{"id":349,"date":"2005-11-20T01:23:33","date_gmt":"2005-11-20T05:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/?p=349"},"modified":"2009-07-30T19:46:48","modified_gmt":"2009-07-30T23:46:48","slug":"miscellany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2005\/11\/20\/miscellany\/","title":{"rendered":"Miscellany"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, after my week away I’ve got a pile of catching up to do. However, I just can’t bear to go into all the Bush administration scandal stuff right now, so I guess I’ll just work the eclectic stuff tonight. After the jump, eight tidbits of interest.
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<\/a>\"Deacon\"I was chatting with George (formerly known as “Undead George”, “MacJones”, and “35-year old burned out truck driver”) about all the repairs his car apparently suddenly requires. His car is German, which naturally lead to lots of jokes about German engineering, and this in turn leads to jokes about how something could be so well-engineering that it would all break down at once.<\/p>\n

While we were talking about that I, naturally, flashed on the poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes (Senior), “The Deacon’s Masterpiece<\/a>“, something I haven’t read–or thought about–for years. (If that “naturally” doesn’t make sense to you, read the poem.)<\/p>\n

Of course, the piece is available on line<\/a>, so I was able to both refresh my own memory and point George at it.<\/p>\n

Holmes is cool, but the fact that I can be chating with someone thousands of miles away and point them to Holmes is even cooler. Truly we live in the age of the unnoticed miracle.<\/p>\n

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\"SupremeAs discussed in that last post, I am pretty geeky, and one of my most geekish symptoms is that I am a fan of old school Doctor Who. (Perhaps an even more disturbing sign of my geekosity is that I actually have ranted about how terrible the new run was.)<\/p>\n

Still, even as an utter geek, I can’t imagine spending \u00a336,000<\/a> or $73,389.47 in my native currency (at today’s exchange rate), for a Doctor Who prop. (Actually, I can’t imagine spending any money for props or even for a toy. Sure, I’ll buy the DVDs, but not all the other stuff. I’ve always been a poor geek at the ancilliary merchandise–I’m all about the stories, in their original media.)<\/p>\n

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\"Genie\"I put my most recent posts into the Gender Genie<\/a>, and it thinks I am a male. (Apparently by a pretty large margin: the male score is 2820, and the female score in 1458).<\/p>\n

Now, one result is not conclusive, so I had to do some testing with some other pieces of text.<\/p>\n

Using blog posts from Gwenda<\/a> and Emma<\/a>, the device suggests that they both are male. However, it does claim to work better with longer text, so I went to some of the stories at the recently-much-discussed SciFiction<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A Pat Cadigan<\/a> story, Is The Life After Rehab<\/a>, comes back as female, which is more promising.<\/p>\n

Christopher Rowe<\/a>‘s mightily lauded Voluntary State<\/a> registers as decidedly male, also good.<\/p>\n

Carol Emshwiller<\/a>‘s Gliders Though They Be<\/a> comes back as barely female.<\/p>\n

Richard Butner<\/a>‘s House Of The Future<\/a> is male by a good margin.<\/p>\n

Seems that the genie does better on the longer pieces.<\/p>\n

I wonder if that means that:<\/p>\n

1) Gwenda and Emma write like men in their ‘blog voices’, or<\/p>\n

2) The blog pieces were too short for the algorithm to work, or<\/p>\n

3) The algorithm just doesn’t work all that well.<\/p>\n

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\"Soda<\/p>\n

You know, I was kind of with them when they did the Turkey Dinner pop a couple of years back, but apparently the dudes at the Jones Soda company<\/a> have been drinking the bongwater<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ok, seriously, “Brussels Sprout with Prosciutto” pop?<\/p>\n

Smoked Salmon Pate<\/a> soda?<\/p>\n

Gah.<\/p>\n

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I am not sure if the episode that this item<\/a> alludes to is the final sign that the world is ending, or if it means there is finally a reason for me to watch an episode of reality TV.<\/p>\n

Either way, you want to believe that “I am a God Warrior!” and “Darksided” will be part of my vocabulary henceforth.<\/p>\n

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You know, if I didn’t already have a blog title that I was so happy with, I would definitely be tempted to use Ultracrepidarian Critic<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Here’s a quote from the discussion of ‘ultracrepidarian’<\/a> at the Maven’s Word of the Day archive<\/a> site:<\/p>\n

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This most excellent word is ultracrepidarian<\/b>. It means ‘going beyond one’s proper province; presumptuous; out-of-bounds’. A frequent collocation is “ultracrepidarian critic,” a critic who judges whereof he or she knows not. Example from William Hazlitt: “The last sort I shall mention are verbal critics–mere word-catchers. [Note:] The title of Ultra-Crepidarian critics has been given to a variety of this species.”<\/p>\n

Not only is this a great word, but it has an Interesting Etymology complete with Classical Allusion. Ultracredpidarian<\/b> is from Latin, from the phrase ultra crepidam<\/b>, literally ‘beyond the sole’. This is a reference to a remark by Apelles, the great Greek painter. Apelles’ work had been criticized by a shoemaker, and Apelles responded, “The cobbler shouldn’t judge beyond his shoe.” This has become a common proverb in English in the version “Cobbler, stick to your last [a form on which a shoe is built].”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I could spend all day reading entries at that archive. (Thanks to Gwenda<\/a> for the pointer.)<\/p>\n

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Wow, there really is an internet tool to generate anything you can think of:<\/p>\n

\"Myspace<\/a>    \"Myspace<\/a>\"Myspace<\/a>    \"Myspace<\/a>    \"Myspace<\/a>\"Myspace<\/a>\"Myspace<\/a>    \"Myspace<\/a>\"Myspace<\/a>\"Myspace<\/a>\"Myspace<\/a>\"Myspace<\/a>\"Myspace<\/a>\"Myspace<\/a><\/p>\n

(Hey, I could have done this<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

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\"O.P.B.\"Well, there’s only one thing to end with.<\/p>\n

I would not drink this beer.<\/a><\/p>\n

Yikes. <\/p>\n

It makes the whole brussels sprout soda concept seem more appealing all of a sudden.<\/p>\n

(Via<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, after my week away I’ve got a pile of catching up to do. However, I just can’t bear to go into all the Bush administration scandal stuff right now, so I guess I’ll just work the eclectic stuff tonight. After the jump, eight tidbits of interest. Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-and-drink","category-general","xfolkentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5UQvw-5D","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2837,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions\/2837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}