Saturday, August 29, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
NYT - UR DOINIT RITE!
Even though four or five years ago, Mary-Kate and Ashley were the biggest names in tween clothing, thanks to a deal with Wal-Mart, today they’re practically aesthetes.
Ha! This isn't about Mary-Kate & Ashley ... This is about the last word in the paragraph, "aesthetes". More specifically this is about my not knowing exactly what that word meant. (I did recognize the root structure, aesthetic. I may be a bumpkin but...) So, I did what I always do when faced with my own ignorance... I swiped the word and was about to do a Search Google for "aesthetes" when a little question mark appeared automagically. When I clicked on it I was taken... HERE
Now I am a bit of a bumpkin (albeit a bit erudite at times) but I find some of the NYT writers use vocabulary that broaches on pretentious. O'course that there's pro'ly just 'cause I'm from Kin-tuck an' they'all don' talk like that in these parts. T'any rate, havin' that there auto-magic question mark appear just when I was gonna Google that there word - shoot-fire, New York Times, yer doin' it right. (Even iffen y'are one of them east-coast-intellectual-liberal-newspapers. Dang!)Dictionary
aes·thete or es·thete (ĕs'thēt)
n.
- One who cultivates an unusually high sensitivity to beauty, as in art or nature.
- One whose pursuit and admiration of beauty is regarded as excessive or affected.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Health Care Reform: The Flowchart - Sent using Google Toolbar
[Hat tip to Sister Beth, who doesn't blog, yet!]Only $2.2 million
Second Degree Murder and Six Other Crimes Cheaper than Pirating Music - Piracy - Gizmodo
Second Degree Murder and Six Other Crimes Cheaper than Pirating Music
• Child abduction: Fine of $25,000 and up to three years in prison, which can be accounted as $50,233 per year (that was the median household income in 2007, probably down because of the economic crisis). Total: $175,699.
• Steal the CDs: A total of $275,000, $52,500 fine for the CDs.
• Steal a lawnmower from your neighbour: A total of $375,000.
• Burn someone's house while playing The Doors: Another $375,000.
• Stalk a Gizmodo editor (yes, you know who you are): A Class 4 felony that will result in just $175,000.
• Start a dogfighting ring: $50,000.
• Murder someone on the second degree, a Class 1 felony: $778,495, which accounts for a $25,000 fine and four to 15 years in prison.
Heck, you can do all these crimes, and the total amount will be only $2.2 million. Of course, you can't really quantify years spent in prison using dollars, but I don't care. The case of Jammie—and many like hers—is still absolutely outrageous.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Booting and rebooting
Got to the office at 07:30 this morning... Yeah, Sunday morning...
There is a certain quiet at that hour of the morning. Not a real audible quiet but rather a people-less-ness. The reduced number of people, even in a 24x7 facility, means that technologically speaking the network is as quiet as it will ever be. Which makes it the best time to do maintenance on the Servers. So for two luxurious hours I got to take my time and reboot Servers. As with any system and particularly with Microsoft Servers rebooting them is a near-mystical exercise. It is somewhat akin to killing a living a fragile, helpless entity and then
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