Seems like it's time to finally move this blog over to Dreamwidth. See you there, folks.

I don't like the interface on the University of Toronto's webmail system, so I forward my U of T mail to another email account. Today that other server is down. Which is an inconvenience, but not too bad, since I can still receive my U of T email on the actual U of T email server; I don't like the interface, but it's there ( Read more... )

Here are some puzzles from the 2017 Mystery Hunt that I found especially interesting or worthy of comment! I have more to say about puzzles earlier in the Hunt, since I did substantially more puzzling on Friday than Saturday-I stayed up late solving on Friday, and then because of that, on Saturday I was less focused and less involved.

( spoilers! )

This is the time of year when I write a review of the Mystery Hunt, and so despite how distracted & distraught I am by what else is going on in the world, here's my thoughts on the 2017 Mystery Hunt ( Read more... )

Places I spent the night are in bold; places I'd never been before are in italics; places I went to on multiple unconnected occasions are underlined.

Ocean Grove, N.J.
Ocean Township, N.J.
Bradley Beach, N.J.
New York, N.Y.
Toronto, Ont.
Cambridge, Mass.
Rochester, N.Y.
Brighton, N.Y.
Beverly, Mass.
Danvers, Mass.
Stratford, Ont.
Peabody, Mass.
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Okay, so in English, third-person possessives agree in number and gender with the possessor: He loves his parents; She loves her parents. But in Romance languages, possessives agree with the possessum, as in French: Elle aime sa mère; Elle aime son père; Elle aime ses parents.Which means when a native speaker of a Romance language is writing in ( Read more... )

There are five living former Republican nominees for president: George Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. All except Bob Dole have refused to endorse Donald Trump for president. But although Bob Dole hasn't withheld his endorsement from Trump, Bob Dold has, and he looks like a typo for Bob Dole, so... close enough, right?

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The story goes that Erik the Red named Greenland "Greenland" in hopes that the friendly-sounding name would attract settlers to what was in actuality a pretty inhospitable piece of real estate ( Read more... )