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New glasses time!

My longest running pair (8 years) fell out of my pocket when I was wearing sunglasses, and I'm doubtful they'll show up.

Previous pair, for reference: They were fun, for sure, but See no longer makes that kind exactly, and my time with my back up Zennis told me three things:

1. I really like clip-on shades, especially the magnetic kind. Much easier than always swapping out to prescription sunglasses.

2. Progressives weren't THAT useful, really, especially if:

3. maybe slightly smaller glasses are easier to peer over (for near rang stuff) and maybe less likely to get quite as smudged all the time.

So I ordered two pairs of Zennis - they only have 3 or 4 large/wide options that have clipons, including the style that I dabbled with in 2013 and have been my spares. So I'm open for opinions on 1/2 vs 3/4... or other ideas if they're not too expensive. (I've read how gouging most of the eyeglasses industry is) I do need wide frames for my pumpkin-size cranium...

Of course any radically new pair is going to feel strange. Sometimes I'm surprised I went as bold as I did last time...

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list of misconceptions young people have of the past. Ashtrays and cigarette smoke being everywhere, few photos being taken, but most of them are a contrast to how now with the Internet, you can be more proactive about choosing what you get: information, shows, goods and clothing ,etc. (So then, everyone might be watching the same big shows - and you had to be watching when the broadcast started)

It's one of the reasons I try not to be as worried about smart kids who are indifferent to books; back then if you didn't read you weren't going to know stuff except what school showed you, what other/older people remembered to show you, or what happened to appear on tv. (I think reading, and reading FAST, helped me as a kid and on tests, and books are distinctive how a single person can create an evocative world.)

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Not MY interest but I'm sure somebodies, from an Associated Press article predicting the emergence of tall women - via this blog entry

For the past few years I've been trying to identify a model of mind that seemed most true to my experience. It seems like a critical bit of self-knowledge, as well as a way of understanding others... I'm pretty sure consciousness is not a monolithic thing even if (long ago) I used to think my inner monolog was "it" - or rather, was "me". But what then ARE the parts, and what is their relationship?

Freud posited id, ego, superego and while he got so much wrong, that core idea - one part with emotional energy, another with society's rules, a middle part negotiating between them - still has some basic validity, and is non-obvious.

I used to write a lot about Jonathan Haidt's "The Rider and the Elephant", where the rider of consciousness might think it's in control and making decisions but really it's at best helping guide the elephant of emotions that's doing all the work. (Also, my friend Arun saying his depression was not like an uncontrollable elephant but rather one that had fallen into a deep slumber was important to my understanding of depression.)

McGilchrist writes of "The Master and His Emissary", the older and holistic but non-linguistic right hemisphere being usurped by the reductionistic left that can then better use tools like language. I think there is a lot to that, but it feels there are more players than just the two. (It also makes me paranoid that my inner voice producing part is taking too much credit for guiding things... but leaning into that I then worry about undervaluing its contribution...)

The movie "Inside Out" has specific interior characters each dedicated to a single part of the emotional spectrum. I like this one, but I'm not convinced my actors are always the same part dealing with the same feeling.

So contrast that to the more symmetrical clamoring multitude of mind parts in Minsky's "Society of Mind" - but I'm not sure the parts all that symmetric, that different parts are doing different work and it's not just the hierarchy they form.

There's always pop culture "inner child". Though sometimes my other part would seem more like a clever, non-verbal dog. Always on the lookout for its owner's distraction providing a chance to grab a tasty treat...

That inner child aspects gets more formally developed in Internal Family Systems, which emphasizes wounded inner children and the guardian systems set up to protect them, along with a few other types. This is getting a lot closer to where I am getting to, but it seems a little overly specified. It seems better geared at working through specific issues and kind of assumes these inner traumas, while I'm trying to figure out why I seem to have stumbled on relative tranquility.

So, at long last, my (current) favorite model: mind as a noisy K-12 classroom, with the conscious, rational, verbal self as a teacher and a pile of students. Different kids have different interests, and levels of anxiety or fear or project more positive emotions. Sometimes a single kid is having a full-on tantrum and disrupting everything. Sometimes a kid with an unaddressed concern is being more low-key disruptive but adding to the stress and strain on the teacher and the class as a whole. (No, the metaphor still isn't perfect).

And I got here by noticing my inner classroom seems to run more smoothly than some other folks', my students are more likely to wait for the support of the teacher before acting. Which is useful (and my friend Alison pointed out that maybe this kind of general cheerful equanimity of a smooth running classroom is ultimately a better place to have despite my fear of missing out on kids more inclined to start squealing with happiness...)

I try to get this to explain why it took me so long to understand why others found meditation calming. For a lot of people wandering thoughts constantly retrigger anxieties. But my inner students... I don't know, it's like somehow my inner teacher gave them the idea that while their concerns are valid, they don't have to be so loud about them, they shouldn't constantly be yelling and trying to get the whole class focused on what they're concerned about.

So I do like this model, and having leaned into has brought a sense of peace and "this is more right than what I thought before". I think about clues I had before... like when my partner is having a spike of anxiety that she and I both know is't entirely rational, I notice then that I'm more inclined to slip into language like "baby". And maybe i can be not that I'm judging her as being childish, but that she has this one particular noisome student... one that needs to be acknowledged and validated and then will be better able to listen to the teacher of the higher self.

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ernie is my guru. (so is bert)

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good flirt

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On my devblog: Math geekery, trying to figure out a 1D Zoom/Fisheye effect with some help from my friend Jon.

He's much smarter about the math than I am, though I'm glad I was able to frame the problem well and make a cool little dynamic tester for it. Republican friends, there are a lot conflicts about vote counting especially with potential COVID related delays. At every turn, Republicans want to count fewer votes and Democrats want more people's votes to count. What do you draw from that? That it's just warding off Democratic shenanigans? That voting should be tough, to ward off these barely informed or otherwise poorly engaged ignoramuses?

If your party's stances are such that your best policy is to get as few people to vote as possible, maybe it's time to try and make a bigger tent rather than throw up as many gates around the paths to both circuses as you can.

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Need to rethink how I'm being updated about weather. Like I knew snow was coming, but didn't expect a semi-shovelable accumulation.

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Ah time already for my two favorite season change activities- the "what is in winter coat pocket?" game (light gloves, a pen and valve oil) and "at long last- vindication for leaving the winter hat lying around on a hook all summer long and having snow shovels by the entrance way)

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This is making the rounds: A room, a bar and a classroom: how the coronavirus is spread through the air - best tools for thinking about it I've seen

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Every DNC fundraising email.

"Do you know about the Myth of Sisyphus?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah, that's a funny one to me because Sisyphus is cursed to roll this boulder up the hill for eternity, but really the boulder would eventually erode. I mean a hundred thousand years or so, it would be like a little pebble, like, just like stick it out, Sisyphus, you'll be done in no time, you know? "
"Eventually it's just going to be sand."
"Yeah, exactly. And in addition, the hill will also erode. And so, you know, Sisyphus after some time would have a flat plane instead of a hill and maybe like a marble instead of a boulder."
"Yeah, so, yeah, he's cursed for eternity, but really it's he just needs to get through, I dunno, 50,000 years or something."
"Yeah, he should really stick to it, and then that'll show the gods."
"It's funny to think about a man serving out his eternal curse, and what it is, is very easily pushing a marble along the ground."
"Yeah. And then maybe stop conscripting innocent boulders into your curses, HUMANS."

It reminds me a bit of the poem Dialog of Soul and Stone - also of my paraphrase of a line from the Dilbert animated series, "Sisyphus has a sense of playfulness [...] you have to look at it from the rock's point of view." which is kind of a different assumption about what rocks might enjoy....

the worst part about meeting new people is having to tell your life story like it's a coherent narrative you endorse

A buddy mistakenly thought flutes weren't woodwinds, I think in part he was conflating "the reeds" with "the woodwinds" - easy enough mistake if you didn't grow up in symphonic groups. Yamaha implies a definition of "woodwinds" as "the non-'lip reed' wind instruments" - i.e. you don't buzz your lips to make a sound.

The term "lip reed" seems a bit ridiculous, tho.

Apple in-store display ad at a CompUSA, circa 2003. I'm kind of not sure what to think about it, but human diversity is amazing.

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"How can you be bored? Our baby's like a work of art... it's like being at the Guggenheim all day."
"Do NOT bring up the Guggenheim... remember they kicked me out for tripping and falling all the way down the spiral?"

I admit, this made me LLOLL (literally laugh out loud loudly). I think the juxtaposition of high art (literally) and low...(err, also literally, I guess.)

If, 100 years from now, they look back at my election, I hope what they see is the beginning of a century of inclusive politics.

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Much like a cookie, I predict the Yankee dynasty will crumble and the results will be delicious for Red Sox fans.

My favorite Menino quote ever.

Most of these guys, you couldn't pull a pin out of their ass with a tractor.

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Best infographic you'll see today, via

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Burying normal human desires because you can interpret them as not fitting your politics is what fundamentalists do. It never works out.

All is well for us here in Arlington. Some small branches, lots of leaves, no flooding, just another day working from home and a bit more of that "let's put a reporter next to a splashing sea wall!" footage on television.

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Bond vs Bond vs Bond:

Mighta been cooler as a tourney, but that was pretty sweet.

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There simply is no way to describe the past without lying. Our memories are not like fiction. They are fiction.

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The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

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a permeating, low-lying sense of dread that there is some kind of 'should.'

--via The site listed is Luke Surl, I think, and not Luke's URL but the ambiguity might be intentional.

On a tangentially related note, Amber has noticed an uptick in the number of puns emanating from my person.

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Steve Jobs and his Zen Buddhist practice.

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Jesus Christ, Boston. You are beyond parody. http://twitpic.com/77zpeo

So, fun with the new camera... I still feel, I dunno, defensive about not getting something that was more manual-settings-centric -- I thought that maybe I should go for a larger camera to carry in my bag, since the iPhone has gotten so decent, but you know, for really quick shots, the iPhone camera app is a little fiddly to launch, and then it's too easy to obscure the lens with an errant finger and too difficult to hit the shutter button.

But the Canon SD4500 has a much bigger lens assembly, which allows for 10x optical zoom (great options for framing a shot just so) and I hope might be even cooler for poor light conditions.

I really think the automatic settings are getting pretty brilliant on these things... the shot you take is always better than the shot you miss because you were fiddling with manual settings, or just didn't have the camera with you...

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Look at the ground this evening to see the eclipse of the sun by the Earth.

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http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=rapid-thinking-makes-people-happy -- maybe my scatterbrain is self-medication!

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http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/c8863726da/judd-apatow-psa - surprisingly funny plug for the American Jewish World Service...

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The WHOLE BUILDING smells like soup!"

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Jim Graves pinged me on IM, we hadn't talked in a long while...
jim: howdy.
kirk: YO
jim: alright, chat at you next year :p
kirk: see ya then!

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43 minutes elapse - this why I like Jim, making room to let comedy happen- the delay could've been a day and I would have been giggling the entire time.

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jim: did Microsoft release some malicious code that slows down XP installs? Mine has been dogging for about 2months
kirk: I just got a metric tonload of updates
past few days though not past few months
So how's life up there at the Lowell conecctor
he asks
from his workplace in Andover
jim: lol. it's been rainy and leafy
kirk: any halloween plans?
jim: we're going to a roller derby costume party. i think.
what are you doing?
kirk: my ex housemate Miller's shindig
jim: will there be a disco ball?
kirk: I might go as a Feynman Diagram.
THUS PROVING MY UNTOUCHABLE GEEK CRED
untouchable in the India sense of the word.
jim: Not too shabby.
I have gone the other direction in my costume choice.
ultra lazy... i'll be putting on glitter body cream and going as a twilight vampire.
kirk: man, that'll probably be a chick magnet
jim: the best part is, i can wear whatever I want.
as long as i have the body glitter on under it
so are you going to decay into a few pions?
kirk: IF I'M LUCKY!!!!
jim: i know very little quantum mechanics
extremely little
kirk: i see what you did there.

--Jim and me yesterday. Man, I have a lot less funny IM banter in my life than I used to. I blame facebook.

Also this was on gtalk, but I still feel compelled to make AIM-like red and blue marks of who is talking.

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I just had the dumbest time with some lost car keys. They were gone, gone, gone, the car searched top to bottom, until they weren't.

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There is no such thing as an ending. Or a begining, for that matter. Everything is middle.

Just finished the audiobook for this heretical non-Douglas Adams sequel to Hitchhiker's Guide and you know-- it was pretty good, if a bit long.

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http://www.doublex.com/section/life/there-are-no-seven-stages-grief - on the lie of 7 stages of grief, and the resilience most people have - "What looks like strength, in Bonanno's book, is almost always strength."

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http://www.slate.com/id/2233834/ - Slate on how a parked Porsche is more eco-friendly than a in-use Prius. No crap, you elitist twerp. Ugh. Starting to get anxious about the election.

Just to further some thoughts I originally twittered...watched some of Obama's infomercial. Who was the last guy to try that, Ross Perot maybe? I hope it builds up people's familiarity with him. On the one hand it seems odd that McCain doesn't get a symmetrical rejoinder. On the other hand, McCain isn't trying to leap a racial boundary in American politics.

Watching the Philly's win I saw a McCain rejoinder commercial, spinning it "He's Not Ready...Yet". I love the subtext "C'mon, vote for me! I'm old! This is like my last chance! You can vote for him later!"

I went ahead and googled the full Joe the Plumber / Obama conversation. It's amazing how patient and detailed Obama is with this dork who's obviously looking for a scrap. Plus, the dude looks like a bad Mr. Clean impression. If it wasn't for the name "Joe the Plumber" I don't think he'd be thought of as representational of "Joe Sixpack" at all...

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Video of the Moment

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Quote of the Moment

The heart has its reasons that Reason doesn't know at all.

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Watching Obama: lesson learned, "real americans" are kinda heavy.

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Watching Obama. This half hour format is an interesting gambit, oddly asymmetrical 'cause McCain can't afford it. Is it like Ross Perot 92?

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HAHA, McCain's counter ad "[Obama-] He's Not Ready ...Yet". He's having to Praise with Faint Damnation!

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Congrats Philly, land o' my birth... and I gotta root for any cold weather city over any warm weather city anyway.

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pentomino I was trying to think of the subtext- "Suresure, we'll have a black president, eventually. But this is this old dudes last shot!" In his LJ, Mr. Ibis posted an old gem about finding the height of a building using a barometer. The following was my rather long-winded response:

Ok, at the risk of spoiling a lovely story:

First off, I love this chestnut of a story. It's a terrific study in lateral thinking.

I think the "Neils Bohr" bit is a retcon; previously I saw it end on the "I will give you this fine barometer" line, which is a bit punchier.

But now I'm musing on the ending. I've been thinking about "bubble tests" lately, the SAT etc. I did very well on those, which was a lovely ego boost and a boon for college admission. I'm totally willing to believe there's only a so-so correlation between these tests and "smarts", but I'm unwilling to buy into the idea that "the only thing they test is how well you take tests". My current favorite (untested, but anecdotally supported) theory: there is a surprisingly strong correlation between reading speed and test scores. A number of people who I think of as clever, but they did poorly on the tests have said they aren't such fast readers. (Not sure if it's correlation or causation, but there are some arguments for the latter including being more able to check your work.)

But anyway, that's a tangent. My point was this: when taking a test it's good to be meta- about it. Often a thought about WHY they're asking a particular question, or providing those possible answers, is extremely useful. And I used to be a fighter; if I saw 2 choices that met the question as it was asked and got the right one based on a reading of the metaquestion, I would FIGHT for other kids who got the other "correct but not the right" answer, just because of my sense of justice and fair play.

So, I think asking a question with an "obvious right" answer isn't so bad. I would say that Bohr's other solutions all rely on having other props (a long rope, a stopwatch, a sunny day and a ruler, chalk and idiosyncratically architected stairs, string, rope AND a stopwatch, or a friendly and unusually knowledgeable superintendent.) Plus, several of them would probably cost you the barometer. I think the "correct" answer only requires the barometer and some knowledge. And roof access. But you get to keep the barometer.

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Video of the Moment
I don't care who you are or what your life is like, it almost certainly doesn't have enough ninjas on roller skates:

Hey, does anyone have any ideas for what would make a fun party for a gal's sixteenth birthday party? (No dumb jokes, please.)

Ksenia's family is trying to figure it out for her sister whose birthday is in a few weeks... bowlings kind of lame? Are they doing ice skating yet? Too old for that?

Is having a party in the house a good idea at that age? I can't remember many "activity" parties by that age, I think they were mostly at people's houses, parent-sanctioned but without a big parental presence. I had a few surprise parties thrown at me...

Still something out of the house might be good. Any ideas?

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Panels of the Moment


--FoSO and FoSOSO had a very small draw comics/eat chinese/watch movie get-together last night. I decided to work on fleshing out my Young Astronauts in Love idea, just working a few panels to see if I could get a feel for both my tool preferences and if there's a story I'd like to tell here. And in a fit of self-indulgence I decided to post the test panels here.

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Quote of the Moment

My consolation is that I am confident that somewhere at this very moment people are making love.

Don't foget, clocks went back an hour early this morning!

I've always been a big fan of the idea of having DST be all year long or so, though now that Ksenia has to get up at 6 and it's so dang dark, I can see the validity of the opposite viewpoint. Doesn't change my opinion much, but I see what they're getting at.

Story of the Moment

"They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"

"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."

"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat."

"Maybe they're like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."

"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?"

"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."

"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."

"No brain?"

"Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat! That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"So ... what does the thinking?"

"You're not understanding, are you? You're refusing to deal with what I'm telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat."

"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"

"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?"

"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."

"Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."

"Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?"

"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual."

"We're supposed to talk to meat."

"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.' That sort of thing."

"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"

"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."

"I thought you just told me they used radio."

"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"

"Officially or unofficially?"

"Both."

"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."

"I was hoping you would say that."

"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"

"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say? 'Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"

"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."

"So we just pretend there's no one home in the Universe."

"That's it."

"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You're sure they won't remember?"

"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."

"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."

"And we marked the entire sector unoccupied."

"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"

"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again."

"They always come around."

"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone ..."

Geekness of the Moment
Making the geek rounds, This guy is making Grand Theftendo, a fairly accurate port of Grand Theft Auto 3 for the 1980s Nintendo NES Console...what's most amazing is how much of his own toolset he's made to help him out. The NES homebrew community I think is generally less mature than the one for the Atari 2600, so there was more work to be done. (Heh, though come to think of it, I did sort of chip in with some programming resources, some Javascript-based graphics editors and a Tutorial.) On the other other hand, he's making his own hardware to test things out on a real system...

His main site points to some other interesting projects, like his obsession with the Game King, this one more-primitive-than-an-original-Gameboy system...he reversed engineered it, plus there are reviews of the available games. Also, fans of the old Sierra Adventures should see his GBA work in that area.

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Quote of the Moment

Everything you know is wrong. But some of it is a useful first approximation.

You know, I only sang a cappella for a year with Tufts sQ, and only put together one or two songs, but it's had a surprisingly lasting influence in how I listen to music. I think I still listen to songs with an ear for "would this be a good a cappella piece", picking out different instrumental lines. And, like a surpisingly large percentange of a cappella singers, I hate listening to a cappella for the most part, but enjoy singing it. Go figure. (And it's not like there are a ton of groups out there just waiting for random less-than-half-assed ideas for good a cappella arrangements...)

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Toys of the Moment
Actually, the guy who made that Sand java toy I posted a few days ago has a page with some other java toys. "Spring" is cool, if a little spastic, and I guess the toy "Fire" would be more fun to play with if it didn't strike so close to home...or rather, Californian homes.

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Quote of the Moment

If God is dead, who will save the Queen?

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News Quote of the Moment

I have not seen anything like it in my entire career as a solar physicist. The probability of this happening is so low that it is a statistical anomaly.

You know, 'statistical anomaly' is NOT what I want to hear from solar physicists about my particular sun.

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Slashdot Thread of the Moment
I thought that this slashdot thread on the future of videogames was pretty good. (Including my own post, if I do say so myself, along with one other guy who modded it as "+1, Insightful")

2019 UPDATE-- here's what I wrote:

It's amazing how scripted 3D human movement is in 90% of games. Take Soul Caliber 2; during some of Voldo's victory poses (and you think they could take the time to do victory poses right, since they can be easily 100% scripted without interference from either player) his weapon passes right through the floor! That's just wrong. Essentially, what we need (well, not need, but it's a worthwhile goal) is "rag doll physics" in everything. Polygon/limb-specific damage shouldn't even be an issue. If a character walks, that should reflect his (or her) legs and feet moving against the floor, using the arms for balance...

it's going to be rough for a while, because suddenly walking and jumping go from easily recorded and replayed events to challenging AI problems (and if we're not careful, everything's gonna walk around like that Honda ASIMO 'bot) But I think just like N64 era games had "stairs" that were just hills with vaguely stair like textures, this gen's scripted movement will seem like an anachronism.

GTA has started to address this, at least in terms of car physics. Despite the fact that it has special camera angles (and behaviors?) for certain jumps, all the vehicle stuff is based on an essential core physics model. GTA is also interesting for overlaying a scripted adventure on a world that doesn't feel like it's exclusively been created for the player...although RAM limitations means vehicles and pedestrians aren't nearly as persistent as they should be, and it's not like a UO virtual economy or anything, it has the flavor of a 'real', persistent, and self-consistent place. With absolutely NO traffic laws :-)

(Today's title is a tribute to the title of this entry, which for the longest time (until yesterday in fact) had the typo of tool for toll. I felt somehow guilty about changing it. I swear sometimes I have a touch of dyslexia.)

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Culture of the Moment
The most in-depth American dialect survey I've seen, from age-old questions like "is it a sub, hoagie, hero, or grinder"/"soda, pop, tonic, or coke" to more obscure ones like "What do you call the area of grass between the sidewalk and the road?". In Cleveland I learned that's a "tree lawn", and I'm not surprised "I have no word for this" is the most popular option around here...cities like Cambridge and Somerville don't even have 'em! (Also, answer b to this one comes as a complete surprise to me...)

There's something a little melancholy in the "I have no word for this" response for so many of the questions. (Except of course for stuff like "What do you call a drive-through liquor store"...we had those in Cleveland, but no special word for it, and here they don't exist.)

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Image Link of the Moment
Cellar.org's image of the day recently was a scene where a former World Cup soccer player died on the field, hit by lightning. Yikes, what a way and time and place to go.

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News of the Moment
The increasing corporatization of pot growers. Combined with the resource drain on prisons for minor drug offendors, this is just stupid. It's time to make it legal, tax the hell out of it, move on to more pressing problems.

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Archive of the Last Two Years of Moments
I just revamped the monthly archive for kisrael.com. I tweaked the look of the month list, but more importantly, I used some script trickery to try to convince Google that it's static content that should be archived... So I use AOL-IM heavily. For people who don't know, it's a very decent "instant messenger" program, to 'chat' with people online, one line of text at a time. For some reason I've always been secretive about my nickname (kirkjerk), but I realize that's kind of silly...it has very good blocking features, and I have never gotten "spam" while on it. (Unlike one of its main rivals, ICQ.) Anyway, it always makes a noise when someone from my "buddy list" logs into it, and being the micromanager that I am, I always go and peek. And I'm realizing it's such a bummer when a buddy logs on, then off, it always feels like a rejection, they were looking for someone to chat with and I didn't make the cut.

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Funny of the Moment

According to a film my wife saw in her philosophy class, Bertrand Russell received a letter from a woman who proclaimed herself a solipsist. She went on to say that she was surprised that there weren't more solipsists.

This is kind of an obscure joke, in fact I didn't get it until I did a websearch on Google. Solipsism is the belief that everything except yourself is illusionary. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream, that kind of thing. Obviously it's not a belief that promotes prostelytization, why bother to covert imaginary beings that they're the only unimaginary part of the universe. (I suppose there could be an aggressive form of solipsism where you try to convince everyone else that they don't exist, but I haven't heard much about that.) Here's a link on Applied Solipsism , might as well just make your webpage for yourself since everyone else is just a figment of your imagination anyway! Most 'Blogs seem to work on this principle.

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Link of the Moment
A shallow analysis of Osama's beard. But the English edition of Pravda is really interesting. It's a whole 'nother viewpoint from most Western papers, and the translation seems to be a little rough, so it carries a strong sense of other-ness.