Erdos Had The Number First

So, It’s T-1 Days until NaNoWriMo and my starting on the “The Things I might Have Said” my newest and bestest novel.

At least I have a title. I think that’s more writing than I got done last year for NanoWriMo.

Honestly, I’m not sure which is the stranger: the story or the fact that it ran on

Al Jazeera’s English language website. Since I don’t read Arabic, I can’t tell if it’s on that part of the site. But anyway, it seems that the
Gay penguins are being enticed to breed (so their species doesn’t go extinct) and there seems to be some debate about the ethics of ‘turning’ gay penguins straight.

I’m still waiting to hear back from the penguin ambassador to find out if the penguins actually self-identify as gay, or if they are just on the bi now, gay later plan (or the third option ‘I was in college’). until I hear back, I’m going to withhold judgment.

Maureen Dowd Columnist Page - The New York Times

But not really. I just wish the Op-Ed page of the NYT wasn’t a premium content thing. I want to read her column, mostly to provide fodder for my own, barely coherent rantings (I figure if the NYT pays people for the same kind of drivel, I should produce my own drivel). But I can’t because it’s “TimesSelect”.

Here’s the thing, this is another reason that newpsapers are steadily Going Out Of Buisness in this country. If you are really pushing an agenda, you should give it away. And if you are not really pushing an agenda, then why should I pay you to write things you don’t believe? Hell, I’ve got a Congressman for that.

It’s a brand new calendar year. In the spirit of time, the BBC has produced a list of 100 things we didn’t know this time last year. BBC NEWS | Magazine | 100 things we didn’t know this time last year

It’s pretty informative. Especially #63, that tells us that it takes less energy to import a tomatoe from spain than to grow one in England.
That is good stuff.

But it’s not. A Canadian girl frickin DIED when her boyfriend kissed her. He had, nine hours before, eating peanut butter on his toast. BBC NEWS | Americas | Girl dies in peanut butter kiss
She, it seems, had a startlingly severe peanut allergy. She went into Anaphylaxis, and then died. Now I’m afraid of peanuts.

Then my new, re-invented wheel must be even better. Behold! For I have thought outside the box and brought you a device I call: The Wheel.

I don’t know why I found it so funny. I was reading the announcement for a conference and I clicked on a link (what I think was) the text version of the announcement and at the top of the file was a line that read:

This message is intentionally written in French.

I think part of the humor for me is that the sentence implies that other messages may have accidentally been
written in French. As though any text file on the internet may, though inattention or malice, spontaneously turn into a French language document.

Part of this, I’m sure, relates to the fact that many people do feel that English is the Lingua Franca¹ of the internet. People need to get a grip.

Yes, I do realize the irony of the statement.

I’ve found one thing I really like about living in Northern Viginia.
And that one thing is that you can order Papa John’s Pizza online. I know, I’ve set the bar very low,
but I’m still afraid of the fact that I live in the South.

Instapundit posted this This article about how Amazon has gotten into the adult toy buisness. This begs the following questions:

1. Who found this?
2. Does this mean Amazon is off the the OK list of conservative america?
3. Amazon sells WHAT?

It’s true, search amazon, you’ll find it. It’s probably not safe for work to do this, however. On closer inspection, Amazon is not
actually selling any of this murchendise. it’s providing the ‘Amazon Store’ thing for other vendors. Still interesting, none the less.

So, Sun has launched a consulting service to help companies use java better.

http://bitsofnews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1405

This seems like the marketing department at Sun needs to shore up the value propositition that Sun is giving.
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