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Saturday, 2006 April 29, 15:03 — language, mathematics, neep-neep

how’s your German?

I’d love to have an English translation of the German comments in fullgen.c, a program that counts the polyhedra that can be made of pentagons and hexagons (i.e. fullerenes), so that I can modify it. (None of the output modes are quite what I’m after, and I think it may miss some solutions.)

Would I pay for a translation? Well, I’m obscenely broke these days, but I might.

Friday, 2006 April 28, 20:57 — general

hubris

On June 29, 2005, a redesigned Freedom Tower was released, addressing security concerns raised about the original design. The new design retains essential elements of the original — soaring 1,776 feet into the sky, its illuminated spire evoking the Statue of Liberty’s torch — but features a larger, cubic base set back further from West Street to protect the building against any future terrorist attempts.

Because, y’know, what really had me worried was that the bad guys might bring this one down with a truck-bomb, just like its predecessor.

Friday, 2006 April 28, 13:02 — general

do you speak Polish?

One of my images is being used as a background on Allegro, which looks like a Polish cousin of eBay. It would please me if someone were to tell the seller that I’m a bit peeved.

One of these days I’ll make an image containing the text IF YOU USE MY WORK WITHOUT EVEN TELLING ME, YOU CAN AT LEAST HOST IT YOURSELF, and substitute it for any images requested from such sites.

Friday, 2006 April 28, 11:14 — spam

winch gargoyle

The above is the title of a (suspected) spam caught today by Pobox’s filter. I’m almost tempted to find out what the content could be.

In other news, I was passed on the highway by a sport Audi moving at high speed; its plate was CAFIN8D.

Wednesday, 2006 April 19, 18:11 — history, sciences

it’s a day for anniversaries

Several important things happened on April 19, but here’s one of which I was unaware: Charles Darwin died on this date in 1882.

It came to my attention because the bookmark of the hour happens to be the Darwin-L archives. Darwin-L (1993-7) was a forum devoted to the historical sciences, full of tasty wide-ranging discussion. I was very sorry to see it close down.

How many list-servers, I wonder, still use the -L tag?

Tuesday, 2006 April 11, 21:45 — pets

fixin to rumble

Pillow can generate a remarkable volume of purr when he puts his mind to it. I thought of asking him, “Is that a frog in your throat or are you just happy to see me?” but it could so easily be misconstrued.

Monday, 2006 April 10, 08:08 — politics

ReadTheBill

This looks like a good idea:

ReadtheBill.org invites Americans of all political views: Help stop Congress from passing bills in the dead of night that nobody has read. . . . we will persuade Congress to adopt the 72 Online rule — to require posting bills online for 72 hours before floor debate in Congress.

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