French Bread :(

Getting plastered : The plaster cast which I have had on my right lower arm and wrist for the last 8 days to hold the damaged thumb immobile came off this morning. Phew! First reactions : Great! I can scratch my arm and bathe it, removing the flakey skin :) Amazing how much the wrist shrunk in diameter in just over a week; I can encircle it with my left thumb and forefinger now! But as soon as I started to move the damaged thumb around again and try to put a load on it, it hurt like crazy. So I'm being very cautious with it still. There's a dull ache all the time, bit like a toothache starting, as background noise, which peaks sharply if I try to apply any force via that thumb :(

But still, I'm looking forward to going back to work on Monday; it's a nice job, which I like. And of course there are much worse jobs too!

Dept. of Homeland Stupidity : It really is incredible what some organisations do under the title of Security. And when it comes to following up hints from the public, the US burocracy shows itself to be as incompetent as ever! That hurts!
I didn't realise that the US requires no-one be brighter than the President ;) But US Forces in Iraq won't let al-Sahhaf surrender, because he's not on their playing card list of "most wanted"! Duh! That hurts too!

English : Kevin Marks replied to yesterday's Blog as follows: Judging English by its spelling rather than its pronounciation is a mistake. The spelling is all over the place, but the phonetic rules are simpler. Pinker's 'Words and Rules' is excellent reading on this topic (he determined experimentally that the brain uses both algorithmic rules and exception tables for regular and irregular grammar, and even saw MRI evidence of them exciting different parts of the brain). This also explains the progression of grammar in children (correct to start with, then overly regular as rules kick in and are over-applied, then correct again as new exception tables are built).

Back on the 27th, Kevin, I blogged about an AI program I wrote, which tries to identify sets in the exception tables, so as to reduce the table sizes, replacing them by rules about the sets. Success was limited though, as I demonstrated with a shortened exception table for plural-construction. However, Kevin, you are indeed right(sp?) that Pinker's 'Words and Rules' is excellent reading on this topic. I have also just finished reading Coulmas' "Writing Systems" (an introduction to their linguistic analysis), which I've offered to lend to Stavros, BTW.

Multilinguality : If you haven't worked out yet why the title of today's rants is "French Bread", go look up in a dictionary the French word for "bread", OK? That hurt, too?

posted by Stu Savory on 30th April 2003 at 09:59 Central European Time

---

English & the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis :)

English : Still on the subject of the difficulty of learning English, today let's think, write, read and talk about pronounciation. A ceremony is called a rite. So this ceremonious blogging could be called a write-rite. Were it politically conservative, it would be a right write rite. And the blogging would be done by a right write rite wright. Some bloggers are lawyers, writing about right. So theirs would be right wright right write rite wright write, right? Imagine getting that in a dictation class ;)

Now consider the syllable written OUGH. There are nine (9) different pronunciations thereof: bough, cough, dough, enough, through, thorough, ougt, hiccough, lough.

Or what about some famous surnames / placenames: Wymondham (pronounced Wind-am), Waldergrave (=Wawgrayve), Mainwaring (=Mannering), Magdalene (=Maudlin), Featherstonehaugh (=Fanshaw), Caius (=Keeys), Auchinlech (=Aflek) etc.

But still the English don't have it as bad as the Jews. Consider the 42 letter name of God in Hebrew, which is alleged to be unpronouncable:
Only the high priest can pronouce it on certain holy days, they claim. So of course, he could say anything, and the faithful would still have to believe him! Rather like a mixture of Dubya and Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf in that Orwellian respect ;)

So thinking a thought is different from writing it, which is different again from reading and speaking it. Certainly in Dubya's case there doesn't seem to much connection between the thinking and the speaking ;)

So I wonder why Stavrosthewonderchicken wants to resurrect the unprovable 1950s Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis ?

Excursion : The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is named for linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, who helped set forth the idea of 'cultural relativism'. This alleges that "the structure of language constrains the thought patterns of participants in the culture associated with that language." There are several interpretations of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. These versions differ on how strong the relationship is thought to be between language and culture, and what 'Sapir-Whorf effects' might be seen in a culture derived from a particular language.

Much of linguistic academia abandoned the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis in the late 1950s. They were unable to even agree on what the hypothesis meant, much less on how to test it. One problem was the difficulty in sorting out 'Sapir-Whorf effects' from other factors that might affect culture (like history and geography). Another was the difficulty of differentiating between language constraints on cultural thought, and cultural effects that dictate the evolution of a language.

Meanwhile, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis became intellectually (and politically) unfashionable, because some people used it to justify racist ideas regarding the supposed superiority or inferiority of specific cultures.

So let me wrap up today by quoting AFAIK Bernard Shaw:
Gushing american lady admirer : "Mr. Shaw, what do you think of american culture?"
G.B.Shaw : "Madam, I would be very much in favour" ;)

posted by Stu Savory on 28th April 2003 at 12:26 Central European Time

---

Blog Feedback :)

Union Flag : During the American war against Iraq I got quite a lot of hits on my page explaining how to fly the (asymmetrical) Union (Jack) Flag the right way up, and quite a few related Emails too. One mail asked "what are the colours of the Union Flag?" I thought "Duh?, this a question from Dubya, or his ilk?" Then I realised that it was a serious question. So I added the true colours (to the aforementioned page) for those wishing to display the flag on their website etc. And while I was about it, I added the dates on which the flag is required to be flown. BTW, the colours are:-
Pantone --- WebSafe ----- RGB-------------------- CMYK
280-----------#003399------0-13.5-39------------100-72-0.18 ----- Union Flag Blue
186-----------#cc0000------85.9.11.7-13.8-------0-91.76-6 ------- Union Flag Red

Whereabouts : Another Emailer thanked me for the map showing where I live in Germany, but said she still had no idea what it is like here. So - for Susan & others - I've added a page of local area photos and a link to them in the menu bar on the left.

English : One US reader thanked me for blogging in English rather than German, claiming that "English is a simpler language, much easier to learn than uthers (sic!) . So I thought "Oh Yeah?". Here is an anecdote from the mid-80s when I was doing AI (artificial intelligence) research. In one of the books I wrote then, Grundlagen von Expertensystemen, ISBN 3-486-20757-1, there is a chapter on machine learning. Example 7.5.1 was a PROLOG program for learning from examples. Here, the machine was learning how to build plurals of english words from carefully chosen examples.
E.g. Cat-->cats, dog -->dogs, generalises to "add an S at the end".
But "lady, body, pony" contradict this rule and lead the machine to learn that a trailing "y" is pluralised as "ies". But "day, boy" contradict this rule and lead the machine to learn that if the trailing "y" is preceded by "a or o" then Rule 1 is used instead. Generalising, the machine learns the members of the set of vowels, and the complementary set of consonants.
"Mouse, louse" lead to the "*ice"-rule. But then along come "house, spouse" ;) And what about "Elk, sheldrake, snipe, lapwing, swine, sheep, ptarmigan, boar, woodcock" etc? All words whose plural form is the same as their singular form. Even I don't know what the rules are here, having had to learn a list of exceptions by rote.
Now do you believe English is easier? Oh yeah? Then tell me the collective nouns for the list "Elk, sheldrake, snipe, lapwing, swine, sheep, ptarmigan, boar, woodcock" (e.g. a flock of sheep !!!

Alaska News : Just heard about one of the many break-ins in Wasilla, Alaska. It is related that two thieves broke into a Wasilla church at night recently.
They were shot by the priest! That's America for you!

Coincidentally, the Wasilla Church News for July 1999 quotes Matthew 6: 19-20. From memory, this says "Put your treasure in the Kingdom of heaven, where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your HEART will be also" ;)

posted by Stu Savory on 27th April 2003 at 06:26 Central European Time

---

Accidents :(

Blogging : I quote "No man but a Bloghead ever wrote, except for money." (nearly) Dr.Samuel Johnson (1709-1784). So here are some free (but sad) tales:

Some stupid young woman driver, going far to fast, unable to brake properly, and on the wrong side of the road, knocked actor Wolfgang Fierek off his Harley in Austria yesterday. Wolfgang broke a lot of bones and is seriously injured. Stupid bitch :(

A croatian Maths professor, (age 60, 260 lbs.) who shall remain nameless, was reaching for a book from the top-shelf on Good Friday when he slipped from the stool he was standing on. He grabbed instinctively at the shelves for support, which brought the whole bookcase full of heavy tomes crashing down on him. He was unable to get up and was not found until the Tuesday after Easter, but survived despite 3 days without food or drink. I always knew that heavy Maths is a dangerous subject :(

Of course, if the Prof. mentioned above had died, he might have been a candidate for the Darwin Awards. My favourite candidate for the 2002 award as this one:-
Six highway robbers who sought victims by blocking a bypass with their car at midnight, were crushed by a truck that was unable to stop in time. Five robbers died, and a sixth was critically wounded.

posted by Stu Savory on 25th April 2003 at 12:24 Central European Time

---

For Bulldog Fans

Bulldogs : You know you are a dog person when:-

• You have a kiddy wading pool in the yard, but no small children.
• Your dog sleeps with you.
• You can't see out the passenger side of the windshield because there are nose-prints all over the inside.
• You like people who like your dog. You despise people who dont.
• You'd rather stay home on Saturday night and cuddle your dog than go to the movies with your sweetie.
• Your dog sees the vet while you settle for an over-the-counter drug.
• Your dog is getting old and arthritic, so you go buy lumber and build her a small staircase so she can climb onto the bed by herself
• You have your dog's picture on your office desk (but no one else's).
• You lecture people on responsible dog ownership every-chance you get.
• You skip breakfast so you can walk your dog in the morning before work.
• Your weekend activities are planned around taking your dog for a hike.
• You never completely finish a piece of steak or chicken (so your dog gets a taste, too)
• The trash basket is more or less permanently installed in the kitchen sink, to keep the dog out of it while you're at work
• You shovel a zigzag path in the back yard snow so your dog can reach all her favorite spots
• You carry pictures of your dog in your wallet instead of pictures of your parents, siblings, and significant other, or anyone else remotely human.
• You don't give a second thought to using the brush you just used on your dog to give a quick run through on your own hair.
• You have dog hair stuck on tape on wrapped gifts.
• You have several albums filled with the 8 by 10 pictures of your dogs but you can't locate any pictures of your kids to send to grandma.
• You have six squeaky hedgehogs ... but only one with a squeaky that works.
• You keep eating even after finding a dog hair your pasta.
• You make popcorn just to play catch with
• Your dog is the star of your World Wide Web site :)

posted by Stu Savory on 24th April 2003 at 10:04 Central European Time

---

Its hard blogging

Blogging : Played basketball for the very first time in my life at the WE and now I have my right thumb & wrist in plaster :( OK to 2-finger-type, but its difficult manoevering the mouse. So its hard blogging for the next ten days, 'til the plaster comes off.

Punny : Halley Suitt in jail? No, when you read her Easter blog, just a hard sentence (or two). Not so much a hard sentence as penile surf-itude, actually ;)
BTW, Halley, here are the instructions on how to make a Golem

posted by Stu Savory on 22nd April 2003 at 18:34 Central European Time

---

A Heath Robinson Blog :)

Blogging : Have you ever wondered what early blogs were like? Even before there were computers and the Internet? Well, I finally found a picture of the first blog ;) Note carefully the artist's signature, lower right in the picture. It is Heath Robinson. Heath Robinson was in England what Rube Goldberg was in the USA. They both designed some very strange machines ;)
Now Ash Ghinn has put a collection of Heath Robinson's art online. Thanks, Ash!
Others follow in this tradition. William Beatty has written about square wheels.
But the best recent contribution is a TV ad in the UK for the new Honda Accord car. The Honda Accord campaign launched mid-April looks certain to become an advertising legend. They actually built a Heath Robinson machine and filmed it "working". No cheating by taking individual shots and then the cutting-room stringing them together! NO! Pride demanded that the whole thing work in ONE successful run! It took them merely six hundred and six (606) takes, before it all hung together :)

Politeness : Somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note on the car windscreen, it said "PARKING FINE." That was nice of them ;)

posted by Stu Savory on 21st April 2003 at 19:14 Central European Time

---

Successes

: March 27 I recommended you go to the Popfile antiSpam website and download their (free) anti-Spam Bayesian filter SW. Now I can document the success of the Popfile approach, using my real mailbox statistics. Over the last three weeks about 80% of my eMails were spam :( But the Popfile filter caught almost all of it, averaging 98% accuracy. Of the 4 classification errors this week, 2 were misclassified as spam which weren't, but adding these 2 eMail addresses to the "good magnet" list would have halved that rate (and will for their future mails). The other 2 required a simple retuning of the antispam filter. Popfile is really good, go get yourself a copy!

Formula 1 : Congratulations Schumi, on winning the race in Imola. And well done Ralf (4th), too, both racing under difficult emotional conditions. Their mother died race day:(

Crypto : Well done too, Sigh fer Girl(sic!) who - as the very first successful contestant - has finally broken the three cryptogram puzzles I set last year. Now I'll have to set some new ones ;) But you can be sure I'll play fair doing so :)

posted by Stu Savory on 20th April 2003 at 17:00 Central European Time

---

Good humour!

Birthday : Happy Birthday, Neli! Always 449 :) Happy Easter from Wilma Bulldog, too.

Humour : To celebrate Him being buried in a chocolate egg and on the third day ascending to heaven as a little yellow chick, today's blog is on the humourous side.

For example : I just love the discreet humour of this bookseller.
Look at this photo of her subtle juxtaposition in her shop-window ;)
But maybe we should not knock Bush too hard, after all he's an old-testament Jahweh type, keen on revenge until the seventh generation. I quote "You fucking son of a bitch. I saw what you wrote. We're not going to forget this." - George W. Bush to writer and editor Al Hunt, 1988, after Hunt's critical article. Diplomatic president, huh?

Now most academic lectures are rather dull (pace Liz!), but this one must have been very interesting and - in retrospect - very embarrassing for Prof. Ron Wirick ;) ;) ;)
Must be fun at the Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario :)

More Goofs? Forty three (43) people managed to misspell their "Wanted" notices in Google as dead or alice (sic!).

posted by Stu Savory on 19th April 2003 at 10:00 Central European Time

---

It's Good Friday!

Motorcycling : It's good friday? It's good any day!

Do you ever get the feeling that everybody else knows something you don't? That everybody else is taking for granted something that you've never heard about? As if you'd missed the Big-Briefing-in-the-Sky or something?

One of the major points covered in everybody else's Big Briefing was apparently that People Don't Ride Motorcycles, Because They Are Dangerous, Loud, Smelly, Oily, Things, much inferior to cars. Then along comes Old Stu (for it is I), who missed the Big Briefing.

So let me tell you about Motorcycling :)

Motorcycling is feeling the wild wild wind in your face.
Motorcycling is smelling the Castrol-R in a Manx' exhaust.
Motorcycling is hearing the roar of the engine.
Motorcycling is grinding the edge of your boot in a fast corner.
Motorcycling is sweat under your helmet on a hot day.
Motorcycling is a fast wheelie on the approach to the Creg.
Motorcycling is a friend whistling around the outside,
'cos he thinks you were too slow into the corner.
Motorcycling is diving down the inside of him , where he left the door open :)
Motorcycling is floating through dank Westerwald woods, watching the deer run from the noise of your passage.
Motorcycling is raising the rear wheel in a squealing stoppie.
Motorcycling is dappered sunlight on the Red Hair Mountain afternoon roads.
Motorcycling is FUN. It's good friday? It's good any day!
P.S. : It was worth missing the Briefing for :)

posted by Stu Savory on 18th April 2003 at 18:22 Central European Time

---

Top o' the Google, to yez, sorr!

Google : I'm pleased to see today that www.google.de (the German Google) rates some of my pages at the top of its listings :) For example I have a set of pages in German on encryption devices which are top-rated (1st out of 113) in Germany. And my pages about bulldogs are too (1st out of 5,440), as are the pages about the late, great motorcycle journalist Ernst Leverkus, nicknamed Klacks (1st out of 4,840). And when look up my surname in Google.de, I find my blog at the top of the list (1st out of 2,870). So I must be doing something right ;) I just wonder why this doesn't translate into more hits? Maybe the subject matter is too specialised.

Humour : Fleischer lost the spin-war! Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf , the Iraqi Information Minister was a much better liar!
There is even an al-Sahaf fan-club website, go read it, please!

posted by Stu Savory on 16th April 2003 at 19:02 Central European Time

---

Springtime

Motorcycling : Great spring weather at the weekend, clear blue skies, temperatures in the upper teens, suuuuper! So naturally the SNIce Riders went motorcycling : cross country to Gunter's Kurve, a bikers meet about 80 miles NNO and then on to see the helicopter museum in Bückeburg. Then I had to split for home to let the dog out. But my good friend Alex showed up later, so went for another, faster ;) blast. All in all a very pleasant 300+ miles on Sunday ;) so no time to blog, then.

posted by Stu Savory on 14th April 2003 at 21:52 Central European Time

---

Prime Time

Crypto : As you may know, modern asymmetric public key cryptography is based on the difficulty of factoring a huge number. But is it really so difficult after all? If not, the method would come tumbling down like a house of cards. So I'll point you today to research done giving Goldston and Yildirim's Result, which - at least to me - would appear to be very relevant. (BTW: Factoring is NP-complete).

Time Travel : On a lighter note, you might like to read about a time traveller who arrived recently from the future and cleared up on the stock market. So much so, that he was accused of insider dealing ;) And no, the story was not datelined April 1st !

Math : Here is some real modern history for you - Notes on Implementing VisiCalc.

posted by Stu Savory on 11th April 2003 at 21:02 Central European Time

---

More on LirrIX

Poetry : Modern lyric neither rhymes nor does it often make sense. Almost any old nonsense can be rewritten as modern lyric. Volumes thereof prove it!
Try this excerpt from the Bush Blog, where Dubya learns about the "Inna Ned" :

A trained ape can know an awful lot
Of what is going on in this world,
Just by punching on his mouse
For a relatively modest cost!

That is - word for word - a statement made by Don E. Rumsfeld, warlord for the US. The end-of-lines are arbitrary, just like in most other modern lyric. Want more? Then please go read Hart Seely in Slate eZine. However, if you prefer to read really good poetry, I would point you to my poetry collection.

Of course if Dubya had done the same thing, you/he might need to use a dictionary to see if they were real words or Bushisms. Sadly, that online dictionary is limited to an american vocabulary (just to keep it small ;), so missing useful English words (like Gruntfuttock?). A gruntfuttock is the stave used to hold the base of the main mast of a sailing ship, AFAIK. Most likely whilst they were sailing Round the Horne (that's an ancient Brit Radio joke BTW, probably Beyond our Ken). Want more Brit Trivia :)?

posted by Stu Savory on 10th April 2003 at 10:02 Central European Time

---

More on Windoze XP

Ignorance : Leander Kalpaxis reports in more detail about the bug I was ranting about yesterday: "Microsoft has managed to break one of the fundamental features of the operating system. It turns out if you try to search for all files of a particular type that contain a string of interest (ie, all .txt files with the string "Hello") - you will get zero results, even if such files exist."
"Forget about searching "All files and Folders" - that's a lie. Forget about turning on "View Hidden Files and Folders" - that's no help. Microsoft has changed the way the Search feature works so that it will only search within files that have a specifically registered handler. There is a work around available here. But this fix has to be applied for each and every file extension you are interested in searching in - once for .htm, once for .asp, once for .txt and so on."
"Who did the usability testing for this "feature", and why is this thing still broken, even after a Service Pack release for XP?"

Turns out (of course!) that this is a third-party shutout by MS.
I.E. It works fine if you wrote your ".txt" file using MS SW, it just doesn't work if you used 3rd-party SW. And MS never tests with 3rd party stuff.

posted by Stu Savory on 9th April 2003 at 06:02 Central European Time

---

Bliss ?

Ignorance : Ignorance is Bliss. And there are a lot of scuba diving / classical literature fans on the web! Or Microsoft's automatic spelling corrector has a lot to answer for! Google today shows 18 (eighteen!) websites about Dante's Diving (sic!) Comedy.

There's a lot of ignorance at Microsoft anyway. Windows is just impossible sometimes! Try looking for a text in a file with XP. Even when the text is there, XP cannot find it. Microsoft actually broke a basic function expected of any operating system, just by re-implementing it in XP (wrongly, of course, after all this is Microsoft we are talking about)!

And while I'm ranting about ignorance, I'll point out to warbloggers that the Pentagon is not the best known & oldest five sided building in the world. Just look at this famous aerial shot from the UK to see one several hundred years older. FYI, it is the Tower of London, right next to Tower Bridge (which is where the other Liz keeps her jewellery).

posted by Stu Savory on 8th April 2003 at 20:12 Central European Time

---

IFFy notes

IFF : My fears, which I documented for y'all yesterday, are confirmed. Socalled "TopGun" US cowboy pilots cannot recognise the Union flag :(
Another aspect of IFF is reported in this conspiracy theory.

Humour : For the tree-huggers reading this blog, this link is not to Greenpeace. So you might want to save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus instead ;)

posted by Stu Savory on 7th April 2003 at 20:39 Central European Time

---

More on Feedback

Blog Content : Today I got more ranting feedback from the pro-war faction, who object to the political tone of my blog. Maybe they will recognise this quotation: "I would rather be popular than unpopular, but it is better to be unpopular than wrong".
And if this does not suffice, I quote Uncle Al : "There is no attempt made nor desire extant to libel or otherwise cause malicious damage, loss, public contempt, defamation, blasphemy, treason, sedition, or ridicule to persons, cabals, governments, institutions, corporations, or assemblies of inanimate objects, alien lifeforms, microorganisms, clergy, vegetables, animals, or observed spatio-temporal reality. If it is found that any extant entity or collection of entities maintains an uncomfortable congruence to the caricatures and ridiculous comedic exaggerations contained herein, the author offers his apologies and condolences, and if you are still pissed off, you are invited to go pound (Iraqi) sand up your ass. Conciliation has its limits." After all, propaganda has been going on since a famous Roman declared Carthago delenda est!

For clarification : I am pro-America, but anti-war and anti-Bush.
Stop the Mad Cowboy Disease!

IFF : It is reported that British troops are so scared of being shot by Americans - the euphemism is "friendly fire" - that they are privately buying Union (Jack) flags to hang on their vehicles as a poor man's IFF ( = Identification - Friend or Foe). Personally I am not sure if the standard of US education is sufficient that the US soldiers would be able to identify the Union flag! Certainly I have been getting lots of hits from the US on my page which tells you how to fly the British flag the right way up!

Humour : I am told that this came from Karl Lembke: Mohammed Sajjid al Sayef (the Iraqi Information Minister) calls together all 19 of the Saddam Hussein doubles left in Iraq and says : "I've got good news and bad news." , "The good news is, our beloved leader, Saddam Hussein, may his name be blessed, still lives!" , "The bad news, especially for all of you doubles, is that shrapnel blew his genitals off ..."

posted by Stu Savory on 6th April 2003 at 15:39 Central European Time

---

Blogfan Feedback

Reading : A blogfan in Alaska points me to some 19th century German literature, with good translations into English, to introduce US readers to some great reading.

Humour : Homo neutralicus (isn't that Latin for Unix ?) points me to two hilarious online news-magazines stateside, these being first: The Onion (claiming to be America's Finest News Source), and second: Whitehouse.Org (not .gov), with very funny rants against the common shrub and his campaign for Iraqi Oil Freedom.

Science : ET reports that sadly, calling home did not appear to work, and points me to the SETI reobservation site. He also reports that has also found an answer to the perplexing question: Why is Guiness foam white?

posted by Stu Savory on 5th April 2003 at 10:19 Central European Time

---

Whirled Leaders

Politics : Back on Tuesday, the newspaper USA Today had a leader article about President Bush (that was Fool's day, you remember). It contains worrying phrases like - I quote - "Bush believes he was called by God to lead the nation at this time, says Commerce Secretary Don Evans" and "the president's passion is motivated by his loathing for Saddam's brutality, aides say". That was on the day that US soldiers shot innocent civilian women and children and when a hospital was bombed.
It also states that Bush frequently gets lost in thought (that's probably because for him it's unfamiliar territory ;).

Humour : Whereas Bush does not keep a diary (which would involve actually writing), supposedly other national leaders do. I found a (pseudo-)blog which alleges to be by North Korea's Kim Jong II. It's a rather funny spoof, go take a look. Gotta log off now, the dog is barking at the back door and the wife is yelling at the front door; so who do I let in first? . . . The dog, of course . . . at least he'll shut up after I let him in!

posted by Stu Savory on 4th April 2003 at 09:19 Central European Time

---

Facets of War

Politics : I just read two contradictory but juxtaposed headlines:
Bush promises Iraqis 'freedom', immediately followed by
US Network sacks top journalist in Baghdad.
Whatever happened to freedom of speech in the US?

However, I did like this article about the great British Sense of Humour, even , and especially, in wartime. And of course, for the Pink Floyd fans, Dogs of War.

Fans : Thankyou faithful blogreaders and website fans, for your fanmail. You know who you are ;) Your fanmail convinces me that this blog is not just a WOF. Wossat? WOF? Wossat? you ask. WOF = write-only-forget, the opposite of ROM, OK ;) ?

Looking at return links to my site, I found that the University of North Dakota has me at the head of their list of pages on historical cryptography. Fame at last ;) But I was actually surprised, since the page they point to, I had written in German, and I had not expected an Ami to be able to read it. Carnivore/DCS1000, RIP, Altivore, ECHELON, WinWhatWhere... are paying off for the boys at the NSA ;)

posted by Stu Savory on 2nd April 2003 at 20:49 Central European Time

---

Tolkien's Mordor blog

Three rings for the elven kings, under the sky.
Four for the dwarf lords, in their halls of stone.
Nine for mortal men, doomed to die,
and one for the Dark Lord, on His dark throne,
in the land of Mordor, where the shadow lies.

posted by Stu Savory on 1st April 2003 at 06:19 Central European Time