Sunday  27 Feb 2022           comment?

Four years ago, I wrote about a jackrabbit that was leaving pieces of cypress foliage in my driveway. I found it more entertaining than annoying and anyway it didn't go on for long.

This year, a squirrel is severing foot‑long pieces of pine branches from a neighbor's tree, and more than just one or two of them. My neighbor had two garbage pails full of branches to take to the dump. I have no idea whether the squirrel sees this as sport or art or maybe just likes the taste of the sap.

The squirrel's success in gnawing off dozens of branches suggests that he's smarter than Wile E. Coyote about not standing on the part that's gonna fall off.

Friday  25 Feb 2022           comment?

The UK government has stopped accepting visa applications from all Ukrainians who do not have a close British family member living in Ukraine.

- Nadia Whittome MP

I cried when I heard on the radio that Poland is accepting refugees whether they have ID documents or not. Various other European countries are also graciously welcoming refugees.

Thursday  24 Feb 2022           comment?

I hope that a saner intelligent species than ours arose somewhere in the universe.

Twosday  22 Feb '22           comment?

From an article in The Guardian a couple days ago about changes in Wordle since the NY Times bought it:

Then it emerged that the newspaper was removing words from the approved dictionary – you have to enter a recognised word on each line – that were deemed offensive, including "slave", "lynch" and "wench". The move was seen by some as a cryptically puritanical form of virtue signalling.

The 'approved dictionary' is in two pieces. Wordle's code has a list of daily target words and a dictionary list of other words that it won't ever use as targets but which are allowed as guesses. If a word is in either list, Wordle allows it as a guess.

Slave, lynch, and wench were in the list of target words before the Times bought Wordle. The Times expunged them from the target word list but didn't add them to the dictionary list, thereby rendering them unusable as guesses as well.

The Times also removed agora, fibre, and pupal from the list of target words. They're also unusable as guesses now; it's possible the Times intended that but I think it's more likely that whoever was editing the code didn't realize that would happen if the words weren't added to the dictionary list.

Furthermore, the Times culled 19 other words (mostly slur words) from the dictionary list. To see them, click here.

Monday  21 Feb 2022           comment?

Thursday  17 Feb 2022           comment?

Tanker en route this morning to a fire about 50 miles north of me. Parts of Big Pine are were under evacuation orders.

Sunday  13 Feb 2022           comment?

CNN is reporting that investigators looking into Tr--p's telephone calls on January 6, 2021 are having a hard time because of his habits of using other people's phones in addition to his own.

One case in point: After the Stormy Daniels story broke in 2018, Trump was on the golf course trying to reach his wife, Melania Trump, from his phone, and she did not pick up, according to a source with knowledge. So he turned to a Secret Service agent and used the agent's phone to try to reach her instead. The first lady then picked up. According to this source, the agent was not pleased his phone had been used this way.

Around 17 years ago, I was in a work meeting during which my manager didn't take a call from his wife. She borrowed their horse trainer's phone and called again. The meeting had just ended and he picked up. His wife gave him hell for taking a call from the horse trainer's number but not from hers. The horse trainer was a not‑unattractive woman.

Friday  11 Feb 2022           comment?

cryptomuseum.com has, among many nice articles, a nice article about how the Soviet Union bugged IBM Selectric typewriters in the 1970s. The transmitter they embedded was impressively miniaturized for its era and well enough concealed that an IBM technician wouldn't notice it while servicing the typewriter.

Thursday  10 Feb 2022           comment?

Martin Gardner mentioned in an interview that he'd met Salvador Dalí a few times and that Dalí was interested in mathematics. The interview continued:

interviewer:	What was he like as a person?
Gardner:	He seemed perfectly normal.
interviewer:	Even with that mustache?

Monday  07 Feb 2022           comment?

Image from TYWKIWDBI. Yes, it's a real excerpt from a 1963 magazine. No, it's not good practice. I can't say I was good about disposing of oil and antifreeze back in the day. My brother and I used to put used oil in plastic bottles and throw them in the dumpster behind the grocery store. It is easier nowadays. The dump east of town here accepts oil for recycling and doesn't charge you.