What could be better, right? Well, it's not as much fun as the town library book sale, when everyone comes out in droves, and you have the thrill of a good find and good people-watching besides, but I recently was pointed to Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page) by a friend. Not sure what the difference in titles/canon is between this project and, say, Google Book Search mentioned in Language Log today (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/).
Still, cool!
It's a really random collection of texts with outdated copyrights, so you can have them legally. Seems like a good idea. Here's what I don't get: you can volunteer to be a proofreader for Distributed Proofreaders, an organization which helps produce these online texts. I guess someone scans the book in, then it's read by a OCR program, then real people proofread and format the text, then it gets published online. Good. But, the aim of the game is supposedly to make as many texts available to the world as possible. So, why not just put up the scanned texts? Then we'd also get to see the text/page as published. Is it about searchability or file size? Does anyone here know?
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Saturday, August 19, 2006
A Gripe of One's Own
Been traveling lately, putting my usual carry-on in the checked luggage, as required. Baggage claim? Clearly part of "Why I Don't Check Luggage." They should paint a yellow line about 5 feet back from the carousel. And you know those recordings they used to run: "the white zone is for loading and unloading of passengers only!"? They need one of those for the baggage claim area.
"Please stay behind the yellow line until you see your bag arrive. Please vacate the carousel zone immediately upon claiming your bag. Please do not line up with 3 other members of your family to block the view of other passengers who would also like to claim their bags, especially if they, unlike you, fuckwit, did not pack 3/4 of their worldly belongings to go on a 2-week trip."
And this should be played repeatedly, until passengers of the world become less stupid, or for eternity, whichever comes first.
"Please stay behind the yellow line until you see your bag arrive. Please vacate the carousel zone immediately upon claiming your bag. Please do not line up with 3 other members of your family to block the view of other passengers who would also like to claim their bags, especially if they, unlike you, fuckwit, did not pack 3/4 of their worldly belongings to go on a 2-week trip."
And this should be played repeatedly, until passengers of the world become less stupid, or for eternity, whichever comes first.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Rules for kittehs
From Shrinkykitten.
Especially these.
"5. When mama wants to cuddle, you must cuddle. If Mama wants to kiss your tummy (see above photo for cutest tummy ever), Mama needs to kiss your tummy. Seriously, is this too much to ask?
6. When mama doesn't want to cuddle, please to amuse yourself for a while. Don't sit on what she is trying to work on. Don't climb onto the laptop. Don't swat at her. Which leads us to #7.
7. Please somehow make it through the night without kisses. I know you love to have your little head kissed. But, mama is just not in the mood at 3am. No, smacking mama in the face or headbutting her face will not make her more amenable to this. She needs to sleep so she can go to school/work so she can earn enough money to keep you in kitty food, catnip, and kitty grass. Until you get yourself a job and make some money, no more waking Mama! "
Did you get that, girls?
Especially these.
"5. When mama wants to cuddle, you must cuddle. If Mama wants to kiss your tummy (see above photo for cutest tummy ever), Mama needs to kiss your tummy. Seriously, is this too much to ask?
6. When mama doesn't want to cuddle, please to amuse yourself for a while. Don't sit on what she is trying to work on. Don't climb onto the laptop. Don't swat at her. Which leads us to #7.
7. Please somehow make it through the night without kisses. I know you love to have your little head kissed. But, mama is just not in the mood at 3am. No, smacking mama in the face or headbutting her face will not make her more amenable to this. She needs to sleep so she can go to school/work so she can earn enough money to keep you in kitty food, catnip, and kitty grass. Until you get yourself a job and make some money, no more waking Mama! "
Did you get that, girls?
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Tough to the finitch
Huh.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4788015.stm?ls
Italian actress Sophia Loren has beaten much younger contenders to be voted the world's most naturally beautiful person at the age of 71 in an online poll.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4788015.stm?ls
"Olive oil secret to Loren beauty
The Oscar-winning star says her secret is down to love of life and spaghetti.
But another key to maintaining her youthful looks is one known to the ancient Romans - Loren takes "the odd bath in virgin olive oil"."
Annnd:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2006/08/14/
the_olive_oil_paradox/
"The olive oil paradox
Americans consume olive oil for their health, but in Morocco, the residue is fouling the water
MARRAKESH, Morocco -- The olive oil in your pan is helping to trigger environmental change thousands of miles away in this North African kingdom....
...Morocco is facing severe shortages of fresh water exacerbated by decades of pollution from olive mills."
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