Today's XKCD presents the solution to a centuries-old mystery:



It will perhaps come as no surprise that I actually think this one may be near to the truth. For the record, I have three icons with artificial scripts on them, none of which are Voynich-related (yet).

Tags: weird

If you're an academic, no doubt you're familiar with citation styles such as MLA, APA, Chicago, and the like. But if you ever wondered how to cite a magic 8-ball result 'Will I get tenured?" or bathroom graffiti, this page fills in this and other important gaps.

Tags: weird

Today I paid $1.87 (US) per gallon at the duty-free gas station on my way home. That's somewhere around 49 cents (US) a litre (add another 10 cents for the Canadian conversion); it's also less than half what I was paying two months ago. I was down to a quarter-tank, and I filled my (admittedly fuel efficient) Corolla for sixteen bucks. In July I was talking about a shortage of 4s due to the sudden shift as gas prices rose above $4.00 a gallon - and now we're talking about being back to 1s. What's next in this wacky world, America electing a black president?

Tags: weird

CAPTCHA programs of the sort seen below are supposed to be completely automated, yes? It's an acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart ... But given that anyone could need to enter a response on virtually any site, that means there is no way to monitor or censor them, right?

Tags: weird

Offered without comment, from my Gmail inbox:

Tags: weird

As evidence of my ongoing stop sign fetish, I couldn't resist the urge to direct your attention to The Poop Sign, linked today in the equally bizarre webcomic, Wondermark. It is, well, exactly what it sounds like. It makes an ideal birthday or Christmas present for your poop-minded friends and relations!

Tags: weird
Current Mood: weird

I am currently looking at a book in the AHL Studies in the Science and History of Language monograph series put out by the Association for the History of Language. On the spine is the abbreviation of this series name:

ASSHoL

It is very interesting that there is something akin to a recursive initialism involved here, a form of wordplay common in computing, although it is really just one initialism embedded in another (AHL --> A in the series abbreviation) with some repetition of terms. It is interesting that 'History of Language' is abbreviated in 'AHL' as HL but in the second instance, in the series abbreviation, as 'HoL'.

But of course, this is not what any of you will have noticed.

Tags: language, weird

While I normally leave the icon-making in our family to the inestimably talented curtana (you can see her work over at her icon journal, iconsbycurtana), I couldn't resist making this set of icons from the astonishingly surreal pseudo-encyclopedia, the Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini. Let me know if you would like to take any of these (credit me in the keyword or comments, please). Comments and suggestions are welcome!

Preview:


( Icons from the Codex Seraphinianus )

Tags: geekery, weird

This morning I found out to my amusement and mild annoyance that yesterday while I was waiting for the metro, a Montreal Gazette photographer took my picture unbeknownst to me, and my dirty mug is now on the front page of today's Gazette. For the time being it is also on the main news page of the Gazette web site. My students mentioned it to me in class this morning and, when I expressed disbelief, someone (of course, half of them have laptops, and the room gets a wireless connection) showed it to me.

Not sure what I think of all this. Now, admittedly, I was in a public place, and they weren't quoting or naming me. I am more prominent in the photo than the guy they actually name (to the left), and they don't even quote either one of us, but some other person. Although it's clear that they're not quoting me, it still feels rather odd to see one's face plastered all over the place for - well, for nothing, since I didn't even know anyone took the photo. But let's be honest, here: the real reason I am miffed is almost certainly because they *should* have asked me about the transit strike, the subject of the cover story. I'm sure I would have had something more enlightening to say about the affair than, "I'd like it to end even sooner. I'm wasting a lot of time because of this."

Tags: growlery, weird
Current Mood: hot

I did a double-take a few minutes ago upon reading this sentence from a New York Times article on Senator John McCain:

"The persistence of questions about his age has stirred concern among Mr. McCain’s advisers, particularly as the campaign has focused considerable attention on Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat who, at 45, could be Mr. McCain’s son."

Oh really? What is being implied here about Mr. Obama's parentage? Does the Times know something that I don't?

Tags: language, weird
Current Mood: amused