In a blog comment just now, I almost referred to SF author Charles Stross as "Unca Charlie".

To remind the linkophobic, "'Unca' is an honorific that refers to an individual whose words or writing have had a marked influence on Your Obedient Serpent's philosophical development."... It also carries obvious connotations of "Older, Wiser Mentor ( Read more... )

For the record, Measure J passed with 60% of the vote.

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I think "monorail!" (with exclamation point) is now part of Athelind's Argot.

In the late '80s, one of the numerous transit systems in the Bay Area had a cultural enrichment program, putting art and poetry in those overhead add slots on the bus. I believe some of the brief poems were actually commissioned for the program ( Read more... )

Pupils equal and reactive is a phrase you'll hear on any medical show, and in a lot of real-life emergency rooms and accident scenes. It was almost a catch phrase on Jack Webb's classic paramedic drama, Emergency!, and that's where it entered my vocabulary, long before my own excursion into the rescue-response field.

The Original Meaning: When ( Read more... )

In response to yet another BoingBoing article about TASER Abuse, I offered the following comment:

Please remember that "TASER" is a registered trademark of TASER International ( Read more... )

It's actually spelled Æþelind, and pronounced with a long "A".

It means "noble serpent" in Old English, and I've discovered, to my surprise, that a very similar name was actually used historicallyOriginally, I spelled it "Æthelind" when writing by hand, but "Aethelind" just looked wrong when typing. I think one of my early BBS hang-outs or e-mail ( Read more... )

From Bill Cosby's epic routine on parents and grandparents:

My father walked to school, 4 o'clock every morning, with no shoes on -- uphill. Both ways! In five feet of snow. And he was thankful.


(Jump to 1m57s.)
Used to indicate how tough things were when the speaker was a kid, acknowledging that there might just be some humorous exaggeration ( Read more... )

Mostly for my own reference:

Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design

While Dr. Akin is an aerospace engineer, most if not all of these Laws apply to systems design in general.

normanrafferty should take particular note of the following:

14. (Edison's Law) "Better" is the enemy of "good".

Snagged from theweaselking, whom I forgot to credit when I first posted this.

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"Unca" is an honorific that refers to an individual whose words or writing have had a marked influence on Your Obedient Serpent's philosophical development.

It is, obviously, a diminutive of "Uncle", and is in itself an homage to Unca Carl,* who invariably had Huey, Dewey and Louie address their elders as "Unca Donald" and "Unca Scrooge ( Read more... )

"Omnomnomnivore."

Thanks, araquan.