Links

Stuff I find around the web that interests or amuses me.

Journalistic Integrity at its finest

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Best newspaper retraction ever:

The Daily Evergreen would like to sincerely apologize for an injustice served to the Filipino-American, Spanish-speaking and Catholic communities on the front page of Thursday’s Evergreen.

The story “Filipino-American history recognized” stated that the “Nuestra Senora de Buena Esperanza,” the galleon on which the first Filipinos landed at Morro, Bay, Calif., loosely translates to “The Big Ass Spanish Boat.” It actually translates to “Our Lady of Good Hope.”

Parts of the story, including the translation above, were plagiarized from an inaccurate Web site.

— From the Daily Evergreen Online

so whut r u wearing

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If you’ve ever used IM systems such as AIM or Yahoo! Messenger, this is too funny…

BinLaden9151: did u get my message
XprezbushX: whut message
BinLaden9151: u know, my message
BinLaden9151: it wuz delivered by airmail
BinLaden9151: right into ur trade towers
XprezbushX: shut up that wasnt funny
BinLaden9151: lol
XprezbushX: SHUT UP!!!! :X
BinLaden9151: r u mad
XprezbushX: yah
BinLaden9151: why??????
XprezbushX: u messed with my country

Thanks to them.ws

NaNoWriMo

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National Novel Writing MonthI’m not entirely sure yet, but I’ve just run across something that I’m really tempted to make a shot at — National Novel Writing Month, in which all participants have one month, from Nov. 1st to Nov. 30th, to write a 50,000 word novel (approximately 175 pages). Quality isn’t a concern, nor is style, form, or anything of the sort — merely doing it, or attempting to do it, is the point.

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over talent and craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

I haven’t got the faintest clue what I’d write about. I don’t even know if it’s a real possibility, when I work a full 40-hour week, plus some on the weekends. But I’ve got the next month to think about it, to see if I can come up with something worth writing about (or even something not worth writing about, just to see how it ends up), and to see if I really want to give this a shot. I think I do…

Oooh – he’s cute!

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More or less at random, I stumbled across Because I Say So! not too long ago, and have been thoroughly enjoying Jodi’s posts to her blog. Especially when she comes up with posts like this…

So listen, studs. Looking at someone of the same sex and appreciating his beauty, does not mean you’re (literally) into guys. Admitting that you’ve noticed another man, and admitting that you think he’s attractive, does not mean you are attracted to him “that way”. Marco the Magnificent Magician isn’t going to swoop down on you, black cape a-flappin’, tap you on the dick with his magic wand, and — poof! presto, homo! — you’re a homosexual! (Oh, the horror!) No. It just means you have eyes. Nothing more, nothing less.

A link for dad

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Just found a new place on the web that I could spend hours at, and I think dad would get a kick out of this too, given our mutual enjoyment of words — there’s even an e-mail list to sign up for…

Welcome to the home of the Word Spy. This Web site and its associated mailing list are devoted to recently coined words, existing words that have enjoyed a recent renaissance, and older words that are being used in new ways.

Each weekday, the Word Spy presents a new word, its definition, and a citation (usually from a major newspaper or magazine) that shows how people are using the word. You also get extra goodies such as background on the word’s formation, a list of related words from the Word Spy database, quotations on words and language, and more.

Thanks to Backup Brain for this one.

A gun for words

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I’ve heard about self-fulfilling prophecies — could this be a self-defeating prophecy?

The problem with reading wonderful writing by truly great authors is that my own writing suffers, dramatically, in comparison. Everything I write lately just sits on the page, flat, dejected, and suffering. If there was such a thing as a gun for words, I would shoot each of mine and give them a quick and painfree end.

Boy, do I ever understand the feeling Burningbird describes here, but what really caught me was how spot-on that was, while in the midst of being frustrated at her own writing.

And speaking of being dissatisfied, I just stumbled over how to put this post together through about three false starts. You’d think a simple “I think this is nifty” post would be easy, wouldn’t you?

Oh, hell.

I think this is nifty.

‘Up-skirt’ photography ‘reprehensible’ but legal

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Well, here’s something handy just in case I decide to take my photography in a new direction — in public areas, peeking up skirts is completely legal.

The state’s voyeurism law protects people who are in a place where they “would have a reasonable expectation of privacy” — meaning the person could expect to be able to undress in seclusion or “be safe from hostile intrusion or surveillance.”

But the court found the law doesn’t apply to filming people in a public place, even if it’s underneath their clothes.

“It is the physical location of the person that is ultimately at issue, not the part of the person’s body,” Judge Bobbe Bridge wrote.

Laws are funny things, sometimes, both with what they cover and what they don’t.

Breakin’ the law! Breakin’ the law!

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Okay. More stupidity. Or maybe ‘stoopidity’.

It’s just come to my attention that in my post “Kudos to the Onion“, and in Kirsten’s comments to “Stoopid. With two ‘O’s.“, my site is in violation of The Onion’s (don’t-)link policy.

Can I use a headline to link to The Onion on my site?

The Onion does not support the use of its headlines without the express written consent of the publisher. You can put a link to The Onion on your site but may not use the headlines or content. More information on how to link to The Onion is available at our Link Page.

Oh, come on. Looks like whatever ‘powers that be’ that exist at The Onion have decided to join the many other sites with stupid anti-linking policies. That’s a shame, too.

Oh, well. I’ll keep everything linked as it is, until such time as I get a cease-and-desist letter from the Onion (not likely to happen — this isn’t exactly a highly-trafficked site — but ya never know, do ya?). If that happens…well, I’ll probaby end up taking all links to The Onion off my site. Would be a bummer, but hey (shrugs). I won’t be the first.

Lost in linguistic labrynths

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My name (Michael David Hanscom) in Babylonian cuneiform:

MDH

In the same MetaFilater post I got the cuneiform from, there were a few other language-related links, including one to the English Grammar FAQ — which actually provides for some fairly interesting reading (at least if you’re at all concerned about using the English language correctly, something that my parents did their best to instill in me).

Additionally, a couple weeks ago (I meant to post about it then, just spaced it until today) andersje remarked on a couple newspaper stories where people had either lost their jobs or were being threatened with the loss of their job because they used the word ‘niggardly’.

nig – gard – ly adj.

  1. Grudging and petty in giving or spending.
  2. Meanly small; scanty or meager: left the waiter a niggardly tip.

— Dictionary.com

At first I couldn’t believe what I was reading — bascially, these people were being penalized for being able to use the English language correctly. But when I started talking about it at work, none of the three people I mentioned this to had ever heard the word ‘niggardly’ before, and they all made the immediate assumption that it was related to the derrogatory slang ‘nigger’. It really caught me off guard — admittedly, it’s not a word I’ve used often (if at all), but I did know it, and didn’t really realize that it was so rarely used as to be nearly unknown.

Pros and cons to having been gifted with an unusually large vocabulary, I suppose. Not that I mind in the least — I just thought all this was pretty fascinating.