News You Can Bruise for 2001 October 16

Man, VA is being flaky with their hosting of the Crummy/Segfault machine. I'd look for somewhere else to host, but I'm afraid to even touch the Segfault code for fear it will collapse.

I've discovered a form like preposition-buzzword form, though it's not something I use myself. It's organism-artifact form and it's used in the titles of books and articles and the like. What better name than one which combines the organicness of an organism and the humanness of a (possibly cultural) artifact? eg.

• The Whale and the Reactor
• The Lexus and the Olive Tree
• The Ape and the Sushi Master
• The Girl and the Hairbrush (today on Salon)
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The Quark and the Jaguar fits if you are also a fan of Constructing Quarks. The Alphabet and the Goddess (artifact and mythical organism) and The Professor and the Madman (two organisms described in terms of their cultural labels) are borderline cases.

So don't delay! Name your next work after an organism and an artifact today!

Oh, on Friday I went with Sumana to see the Fresh Robots, and one of the Robots (Mike) made an anthrax joke in his stand-up act, and then noted: "Comedy's a rule of three. If only three people die, it's funny."

Woohoo, maybe this time we'll stay up. View the backup site for two entries on bioterrorism humor and Organism-Artifact form.

I bought an "illustrated directory of dinosaurs" a while ago, and last night I was looking at it. It seems to have been a book that you buy to give to someone else, but I bought it for myself. Ha! There are a lot more species of dinosaurs now than I remember there being. The book has lots of great pictures of dinosaurs sort of lumbering after their prey (lizards or dragonflies or mammals) with their arms stretched out. It also has "more than 70,000 words of description and evolutionary details." It was published in the UK, which is why they can mention evolution on the back of the book.

My FreeCiv Alpha Centauri record is now 1702.

I'm taking Friday off and going down to Bakersfield to spend time with my mother and sisters. It has been a long time since I took a vacation of any sort.