February 2012
32 posts
"Downton Abbey": Tracking the Anachronisms →
Leave it to us word nerds to ruin everything.
WARNING: there are some minor spoilers! (One, really. Which didn’t spoil anything for me.)
Prop 8 declared unconstitutional: What you need to... →
newsweek:
ruthoutspoken:
Here’s the breakdown of what you need to know:
Today’s ruling: The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a 2-1 vote that Prop 8 is not constitutional. This affirms Judge Vaughn Walker’s earlier ruling that Prop. 8 violated the U.S. Constitution by denying rights to a certain group of people.
“Although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they...
Etymology of the Day
From Online Etymology Dictionary:
pie (1) “pastry,” c.1300, from M.L. pie “meat or fish enclosed in pastry,” perhaps related to M.L. pia “pie, pastry,” also possibly connected with pica “magpie” (see pie (2)) on notion of the bird’s habit of collecting miscellaneous objects. Not known outside English, except Gaelic pighe, which is from...
"Not to Put Too Fine a Point Upon It": How Dickens... →
6 tags
In case you believe in astrology
There have been some silly arguments for astrology from readers of the Tumblr blogs Scipsy and CWL. They were similar to an argument that I heard recently at a dinner party*, so I thought I would add a couple of facts into the discussion, so astrologists can ignore them.
ON THE GRAVITATIONAL EFFECTS OF THE PLANETS, FROM NASA’S WEBSITE:
Here is a table of tidal forces of the Sun, Moon, and...
Stephen Tobolowsky's Podcast Episode About Making... →
popculturebrain:
Seems appropriate. Listen up.
(ht katiecamosy)
Listening to this podcast episode is an excellent way to celebrate Groundhog Day.
Understand Groundhog Day
fakescience:
2 tags
January 2012
78 posts
“The act of worship, as carried on by Christians, seems to me to be debasing...”
– H.L. Mencken, in a letter to Will Durant on the subject of the meaning of life (from Letters of Note)
It Takes 24 Million Generations For a Mouse To... →
ShortFormBlog: How old does Google think you are?... →
shortformblog:
Google thinks I’m a senior citizen. Based on the websites you visit and the stuff you search for, Google infers your interests, age and gender, in order to show you more relavent ads (digression: It does this, in part, by having partner websites place a cookie on your computer; more on that here). Anyway, head on over to Google’s Ad Preferences page, and you can see what Google...
To My Old Master →
This letter, posted on Letters of Note, almost made me stand and cheer at my desk. Explanation below:
“In August of 1865, a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdan Anderson, and requested that he come back to work on his farm. Jourdan — who, since being emancipated, had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family — responded...
“Thou eunuch of language; thou Englishman, who never was south the Tweed; thou...”
– Robert Burns, responding to a critic in 1791 (via Letters of Note)
1 tag
halphillips:
connorratliff:
ELVIS COSTELLO...
