More Procrastination

Measuring success

2012-01-30T20:53:00.003+01:00

This is just a placeholder for some ideas to consider on socio-economic statistics.measuring mobility: the usual measure, I believe, is son's income versus father's income. That seems really hard to get right. Between changes of socio-economic context, inflation and purchase-price-parity over time, return on investments as well as salary income, and other factors, how

Autumn Drought in Western Europe?

2011-12-04T14:47:00.002+01:00

Observed in the news (Independent.co.uk, also Guardian for the second one) this week, a couple of items I haven't seen elsewhere: Drought traps ships on Danube and a bit to the west, two unexploded WW II bombs were discovered in the bed of the Rhine near Koblenz after the Rhine's water level fell due to lack of rain. The first reports that November was the driest in the Czech Republic since

Upgrading to Thunderbird 3.1.15 and Kubuntu 10.10

2011-11-17T19:42:00.002+01:00

I recently upgraded Kubuntu on my computer, from 9.10 to 10.04, then to 10.10. One consequence of those changes was that the version of Thunderbird (with Lightning) evolved from 2.x to 3.1.15.The first issue was encountered in the "Migration Assistant" of all places. The Migration Assistant is a wizard that highlights a couple of former features that are now delegated to extensions (plugins,

Of Thinks to Come

2011-10-07T19:35:00.004+02:00

A phrase quoted on a blog today got me wondering whether one of my longstanding beliefs about a phrase and its semantics might be incorrect.The phrase quoted on The Dish began"[A]nyone who thinks Gov. Palin or any of us 'cultists' are going to go away has another thing coming ...Now, I believe that it should have ended "has another think coming." The idea being,

Paper and Computer Screen Sizes

2011-03-27T18:54:00.000+02:00

Once upon a time, television screens were all about the same shape, and there was a good reason for that: they were all intended to display standard shaped video images in a 4:3 ratio of width:height. That was the proportion standard in the motion picture industry at the time television began, so I suppose that made it an obvious standard to adopt for television as well. However, motion picture

Potential Racist Remarks Abroad Envisaged by American Journalist

2010-06-26T13:10:00.000+02:00

"Nobody has said anything openly racist, yet," said sociologist Jacques Tarnero, who studies racism. However, the risk of tipping into xenophobia comes up when the French team is associated with the problems of the French ghettoes. It could confuse the public, he said.So whence the title "French insults of World Cup team seen through racial prism", from which the paragraph above is taken? Ask

Browser Wars : Some Complaints, A Recommendation

2010-03-07T12:42:00.005+01:00

Will the "browser wars" never end? One could have hoped so, now that Microsoft has begun providing the "Ballot Screen" so Windows users can choose their browser. Fine, there remain problematic details regarding which browser appear in the primary list, which are on a secondary list, and which are not even mentioned. There is also the less-minor detail that this "Ballot

Dune Author Dynasty

2010-02-19T21:51:00.002+01:00

I read "Dune" by Frank Herbert in the late winter or early spring of 1974; a friend had recommended it -- and possibly loaned me his copy. I later read "God Emperor of Dune," "Children of Dune" (both of which I own) and "Dune Messiah" (borrowed and returned). I haven't read "Chapterhouse: Dune" nor "Heretics of Dune." So when a classmate asked me today if I'd read the "Dune" books, I confidently

Disappointment with Progress : electronic kitchen timers

2010-02-14T20:54:00.000+01:00

Affordable, battery powered electronic timers suitable for use in the kitchen have been around for about forty years, I reckon. Is their becoming stupider and less useful a leading indicater of anything? One should hope not.Between thirty and forty years ago, we acquired a kitchen timer that was wonderful: digital, small, capable of tracking three timespans simultaneously (and they didn't have to

Gapminding Haiti

2010-01-16T23:16:00.000+01:00

I hesitate to post this, because there are still lots of people in dire straits in Haiti and I don't wish to distract anyone from providing what help they can. If you are reading this in mid-January 2010, please make sure you are satisfied you have made what you consider adequate donation(s) to Red Cross, Doctors without borders, Action against hunger, and so on, and have time to spare to read

Are Lesbians Homosexual?

2009-06-27T21:55:00.001+02:00

There seems to be some doubt, as I discovered via a survey/polling/consumer research company which very recently asked me to choose among the following options to classify myself (my translation of their French--which was probabably a translation from American). heterosexualhomosexualbi-sexuallesbianothernot sureprefer not to answerI don't know whether this was intended to manage quotas (as if.

Don't be Sorry

2009-06-26T22:15:00.001+02:00

My offspring would have no trouble adding what comes next: ", be careful!" In fact, I've drilled them on it so many times ("I'm sorry I knocked over the glass" -- "Don't be sorry, be careful") that "don't be" or even "don't" (I didn't interdict much) would probably suffice. Just as "You don't..." was almost invariably the intro to "you don't know ..." But we--"I" included-- may still not know

Lazlo of Pennlee

2009-05-23T20:33:00.001+02:00

It was a great show, a classic. It was my first encounter with the word "affidavit," which I've rarely encountered since and even more rarely used (I'm not a lawyer). Many years ago, I watched (regularly, I think, around 6 p.m. on Sundays) a show called To Tell The Truth. I mention "many years ago"--and I only remember watching in Black and White so that means at latest 1966-- because I still

How many pats of butter per day is "optimal"?

2009-01-21T18:58:00.005+01:00

After reading Michael Trick's Operations Research blog post, "A Sheriff Goes to Jail for Not Using Operations Research" I followed the link he provided to the Menu Optimizer he cited. I've been interested in such models for many, many years.My first professional assignment was to help food scientists doing product development use such models. In so doing, and reading

Times-ly RSS Feeds: Why Don't They Stay Fresh?

2009-01-18T17:46:00.004+01:00

For quite some time, my browser "start page" has been Netvibes. I don't claim to make full use of it, but I find it a very convenient way to scan and dig-down into selected RSS feeds. I have a tab for personal and otherwise hard to categorize boxes, lists and widgets (weather, TV programs, Facebook, my own blog, delicious bookmarks, and so on), tabs grouping rss feeds

Better Bremner: on airmanship and Airbus

2009-01-18T16:36:00.004+01:00

In his blog post from last Friday, Airmanship, not miracle, saved US Airways jet in New York, Charles Bremner demonstrates that he is much more knowledgeable (perhaps because more interested--quote I can imagine the picture well because I used to pilot light aircraft along the same low path over the George Washington Bridge and down the Hudson beside Manhattan.) about

Charles Bremner: Bigot, Boor, Both?

2008-12-27T12:54:00.007+01:00

Reading Charles Bremner's column Rebirth for quirky old French bike this morning (in Times Online, owned by Murdoch's News Corporation, I realize), a phrase caught my attention: The e-Solex is made in China but it is stylish.I'm not making it up, have a look for yourself! Might one hear that even on Fox? No, I don't know why he would write something which seems bigoted,

Recyclable: how?

2008-12-25T18:27:00.005+01:00

Not to brag, but I am pretty conscientious about recycling (and pretty poor at discarding, but that's another matter) and systematically look for products that are produced using recycled materials. High among those are paper products such as paper towels and toilet paper.Well, the other day I needed to buy toilet paper; in the first store (a hypermarket) I spotted a

Dry Mist

2008-11-30T18:28:00.005+01:00

The term may not be new, only new to me. However, as an American-French bilingual with an above-average interest (IMHO) in finding le mot juste, I'm pretty sure it would have caught my attention had I seen it before. What's more, I've often had to refer to smog when telling people in French about Los Angeles; I've always just called it "smog" or "le smog" and then

French Judges Not On Strike

2008-10-23T22:35:00.001+02:00

French judges aren't inclined to go on strike or even march in the street to demonstrate their grievances. There are lots of reasons for that. But enough judges had enough complaints for their union(s) to call for a demonstration of their dissatisfaction and voicing of their grievances. The problem is not their pay or retirement benefits, it is the means at their disposal to deliver their mission

Henry Paulson's Hiring Practices

2008-10-22T14:57:00.001+02:00

There are clearly several ways to express some things. For instance, doubts about the ability of the people recruited to execute Paulson's bailout plan to successfully do so. One might wonder whether anyone could do it, but the three views I've come across and would like to contrast all opine mainly about whether the people who have been appointed are likely to succeed.First style: synthetic,

Music : Leon Russell

2008-10-21T21:41:00.003+02:00

I recently heard something on the radio in the kitchen (Radio Regen-Bogen or SW2), a series of oldies, one or more of which brought Leon Russell to mind. And Steve Miller, or was that the one that brought Leon Russell to mind?In any case, I went searching the web for a song or two, and news of Leon Russell and Steve Miller, and found some duds, but also learned a bit: I didn't know that Boz

Gladiation: Palin versus Putin Chess Match

2008-09-16T23:35:00.001+02:00

Nobody is (yet) asking for a Medvedev vs. McCain vs. Obama, and Putin vs. Palin vs. Biden chess mini-tournament. Or some similar tournament, even with earphones and coaching only on the American side. Maybe they should be. Take Go or some other strategic game instead of chess if you believe it more revealing of the capability of a candidate for the highest executive offices. I suspect that many

Unleash the fox hounds, they may catch some hawks

2008-09-09T23:14:00.001+02:00

The "collateral damage" of a recent assault in Afghanistan by coalition troops was reported to have cost the lives of dozens of women and children, cost confirmed by both Afghanistan, which subsequently fired two generals, and the UN. According to the Pentagon investigation, and corroborated by an "independent embedded journalist", the count was exaggerated; there were only seven civilian deaths

Learning 21st Century English Usage

2008-08-25T21:25:00.001+02:00

Were I an editor, I would have edited this:Shares in Maple Leaf Foods, which expanded a nationwide recall of its cold cuts over the weekend after its products were linked to four deaths and dozens of illness, fell to their lowest level in seven years during trading on Monday.I don't think that were linked to four deaths and dozens of illness is correct or comprehensible: there are dozens and

No Hope Without Dope

2008-08-07T22:09:00.001+02:00

James Fallows commented a little while ago on American cyclists arriving in China for the Olympic Games wearing masks ("About those U.S. cyclists with gas masks". I think that, if they didn't have those masks off well before they arrived at passport control, and without being asked, they should have been sent off for biometric testing, DNA samples, etc. Rules are rules, even for Americans (who

Bison Futé

2008-08-06T18:37:00.001+02:00

In past articles on France and the French, Sebastian Rotella, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, has written things that were incorrect or misleading; his article today (France's August traffic jam) is balanced and researched, I am pleased to note. I would just like to add one "footnote" to what he wrote about "Bison Futé."In 1976, news reports about worsening highway problems gave rise to a robust

Impeach Bush Petition

2008-07-31T23:06:00.001+02:00

I was delighted to learn, a few minutes ago, of the petition below: better late than never. Although I do keep in mind and savor the possibility of a future arrest (like that of John Bolton attempted by George Monbiot), it would be healthier for the U.S. to start recognizing its own trespasses.Unfortunately, this petition was designed without ex-pats in mind, so I can't fill all the required

French Viewed by America This Week

2008-07-20T10:45:00.002+02:00

France and the French are back in the American press this week in a pleasant assortment of articles. Remarkably, in the same week that a comic strip insulted the French , we also saw:In Paris, Burgers Turn Chic in the New York TimesTecktonik: the trademarked dance craze that's everywhere in France It's as much of a movement as it is a way of moving. Some see the trend as simply a tool to sell

Brainwashing Americans using Embedded Inaccuracy

2008-07-19T22:06:00.002+02:00

electoralmarkets.com uses Intrade.com prices to color a map of what the money says the presidential election outcome will be. Please don't take my word for it, visit electoralmarkets to see the map. As of this moment, they show probabilities Obama 68.2 McCain 31.8Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal today (July 19, 2008; Page W1: no link because it may only be available to non-subscribers for seven

Reporting on Mediterranean Jellyfish: Physiocratic (and phytocratic?) Resurgence Needed

2008-07-18T22:37:00.001+02:00

Today, an article in Le Monde finally noticed symptoms of a human-made imballance in the Mediterranean ecosystem worth reporting, about a month after le Parisien and five months after the Independent.co.uk. What happened, the arrival of a stageaire? And how long until le Figaro, major organ of the country whose president organized the gathering for the Union for the Mediterranean, also notices

Yahoo™ toolbar Piggy-backing on Sun™ Java™ Update: Obnoxious

2008-07-18T21:51:00.002+02:00

Yahoo!™ using push rather than pull to deploy its browser toolbar projects the image of an entity in peril. If the toolbar were desirable, and actually satisfied a consumer need, why would they resort to this almost Trojan piggy-backing effort to get it installed? And why the Sun™ Java™ installer?Java™ updates from Sun™ [on the platform Sony™ sold me] already left a lot to be desired: they nag

Offensive Non Sequitur Cartoon Strip

2008-07-16T18:39:00.001+02:00

Challenge: replace "French" and "Canadian" in the following dialogue (from today's Non Sequitur comic strip) with another pair of nationalities, or a pair of religions or ethnicities, to produce an inoffensive scene. (Like "German" and "Swiss," or "Catholic" and "Episcopalian;" but those seem not to be inoffensive, either).Petey: "So, Dave is your ...uh...boy-friend?"Lucy: "Yeah...Isn't he dreamy

Bret Stephens: Mass for Neurotics, or July Fool's Day Essay?

2008-07-06T18:45:00.002+02:00

It has been widely noted that fact-checking in mainstream media is in serious decline. So, perhaps it is not surprising that there is none at all for the Wall Street Journal op-eds and editorials, and that outright lies can be written as "facts."The case in point that inspired this billet:GLOBAL VIEWBy BRET STEPHENS Global Warming as Mass NeurosisJuly 1, 2008; Page A15Last week marked the 20th

TF1 est h-i-é

2008-06-25T22:51:00.004+02:00

A private television channel, TF1, broadcast [parts of] the semi-final match played this evening in Basel between Turkey and Germany. I don't watch shows on TF1 very often, and that is unlikely to change to their advantage, because we missed too much, too many important moments in this match...for technical reasons. I'm not sure who won, really, not sure that errors of

Mehmed II: Was that any way to talk to your father?

2008-06-18T20:17:00.002+02:00

Turkey's performance in the Euro 2008 football (soccer) tournament--very successful, so far-- has inspired some to wonder about the geopolitical implications. "What is Turkey doing in a European tournament? If that is appropriate, why look askance at Turkey's candidacy for E.U. membership?" ( Encore la Turquie, et puis aussi un nouveau combat de l'inutile 18/06, Jean-Michel Aphatie [fr] )It also

Hillary Clinton: Serial Egotism

2008-03-05T10:33:00.002+01:00

Maybe Huckabee isn't the only one who receives phone calls from God. The first time Hillary Clinton said something very similar to this, it seemed accidental, attributable to fatigue, but nevertheless odd. It was also a little more general, and could--if one is very generous-- be taken to mean that high turnout indicates healthy democracy, not that her personal victory is necessary for "America

Gil Scott-Heron, Joan Baez and Earl Scruggs

2008-03-03T20:14:00.002+01:00

Artificially (or algorithmically) intelligent free association led me from Lenny Bruce to Gil Scott-Heron.It was not my "free association", it was YouTube's "free association" intuited for me.YouTube suggestions are right up there with Google page ranks for vacillation between "but of course" and "what the f*?" (did it take my recent visit to Joan Baez singing and playing and Earl Scruggs

One-letter Four-letter Words

2008-03-02T21:22:00.005+01:00

By "One-letter Four-letter Words" I mean, of course, "four letter words that aren't permitted" in FCC-regulated media, and even in the press are often only "identified" by one (first) letter: the f word, the s word, and whatever others there may be.Why has the FCC suddenly become so zealous? Hope that if they do a super job policing media that are in decline (those carried over the "public"

Climate Change: Not so fast!

2008-03-02T14:00:00.001+01:00

This is the kind of writing/research/proof-reading/fact-checking failure that delights climate-change deniers:The Met Office, Britain's weather agency, says that by 2030, Mediterranean rainfall is expected to be down by 25% and annual average air temperatures in Europe are likely to be up by as much as 42 degrees by 2080. In France, truffle stock is shriveling - Los Angeles Times By Jenny

Cinemafy, cinemafied

2008-02-29T21:08:00.001+01:00

I would have been delighted to have been first to use this term, but I guess it was low-hanging fruit. "Make into a movie" can be *so* "too many words". Nevertheless, if I can count on Google et al. to know, there haven't been many prior uses. Of "cinemafy", only three plus "home cinemafy" (see note at below). Of the "cinemafied" transformation, less than thirty (and I haven't yet checked that

Political Groundhog Day?

2008-02-06T14:46:00.001+01:00

There was lots of calling the February 5 primaries (and cauci) "Super Tuesday", for several reasons (number of delegates at stake, proximity to "Super Bowl Sunday"). What was little mentioned (that I saw) was that it also fell on the first Tuesday after Groundhog Day! And it looks like the front-runners (Dems, anyway) have seen their shadows, and there will be six more weeks (or even months) of

Hillary Clinton Herself Quoted

2008-02-02T18:15:00.001+01:00

From the Timesonline.co.uk article "Turning the other cheek: why Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are playing best friends":Mrs Clinton expressed similar sentiments, saying: “The differences between Barack and I pale in comparison to the differences that we have with the Republicans.”Even "between Barack and myself" would have been better, wouldn't it?Identificateurs Technorati : grammar, Hillary

Proofreaders and Editors (even the AI ones) unite!

2008-01-30T22:42:00.001+01:00

From Barack Obama wins by a landslide - Times Online Exit polls suggested he had received four in five black votes - and a quarter of those cast by white voters.I can't believe that 20% of the black votes were cast by white voters, can you?P.S. Is the only reason it is still called "English" rather than "American" to save a syllable?Identificateurs Technorati : journalism, editing, proofreading,

"America is back"?

2008-01-30T08:52:00.001+01:00

"I am convinced that with this resounding vote, with the millions of Americans who will vote next Tuesday, we will send a clear message that America is back and we will take charge of our destiny once again," she said to a boisterous crowd. "This has been a record turnout because Floridians wanted their voices to be heard." Hillary Clinton, in Florida, 29 January 2008 (cited in Hillary Clinton

Bush May Refuse to Leave Office, Suggests Major US Newspaper

2008-01-30T08:25:00.001+01:00

UPDATE/CANCELLATION: When I posted the note below, I didn't realize that a President may deliver a final State of the Union address just before leaving office and swearing in his successor. But now I know: Eisenhower did so in 1961. Thanks to James Fallows's interesting "State of the Union: Post Mortem". WASHINGTON -- Relaxed, confident and unapologetic, President Bush delivered his seventh and

USA Presidential Election: self-test fun!

2008-01-11T15:10:00.001+01:00

BackgroundThis morning I indulged in a binge of USA Presidential Elections quizes. I took all six listed at the University of Michigan's Document Center; I had taken two several weeks ago: the ABC News Match-O-Matic (not on the list but the USAToday one seems almost identical) and the WQAD quiz. They vary in length from eleven to twenty-eight questions. Most quizes are composed of questions of

Sarkozy's Controversial Vatican Speech

2008-01-10T20:12:00.001+01:00

On the evening of December 20, 2007, French President Sarkozy made a speech which was largely ignored by the English-language press (judgement based on some simple searches of major organs on the web--see appendix at bottom) other than Catholic or Christian specialist media Catholic News -- Global Sarkozy: Laicism Shouldn't Cut Christian RootsThe president of France said laicism should not try to

VOXEU: Language, if not economics

2008-01-07T22:09:00.000+01:00

How much more does one read after:High quality empirical evidence from the shows that mass media influences voters but it is not clear that the media imparts a bias.Too bad. "Does the mass-media have political influence?" sounds interesting.Tags: Economics : propaganda : syntax errors

How Much Handwashing Is Enough?

2008-01-06T12:35:00.001+01:00

In the Guardian co. UK article Vomiting bug to get worse, Jo Revill informs us (my underlining):Infections from the debilitating norovirus stomach bug will peak this week as millions return to work after the holidays and spread the germs, the government has warned. People are advised to protect themselves by washing their hands thoroughly at all times.The virus does seem to be pretty contagious:

Journalism: if you haven't got it, don't flaunt it

2007-12-19T23:31:00.001+01:00

Today I accepted an invitation to join a Facebook group in defense of irregular verbs. That's not all I did; I also went to the library, went to the town treasury to pay my trash collection bill, finished reading a book by Haruki Murakami, did a load of laundry, wrote a couple of e-notes, and more. But, back to the defense of irregular verbs: how about "She had bade a tearful goodbye..." in the

Creationist Food Technology

2007-12-16T13:05:00.001+01:00

From A New Taste Sensation, By KATY MCLAUGHLIN, Wall Street Journal Online (December 8, 2007):scientists now widely believe that the body was designed to recognize glutamate, says Gary Beauchamp, director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in PhiladelphiaOr is it creationist journalism? The lack of quotation marks on the attributed view leaves ambiguity as to who chose the formulation "the

Procrastination in French

2007-11-24T23:24:00.001+01:00

Many people wonder how to say "procrastination" in French. Some come to this blog looking for an answer to that question, an answer which I didn't (yet) provide.I've often wondered myself, since procrastination is something that has often come up in my conversations over the years. I've put off, until now, doing any serious research because: I practice procrastinationI've arrogantly assumed that

Fish House Punch: Another Festive Drink From Centuries Past

2007-11-21T19:28:00.001+01:00

When I don't have a case of mead in the refridgerator and I have a traditional American event to celebrate (Thanksgiving or Independence Day--especially centenials), I can usually mix up a batch of Fish House Punch. While I don't know exactly when it was first concocted, I do have a recipe in a cookbook that purports to be a family recipe from Baltimore (MD), 1732; that may be

Save the Honeybee -- Needed to Make the Nectar of the Gods!

2007-11-21T11:47:00.001+01:00

In an article in the WSJ entitled "A Taste of Holiday Honey", author ERIC FELTEN writes about Metheglin:At the first Thanksgiving chances are some more of those strong waters were poured around, and perhaps also some Metheglin, a spiced drink of fermented honey.What is curious (and disappointing) is that, while he adds plenty of historical anecdotes about alcoholic beverages in the early colonial

Hallowe'en in Haguenau: annual report for 2007 (belated)

2007-11-13T21:54:00.001+01:00

Hallowe'en in Haguenau was easy to ignore and easy to forget this year. In a nutshell:half as many callers as last year (about 15 instead of 32), half my candy left over (instead of my having to dash to the supermarket before 8 p.m. closing, or even resorting to anxious smaller and smaller clutches of goodies to dispense hoping to make the last of the supply suffice to the end). No callers before

My Word!

2007-10-30T19:41:00.001+01:00

Well, there may be others, but "selfphone" (or "selfone"?) is one word for which I am a proud parent. I'm not sure how to do a DNA test to ensure that someone else wasn't begatting this word when I thought I was. But I'd never heard (or read) it when it occurred to me that these devices were personal, no families were leaving one in the hallway for everyone to share instead of "land line" phones

News On "Carbon sinks"

2007-10-23T11:27:00.001+02:00

I'm often critical of the Wall Street Journal, or at least its op/ed material. Today I'd like to note that the Wall Street Journal, but neither the LATimes nor the NYTimes, reported the fresh bad news on C02. The articles in the UK's Times and the Independent were more prominent, but that may well be due to the role of British and Australian researchers in establishing the observation.Carbon

DANIEL B. BOTKIN's Attempts to Delude On Global Warming

2007-10-20T15:40:00.001+02:00

The introductory paragraph of Global Warming Delusions launches its premise with the evidence that global warming will have serious effects on life is thin. Most evidence suggests the contrary. And then the author begins to demonstrate the wealth of contrary evidence:It is implied that extrapolating the rate of species extinction over the past 2.5 million years is a more trustworthy predictor

I got 37% on a quiz I just took!

2007-10-20T11:38:00.001+02:00

The author of the quiz said If you want to brag to your friends about your score, and don't think they'll believe you if you just say that you got 37%, you can bookmark this page, or send them a link to it. Its full address is, this here link with my actual answersFeel free to link to this page from your own web site or web log, if you want, and don't forget to tell your friends how much fun it

Florida to Export Housing Surplus

2007-10-13T10:38:00.001+02:00

Well, not physically, just financially: sell it off at (maybe) bargain basement rates to foreigners with EUR to invest.In "The United States of Subprime", Wall Street Journal Online (October 11, 2007), RICK BROOKS and CONSTANCE MITCHELL FORD noteFort Myers, Fla., ... area's median sales price for existing homes is down 22% since December 2005. Foreclosures are running at an all-time high. And

Flat America

2007-10-08T09:58:00.001+02:00

It was only background information on a ... a what? town, place, location, geo-entity, geo-demographic entity, geo-social entity, local society or sub-society? In a Wall Street Journal article titled "Where Has All The Oil Gone?", Ann Davis wrote about Cushing, Oklahoma.Although Cushing isn't located on a major highway or railroad, it's one of the world's main oil junctions. It's home to just

Proofreader Shortage Strikes Again

2007-10-04T10:28:00.001+02:00

Can you spot what seems to me to be an error in this article from the Wall Street Journal?Upscale European Stores Mix With U.S. Discounter By Ann Zimmerman Word Count: 452 | Companies Featured in This Article: Target Target Corp. is making its presence known across the pond, even though it doesn't have any stores outside the U.S. Starting tomorrow, as London Fashion Week unfolds,

Relativising "a billion pages of his thoughts about the "flat earth""

2007-09-15T22:59:00.001+02:00

In a recent memo published on the world-wide-web (a "blog post")(Maybe I was too hasty on this "world is not flat" business?) James Fallows worried:Before a TV appearance with Friedman last year, I calculated that more than a billion pages of his thoughts about the "flat earth" now exist. A big thick book, millions of copies in print, it adds up. Not nearly as many pages as the Harry Potter

Diablotin Moustachu?

2007-07-25T22:05:00.001+02:00

As Russell Ackoff pointed out in "the art of problem solving", we are often blocked from finding the solution to a problem by a constraint which is neither explicit nor truly binding, but which we impose on our search nevertheless, thereby excluding solutions we should not exclude. The key is to find it (or them) and relax it (or them)" (or words to that effect). In the case of my problem with my

Mick Jagger Addresses Investment Bankers

2007-07-25T13:07:00.001+02:00

Mick Jagger has a fine attitude for a graduate of the London School of Economics (if my memory serves me well).All in a Nights WorkBy THE NEW YORK TIMESPublished: July 23, 2007The Rolling Stones earned $5.4 million when they gave a private concert last week for 500 guests in Barcelona, Spain, Agence France-Presse reported. Citing the British music magazine NME, the news agency said that the party

Living with a Savage

2007-07-24T12:03:00.001+02:00

A few months ago, someone told me he thought he had observed that the stupidest cats were the best hunters. Or maybe it was that the best hunters were the stupidest cats. I suppose it doesn't make much difference which way around it is formulated if it is "stupidest if and only if best hunter," but I've been hoping that my cat could be a good hunter and not stupid. He has been making it very hard

Superfrenchie's pal Véronique reads the Independent

2007-07-23T23:19:00.001+02:00

I can't believe I missed this subject entirely. I read the Independent, but not as thoroughly as I should, evidently (and maybe not every day). The Independent is exceptional on the environment, and I try not to miss Lichfield on France (especially) and Europe, he's better on French politics than most any French journalist. This piece is a little different. You might want to read the Guardian's

Hunger, Thirst, Nausea and the others

2007-07-16T16:14:00.001+02:00

I want to drink <=> I am thirsty <=> thirstI want to eat <=> I am hungry <=> hungerI want to vomit <=> I am nauseous <=> nauseaI want to urinate <=> I am ________ <=> ______I want to defecate <=> I am ________ <=> ______I think we're missing a couple of words or word-pairs. And I really don't see how they should be generated. [Please don't ask how or why I noticed, I don't really know].It is

WSJ Endorses Cigarettes!

2007-07-08T20:42:00.001+02:00

I thought that smoking was entirely banned from American media (as well as most interior spaces). No more smoking in cinema (the films even, I mean, not just the theaters), and none on TV for a while. Yet herewith the first sentence of a Wall Street Journal article on John Smeaton, a Glasgow airport baggage handler who attacked a suspected terrorist who was resisting arrest:GLASGOW -- Last

Military-Industrial-Media Complex

2007-07-08T19:09:00.001+02:00

When a couple of articles in the English-language press recently talked about the control of the media in France, I started to collate them and build from there. The English-language articles mostly noted concern that there may be unhealthy (for a democracy) self-censorship by media controlled almost entirely by friends of President Sarkozy. While this is true, and the articles did

Reading Between the Lines: a trilemma

2007-06-24T14:30:00.001+02:00

It seems the French SGDN has said too much or too little. How confident are they that the encryption used by BlackBerry is too weak for government use? Why? I can think of three possibilities, and no way to decide among them:They (the French intelligence services) know the NSA can decrypt BlackBerry messages, either because they've been so informed, or because they (the French) can do it and so

A Frivolous Search Engine Query

2007-06-10T14:48:00.001+02:00

I have "song stuck in head" today. I once saw a web site that provided help for that; I think it suggested another song to substitute; I'll look for it in a little while (I apparently didn't bookmark it, or if I did I didn't choose good tags for finding it again). Meanwhile, the song is Frank Zappa's "No way to delay that trouble coming every day." I suppose it is all the fuss about "Sgt.

French Legislative Election - Round 1 Eve

2007-06-09T22:08:00.001+02:00

Tomorrow the French have another opportunity to vote; this time it is for the Assemblée Nationale (legislature).The rules are similar to those in the presidential election. There can be a winner in the first round with an "absolute majority": over 50% of votes cast and over 25% of possible votes. If not, as many candidates can advance to the second round as receive at least 12.5% of the potential

No comment: Crimson Curriculum

2007-06-04T22:14:00.001+02:00

What Were They Thinking? More Than We Knew. - washingtonpost.com "Dogs are really keen observers of the world around them," said Bruce Blumberg, who teaches classes on dog behavior at Harvard University.Technorati Tags: Harvard, curriculum, canines, dogs, behavior, intelligence, sciencePowered by ScribeFire.

How many ways can one flatten a cube by unfolding?

2007-06-01T11:11:00.001+02:00

I'm sorry to not be able to bring you a perfect result. Would you mind trying to rephrase your query?Well, no I don't think it could be much clearer without becoming much longer and likely more complex. But maybe I should explain why I'm asking, at least in this post if not to Hakia. Imagine a cube made of lots of little identical cubes: 8, or 27, or some other integer raised to the power 3. For

Then What? -- Cyberwarfare Update

2007-05-28T20:29:00.001+02:00

As I noted a few days ago (well, about a week ago), some of the mainstream media (but far from all) were reporting on the massive DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks hitting Estonian institutions for a month. But then what happened? Are the attacks continuing, as they did for a month before they received press coverage? Have they ceased? Where are the updates?Admittedly, there are

Word of the Week: sferics

2007-05-26T10:56:00.001+02:00

After the warmest April ever recorded in France, with a drought in this region from April 4th to May 8th (ignoring 0,6 mm on the 5th), we've been having a real warm month of May, too. For the past week, with temperatures reaching 30° and not dropping below 15° at night, the weather forecast has been "thunderstorms today or tomorrow" every day. I saw some lightning in the distance late in the

A Slice of Internet Activity

2007-05-24T11:00:00.001+02:00

A couple of weeks ago, the author of a blog I read regularly (well, I did, but he has decided to pause his posting) mentioned a hit counter he uses to measure the traffic. It is free (gratis) for limited log size (but for his blog's traffic, I suppose he has a paid subscription). I've often wondered who reads this blog (my vanity project), so I signed up: it is statcounter.com, and you can see

Season's Greetings?

2007-05-23T20:56:00.001+02:00

It is late May, and the season is rather in advance: we've had lots of warm weather for weeks in this continental climate zone between the Vosges and the Black Forest, through which flows the Rhine; the birds drop stolen cherries in my garden and neighbors offer to sell cherries. The birds are very noisy out in the back yard; I stopped filling the bird feeder with seed a couple of days ago,

Family Outing to Walbourg

2007-05-20T20:00:00.001+02:00

A few days ago, I noticed a couple of posters in a bakery window announcing up-coming local events. One was the local participation in a national (or international, I'm not sure) event : museum night. The other was "Exposition généalogique à Walbourg".Much like the "heritage days", which are a European event in September (since 1984), access is free of charge to encourage people to go see things

First Battle in the Cold Cyberwar?

2007-05-19T20:24:00.001+02:00

It seems not all major "papers" agree that this story is "fit to print". I've just sampled a few of the leaders in English and in French, then sorted their reports in chronological order. I wonder what would happen if the video of the removal of the statue in Tallinn were top of the charts at YouTube and the DDoS attack were against one of the pillars of cyber-business?Financial Times Reporters

Down Here From Up There

2007-05-12T22:20:00.001+02:00

Seeing the map of the Griffith park fire the L.A. Times prepared by annotating GoogleEarth images, I remembered that I did some follow-up (back in December) on Geoportail.fr and haven't gotten around to posting it. Earlier (August) I had read what some courageously anonymous WSJ editorial writer thought of French and European 'vanity projects', which included GeoPortail, an impertinent rival to

ESL Woes

2007-05-11T12:11:00.001+02:00

ESL, for those who might not know, is (or was in the 1960s) the shorthand expression used in L.A. city schools for "English Second Language" in designating classes that were intended for students for whom English was not the mother tongue. As English spreads to ever more people as a second or third language, thanks to globalisation and the Internet, there are bound to be cases where folk say

Really seriously, what gives with Googspot?

2007-05-10T23:21:00.001+02:00

The header of their picasa page shows (with a little anonymisation) miname.lastoo@get-the.net | New Features! | Help | Sign Out | Sign up for Picasa Web Albums And the same page shows:Add a commentSign in if you have a Google account, or sign up for a free account.I've signed in three times in short order. If I'm not signed in, why are "miname.lastoo@get-the.net" and Sign Out displayed at

Why?

2007-05-10T20:06:00.001+02:00

Why is it so hard to control the composition of a post on Blogger? Why, when one adds a photo, is it automatically inserted before, not after, whatever one has already written and added?Why, when one adds block elements in the html (hr and br), do they disappear, or move, or, as happened to some < hr / > I added (hoping to get the following text and photo to fall in the right sequence),

May 6th, Afternoon of

2007-05-10T19:23:00.000+02:00

Saturday lunch, sitting in the nearby Turkish diner/grill (Kurdish, actually, but shhhhh!), I could see the column at the corner of Grand'rue, the one I photographed post-Hallowe'en. A couple walking a large dog stopped; while she stood holding the leash, he decorated the posters of Sarkozy. Sunday, election day, the column had been "recovered" (literally) by the

May 6th Around Here

2007-05-10T12:26:00.001+02:00

Results in the French presidential election are available on-line thanks to our regional daily newspaper (in fact, they have been since the morning following the election). This election they are once again gratis; from the next election on, we'll have to pay for this service but, at 1,50€ for two days, it is not going to be too expensive.Alsace tends to vote "to the right". When, in 2006, the 22

Is That An Air Conditionner?

2007-05-08T16:16:00.001+02:00

The Kyocera Solar Europe homepage has a a surprising photo, one that made me smile (the one to the left).Powered by ScribeFire.

How much energy is required to manufacture a photovoltaic cell?

2007-05-08T14:44:00.001+02:00

I asked hakia and hakia replied "Wonderful question, hope I have some useful answers for you below."The first answer was "about four years to payback." The explanation of the assumptions at A-to-Z of Materials notes that "To calculate payback, Dutch researcher Erik Alsema reviewed previous energy analyses and did not “charge” for the energy that originally went into crystalising microelectronics

Linguistic Futureshock

2007-05-01T21:07:00.001+02:00

In this age of linguistic futureshock, it is hard to keep up, harder to be bi-lingual, and I don't know how polyglots cope. I suppose they have to be selective, specialising in a subject area, like technical terms of some sort, or slang, or new terms, or archaic terms. Or sticking to a core language, like Basic English in each language--not really keeping up.I recently consulted an on-line

François Bayrou in Strasbourg

2007-02-13T11:42:00.000+01:00

We'd been waiting about an hour, comfortably seated in the Schweitzer amphitheater of Strasbourg's Palais des Congrés and serenaded by a couple of Romanian musicians. François Bayrou had been at the France 3 studio across the street recording a question-and-answer session. At 7:30, we were informed that he would only speak starting at 8:00, because the parliamentary

Royal Socialism

2007-02-12T14:28:00.000+01:00

What are the reactions to French presidential candidate Ségolène Royal's platform, announced yesterday?Olivier Besancenot (LCR) : "Social-Libéralitude." (allusion to Royal's word "bravitude". See also Césarkozy's composition "La rupture tranquille" ).Jean-Michel Aphatie: "La candidate semble revenue dans une épure plus classique, celle d'un courant social démocrate qui tente d'inscrire son action

Will Olivier Géron Survive?

2007-02-08T15:50:00.000+01:00

The French judge Olivier Géron of Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis) has indicted two police officers in connection with the deaths by electrocution of two teenagers fleeing the police in Clichy-sous-Bois in 2005.Following hearings into the incident which, followed by unsympathetic declarations by Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, led to massive civil unrest, the judge has charged the two police

Cool 'colas

2007-02-06T17:08:00.000+01:00

French presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy faced an assortment of 100 French voters live on television last night, to answer their questions. I'm pretty sure it really was live and unfiltered; one question was so outrageous I couldn't stop laughing for five minutes, and missed most of the reply, but apparently he did not take the bait. I looked and looked for a report in this morning's

Political Symbolism

2007-01-11T22:22:00.000+01:00

In an earlier post, I reacted to the New Year's wishes from two French presidential candidates. I missed a possibly crucial element in Ségolène Royal's video. In the U.S., a few decades ago, presidential candidate Richard Nixon announced that his wife Pat wore a "Republican cloth coat"; times have changed. But can the 21st century French Socialist really consider it

Visual Esperanto

2007-01-05T17:05:00.000+01:00

Among my recurring New Year's Resolutions is to learn another programming language. Actually, I consider this much more often than annually; this is not only a recurring resolution, it is a chronic interest. Like a surfer searching for theperfect wave. The problem remains, which one? The answer probably is "more than one". If there were a "Visual Esperanto"

French Candidates' Wishes for 2007

2007-01-01T16:37:00.000+01:00

The two front-running-so-far candidates for president of France (election to be held in April/May 2007) addressed their wishes for 2007 to the French people. As the French press has pointed out, the two are an interesting contrast. What they have in common, of course, is the "and I wish the majority of you will elect me president", even if they do so with restraint and "humility".Ségolène Royal,

Annual Arson in Strasbourg

2007-01-01T15:34:00.000+01:00

That is not a spelling error in the title: the subject is not Strasbourg-born soccer celebrity Arsène Wenger, although he may have been in town, I really don't know.Le Figaro reports that the number of automobiles set fire in the Bas Rhin department (where Strasbourg is situated) rose to 43 from 22 last year, of which 28 were in Strasbourg, up from 11 last year. They do not say how many had been

Handsome Dwarf Born!

2007-01-01T14:47:00.000+01:00

That is a litero-phonetic translation of the French salutation "Bonne Année" (beau nain né).Technorati Tags: French, 2007powered by performancing firefox