More Cowbell!

Blogthings - What's Your Biblical Name?

Blogthings - What's Your Biblical Name?

Your Biblical Name Is...

Noadiah Beryl You will live to see the end of times.

What's Your Biblical Name?

Beryl?

The Blog Readability Test. What level of education is required to understand your blog?

The Blog Readability Test. What level of education is required to understand your blog?

Hmm, my main blog is "high school level."

Scientists Kill Oldest Living Animal

Clam claims oldest animal record | Science | Guardian Unlimited:

"Its death is an unfortunate aspect of this work, but we hope to derive lots of information from it," said Al Wanamaker, a postdoctoral scientist on the university's Arctica team. "For our work it's a bonus, but it wasn't good for this particular animal."

"The Full Gore"

James Kottke:

Amazingly, Al Gore now has an Emmy, an Oscar, and now a Nobel Prize. All he needs is a Grammy for the full Gore. (thx, brent)

The quoted link takes you to a discussion of the term "the full Ginsburg."

Top 25 U.S. Contemporary Worship Songs (Aug 2007)

From Christian Copyright Licensing, Int'l for the Aug. 2007 reporting period:

1. How Great Is Our God (Tomlin, Chris; Reeves, Jesse; Cash, Ed)
   
2. Here I Am To Worship (Hughes, Tim)
   
3. Blessed Be Your Name (Redman, Beth; Redman, Matt)
   
4. Open The Eyes Of My Heart (Baloche, Paul)
   
5. Forever (Tomlin, Chris)
   
6. Come Now Is The Time To Worship (Doerksen, Brian)
   
7. Holy Is The Lord (Tomlin, Chris; Giglio, Louie)
   
8. You Are My King (Foote, Billy)
   
9. Shout To The Lord (Zschech, Darlene)
   
10. Lord I Lift Your Name On High (Founds, Rick)
    
11. God Of Wonders (Byrd, Marc; Hindalong, Steve)
    
12. We Fall Down (Tomlin, Chris)
    
13. You Are My All In All (Jernigan, Dennis)
    
14. You're Worthy Of My Praise (Ruis, David)
    
15. The Heart Of Worship (Redman, Matt)
    
16. Breathe (Barnett, Marie)
    
17. Trading My Sorrows (Evans, Darrell)
    
18. Beautiful One (Hughes, Tim)
    
19. Friend Of God (Gungor, Michael; Houghton, Israel)
    
20. Better Is One Day (Redman, Matt)
    
21. Draw Me Close (Carpenter, Kelly)
    
22. Indescribable (Story, Laura)
    
23. Days Of Elijah (Mark, Robin)
    
24. Give Thanks (Smith, Henry)
    
25. Lord Reign In Me (Brown, Brenton)
    

Rock Lobster

Librarians under new management - Yahoo! News

Librarians under new management - Yahoo! News:

MEDFORD, Ore. - A big, red 'Closed' sign has been plastered across the front door of the library here since mid-April, when Jackson County ran out of money to keep its 15 branches open.

In a few weeks, though, the sign will come down and the doors will be flung open again, now that the county has come up with an unusual cost-saving solution: outsourcing its libraries.

The county still owns the building and books, though.

Saaremaa

From the Estonian Beer Guide:

MA VAATAN PAADIST KIIKRIGA

Ma vaatan paadist kiikriga,
Kui kaugel on see Saaremaa.
:,: Ei paremat ole kuskil maal,
Kui suisel ajal Saaremaal. :,:

Seal Saaremaal ei kasva muud,
Kui kadakad ja männipuud.
:,:

Mu pruut on valge nagu tui,
Ma nägin teda mullu sui.
:,:

Tal mustad juuksed, valge kael
Ja kaela ümber sametpael.
:,:

Tal roosipôôsas voodi ees
ja ööbik laulab selle sees.
:,:

Ma rüüpan merest soolast vett
Ja räägin armsamale tôtt:
:,:

Kui tahad naiseks tulla sa,
Pead Saaremaale sôudema!
:,:

Some of these verses differ from those I learned.

Medieval Writing

Medieval Writing

Pace

languagehat.com: PACE.:

I have always pronounced the preposition pace ('with due deference to' or 'despite,' from the ablative of Latin pax) in the traditional anglicized way, PAY-see, and assumed that was the universally accepted pronunciation. Now I discover, having seen the casual aside “Pace (that is to say, aloud, pa che)” in this Pepys Diary thread, that the Church Latin version, PAH-chay, is equally acceptable (the OED gives it second place for U.K. usage, first place for U.S.). So it's time for another Languagehat straw poll: if you use this slightly obnoxious Latinism, how do you say it?

You mean the right answer isn't "payss"? Good thing I've never pronounced it!

Civic Literacy Report - Civics Quiz

Yes, I took that Civics Quiz for American college students mentioned in the papers:

You answered 59 out of 60 correctly — 98.33 %
Average score for this quiz during September: 74.1%
Average score since September 18, 2007: 74.1%

You can take the quiz as often as you like, however, your score will only count once toward the monthly average.

Yes, I missed the bond question too.

Frankly, I found the test to be pretty hard. It had questions about some matters I didn't learn about until law school.

The Serendipity of a Sauce

I've always wondered how certain delicacies were devised in the first place. Here is the story of one from an article about the Roman garum, "Ancient ketchup":

The India-inspired English Worcestershire sauce is another. Worcestershire was invented quite by mistake in the 1830s, after a barrelful of an attempted anchovy sauce turned out too pungent and was left in a basement and forgotten. When it was finally opened years later, the liquid was discovered to be quite tasty, and Messrs Lea & Perrins (whose basement it was) marketed it very successfully.

WHY DO PEOPlE WRITE lIKE THIS?

The blog lowercase L has all the gory details (and pictures). (via LanguageLog)

Han shot first

From Wikipedia, Han shot first:

In the original version, Solo shoots Greedo under the table after uttering the line 'Yes, I'll bet you have.' In the 1997 Special Edition version, Greedo shoots at Solo from point blank range and misses. Han shoots him in retaliation afterwards. Thus, the phrase 'Han shot first' is a retort to director George Lucas's explicit assertion that 'Greedo shot first.' In the original release of Star Wars, only one shot was fired, and it was fired by Han Solo. The ire of some fans led to an online petition demanding that the changes be retracted.

To put it another way, these fans held the 1977 original release to be canonical but not the 1997 Special Edition.

What American accent do you have?

What American accent do you have?
Created by Xavier on Memegen.net

Northern. Whether you have the world famous Inland North accent of the Great Lakes area, or the radio-friendly sound of upstate NY and western New England, your accent is what used to set the standard for American English pronunciation (not much anymore now that the Inland North sounds like it does).

Take this quiz now - it's easy!

We're going to start with "cot" and "caught." When you say those words do they sound the same or different?

Same Different Same, no wait I mean different, maybe, a little bit different...

Unless he ate the last one, that is.

Times Online:

Fears that one of the world’s rarest creatures had been driven to extinction have been allayed by a tribesman who told conservationists he had recently eaten one.

That word is pretty ugly

Laudator Temporis Acti: The World's Ugliest Word Contest

Bogus Chemistry Alert

chem2 activity:

13. Chemical reactions can be written as chemical equations. For example, when mixing vinegar and baking soda, the equation is:
CH₃COOH NaHCO₃ --> CO₂ NaCO₃ H₂O
(vinegar) (baking soda) -> (carbon dioxide) (sodium carbonate) (water)

This equation is not balanced but it can give the students an idea of the reactants and products in the reaction.

Actually, it produces sodium acetate CH₃CO₂Na, not sodium carbonate (whose correct formula is Na₂CO₃ anyway), and, yes, the correct equation does balance.

But will he change his name to Goode?

paskewich.com: Evel Knievel Sparks a Revival