Monthly Archives: June 2003

can immortals be said to have a life-cycle?

Posted on Saturday, 2003 June 07 by Anton

On reading The Silmarillion I was mildly bothered that, in a story mainly about Elves, Elvish children are never mentioned. (Half-Elf children appear in a couple of episodes, as baggage.) Children are relatively scarce among immortals (because they spend a … Continue reading →

Posted in cartoons, prose | 1 Comment

what do they want?

Posted on Friday, 2003 June 06 by Anton

I’m working on my first nontrivial bit of text-parsing: a little program to extract search-strings from my HTTP logs. Unfortunately (but naturally) each search-engine has its own conventions and so I may never identify all the relevant fields! I’m using … Continue reading →

Posted in me!me!me!, neep-neep | 1 Comment

limits of metaphor

Posted on Friday, 2003 June 06 by Anton

Ever notice that blunt is not always a synonym for pointless ?

Posted in language | Leave a comment

a victim here, a victim there

Posted on Friday, 2003 June 06 by Anton

Collateral damage: “There Was a Report of Guns and Drugs” In the case of Alberta Spruill, the cops were enforcing the law. An investigation into whether they followed correct procedures is warranted, but an examination into the laws they were … Continue reading →

Posted in drugwar, security theater | Leave a comment

do you speak Algol?

Posted on Thursday, 2003 June 05 by Anton

DigiBarn Posters: Mother Tongues of Computer Languages

Posted in history, neep-neep | Leave a comment

spheres subtracted

Posted on Wednesday, 2003 June 04 by Anton

Hyperbolic geometry, provoked by “Not Knot”. The shape at the end of that show is an ideal rhombic dodecahedron (‘ideal’ means some of its vertices are at infinity) seen from inside; here it is seen from outside, in the Poincaré … Continue reading →

Posted in mathematics | Leave a comment

philistines everywhere

Posted on Wednesday, 2003 June 04 by Anton

My One True Ex refuses to believe that my telephone plays Night on Bald Mountain, insisting that it sounds more like the theme from Doctor Who.

Posted in me!me!me!, music+verse | Leave a comment