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More fuckin' user interface design
Yesterday I complained that Google couldn't find a UI designer who wouldn't do this:Today I'm going to complain about the gmail button icons. Maybe they were designed by the same person?Check out the...
View ArticlePluttification
Often when I'm reading something that was translated from another language, I get to wondering what the original was. Often this appears in connection with some sort of wordplay. For example, the first...
View ArticlePasta la Vista
Last week I thought “there must be a restaurant in California somewhere called ‘Pasta la Vista, Baby’”, so I asked the Goog. The Goog says it does not know of one!It says there is a ‘Pasta La Vista’ in...
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Henry G. Baker archive
(Summary: Henry Baker's web site has disappeared after 30 years. I kept an archive.)Henry G. Baker is a computer programmer and computer scientist, one of the founders of the Symbolics company that...
View ArticleCanon in Euopean languages and Arabic
Today I was reading about Avicenna's work The Canon of Medicine and learned that the original Arabic titleالقانون في الطبis rendered in Latin script as al-Qānūn fī al-Ṭibb with al-Qānun (“the law”)...
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Debate between Bird and Fish
BuyCuneiformfrom Bookshop.org(with kickback)(without kickback)I recently read Finkel and Taylor's excellent little book Cuneiform. On page 27 they discuss the kinds of texts that young boys studied in...
View ArticleTrans-Siberian Railway
For no particular reason, I looked up the Trans-Siberian Railway today and learned that its name in Russian isТранссибирская магистральpronounced roughly “trans-siberskaya magistral”. The...
View ArticleSynthesizer bands
Many years ago I bought tickets to see Depeche Mode live, and I wondered if I wasn't making a mistake. Would they appear on stage, press “play” on the sequencers, and then stand around doing nothing...
View ArticleTwo sentences that made me stop to think
In The ancient fabric that no one knows how to make:Islam was born in Bangladesh and moved to London about 20 years ago.Whaaaat? Then I realized: It's someone named“Islam”. Okay.In Wikipedia's article...
View ArticleSomething I didn't know and I bet you didn't either
The Panama Canal has a loyalty program.If you're planning to ship at least 450,000 TEU per year, you can register in advance and get a discount on your tolls.
View ArticleSkin worms?
The King James Version of Job 19:26 says:And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:I find this mysterious for two reasons. First, I cannot understand the...
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