( For the Want of a Nail.... )

( A Review of Walter Isaacson's Biography of Steve Jobs )

The original objective of the Perl script I've been developing for the past two years was to extract family tree data from the GEDCOM files exported from Ancestry.com into groff typesetting code so that I could circulate printed copy or PDFs for review. This morning I enhanced the script to create CSV files as well, suitable for importing into ( Read more... )

Fukushima isn't going away any time soon. Here are some old, old friends with a reminder — Don't Dig Here.

Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rainwater, and only pure-grain alcohol?
— Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Aztec GoldMix equal parts of Jose Cuervo Gold tequila (room temperature), Florida's Natural Original orange juice (chilled to 36F in refrigerator), and Trader Joe's not-from-concentrate pineapple juice (also ( Read more... )

An old posting ....

http://jackkansas.livejournal.com/66840.html#cutid1

I had not previously heard of Jeffrey Sachs. But while waiting for LCB to buy books at the Barnes & Noble off San Pablo Ave. in El Cerrito last night, I caught the rebroadcast on KQED of his City Arts and Lectures talk from Nov. 6. (The City Arts and Lectures series is hosted by actress Linda Hunt, you know, Mapes from Dune [1984].) The talk was ( Read more... )

( My Two Cents )

In her review of David Lodge's A Man of Parts (Lodge's fictionalized biography of H.G. Wells) in the latest New York Review of Books (Sept. 29, 2011, p.45), Claire Tomalin makes what seems to me to be a very curious statement — "Wells's name is probably less well known among readers today than Henry James's...." The rest of the paragraph is a ( Read more... )

Sometimes I'm ashamed to be an American.