I hope soon to buy a Macintosh, and copy my files (4.4 GB) from the present Linux box. Is it easy to do that with an Ethernet line?

Sometimes Pat Buchanan hits a bullseye.

Letter to The Economist, August 13 issue:

My professor on an accounting course at Harvard Business School 25 years ago introduced it thus: “When most of you read accounting statements now, you do not understand them. At the end of this course, you will not believe them.”

Damianos Damianos
Athens

For my sins I’m entering thousands of addresses into a LookOut contacts list, and find that each one takes a surprising number of mouse-clicks. It would go much easier if I could simply type them into a textfile and convert it somehow; is there a way to do that?

On a list devoted to systems of writing, the subject of repetitive strain injuries came up, and Peter Daniels remarked:

Why do you suppose there are so many works for piano left hand? They didn’t stop being written after the one-armed [war injury] pianist Paul Wittgenstein retired and stopped commissioning them.

Daniels previously commented of the Wikipedia page about him that

It was quoted to me once, and yes, it had some “accurate facts” in it.

Next time you protect me from a harmless druggie, could you not step on my foot?

Once upon a time, one saw signs at liquor stores and the like that said “If you’re lucky enough to look 26 or younger, please be prepared to show proof of age.” (Or maybe it was 24.) Over the years the cutoff has crept along; I’ve seen at least one that said 40.

Today it occurred to me: could that be because amphetamine addicts age rapidly?