14/01: TV and Immortality
According to this article, people who watch TV have "an 11% greater risk of all causes of death"
06/07: The New Marbles
When my dad was a kid, they played marbles at school. The marbles would be placed in a ring, then the players would flick marbles at the marbles in the ring, and try to knock them out.
15/05: Queathing?? Queaching!!
The latest scam email in my spam folder tells me that I'm lucky enough to share the same surname as some unfortunate individual who died, and whose next-of-kin died on the same day. Nothing new there, but then the scammer informs me
Here's another example showing why it will be a long time before computers replace human translators.
26/02: On Operationalizing
In parliament today, a member of the opposition was giving a speech about steps towards an early disaster warning system for Australia.I was listening to the speech on the radio, but found it a bit hard to concentrate on it, because of a word he used shortly after I tuned in : Operationalize
I've written elsewhere about how my younger son likes to invent words when he doesn't know the word for something. Here's a list of some of the words he's invented over the years, and my best guess at their etymology.
", a book on tips for intermediate java programmers.29/08: Poem - "The City"
Here's a poem I wrote once, entitled "The City". It might as well be on the web as anywhere else.
I made the mistake, when I wrote it, of showing it to an English Lit PhD holder and asking "Do the metaphors work?".
I meant "Do people understand that they are metaphors for my subject, which (I haven't told you) is city life?"
He thought I meant "Do the metaphors evoke visual imagery?" and gave a non-committal answer.
Well, I suppose if they don't even evoke visual imagery, they don't have much chance of reminding people of the poem's subject...
Anyway, here it is :
I made the mistake, when I wrote it, of showing it to an English Lit PhD holder and asking "Do the metaphors work?".
I meant "Do people understand that they are metaphors for my subject, which (I haven't told you) is city life?"
He thought I meant "Do the metaphors evoke visual imagery?" and gave a non-committal answer.
Well, I suppose if they don't even evoke visual imagery, they don't have much chance of reminding people of the poem's subject...
Anyway, here it is :
22/03: A Wonderful Promise - Not!
We were in a gift shop, and in the card section, I noticed some cards which when read together, sounded quite funny. I couldn't resist rearranging them (for maximum effect) and taking a photo.
19/03: Le Perroquet
Sometimes I like to irritate my eldest son, by speaking French to him. He hates it, and has come up with numerous defense mechanisms.