggies for at least a month and a half, just in case one of the dinner guests turns up without his teeth...

It would also not require much digging to discover that Christopher Columbus, the man who may have brought linguine with clam sauce to this continent, was from Genoa, and obviously would have sooner acknowledged that the world was shaped like an isosceles triangle than to have eaten the sort of things that the English Puritans ate. Righting an ancient wrong against Columbus, a great man who certainly did not come all this way only to have a city in Ohio named after him, would be a serious historical contribution. Also, I happen to love spaghetti carbonara.

[In our family]...Thanksgiving has often been celebrated away from home. It was at other people's Thanksgiving tables that I first began to articulate my spaghetti carbonara campaign--although, since we were usually served turkey, I naturally did not mention that the campaign had been inspired partly by my belief that turkey is basically something college dormitories use to punish students for hanging around on Sunday... I reminded everyone how refreshing it would be to hear sports announcers call some annual tussle the Spaghetti Carbonara Day Classic.

I even had a ready answer to the occasional turkey fancier at those meals who insist that spaghetti carbonara was almost certainly not what our forebears ate at the first Thanksgiving dinner. As it happens, one of the things I give thanks for every year is that those people in the Plymouth Colony were not my forebears. Who wants forebears who put people in the stocks for playing the harpsichord on the Sabbath or having an innocent little game of pinch and giggle?

Finally there came a year when nobody invited us to Thanksgiving dinner. Alice's theory was that the word had got around town that I always made a pest out of myself berating the hostess for serving turkey instead of spaghetti carbonara...

However it came about, I was delighted at the opportunity we had been given to practice what I had been preaching--to sit down to a Thanksgiving dinner of spaghetti carbonara.

Naturally, the entire family went over to Rafetto's pasta store on Houston Street to see the spaghetti cut .  I got the cheese at Joe's dairy, on Sullivan, a place that would have made Columbus feel right at home--there are plenty of Genoese on Sullivan, no Pilgrims--and then headed for the pork store on Carmine Street for the bacon and ham. Alice made the spaghetti carbonara. It was perfection. I love spaghetti carbonara. Then I began to tell the children the story of the first Thanksgiving:

In England, along time ago, there were people called Pilgrims who were very strict about making everyone observe the Sabbath and cooked food without any flavor and that sort of thing, and they decided to go to America, where they could enjoy Freedom to Nag. The other people in England said, "Glad to see the back of them." In America, the Pilgrims tried farming, but they couldn't get much done because they were always putting their best farmers in the stocks for crimes like Suspicion of Cheerfulness. The Indians took pity on the Pilgrims and helped them with their farming, even though the Indians thought that the Pilgrims were about as much fun as teenage circumcision. The Pilgrims were so grateful that at the end of their first year in America they invited the Indians over for a Thanksgiving meal.

 

The Indians, having had some experience with Pilgrim cuisine during the year, took the precaution of taking along one dish of their own. They brought a dish that their ancestors had learned from none other than Christopher Columbus, who was known to the Indians as "the big Italian fellow." The dish was spaghetti carbonara--made with pancetta bacon and fontina and the best imported prosciutto. The Pilgrims hated it. They said it was "heretically tasty" and "the work of the devil" and "the sort of thing foreigners eat." The Indians were so disgusted that on the way back to their village after dinner one of them made a remark about the Pilgrims that was repeated down through the years and unfortunately caused confusion among historians about the first Thanksgiving meal. He said, "What a bunch of turkeys!"

   

Hmmmmm....

.
"Whether I make them or not, there are always sounds to be heard and all of them are excellent."
    — John Cage, US composer of avant-garde music, from a speech in 1954    http://www.erstwhilerecords.com/articles/01_nytimes.html
 
=====
 
I hear music
Mighty fine music 
The murmur of a morning breeze up there 
The rattle of the milkman on the stair 
Sure that's music 
Mighty fine music 
The singing of a sparrow in the sky 
The perking of the coffee right near by 
    — Billie Holiday ( Frank Loesser / Burton Lane)  (1940) 

 

404 Error, NPR style

I clicked a link to a page on NPR's website.
The page no longer exists.
 
Instead, it says:
 

It's a shame that your page is lost, but at least it's in good company; stick around to browse through NPR stories about lost people, places and things that still haven't turned up.
 
Amelia Earhart
18 1/2 Minutes of Watergate Tapes
Jimmy Hoffa
Tapes of the Moon Landing
The Lost City of Atlantis
Waldo
Your Luggage
  
 

Redneck Thanksgiving, Norman Rockwell style

 

Thanksgiving on a cake plate

  "It's a cake."

"It's a meal."

   "Cake!"

"Meal!"

"Hold it you two. It's both."

 

Are you in a rush to get through Thanksgiving dinner this year, even at the expense of making your loved ones physically ill? 


Introducing Thanksgiving Turkey Cake — an entire meal of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and sweet potato dessert — all condensed into one mind-bending holiday shitstorm!


Imagine the sheer joy of a cake that dominates all family-oriented conversation, so you don't need to discuss being single, unemployed, broke, overweight, and drunk. 

(Via BuzzFeed)

 

Quote of the Day

from my friend John:

 

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a completely ad-hoc plot device"

     —David Langford, "A Gadget Too Far", as a corollary to Arthur C. Clarke's third law

 

 =====

 

"Captain, if we use the main deflector shield to create an inverse tachyon field,
this should serve as a splendid deus ex machina device."

 

DawkinsCat

 

Nicaraguan Invasion? Blame Google Maps

.
An embarrassing error on Google Maps has been blamed for Nicaragua's accidental invasion of Costa Rica. Last week, Nicaraguan troops crossed the border, took down a Costa Rican flag and defiantly raised their own flag on Costa Rican turf.
 
But the troops' commander, Eden Pastora, told a Costa Rican newspaper, La Nacion, that his invasion was not his fault, because Google Maps mistakenly said the territory belonged to Nicaragua. Government officials in Nicaragua have also blamed a "bug in Google" for the error.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/11/google-maps-error-blamed-for-nicaraguan-invasion/

 

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A similar map glitch occurred in 1939, when Google Maps inadvertently showed Germany's borders encompassed France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and a large chunk of Russia.
 
Oops.

 

Better than Shatner?

http://ifionlyhad.blogspot.com/2009/05/brent-spiner-ol-yellow-eyes-is-back.html
 

---

Data sings better, but Shatner is MUCH funnier.
Especially "The Transformed Man"

Today he treats it as if it was an intentional joke.
I don't believe him.
I think he really believed that... He.  Was.  Making.  ART! 
 
 

Kinect to the Metaverse

from my friend John 

---

 

Here's the NYT article about the new Microsoft gaming system that enters Neal Stephenson territory:

 

 

The Kinect is a glossy, foot-wide, black plastic horizontal bar. You plug its single cable into your Xbox.  You park the Kinect itself on, or beside, your TV. During start-up, a motor moves the bar on its stand, making it scan the room up and down like some would-be Wall-E.
 
It has four microphones and three little lenses: a video camera, an infrared projector and a distance sensor. Together, these lenses determine where you are in the room.
 
And not just you. The system tracks 48 parts of your body in three-dimensional space. It doesn't just know where your hand is, like the Wii. No, the Kinect tracks the motion of your head, hands, torso, waist, knees, feet and so on.
 
The point is to let you control games with your body, without having to find, hold, learn or recharge a controller. Your digital stunt double appears on the TV screen. What you do, it does.
 
It doesn't merely recognize that someone is there; it recognizes your face and body. In some games, you can jump in to take a buddy's place; the game instantly notices the change and signs you in under your own name. If you leave the room, it pauses the game automatically.
 
There's a crazy, magical, omigosh rush the first time you try the Kinect. It's an experience you've never had before.
 
full @  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/technology/personaltech/04pogue.html
 
 

FW: Kinect to the Metaverse

from my friend John 

---

 

Here's the NYT article about the new Microsoft gaming system that enters Neal Stephenson territory:

 

 

The Kinect is a glossy, foot-wide, black plastic horizontal bar. You plug its single cable into your Xbox.  You park the Kinect itself on, or beside, your TV. During start-up, a motor moves the bar on its stand, making it scan the room up and down like some would-be Wall-E.
 
It has four microphones and three little lenses: a video camera, an infrared projector and a distance sensor. Together, these lenses determine where you are in the room.
 
And not just you. The system tracks 48 parts of your body in three-dimensional space. It doesn't just know where your hand is, like the Wii. No, the Kinect tracks the motion of your head, hands, torso, waist, knees, feet and so on.
 
The point is to let you control games with your body, without having to find, hold, learn or recharge a controller. Your digital stunt double appears on the TV screen. What you do, it does.
 
It doesn't merely recognize that someone is there; it recognizes your face and body. In some games, you can jump in to take a buddy's place; the game instantly notices the change and signs you in under your own name. If you leave the room, it pauses the game automatically.
 
There's a crazy, magical, omigosh rush the first time you try the Kinect. It's an experience you've never had before.
 
full @  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/technology/personaltech/04pogue.html
 
 

.
Scientists Smash Particles To Recreate Moment After Big Bang
Scientists inched closer to recreating the conditions at the dawn of the universe by smashing ion particles into each other inside the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland this week, reports CNN.
 
=====
 
Worried about the Large Hadron Collider creating a Black Hole that swallows the Earth ?
Not a problem; we'll just make another Big Bang and re-create the Universe.
 
 

A good idea

from a friend of mine:
 

---

What a standard to hold politicians to.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/8112536/Labour-minister-Phil-Woolas-broke-election-law-re-run-ordered.html

 

 

Down, Boy!

.

Do you know anyone who needs a flash drive?

Get them this one, but don't tell them what it does.

 

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/japanfan/9c89/

 

 

My all-time favorite computer geek joke

.

 

There are 10 types of people in the world.

Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

 

 

 

NY Times: Costly ‘Spider-Man’ Can’t Get Off the Ground

.
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/theater/05spiderman.html
 
Executives with "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" said Thursday that the opening of the oft-delayed, $60 million musical would be set back once again ... The music, marking the Broadway debut of the U2 frontmen, still isn't synchronized with special effects, plot and dialogue. Scene-to-scene transitions, essential for rhythm and safety, aren't complete. Two actors have been injured hurtling through acrobatic rehearsal sequences.
 
=====
 
Spiderman, Spiderman
Does whatever a spider can.
Can he swing from a thread?
Nope.
 
 
 

Pointless webcams

.
Say "cheese" for the camera.... it's Cheddar-vision TV
  yes, it's a webcam of a large cheddar cheese.
  you can watch it age.

http://www.cheddarvision.tv/
 
 
While you're waiting for something exciting to happen to the cheese,
  you can check out these other fascinating webcams.
 
Watch Paint Dry: http://www.mirimgs.com/webcam/paint.html

 

Watch Grass Grow: http://www.watching-grass-grow.com/

 

 

 Any other action-packed events you'd like to watch?

 

 

 

Reminder: 6th Penna: our next event Nov 6, 7 in Ft. Washington

.

1777 Whitemarsh Encampment  

 

Hope Lodge,  Ft. Washington, PA,   November 6, 7

 

Experience a tribute to the original 1777 Whitemarsh Encampment and to American and British soldiers of the Revolutionary War!

 

Reenactors, military skirmishes, tactical demonstrations and drills, a field hospital in our 18th century barn, dirt redoubts, colonial crafts, special tours, and much more.

 

An admission is charged to support the site and the work of the Friends of Hope Lodge.

Adults: $6; Seniors (60+) & Youth (6-17): $4; children free; family (per car): $20

 

http://www.ushistory.org/Hope/events/reenactment.htm

 

Hope Lodge was built between 1743 and 1748 by Samuel Morris, a prosperous Quaker entrepreneur. Morris acted as a farmer, shipowner, miller, ironmaster, shopowner, and owner of the mill now known as Mather Mill. Hope Lodge is an excellent example of early Georgian architecture

Video Tour @ http://www.ushistory.org/Hope/more/wmv.htm

 

 

 

Fun with maps

  http://nationalatlas.gov/natlas/Natlasstart.asp
 
Tons of ways to customize differnet ways to view the USA.

You can display a map of the USA based on Agriculture, Climate, Geology, People, Politics, Transportation, Water, etc.
 
Each of the above categories are broken into smaller groups.
For example, "People" is subdivided into Crime, Economy, Energy Consumption, Health and Population.

 And those categories have further breakouts.
"Economy" contains Average Wage per Job, Food Stamp Recipients, Median Household Income and more.  
 
and those can be displayed via year  
 
... and it's zoomable, too.
 
 

FW: Ah, USSR... what a country!

This happened to me several years ago, so you may have seen it before.
Still, as this is Election Day, it bears repeating.
 
=====

I spent an hour and ten minutes in a voting line this morning.
 
As I was waiting, a man next to me said, "Ya know, they should make Election Day a national holiday, so it doesn't conflict with our work schedules."

The woman next to me replied, "I came from Russia, and I was living there when it was the Soviet Union, and it WAS a national holiday. Nobody had to go to work on an Election Day. It was a fun time. While you waited to vote, there were food and beverage carts, and music, just like a street fair."
 
"And," she teasingly added, "the voting process was so easy. They handed you a ballot -- already filled out -- and you just put it in the ballot box."

 

The 100 Best Signs At The Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-100-best-signs-at-the-rally-to-restore-sanity

(Eight examples attached)
 
 

Blekko the Hybrid Crowdsourced-Algorithmic Search Engine Is now Live

.
 Just as the search world is becoming less varied, now that Yahoo search results are provided by Bing, in the US for now, a new search engine is being launched to challenge the established market. Blekko, which has been in the works for quite some time, is now going public and is available for everyone.
 

Blekko is a classic search engine, it's very similar to Google, Bing and so on, but for one thing, its slashtags. The human created and curated slashtags enable anyone to create a customized vertical search engine around any topic.

And they enable everyone else to get a curated search experience. In a way, it works like Google's Universal Search except you have control over when it kicks in (mostly) and over what to target.

A classic example is the search for "jaguar." You may be looking for the British car maker, the animal, the Jaguar supercomputer and so on.

Searching for the term on either Google or Bing will return a mixture of results on the first page, mostly about the car, the official website dealers and so on, and some results about the South American predator.

Doing the same search on Blekko will yield largely similar results. But once you start using slashtags, things change. Adding "/cars" will filter the results to narrow them down to those relating to the car maker.

Adding "/tech" to the search query, will surface results relating to the tech sector, mostly about the supercomputer.

Most of these slashtags have been created by users, who have manually added websites to various categories. This approach does a good job at weeding out spam, content farms and other sites with aggressive SEO, but it's also the search engine's biggest weakness, it relies on users to make this work.

Adding "/animals" to the "jaguar" query won't return the results you'd expect since the "animals" category hasn't been created. Neither has "nature."

Granted, Blekko has just come out of private beta. Once people start using it, more and more categories, centered around more specific topics will pop up.

While the search engine has some advantages, it's hard to see Blekko as a competitor to Google, or even to Bing, and the company doesn't position itself as such. But some diversity in the search space is welcomed.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Blekko-the-Hybrid-Crowdsourced-Algorithmic-Search-Engine-Is-now-Live-163988.shtml

 

 

6th Penna: our next event is Nov 6, 7 in Ft. Washington

1777 Whitemarsh Encampment  

 

Hope Lodge,  Ft. Washington, PA,   November 6, 7

 

Experience a tribute to the original 1777 Whitemarsh Encampment and to American and British soldiers of the Revolutionary War!

 

Reenactors, military skirmishes, tactical demonstrations and drills, a field hospital in our 18th century barn, dirt redoubts, colonial crafts, special tours, and much more.

 

An admission is charged to support the site and the work of the Friends of Hope Lodge.

Adults: $6; Seniors (60+) & Youth (6-17): $4; children free; family (per car): $20

 http://www.ushistory.org/Hope/events/reenactment.htm

 

Hope Lodge was built between 1743 and 1748 by Samuel Morris, a prosperous Quaker entrepreneur. Morris acted as a farmer, shipowner, miller, ironmaster, shopowner, and owner of the mill now known as Mather Mill. Hope Lodge is an excellent example of early Georgian architecture

Video Tour @ http://www.ushistory.org/Hope/more/wmv.htm

 

 

 6th Penna Website:  http://6pahome.com