Yes, it is true I may have donated in the past, and long ago may even have signed up for party membership. But don’t expect to pull off stunts like C-30, internet lawful access and keep the faithful faithful.
From a discussion moments ago with the five-year-old:
Frank: “Look, there are some ducks flying over there.”
Stuart: “No, those are geese.”
Frank: “Whatever, same thing.”
Stuart: “No, they are different. You can tell them apart by neck size.”
Frank: “How’s that?”
Stuart: “Well, birds in the duck family have fairly normal size necks. Birds in the goose family, such as swans, have an extra large neck. It’s longer.”
Frank: “Oh.”
According to google’s valentine day doodle, this here is a sampling of valentine’s day love:
An eclectic collection of token couples!
| alien + astronaut | princess + frog | dog + cat |
| boy + girl | man + man | cookie + milk |
Each one is unlike the others in some way.
| unanthropoid | from fairy tale | from Ghostbusters |
| biologically productive | apropos Bay area | restricted by food police |
Browsing through the local web server logs, a recent hit came in for my old kvetch about a disappointment at a Toronto car dealership. Out of curiosity, I looked up what’s new with this place since six years ago, and came across this revamped web site. I wanted to look up what the troublesome folks there have been up to since, but the new site lacks a lot of contact/staff details.
Then I came across this beauty
The square-bracketed words are verbatim from the web page made it clear that someone didn’t turn the customization crank quite enough times. This suggested that there exists a car dealer website manufacturer, who provides the same profound, uplifting verbiage. But to how many? Aha, here comes google.
My mouth fell open: about 761,000 results estimated, 771 distinct ones later identified. Whoever writes this stuff is not loyal to any particular place in north america, nor a particular make.
The level of effort reminds one of the Everywhere Girl fiasco, where the same clip art token female was found to grace publications and web sites all over the world. (Oh no, that reminds me of the associated stupid wikipedia delete-fest.)
Please, save me from tracking this stuff down. Please eschew web site puppy-mills like dealer.com and write your damn own unique company web sites.
During a family outing the other day, I spotted something that reckons back to the How not to measure temperature series at WUWT. A weather observation station is installed at the Philosopher’s Walk at Trinity College of the University of Toronto, which appears to be the one code named CXTO in the international databases, which has apparently been in operation for almost two hundred years.
What got my attention was the wind. There was a 20+gust knot northwest wind most of the day. But the anemometer installed at the station was a wee indecisive. It pointed in every direction induced by the random turbulence from the adjacent tall buildings. In this picture, they point in opposite directions (compare the flag and the anemometer propeller nose).
To their credit, the proprietors of CXTO do not broadcast the wind measurements along with the regular METAR, so the nonsense data from the useless sensor does not travel widely. OTOH, the temperature readings are published, and being a few dozen feet from a highly-radiative high-thermal-mass stone wall almost certainly distorts the readings. Likewise, one might suspect that the sun irradiance sensors won’t work quite right with tall buildings and trees casting shadows. At least weather measurements aren’t used for anything too important.
Following up on the previous blog summary report from 2004-2009, I reread my 2010 and 2011 scribbles to choose the very least bad, especially for you.
2010:
uninvited
ignored advice
advice to salesmen
bright solar idea
aopa letter
right level of government
different drummer
about that beret incident
criss cross pause
dell satisfaction
contraband
speaking down to muslims
opting out
sparkling night
I do not consent
2011:
thought police
memoirs of little people
ciao, cloud
yes, can you file a bug?
propaganda parody
poor dears
worm food
is consistent with vs. proves that
apology to readers
baseline confusion
heart beat frequency
using systemtap better
crapulent curiosity contraband
sheltered lives
automation reassurance