Memo to the blogosphere (or blogtopia, and y!sctp!): Principle: 1. A basic truth, law, or assumption: the principles of democracy. 2. a. A rule or standard, especially of good behavior: a man of principle; b. The collectivity of moral or ethical standards or judgments: a decision based on principle rather than expediency. 3. A fixed …
Would the blogosphere (or blogtopia, and y!sctp!) please stop using “peddle” as though it meant “pedal?” If you quietly renounce something you’d previously stood for, you are backpedaling, not backpeddling. If you tone down your rhetoric about a specific issue, you’re softpedaling, not softpeddling. Grrrh.
The Parable of The Old Man and The Young So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went, And took the fire with him, and a knife. And as they sojourned, both of them together, Isaac the first-born spake, and said, My Father, Behold the preparations, fire and iron, But where the lamb for this …
The Eastman House and the International Center of Photography are working to put together “one of the largest freely accessible databases of masterwork photography anywhere on the Web.” It’s called Photomuse, and when it’s done it looks like it will be a highly usable reference work. The creators say the goal is to organize the …
Harry Potter fans, listen up: among other interesting items, this article tells us that JK Rowling finally has a website. We hear the phrase “Potemkin village” thrown about a lot. Here’s the derivation: “A Potemkin village is so called after Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin, who had elaborate fake villages built in order to impress Catherine the …
Wow. Apple says in its first week it has sold one million songs through iTunes. Here’s a hypothesis I’d never heard before: language spreads as agriculture does. I guess I changed out of that anthropology major a semester or so too soon. I’m sure the scientists are careful, but
I was watching a baseball game the other day, and hearing the lineups announced, I got to puzzling about something truly trivial. What ever happened to the art of nicknaming? Did it die with Grantland Rice? Schoolboy Rowe. Van Lingle Mungo. Dazzy Vance. The Big Train. Pistol Pete. Highpockets Kelly. Hit ’em Where They Ain’t. …
I’ll be damned. Bill Safire has noticed the terms blog and props in the same column (note: this is Safire’s On Language column in the magazine, not his editorial column). Speaking of newspapers, an outfit called ProQuest has digitized the entire New York Times archive, from 1851-1999. That’s four terabytes of info, folks. There’s a …
Today’s quiz: What’s the best visual pun you’ve ever seen? My vote goes for the one below.
Yesterday kd had a visitation from a troll; I made a crack in her comments about hoping there was no such thing as PETA for such beasties. That prompted me to create one. Then I went back to PETA’s FAQ’s to re-read something which I found strikingly disingenuous. FAQ #13 poses the question “How can …