It would be as dark as the world before Columbus
Once again, the next two hours I shall remain under tabu search
rules so that I am not allowed to go to any site that I have ever read
before, or at least don't remember having read. Today's starting point
shall be the section "Slithering Reptiles" at the TTLB Ecosystem
(which doesn't seem to be able to decide whether I am a Flippery Fish
or a Slimy Mollusc, but perhaps they'll fix the thing soon). Let's
embark on a journey and see what we can find. Diversity is strength,
brothers!
The post "Lay Off The Vodka Man" at "Downtown Chick Chat" links to a humorous video of a Russian tunnel that the drivers don't seem to realize is quite icy and slippery. Vroom vroom, clear up the road to the high heavens!
I had read before about the incident depicted in the post "Condoleezza" at Evil White Guy's Blog (I even mentioned it to my wife and she couldn't believe it) but I have one question: how is that supposed to be a college-level mathematics question, especially if the formula is provided along with the question? Anyway, the same blog also features the post "Spring Is Here" to lighten up the day of my (pro)feminist readers.
My mother tongue Finnish has the nice feature that spelling and pronunciation are basically one-to-one, unlike in English in which the connection between the two is mostly based on convention. In addition, the Finnish language is much sparser than English, and foreign words are adapted to follow the rules of the language when then are taken in. It follows that puns (and knock-knock jokes) don't really exist in Finnish, but on the other hand, we never had to endure things such as phonics or whole language, which I have come to understand are some kind a controversy in the English-speaking countries, but never really looked up until now. Oh for God's sake, "Each letter is like an animal, which has a name and the sound(s) that it makes. e.g. A cat says "meow"." Anyway, the post "English Speaking Tips For Non-Native Speakers" helps the immigrant mass to speak properly.
For some reason, I have actually been following American Idol this season (I could not even name any finalists from previous seasons), even after all the crap singers have been eliminated. Lots of people out there seem to be surprised that Chris was voted off this week, a sentiment which I share since I was certain that Elliot and Taylor would be the bottom two. Before this week, wasn't Paris like, supposed to win the whole game from the moment she auditioned, whereas Taylor was real close not even getting in Hollywood? For the life of me, I can't even begin comprehend why Elliot is still in the game, and can only hypothesize that some jokester is hacking into the computer that tallies the votes. The posts "Chris Daughtry, Mowed Down in his Reality-Show Prime" and "American Idol: Elliot is Friggin' God or Something" at "Modern Fabulousity" pretty much sum up my thoughts too.
Udolpho's recent post "Freakonomists and drugs" made me reconsider my drug legalization position. The post "Legalize it?" at Vestal Vespa explains why very few potsmokers are eager to organize as a front to legalize pot.
The post "Crazy Like a Fox?" of "The Anonymous Liberal" explains why the right-wing television network Fox would like to see Hillary Clinton as the next president of the United States. I can't deny that if she became the President, there would be so much stupidity and unintentional humour in both sides of the American political battlefield that the fabric of reality itself would probably rip wide open.
The post "If only men would just die and leave us the money" of "Strange Women Lying in Ponds" links to an article in the New York Times that spins the trend of men living longer as a bad thing for women. The post "Importing Poverty" touches the problem of illegal immigration. Frankly, if Americans have collectively decided to ruin their nation, I guess that it is not my place as an outsider to criticize them for this or try to stop them, but I can't really say that I could see the wisdom of having totally open borders.
The larger one of our two cats is so hairy and sheds his hair so much that I would like to shave him since summer is coming and all, but my wife won't let me, and the cat would probably not like it either. If I ever did, he would probably look a lot like the cat in the post "Pretty Average Weekend" of "Glitter For Brains".
The post "Amsterdam" at "Two Glasses" vividly describes a city that Kunstler would probably like. The post "Illegal Immigration" points out that the rhetorical trick of conflating all immigration and illegal immigration is dishonest.
Lawblogging doesn't usually inspire me that much, but the post "Drunk Animals Are Awesome" at "Law & Alcoholism - A Theory of Jurishprudensh" pitches a new reality show that I would watch.
"I'm Going to be SOOO Rich!! Buy One Now!!" shows us a useful little invention that probably wouldn't get past the first round in the American Inventor show.
Speaking of useless inventions, I don't really get the idea of audio- or videoblogging. If you can say something, you can also write it, and I can read it a lot faster than I can listen to or watch you reading it. Sure, things are different if your locution or persona adds value, as is the case with Derb Radio, but usually not. The hot new videoblog du jour seems to be "Vent", although I can't really see why.
I had to flex my memory a little to remember where the name of the blog "Tenser, said the Tensor" was from. The post "Fencing Etymologies" asks:
The post "Lay Off The Vodka Man" at "Downtown Chick Chat" links to a humorous video of a Russian tunnel that the drivers don't seem to realize is quite icy and slippery. Vroom vroom, clear up the road to the high heavens!
I had read before about the incident depicted in the post "Condoleezza" at Evil White Guy's Blog (I even mentioned it to my wife and she couldn't believe it) but I have one question: how is that supposed to be a college-level mathematics question, especially if the formula is provided along with the question? Anyway, the same blog also features the post "Spring Is Here" to lighten up the day of my (pro)feminist readers.
My mother tongue Finnish has the nice feature that spelling and pronunciation are basically one-to-one, unlike in English in which the connection between the two is mostly based on convention. In addition, the Finnish language is much sparser than English, and foreign words are adapted to follow the rules of the language when then are taken in. It follows that puns (and knock-knock jokes) don't really exist in Finnish, but on the other hand, we never had to endure things such as phonics or whole language, which I have come to understand are some kind a controversy in the English-speaking countries, but never really looked up until now. Oh for God's sake, "Each letter is like an animal, which has a name and the sound(s) that it makes. e.g. A cat says "meow"." Anyway, the post "English Speaking Tips For Non-Native Speakers" helps the immigrant mass to speak properly.
For some reason, I have actually been following American Idol this season (I could not even name any finalists from previous seasons), even after all the crap singers have been eliminated. Lots of people out there seem to be surprised that Chris was voted off this week, a sentiment which I share since I was certain that Elliot and Taylor would be the bottom two. Before this week, wasn't Paris like, supposed to win the whole game from the moment she auditioned, whereas Taylor was real close not even getting in Hollywood? For the life of me, I can't even begin comprehend why Elliot is still in the game, and can only hypothesize that some jokester is hacking into the computer that tallies the votes. The posts "Chris Daughtry, Mowed Down in his Reality-Show Prime" and "American Idol: Elliot is Friggin' God or Something" at "Modern Fabulousity" pretty much sum up my thoughts too.
Udolpho's recent post "Freakonomists and drugs" made me reconsider my drug legalization position. The post "Legalize it?" at Vestal Vespa explains why very few potsmokers are eager to organize as a front to legalize pot.
The post "Crazy Like a Fox?" of "The Anonymous Liberal" explains why the right-wing television network Fox would like to see Hillary Clinton as the next president of the United States. I can't deny that if she became the President, there would be so much stupidity and unintentional humour in both sides of the American political battlefield that the fabric of reality itself would probably rip wide open.
The post "If only men would just die and leave us the money" of "Strange Women Lying in Ponds" links to an article in the New York Times that spins the trend of men living longer as a bad thing for women. The post "Importing Poverty" touches the problem of illegal immigration. Frankly, if Americans have collectively decided to ruin their nation, I guess that it is not my place as an outsider to criticize them for this or try to stop them, but I can't really say that I could see the wisdom of having totally open borders.
The larger one of our two cats is so hairy and sheds his hair so much that I would like to shave him since summer is coming and all, but my wife won't let me, and the cat would probably not like it either. If I ever did, he would probably look a lot like the cat in the post "Pretty Average Weekend" of "Glitter For Brains".
The post "Amsterdam" at "Two Glasses" vividly describes a city that Kunstler would probably like. The post "Illegal Immigration" points out that the rhetorical trick of conflating all immigration and illegal immigration is dishonest.
Lawblogging doesn't usually inspire me that much, but the post "Drunk Animals Are Awesome" at "Law & Alcoholism - A Theory of Jurishprudensh" pitches a new reality show that I would watch.
"I'm Going to be SOOO Rich!! Buy One Now!!" shows us a useful little invention that probably wouldn't get past the first round in the American Inventor show.
Speaking of useless inventions, I don't really get the idea of audio- or videoblogging. If you can say something, you can also write it, and I can read it a lot faster than I can listen to or watch you reading it. Sure, things are different if your locution or persona adds value, as is the case with Derb Radio, but usually not. The hot new videoblog du jour seems to be "Vent", although I can't really see why.
I had to flex my memory a little to remember where the name of the blog "Tenser, said the Tensor" was from. The post "Fencing Etymologies" asks:
Have you ever picked up a new vocabulary word in conversation, guessing its meaning purely from context, and then discovered later that you guessed completely wrong? Stop looking at me that way, you know you have.
I
know I have done this several times, but can't think of any right now.
(Update: despite the name, petticoats are not really coats, even though
that's what I erroneously believed when first seeing this word in the
classic book title "Hyenas in Petticoats".) In addition, I have guessed
some terms correctly, such as the expression "by the law of Moses" that
the go boardgame club constantly used to mean the result achieved by
both players making the optimal moves.
The post "Spanking Time!" at "People Covered in Fish" shows us that some people can have too much money for their own good. Meanwhile, "Fat Eye for the Skinny Guy" digs "Black Chicks".
Since men are more rational than women, also blogs by fat men are much
better reads than those of fat women, and Fat Eye has lots of funny
stuff, such as "Fuck Hi-Def".
Finally, going back to more serious matters, the post "The Value of Truth and the Disvalue of Pain" reminded me of Raymond Smullyan's delightful little book "Who Knows?".
In this book, instead of knights and knaves there are soft and hard and
ultrahard Christians, so that the last group takes delight in the fact
that the just and infinitely wise God chooses to torture evil people
with Hell.
Ilkka, did you ever take part in a bonus tournament? You must have had a chance because the first one was held in the fall of 1997. You moved to Canada in 2001 and the last one held in Tampere was in the fall of 2000, I think.
A bonus tournament in go works as follows. Within a time-limit of usually eight or six hours, a roundrobin tournament (everybody plays everybody else) with full handicaps according to rank is played. Points are awarded for each won game and each (0.33 l) bottle of (category III beer - alcohol vol. about 4.5%) consumed. The amount of points given for drinking one beer is adjusted in such a way as to equalize the amount of points made by consuming a whole casket (24 bottles) of beer and that made by winning all the games.
Here's an article by me in the Nordic Go Journal on the effects of alcohol on the ability to play go, complete with the counterintuitive result of statistical analysis that those who drink the most beers usually also win the most games.
http://homepage.mac.com/bjornwendsjo/go/index.html
Year 2003, issue 2, p. 29.
Posted by Markku | 4:41 AM