is insincere appreciation better than nothing?

Posted on Wednesday, 2015 November 18 by Anton

This may be the most effusive comment ever received on this modest blog:

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pseudohistorical linguistics

Posted on Monday, 2015 November 09 by Anton

I can’t remember how much I knew of Elvish languages before The Silmarillion, with a glossary, appeared in 1978. Can you tell from the text of The Lord of the Rings (not counting the Appendices) that Quenya and Sindarin are related? Are any words explicitly given in both?

Posted in fandom, language, prose | 3 Comments

a new twist

Posted on Saturday, 2015 October 03 by Anton

Each month I check my HTTP referral logs, and find that nearly all of the “referring” pages that I haven’t seen before are spam. Usually there are also a few sites showing one of my images as examples of some theme or other. Now here’s one of both classes: a page of auto-generated SEO drivel containing one of my pix, apparently because the description contains the word “binary”.

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sic transiverunt webcomics

Posted on Monday, 2015 September 28 by Anton

About a dozen years ago I made a page of links to my favorite webcomics. Looking at that list now, I find that twelve that are still going (though a few are very sporadic), ten have stopped but remain accessible through a system of tubes, and eight have vanished:

  • Fluble by Christopher Mastrangelo
  • Bobbins by John Allison
  • When I Grow Up by Jeff Rowland
  • JoBeth by BJ Hiorns and Joey Hetzel
  • Shaw Island by Zach Stroum
  • The New Adventures of Bobbin! by Joycelyn Yik
  • Catharsis by Jen Boeke
  • Everyone Drunk But Me by Laura Beth Brandt

Other favorites now missing include

  • Malfunction Junction by Matt Milby
  • As If! by Amy Hebberson
  • Life on Forbez
  • meh~! (mathematically enhanced hares) by wing mui
  • Warp 9 to Hell
  • Knowledge Is Power by Laura Chapple
  • Yourmometer by Hobbes (Laura LeGault)
  • Killer Robots from Space by Adam Greengard
  • Don’t Forget to Validate Your Parking by Mike Le
  • Cyberbooty by Tony B
  • everything at Graphic Smash, Modern Tales, ComicSpace, Webcomics Nation, Girlamatic, Activate, and (in about 2021) Smackjeeves

Maybe when a favorite series stops updating for a year I ought to save the content for myself before it vanishes!

Posted in cartoons | 2 Comments

ringy-dingy

Posted on Monday, 2015 August 17 by Anton

My new telephone has dozens of ringtones and I hate them all: Newagey lo-fi orchestral crap, mostly laden with snare drums for some reason.

My last phone played the sound of an old-fashioned mechanical bell; the one before that, a pizzicato passage from a Ravel string quartet; before that, the quick part of Pachelbel’s Canon – in frankly electronic timbres that did not pretend to be an orchestra.

I want a ringtone that says “a digital device seeks your attention,” not one that sounds like something overheard on a cheap radio belonging to someone with no taste.

Posted in music+verse, technology | 1 Comment

a slave to pussy

Posted on Thursday, 2015 June 25 by Anton

I was in the kitchen. Rocky came in, crying. I scritched him. He ran to the comfy chair, stood beside it, looked at me, called once again. I went and sat in the comfy chair, and Rocky jumped up to claim his usual seat on my knee.

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logarithmic birthday

Posted on Sunday, 2015 June 07 by Anton

I’m exp(4) years old!

Posted in mathematics, me!me!me! | Leave a comment