July 2004
-
Social Stereotypes
Tonya Jameson of the Charlotte Observer recently penned an article with an interesting title: "Why Don't White People Mind Being Stereotyped?". I'm not quite sure how to react. There are all sorts of thoughts going through my head. For the record: I have no idea if the film…
-
Movable Type v3.1 Announcement
Ben and Mena are at center stage now, announcing the new Movable Type 3.1 product. It's scheduled to go into beta soon, and should be released next month. Ben said last night at the developer's dinner that it would be August 31 (cute again), but that date hasn't…
-
Moron Language
I'll admit that I'm not an expert on language – even (or especially) English. I leave things dangling and jam sentences together and all sorts of things. But still, I can't help but notice when people who write for a living make mistakes. Shouldn't these people, who earn…
-
Newsworthy in NC
In an "exclusive" to the Charlotte Observer, we find that current North Carolina governor Mike Easley has failed to nominate a Poet Laureate. The post has apparently been vacant since December of 2002….
-
Writing Headlines
It looks like they'll let just about anyone write headlines for the paper, without apparent regard for how well they can assemble a sentence. For instance: "For 3rd year, Vatican had deficit in 2003". Would someone please tell me how in the world someone – anyone – can…
-
Getting the Data
I briefly mentioned that my local paper stopped providing articles without requiring a registration. It's a free registration (at least at this point), but I find it annoying. For weeks, I made do without. Then I noticed after searching that an article listed as Charlotte was showing up…
-
Reasonable Measurement
The radioactive half-life of an element is a measurement that determines how long it takes for half of the atoms in that element to disintegrate. Some elements have a half-life measured in seconds, minutes or days. Others have a half-life measured in thousands or billions of years. How…
-
Bloglines Toolkit 1.4.0
I received a note from Simon about an extra separator line in the context menu appearing, even though the context menu had been disabled. He even sent me the code where it was happening! So I've whipped up another version of the toolkit. The only change is that…
-
Pointless Procedures
Most of us have credit cards. Anyone notice how more and more locations have signs indicating that you must hold out your card and show it (and ID) to the cashier? If so, have you noticed how rarely the cashier actually follows this procedure? A few years ago,…
-
Rustle or Jingle
It costs 4.2 cents to produce a dollar bill. That dollar bill lasts for 18 to 22 months. Meanwhile, it costs 12 cents to produce a Sacagawea Dollar – but the coins last for thirty years. The cost of keeping a dollar bill around for thirty years is…