drinking from a fire hose

Posted on Sunday, 2002 August 04 by Anton

Changed my mind: I won’t ask to have my blog rated at HotOrNot, since I’m unwilling to give a numeric rating to those I see there. How do you quantify a subjective impression? But I’ll keep it bookmarked, for days when I’m desperate for a new blog to read! (2004 Oct 22: Yeah, like that’ll happen. I try halfheartedly to keep up with 46 blogs, and have 417 entries on a “get back to it eventually” list.)

Recent reading: Gene Expression; The Kolkata Libertarian; IBM Research’s puzzle of the month; Follies and Folly Towers, Monuments and Obelisks; Science News, the web version of the weekly magazine; How Stuff Works: Articles of the Day; BBC News sci/tech; Designing a Baseball Cover; Forgotten New York, curious corners of a city I’ve never visited; Duct Tape Fashion Gallery

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oh look, the grass fell over.

Posted on Saturday, 2002 August 03 by Anton

The most exquisite crop circles are showcased at c i r c l e m a k e r s. (Link from Steve Sailer.)

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as I lay awake

Posted on Saturday, 2002 August 03 by Anton

I was thinking about telephone area code splits. How do they decide where to draw the line, if there is no ‘natural’ boundary (mountains, water, a highway, a county line)? How would I do it? Continue reading →

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pseudo erudition only annoys us true erudites

Posted on Saturday, 2002 August 03 by Anton

A comment to Vodkapundit says “Lileks . . . must be the only writer in America to know and use the plural hiatii.” Lileks is of course free to invent words if he likes, in which case he’s naturally the only one to know them; but in Latin, there is no word in which singular -us corresponds to plural -ii. hiatus is a u-stem abstract, and its plural is hiatūs (with a long u).

And by the way, the plural of Elvis is Elvides. I have spoken.

Posted in language | 1 Comment

a perfect sphere would be so ordinary.

Posted on Friday, 2002 August 02 by Anton

Satellites Reveal a Mystery of Large Change in Earth’s Gravity. In the last five years, Earth has grown more oblate, reversing a trend since the Ice Ages. Amazing what they can measure nowadays, eh?

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The Boring Part

Posted on Friday, 2002 August 02 by Anton

I need to vent, and welcome any advice, on several matters which are somewhat entangled with each other.
Continue reading →

Posted in me!me!me! | 1 Comment

vote with your tectonic plate

Posted on Friday, 2002 August 02 by Anton

GPS sparks boundary wars. New measurements tell Rhode Islanders that they live in Connecticut, and so on. (Thanks to Monty Solomon for the link.) If it were a question of private property, I believe the rule of adverse possession would decide in favor of the occupants. But in matters of Government one can’t allow common sense, or such trifles as the reasonable expectations of the people affected, to get in the way.

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