Tag: reflections

I’ve been spending what is increasingly clearly too much time reading the news lately and think it might have a negative impact on my intelligence.

Here’s one example of why I think this, taken from local news:

A teenager accused of going on a rampage at a gay bar with a hatchet and a gun sometimes glorified Nazism and had a swastika tattoo but never previously expressed any prejudice toward gays, friends say.

I’m sure he was the tolerant, sensitive, pro-gay-rights, secure-in-his-own sexuality kind of Nazi. Thanks Forbes for filling us in. Even if his friends are in fact ignorant enough to believe this, I’m don’t see how the fact of their ignorance is newsworthy.

Here’s another bit from international news

The United States is expelling a Venezuelan diplomat after the Caracas government Thursday ordered an American naval attaché to depart for alleged spying.

…

State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack did not accuse Figueredo of any wrongdoing and did not explain why she was designated for expulsion other than to say she was the “most appropriate” choice.

McCormack said the United States does not like to engage in what he termed “tit-for-tat diplomatic games,” but said that Venezuela initiated the action and U.S. officials were forced to respond.

Copyrighteous spokesman Benjamin Mako Hill reminds McCormack of the definition of “tit-for-tat diplomatic games.”

My friend Radu uses memoryaid as his IM name. I added his nick to Bitlbee several days ago but had to take advantage of Bitlbee’s "rename" functionality to do a little rename memoryaid radu. I couldn’t remember that Radu was the person behind that nick.

alias psudo=fakeroot

<@biella> I can't speak for biella, but...

Oh, I think you can.

And now, for a visual pun about the king of fruits:

I have no desire to be famous.

Of course, I wouldn’t mind if people didn’t think of (a rather lecherous) someone else when they heard my name.

Someone suggested that I was a perfectionist yesterday. The truth is very much the opposite. I’m an imperfectionist.

If you use dict to look up the word "cobbler" with a "standard" set of dictionaries installed, you’ll get a GCIDE definition and the following Wordnet definition:

cobbler (n)

1. a person who makes or repairs shoes [syn: {shoemaker}]
2. tall sweetened iced drink of wine or liquor with fruit
3. made of fruit with rich biscuit dough usually only on top of the fruit [syn: {deep-dish pie}]

Normally, if you misspell a word or try to look up the plural form of a noun, dict will suggest the correct word. However, if you look up "cobblers" you get:

cobblers (n)

1. nonsense; "I think that is a load of cobblers"
2. a man’s testicles (from Cockney rhyming slang: cobbler’s awl rhymes with ball)

It’s not clear to me whether this was non-graceful failure or even failure at all. It is clear that it was not what I was looking for. An educational experience nonetheless.

A few days ago, I compared Mika (unfavorably) to a Decepticon. Not having played with transformers as a child and having grown up in Japan where, evidently, they are called "Destrons" instead, she missed the reference. She asked if they were anything like Leprechauns.

As it turns out, they’re not.

In about a week, the MIT police department is going to install proximity-card locks in the building. I am worried about the fact that the MIT card office stores data about card use for 14 days but am optimistic about seeing this issue addressed.

However, I suspect that the MIT police department has an ulterior motive in installing this new system. Currently, if somebody is locked out of the building, he or she can call the MIT police to be let in. Of course, the individual must first show their MIT ID card to the police. In the new system, where the MIT ID is the key, it seems like there will be very few situations where the police need to follow-up on lockouts.

As a work-reduction measure for the police, it seems quite clever.

In this article, Xinhua’s headline tells us, "Likely cause of space shuttle trouble found: NASA."

While I’m sure this statement is true, I think that swapping the text on the sides of the colon would be closer to their intent by locating the source of the information — and not the source of the problem — with the agency. NASA, after all, is a pretty tricky problem.

I was sad to see that the local Cinderella’s Pizza is open (and delivers!) past midnight. They do not serve pumpkin pizza (or any other pumpkin dishes) at any time of the night.

If I were in charge, things would be different.

Because there are people that seem to be unclear on the subject:

The reason people type "l10n" and "i18n" instead of "localization" and "internationalization" is because the words’ length makes them difficult to type. Tech communities are willing to put up with this ungainly and opaque shorthand for the sake of our wrists.

In spoken English, "EYE-eighteen-EN" is not easier to say that the expanded form. Pronouncing the keyboard shorthand does not imply that speaker is savvy or in the know. It should not be done.

Mika and I were discussing logistics for our upcoming party and wondering where we would put people if the crowd got too big.

I said something along the lines of, "well if push comes to shove, we can always stick people in the back room." Clearly misunderstanding, Mika’s face showed a mixture of confusion and disgust.

We were only able to continue after I made it clear that I my intention was not to isolate and quarantine my friend, Media Lab colleague, and neighbor, Push Singh in our bedroom.

This coming Friday, The Acetarium will host a party to celebrate the beginning of my twenty-fifth year of life.

According to the CDC’s live expectancy data for people of my sex, age, and racial demographic, I am projected to live 51.0 years past this coming Friday. In three months, perhaps I should throw a "1/3 of my projected lifespan party."

Details are on The Acetarium website. If you’re in Boston and would like to come, please let me know.