Controversy is the spice of life

+ Petraeus for president. I wish the general all the best. He seems like a very solid, smart guy. (Here's his latest letter to his troops , in advance of his coming report in Washington on the surge.)

+ I'm really excited about this method of searching only recent results in Google. Not sure yet if it's game-changing for me or not...

+ Have you seen that Ben Stein (Bueller? Bueller? Something economics. Voodoo economics) is coming out with a movie critical of the lack of openness in the scientific community to the claims of intelligent design? Here's his first post (with >1000 comments). I may actually go see it in the theater...

+ NBC and Apple have divorced over sales in iTunes and NBC has shacked up on the rebound with Amazon . I love Amazon, but they don't have 75% market share like Apple. Betcha NBC sells a lot fewer episodes.

Happy etymology day

+ Dontcha just hate deceiving etymologies? Take 'solecism'. The definition points toward something related to 'sole' or 'solo', no?

1.a nonstandard or ungrammatical usage, as unflammable and they was.  
2.a breach of good manners or etiquette.  
3.any error, impropriety, or inconsistency.

Nope:

1577, from M.Fr. solécisme, from L. soloecismus "mistake in speaking or writing," from Gk. soloikismos "to speak (Greek) incorrectly," from soloikos "ungrammatical utterance," prop. "a speaking like the people of Soloi," from Soloi, Athenian colony in Cilicia, whose dialect the Athenians considered barbarous.

+ Here's a cool one: egregious:

c.1534, from L. egregius, from the phrase ex grege "rising above the flock," from ex "out of" + grege, abl. of grex "herd, flock." Disapproving sense, now predominant, arose 16c., originally ironic and is not in the L. word, which etymologically means simply "exceptional."

Egregious derives from Latin egregius, separated or chosen from the herd, from e-, ex-, out of, from + grex, greg-, herd, flock. Egregious was formerly used with words importing a good quality (that which was distinguished "from the herd" because of excellence), but now it is joined with words having a bad sense. It is related to congregate (to "flock together," from con-, together, with + gregare, to assemble, from grex); segregate (from segregare, to separate from the herd, from se-, apart + gregare); and gregarious (from gregarius, belonging to a flock).

Didn't know it had so much to do with the group. And now I can link 'congregation', 'segregate', 'aggregate', 'gregarious', etc. Sweet!

+ Did you know maudlin comes from Mary Magdalene always pictured as crying?

+ One more thought on Krzyzewski and the national team, which crushed again yesterday: Does this mean Coach K could really make it in the NBA, or is the patriotism a major factor?

Sunday Sports

+ Bummed to see Rodney Harrison busted for banned substances. The drive to perform and win in the NFL inspires a lot of bad choices.

+ Iowa and Carolina won their openers, though not without concerns. At least the Iowa running game looked good.

+ App State beat Michigan at the Big House. Wholey moley! Good for them!

+ Krzyzewski has the national team righted; they crushed their opponents in Olympic qualifying. What a relief.

+ Red Sox rook throws a no hitter in his second game after being called up to the bigs. Guess he'll stay a while.

One, little link

Need a break from the computer and I'm busy poring over SI's NFL season special, so all you get is this link from good ol' ZenPundit to a review of 300 in the Michigan War Studies Review.

Good night.

SC news

+ Ok, if you watch the internet crazes, you've seen Caitlin Upton, Miss SC Teen, make a total fool of herself. I'd like to say she's from Aiken or Spartanburg, but she's from Lexington County just like me :-(

She's the top story on The State's homepage right now. Hey, it's not everyday your Miss Teen is an internet craze (and you can watch the vid from there if you haven't seen the horror yet).

In her defense, she had a 3.5 gpa and played soccer. She's probably not as dumb as she sounded.

But, whoa...

+ Hooray! Mississippi is the fattest state in the union! It's not SC! Reading the article... SC not mentioned... this is good... not in the top 3 mentioned in the article...

Oh, there we are. #5.

Not good.

Should I even say 'we'? I don't really consider myself a South Carolinian.

Iowa's 20th. Oklahoma's 11th. NC's 17th.

Elizabeth and Wil on the web

Back when I recorded the twins, more than 2 years ago when they were just in kindergarten, I tried uploading some of the files to Ourmedia, which is free. Well, it didn't work very well, so I never went back. But three of them did make it up and I want to make sure they're preserved for posterity:

Take me out to the ball game - Wil
Bethy's ZYXes
O Leaphart - Wil

If you have time, give them a listen. They are so sweet!

Is Jon Stewart ever not funny?

Jim linked to this hilarious analysis/sketch (Note: some of the language is a little rough if that's not how you roll):

Pile of Delusion‽

+ No offense intended to Hawk when I say Pile of Index Cards [Flickr set] [weblog (mostly in English; scroll down)] is the most shocking example of exhausting productivity pr0n(1) I have ever seen. I couldn't look away. This method of getting things done apparently works for him and makes him happy, so that's great. I would never get started on this amazing system...

+ How could I have missed the wonderful punctuation mark, '‽' (interrobang)‽ Unfortunately, Texter does not support it (as a pure character) or I could use it all the time! I'm in love!

+ If you've read this weblog long you know I really dislike Richard Dawkins. Here's a pretty good recent summary of why, the Wikipedia article on Alister McGrath's 'The Dawkins Delusion'. (And, not least of all, I'm putting it hear for my own reference.)


1) For my uninitiated readers (Christine, Kathy, et al.), meaning and usage

Two quick links for ya'

+ Hmm. Apparently some journo prof at Elon U popped off about weblogging lately. Matt linked to a nice response, including an impressive list of real, weblog journalism.

+ LOL: Nebraska Moves 2008 Presidental Primary to 1:30 This Afternoon

(Don't worry, Dan. I'm not dissing Nebraska (lest the Iowa barbs begin ;-).)

Trip down memory lane

Remember my cd post? It brought up a typical problem for me: I really have trouble remembering year, grade and age. I can remember 'Ok, this happened fall of 8th grade.' But what year was it? How old was I? I've written out a timeline before, but I thought 'I'll throw one up on Google Docs and then it'll always be where i can get at it.

And then that project blew up ;-)

I added columns for family, notes, world events, music, movies, and media notes. Check it out and tell me what you think.

I love you, internet!

I worked up a little personal timeline project today that I'll share with you later.

 

Tonight, when I was not sleeping :-( I got to thinking about an old timeline project I uploaded to my AT&T account years ago. Any chance it's still out there?

 

Find the post: http://seanmeade.blogspot.com/2002/08/i-edited-jorns-world-history-timeline.html

 

Find the URL: http://home.att.net/~sean.meade/papers/timeline.html

 

Search the Wayback Machine...

 

Voila! http://web.archive.org/web/20031021080551re_/home.att.net/~sean.meade/papers/timeline.html

 

That is so awesome!

 

Got it uploaded to my Google Pages now, for posterity (you know, as an Internet Archive back up).

 

I really love this internet thing :-)

Happy birthday, dear cd

Remember when you saw your first cd?

I was 13. It was the fall of 1985. I was in 8th grade. Mom and Dad and Kyle and I flew to Germany to visit my dad's brother who was stationed over there. And he had some classical music on cd.

That was only 3 years after the cd first came out. Pretty early adopter.

We didn't have a cd player for a long time. In fact, I was the first person in my family to own a cd and later a cd player.

My high school friends had cd players at home and I loved playing them.

My freshman-year roommate at Wartburg was a music lover. He had a 5-disc Onkyo changer and let me use 2 of the slots. A girlfriend gave me my first cds: Substance and Technique by New Order.

I started filling out my collection, mostly with REM. And my parents bought me my own cd player Xmas of 1990, my sophomore year.

Cds are going the way of the dinosaur (though they're still a fairly stable medium). But it's been a great run.

How about you? What's your cd story?

It's alive!

Aaron is posting again, at least long enough to tag me. I will comply, not least of all in the interest of encouraging him ;-)

7 random/interesting facts about me:

1. I spent far too much of my life in swing/show choir type rehearsals.
2. I have a Commercial Drivers License with air brakes and Hazmat endorsements.
3. I have been weblogging since 12/14/2000 - going on 7 years!
4. My favorite teams - Hawkeyes in NCAA basketball and football, Vikings and Cubs - have never won a national or world championship. (The Cubs' World Series win in 1908 doesn't count. The Hawkeye wrestling team with all of its national championships doesn't count, either.)
5. I am a big supporter of commercial space flight as the way to get us to the final frontier.
6. I do not believe in Bill Joy or Ray Kurzweil (dystopian and utopian respectively).
7. I have a lot of abortive weblog projects, but I am very proud of my consistency here. Don't know that I'd call it an achievement, but...

Don't think I'll tag anyone else. Pick it up if you like.

gBox 404 FFB

+ Did you see that gBox is a new online music vendor that will be working with Google to get referrals? Otherwise, pretty unimpressive to far. Still, I might get the odd single from them. I like that it doesn't require an iTunes like app, just runs in the browser.

+ Ran across this funny 404 not found page that's not really a 404 but instead an encouragement to get up from the computer and do something else. But why run such a geek-page on your own domain to encourage people to less geekness?

+ Diving back in to fantasy football for the year. Thinking of a different strategy this year based on points scored last year v. mysterious 'rankings'...

(Sorta) Back in the saddle again

Did'ja miss me? I was in Anaheim for most of the week for DARPATech. I posted on it quite a bit over at Ares.

A few links since then:

+ Ken Jennings had a really amazing assessment of JK Rowling and the Harry Potter books.

+ defective yeti's Bad Review Revue for Bratz . Some really inspired entries.

Random play on the Creative Zen Vision:M today

• Metal Health
• This Charming Man
• Float On
• 99 Luftballoons (auf Deutsch)
• Linger
• Speed Racer (Matthew Sweet cover)
• Livin' on a Prayer
• It's Tricky/My Sharona mashup, the cheekyboys
• Yesterday
• Equal to the Fall (Satellite Soul)
  
• Te Deum Guarani (The Mission)
  
• Cum on Feel the Noize (out of 2370 songs, those are the only two by Quiet Riot!)
• I Know It's Over (Smiths)
  
• Fairytale (Enya)
• You Know That (VoL)
• Satellite (DMB)
• Jesus Freak

Kinda' heavy on 80 and 90s pop...

Have a great weekend!

Google Bourne Baseball

+ Good review of The Bourne Ultimatum, plus this gem:

Whether this third chapter in the series will turn out to be The Bourne Penultimatum or even the Bourne Antepenultimatum is left in suspense by the ending.

+ Really cool United Countries of Baseball map. Is there such a map for football?

You know, I think there is. In fact, looking at this map, I think I might have linked it before.

(Latter link also has a really cool little magnification hack going.)

Here's the NFL one.

+ Google phone would be free (with ads) (via Brad). {Technolust!}

Quiz show

Jaq's got a quiz that caught my eye. Think I'll take it:

1. If there were no blogs, what would you be doing right now?

Driving trucks from Kuwait to Iraq.

2. If you had to spend one year living alone in a remote cabin, what would you spend your time doing?

Reading. Walking. Eating healthy. Detoxing. Listening to music. Praying some.

Then it would be time to actually write one of those projects I've been thinking about forever.

3. If you could go back in time, what one piece advice would you give yourself? (This was my favorite part of Jaq's)

Relax.

On some things: Don't work so hard. Quit sooner.

On some other things: Persevere a little more.

Enjoy learning. It's great. But needing to be right is a cruel master.

Your mom and dad love you very much and deserve even more of a break.

Childhood doesn't last forever. Enjoy it a little more. Don't be in such a hurry to grow up. Can you enjoy the people around you a little more?

Worrying about how you look is a waste of time.

If you don't want to be a little overweight, eat a little less.

Try not to worry so much about what kids think and say. They're young and even more foolish than you.

(That's it for now.)

4. "If you really knew me you would know that..."

I am truly a geek at heart.

Chicago happenings

+ It's officially time to start worrying. The Cubs are in first.

+ Mark has declared himself Emperor of Greenland and I asked for a nice, cushy job.

Old post I found in Gmail Drafts

+ Great name: Communications Major, English Minor

+ T-shirts, these from Pure Pwnage[sic.]
for Cory: Boom Headshot
for me: T-shirt of Pure Pwnage

+ Great way to obviate a franchise:
"Everybody's going to take care of their individual business," O'Neal said. "Everybody's going to do what's best for themselves and their families. We'd like to come back and get one more run at it, but all the other teams are reloading for us, so we also have to reload too."

One nice thing about YouTube is sports highlights. Three I've enjoyed:
1. Dwayne Wade highlights
2. Larry Bird follows his own shot
3. The Bo Jackson one is good if you block out all the silly self-promotion and just watch him run over and by people.

Talkin' football

+ Vikes training camp: Peterson's in camp (only 3 days late). Williamson better hold onto the ball this year . We have a new DC. And basically a new QB.

Hard to be real optimistic...

+ Bill Walsh died yesterday. He was a great coach especially distinguished by those he influenced who later went on to coach. His website

Dangerous living

+ Jaq has a nice post reviewing the Indiana Jones movie in anticipation of the next (hopefully good) one.

+ Coming Anarchy has a good post on real threats v. imagined threats (especially the graphic).


Reminds me of that chapter in Gladwell's Blink about what's dangerous v. what we're afraid of. Cars and backyard pools are dangerous compared to other stuff we're afraid of, like terrorism and air travel. What's the difference? Control. When we feel like we're in control, even if we're not, we feel safer, even if we're not. We're foolish that way.

For most of us, driving, eating junk, smoking, drinking poison, and sedentary living are far more dangerous to us than most of the stuff we're afraid of.

(CA makes the point, and I agree, that security still matters. The provenance of this graphic is probably 'Fighting terrorism is a waste', with which I totally disagree. My point here regarding the graphic is tangential.)

Finished Deathly Hallows

I have to admit, I really liked it, maybe the most of any of the books.

As much as I have been a critic of all of the new introductions (concepts and characters) in her books, Ms Rowling did a really nice job of tying up the essential threads.

The humanization of Dumbledore was nicely done.

I assumed, with so many Horcruxes left to destroy, that the introduction of the Hallows was a bad idea. But it actually turned out ok, especially the decision of which to pursue (although, there's quite a bit of Deus ex machina with how the ten together (is that right?) get resolved).

(Upon further review, Jaq sorta says the same thing.)

All in all, very good. Now for your comments...

Dummy locations, awesome mice

+ Stuff you never thought of linking before: a really good, even sweet, ventriloquist act. Of course, it hits my soft spots for Wonderful World and Kermit pretty hard.

I also have a pretty good Kermit impression, usually performing the song Rainbow Connection.

+ Brad linked the new Money top places to live, along with Storm Lake and me. Christine's dad is from Storm Lake. Nice, little Iowa town ... IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE! ;-)

So I thought: I'll look through the list of top places to live with affordable housing and see if there's anyplace we want to live.

Blast! We already do! Irmo, SC. Only problem is, we're not too crazy about living in SC. Too hot and the closest family is 90 minutes away.

That's part of the reason it's so hard to contemplate moving anywhere else: we've already got such affordable housing. The sticker shock for Iowa City or Charlotte (two top contenders) is brutal.

Oh, yeah: and no place hotter than here ;-)

The Equator , at altitude, is looking better all the time.

+ Awesome banner Jason Shellen's kids (and wife! ;-) made for him when he came home from his last day at Google.

+ Paul links a computer mouse for your feet . I would love to have one if I computed at a desk. Alas, I computer from my recliner. But if I ever have a desk again, I think this would be great.

Plus, it's one of those keep your brain young by trying new stuff things.

Reading Harry Potter(n)

+ I'm enjoying Deathly Hallows, you know, within reason. When I do read it, I read very fast, maybe 75 pages an hour. Mostly dialogue.

+ I am a total sucker/hopeless romantic re: the Harry-Ginny relationship. Not sure I knew her name was Ginerva (you know, because I skip a lot ;-)

+ Apparently Jo was on the Today show yesterday and gave some more epilogue-type material (via). Sounds like she's going to write an encyclopedia next.

That would actually be perfect for her since she obviously takes such delight in making up stuff and little details. Too bad she probably won't ever turn some other people loose in the Harry Potter universe, like George Lucas has done with Star Wars.

Because I bet there are a lot of chihuahuas out there with some pretty good ideas ;-)

(Pretty impressed with myself that I spelled 'chihuahua's right on the first try ;-)

+ If I ever write any Potter fan fiction, it'll be the just death of Dolores Umbridge. How I hate her! In some ways, her banal evil is worse than Voldemort.

Deathly legos

+ Christine's trying to steal responsible moments to read Deathly Hallows. She was waiting when the library opened at 8:30 this morning, and no one else was there. She's giving me a few updates, because I find the whole JKR process too annoying to really want it to unfold. I'm the guy who's looking for spoilers.

+ Ken's let's fly with a critique I really agree with: I can call them 'legos' if I want to!

Are you addicted to weblogging?

Brad came out 82% 'addicted to blogging'. I, of course, came out higher than that, but I'm a pro ;-)

87%How Addicted to Blogging Are You
Brad commented, sort of in passing:

It used to be considered healthy to have an avocation or hobby. But now anything you really get into is framed in the language of addiction.

That inspired my comment:

unfortunately, 'addiction' has come to commonly mean, among other things, 'really love'. like the CCM 'I'm addicted to Jesus'. too imprecise.

for my part, i think we should keep a semi-clinical definition of addiction. everyone who fails to comply must read Gerald May's excellent Addiction and Grace ;-)

the only question in the survey i thought might point to actual addiction was 'Have you ever skipped something you were supposed to do, like a deadline or homework, to blog'

but i fit other intimations in the quiz in that i'm thinking i'll cross-post this excellent comment to my own weblog ;-)

More Cubs

Give me a whiff of success and I'm back on the bandwagon ;-)

Whoa. The Cubs picked up Jason Kendall from the A's. Former All-Star though not doing so hot this year. Does this show commitment to making a run at the playoffs?

Of course, there's a whole book about the A's ability to evaluate talent and ROI that I happen to buy into. So...

In other news, Zambrano says he wants to stay .

Evolutionary psychology and the Cubs

+ I asked Dan about this article, Ten politically incorrect truths about human nature, and he was kind enough to give his opinion. Interesting stuff. There's a rebuttal here that I haven't read yet.

+ Cub fans must always hold onto hope in their hearts. So I took notice of the brief in SI that said one Baseball Prospectus formula has the Cubs making the World Series this year.

But not winning. Can't decide if that would be a good thing or not. Pretty sure I don't want the Vikings to go again if they're not going to win. Don't want to be the only team who's been 5 times without tasting the 'Sup' (thank you, Buffalo).

Yes, the Phillies are the losingest professional team in sports. But at least they one won World Series.

Can I post?

A few of you have noticed that I haven't been posting. Much obliged, I'm sure. It's not intentional and there is no interesting subtext. I just haven't felt like it. The biggest part of that was driving to Iowa to weekends ago, being in Iowa for 5 days (working during the day; I was not on vacation), and driving back. Nice and all, but exhausting.

So thanks for the concern. Normal posting may resume ;-)

+ The Blogger backup tool, mentioned here, worked like a charm for backing up two of my Blogger weblogs.

+ My buddy Jim has a new crusade: Universal Health Care! I'm not ready to write my Congresscrats like he urges, but he definitely has a point.

My offering: BusinessWeek's article comparing French health care quite favorably to the US.

+ Story I'm following: woman hit hard by 9/11. Starts reading. Starts visiting jihadist websites. Learns Arabic. Contributes to the arrest of several would-be terrorists.

Then, Michael Tanji, intel expert, has this interesting comment on Tom's site about not drying up a good source of intelligence. His latest post of his own.

+ Jaq would be so proud: We watched Star Wars on the 30th anniversary weekend. And last night we watched Singin' in the Rain (because the twins have shown some interest in that kind of dancing).

+ Speaking of movies, we saw Ratatouille July 2nd and loved it. No flaws detected during the first viewing. Wil even opted to get the game for his DS. It has some fun, touchscreen cooking mini-games.

+ Speaking of games, I saw some headline about the console wars this week. Baloney. The console wars are over and Nintendo killed Xbox and Playstation. They understood that people just want to have fun, on the Wii and the DS, and opened up whole new markets with innovative gaming. Nintendo saved us from the first major video game dark ages with the NES, and they've done it again. What a great company!

I think that's a good (re-)start for now.