Links

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.

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.

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.

Life is good.

Rob’s writing another story.

My name (Michael David Hanscom) in Babylonian cuneiform:

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.

And it came to pass that God visited the earth, and He did behold a series of billboard ads attributing to Him utterances of such banality that they would never pass His lips in a billion years. And it came to pass that God in His wrath considered a libel suit, but in the end opted simply to mount a cantankerous, self-contradictory ad campaign of His own…

I never said, “Thou shalt not think.”

I don’t care who started it. Just stop it.

You’d better have stopped fighting by the time I get back, or you’re all grounded.

There is no such thing as killing in my name.

Stop smirking, America. I’m talking to you, too.

(Found via Boing Boing)

There’s an incredible article at the New York Times Magazine giving a great history of the World Trade Center, from its politically-charged beginnings to the architectural choices that both kept the towers standing as long as they did after the impact of the planes and contributed to their eventual collapse. Just be sure to set aside some time — I just spent the past hour reading this.

When the north tower, the first to go up, was finally topped out on Dec. 23, 1970, it was foggy, and no one could see the view. But James Endler, the West Point grad and construction contractor who oversaw the entire job for the Port Authority, made a point of showing up at a celebration for the workers held on one of the skeletal upper floors — the first open-air party ever to take place 1,300 feet above the street. There was a band, soda and sandwiches. But when the band played the Mexican hat dance, the construction workers started stomping in unison, and Endler — standing next to Jack Kyle, the Port Authority’s chief engineer — began to feel odd vibrations in the structure. The floor did not seem steady. After all the wind-tunnel tests, the computer calculations, the structural innovations, had something been missed? Had the thousands upon thousands of steel parts been fitted together incorrectly?

”Jack, how do we stop that vibration?” Endler asked.

Kyle turned to him, expressionless. ”Don’t play that song anymore,” he advised.

(via MeFi)

I just found this image (along with a ton of other [often barcode-based] very cool desktop images) at some site that I can’t read because it’s all in Cryllic (oh, well, would’ja look at that — there’s an English version too…who’da thunk?) — but it’s very cool stuff.

If I was a better artist, I’d want to do similar tricks with the ISSN barcode for this weblog (which I don’t have posted anywhere at the moment, thanks to the verschluggin crash that I’m working on recovering from). Maybe I’ll go ahead and give it a shot eventually…who knows?

(via MeFi via andersja).