A practical observation. (2004/09/19)
When an editor asks if 1:51AM Sunday morning is “an okay time to call” and wants to know whether you can have a two thousand word article done “by Monday”… That is a good sign that the answer to one of life’s pressing dilemmas is “you can pay both the mortgage and your health coverage, after all”.
[read more...]A delightful ambiguity. (2004/09/16)
So, my friend Kevin said, as we were leaving the coffee shop, that this year we have a choice between a liar and an incompetent. I like that description, because it’s perfectly ambiguous.
[read more...]Learning C. (2004/09/16)
Wow. This brings back memories. I just found an article describing how I learned C.
[read more...]The "space travel is way cool" discount. (2004/09/15)
So, my company (Plethora Internet) builds computers. Not very many. We don’t do much in the “we need a computer for under $700” market. We don’t do swarms of identical 1U servers.
[read more...]Donations! (2004/09/15)
More thoughts on the DMCA (2004/09/13)
Well, I talked a bit to someone at the ESA. They acknowledge that the notice they sent was in error. Apparently, a person did actually “review” that message, but… They also said they send out hundreds of thousands of messages a month. That would imply an awful lot of people, or very very cursory work. I suspect the latter.
[read more...]Cryptography is fun. (2004/09/11)
So, I’m playing a game called Morrowind, and I got a “coded message”. And of course, all I have to do is take it to the set of pixels representing the quest-giver, and I have completed the quest.
[read more...]I can't believe this is still going on. (2004/09/11)
So, there’s this long-running claim that the etymologies of Chinese characters “reveal the truth of Genesis”, because, if you don’t know anything about Chinese etymology, and you ignore all use of phonetic radicals, and you misinterpret some symbols to be other symbols, and you put in a lot of connective words, you can find a few characters where you can make up an etymology for them which connects to the Genesis story.
[read more...]Finally added a few more posts to my April Fools page. (2004/09/09)
I do April Fools posts to Usenet almost every year. I haven’t been remembering to add them to my April Fools page, but now I’m mostly caught up again.
[read more...]Project Home (2004/09/09)
So, my church is involved with something called “Project HOME”. I believe it’s the same one as this one, although that’s not my church. But, hey, we all agree on this stuff.
[read more...]