Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Ten words

Here's an interesting web site. "Every hour, 10x10 scans the RSS feeds of several leading international news sources, and performs an elaborate process of weighted linguistic analysis on the text contained in their top news stories. After this process, conclusions are automatically drawn about the hour's most important words. The top 100 words are chosen, along with 100 corresponding images, culled from the source news stories. At the end of each day, month, and year, 10x10 looks back through its archives to conclude the top 100 words for the given time period. In this way, a constantly evolving record of our world is formed, based on prominent world events, without any human input."
http://www.tenbyten.org/10x10.html

Monday, November 08, 2004

Canada

From the BBC web site... "The day after the election result last week, Immigration Canada's website set a new one-day record for visits, with more than 179,000 hits - 64% of which originated in the US."

Sunday, November 07, 2004

B minor

I'm learning the guitar. Only about 3 or 4 months so far. Last week the teacher introduced the chord B minor. As far as I can make out the only way I'm going to be able to play it is to have my index finger broken and reset. There seems to be a number of mechanical issues to be resolved. If you, dear reader, have any tips, I'd appreciate hearing them/it.

I thought so

I just saw on some news program that it wasn't such a bad campaign for the Democrats after all. As you'll know by now, Bush got the most votes of any President in history. The 2nd most votes ever? That's right, John Kerry. Kerry got 4 million more votes than Gore, and 1.2 more than Clinton in 94.

Saturday, November 06, 2004

us of a

This country has become a place that in most parts the words "intellectual" and "liberal" are insults. It's been a remarkable week, and one that has left many people really examining themselves and the place they call home.

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

space shuttle ... slow?

So, you know when you're watching a space shuttle taking off? You do? You don't? Well, not that relevant, you've probably at some point seen one at some point going up. It seems ponderous as it lumbers vertically upwards. In fact it's going 120 mph by the time the tail gets to the top of the tower that holds it up. I love bits of information like that.

The beauty of the english language

This was from an email I was sent.

Actual Analogies and Metaphors Found in High School Essays.

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.

McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

Wow

Well, the American people have seen it for 4 years and have decided that they like it. Wow.