Category: Out there

What is it about the word “kernel” that tempts people to spell it “kernal?” This seems to be one of the most commonly misspelled words I’ve seen in the past few years. It’s so common in fact that sometimes it seems like it’s misspelled more often than it’s spelled correctly. But why just this word? Why isn’t “computor” also a common misspelling, or “memary” or “motherbored” or anything else? Why just “kernal?”

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A P.S. to a piece of old email I just happened on:

BTW, the Command, clover, or splat key was originally called the “feature” key. The symbol is used on European maps to denote features, except in Finland where it means “campground”.

My blackness is deep.
How deep?
Deeper than Atlantis.
Deeper than the sea floor, travelled by the mantis.

– X-Clan

If you’re in doubt about angels being real
I can arrange to change any doubts you feel
Wait till you see my Gidget
You’ll want her for your Valentine
Your gonna say she’s all that you adore
But stay away, Gidget is spoken for
You’re gonna find, that Gidget is mine

Listen!

Just got a spam formatted exactly like a porn spam, which led to a site formatted exactly like a porn site, except it’s not about porn, it’s about watching homeless people beat each other up — ebumfights.com. “It’s a train wreck you can’t turn away from!” “Angry and drunk? Wanna fight?”

I swear we’re headed for cultural implosion.

So last night there’s a message on the machine from a woman who is “very concerned” about some “untruths” on Birdhouse related to Liberace. I assume the call is from someone at the Liberace Foundation contesting my claim that the photos I have posted there are used with permission (they are).

Called her back today and it turned out to be the wife of a one-time Liberace impersonator who has been stalked by a rabid Liberace fan ever since doing a rousing impersonation in Nevada once. I have a page : The Best of Birdhouse Mail, on which I had posted an email from someone claiming to have witnessed the living reincarnation of Liberace. Turns out the email was from this stalker dude, and the wife just wants to do all she can to protect her husband from the stalker, including not giving him air time. Of course, the email has been up there for five years, so it’s kind of late, but I thought she made a good case. Not a big deal, I took it down.

Perhaps I need a raccoon penis bone amulet to protect me from the kooks. Or a conference bike I can use to better understand them. Perhaps I shall meet them at the most beautiful motel in America.

The 2002 results are in! My fave:

“The professor looked down at his new young lover, who rested fitfully, lashed as she was with duct tape to the side of his stolen hovercraft, her head lolling gently in the breeze, and as they soared over the buildings of downtown St. Paul to his secret lair he mused that she was much like a sweet ripe juicy peach, except for her not being a fuzzy three-inch sphere produced by a tree with pink blossoms and that she had internal organs and could talk.”

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Ben Brown gets on board with the Switch campaign. “What am I going to do with a parallel port?”

Off the coast of Cuba, at a depth of 2,200 feet (700-800 meters), a 20 sq. km area of white sand, punctuated by great granite monoliths, possibly structures. Granite is not native to Cuba – the nearest granite deposits are in the center of Mexico. This could be a land mass that sunk around 15,000 years ago, but no one has a really good explanation at this point.

“They (megalithic stones) are very unique structures. They really are not easy to understand and I do not have any easy explanation for them in a natural geological process.”

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Funny how I can talk about music I don’t like with my friends easily enough and all is well, but when I do it on LJ it upsets people, or comes off wrong, or gets misunderstood, or something.

Update: Reactions caused by the 100 Albums list are being tallied at QuickTopic.

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“Nothing is as it seems.”

“Oh yeah? Well, how do things seem?”

Which way do you turn the knob when you want more water from the garden hose or kitchen sink? Lefty-loosey, righty-tighty, right? Counter clockwise, of course.

Why, then, do we turn stereo volume control knobs clockwise to get more volume? It should be like opening a valve to let more volume out. Counter-clockwise should equal more volume, not less. Open it up, let it flow, like Pompeii.

Okay, which one of you you nutjobs is masquerading as Heptatrema Madonnahood? I swear, I get some seriously messed up email sometimes.

got a shiny new PowerBook. Spent Friday night feeding it spirulina and granola, geeking out w/Mike.

Saturday worked on the MacWorld piece all day.

Sunday house hunting, again no joy. Now getting too close to the baba arriving, afraid we’ll take it too close to the edge and end up not having room ready here in the rental because we were too busy dancing in an impossible market. Have decided to withdraw from the housing market for now, which is really hard because we’ve been at it for 18 months and have met nothing but frustration and defeat, and it’s going to be even harder once Appleseed is here. But there you go. Color us bruised. We’ll pick up the search again in November or so.

Fascinating piece by Tim O’Reilly : The Strange Case of the Disappearing Open Source Vendors, in which Tim quotes another piece by Dale Dougherty saying:

Nike is running a series of bold, new commercials featuring Tiger Woods, who says his contract with Nike doesn’t require him to use its equipment unless he finds it to be the best in the market. He says with amusement that it puts the pressure on Nike to be the best or else. If Microsoft is the best at what it does, then it shouldn’t have to resort to this kind of lock-in of its contract with users. Let us choose the best.