Thursday  30 Jul 2015           comment?

Why in any case, this glorification of man? How about lions and tigers? They destroy fewer animals or human lives than we do, and they are much more beautiful than we are.

– Bertrand Russell

Interviewer:	What's the difference between animals and humans?
Frank Zappa:	Animals are superior.

Wednesday  29 Jul 2015           1 comment

Fun with auto‑complete suggestions.

The entertainment value in this example is sequence-dependent. Google tailors its suggestions based on who's asking; if I try this, pdf is listed first and the result isn't as funny.

If I type "why should I convert to", every suggestion returned by Google is a religion. But If I type "why should I not convert to", the first suggestion is the metric system.

Wednesday  22 Jul 2015           1 comment

Wednesday  15 Jul 2015           comment?

Pluto being in the news makes this as good a time as any to remember how it got named. Then‑11‑year‑old Venetia Burney suggested the name to her grandfather, who knew Herbert Hall Turner (the astronomy professor at Oxford who gave us the word parsec). Turner wrote back

I think PLUTO excellent!!

and I have to say I agree.

Sunday  12 Jul 2015           comment?

A couple of interesting locutions I came across recently. First, phrasing that reminds me of the not‑based constructions I wrote about a while back:

What I found most galling was the argument that Grexit would bring about an economic catastrophe, as though the catastrophe had not already happened. If you have been unemployed for five years, with no prospect of a job, it makes no difference whether the money you do not get is denominated in euros, or in drachma.

– Wolfgang Münchau, Financial Times, July 5, 2015 (quoted here)

Second, a question with a mundane reason for capitalizing Love (that isn't obvious when taken out of context):

Who or what is Love?

– Jack O'Neill, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, July 8, 2015

(hint: Mr. O'Neill represents the Hopes)

Monday  06 Jul 2015           1 comment

Desert tortoises are gentle, herbivorous creatures. Friendly, even (especially if you have petals for them). Common sense—like, say, not trying to take pictures and feed them at the same time—will keep you out of trouble.

Sunday  05 Jul 2015           comment?

Thursday  02 Jul 2015           2 comments