thanks for dropping in
Traffic on this site spiked on March 13, thanks-but-no-thanks to 877 hits from 172.176.73.9 and 701 from 172.184.236.112, neither of which shows up in traceroute. Life’s little mysteries . . . .
After searches gone astray, the biggest number of referrals this month came as usual from The Geometry Junkyard (166), followed to my surprise by Charlie Stross (43). (Not counting bots.)
The erratic and inexplicable trickle from the International Atomic Energy Agency was strong this month, with 22 hits (vs 23, 0, 2, 3 in the last four months).
do I get to blame Microsoft for this?
Increasingly, my lists carry mail from people who (I’d have thought) ought to know better than to quote the entire thread so far. (The rot seems less advanced in Usenet – perhaps because only old fogies post to Usenet.)
Also increasing: users who don’t apply the customary signs of quotation from a previous message.
the language barrier
Leaving the house today, I heard a neighbor mention to a visitor that he had taken Russian in hi-skool. “So did I!” said I.
So he asked: “Kogdá idú?”
I remember just enough to know that this means When am I going?
(I assume he meant “Kudá idëš?”)
adieu
Joe Fuhrig – golfer, economist, teacher, swell guy – died suddenly on March 3. His ashes were scattered furtively on a golf course. At the memorial service today, his family may have been taken aback at the size of the crowd.
my favorite example of funny-foreigner-talk
Achille Talon: Le Roi des Zôtres
ZOTRTRUPPEN! Mitt eine grosse Köningsdeklaraverdung, ich kanonnert vertradukverlang: Grenadiersoldaat Prumpf nicht mehr mit militär obligazionen verankikineerd ist, und Kolonel der zpezial personnäl Achille I.er Royalenkommando vernommert immediääterdung ist und vier semänen kongépayé kan mitt der familie verpasseren . .
Und ein oder minuskuul verdetail: ich, Major Achtungfeuer, vergenomminazionnert Traduktoren-oberzumfuhrerkaporal bin perzonnaliktisch by der Köning. LEBE ACHILLE! LEBE ZOTRLAND!
Rock Names
Yesterday I picked up a remainder copy of Rock Names from ABBA to ZZ Top: How Rock Bands Got Their Names, by Adam Dolgins. Looking through such a reference, naturally one thinks about what to call one’s own hypothetical band; and I thought up The Baroques. (Or maybe Baroke Blokes? There’s already a band named Barolk Folk.)
I can see the cover: the band dressed in Louis XIV style, with huge curly wigs (but in bright colors), banging away on chrome pipe organ and electric mandolin . .
On the front cover of the second album, one of the players, in the same 18c duds but now frayed, stands hitchhiking, showing the title Flat Baroque on a cardboard sign; on the back the others burn instruments in a kettledrum.
Later: Shoulda looked it up. Les Baroques were a Dutch band 1965-9. Flat Baroque is both an instrumental by Richard Carpenter and a blues label; Flat Baroque and Berserk is an album by Roy Harper.
the PIS/SE standard
Peter Stickney writes in alt.peeves:
Voice recognition will not be mature until a system can transcribe “Life is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)” with 95% accuracy, in real time.