RhymeHamster

Jeremy Desmon, a bookwriter and lyricist for musical theater, has created a (free) online rhyming dictionary: RhymeHamster. I think it’s a worthy companion to such resources as Etymonline and Green’s Dictionary of Slang.

How good is RhymeHamster? I tried meh and rizz — they’re both in there, which I think is a sign that this dictionary is “with it.” (You can also find hep .) Elaine tried the Gilbert and Sullivanesque hypotenuse , and the dictionary obliged with 103 perfect rhymes of one, two, three, four, and five syllables.

And I had to try orange , which yielded 123 imperfect rhymes. For as the poet and novelist Gilbert Sorrentino reminds us, “Nothing is the thing that rhymes with orange.”

Thanks, Jeremy, for sharing your project.

[“With it”: I’m joking. “Nothing is”: a line from the poem “The Crown,” in The Orangery (1978).]

Zippy preps

[“Clean Palate.” Zippy, October 28, 2026. Click for a larger view.]

In today’s Zippy , we learn that Zippy prepares all his meals in the sink. “Dishes are so 20th century!” he says.

See also Cosmo Kramer’s shower prep.

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

[Shoutout to our daughter Rachel, who introduced us to Dawn Platinum Powerwash Dish Spray, which makes dishwashing more fun. Way more fun than Seventh Generation. And dish spray makes it unnecessary to decide whether to say dish soap or dishwashing liquid .]

A Dartmouth provost and AI

From Inside Higher Ed, “Dartmouth Provost’s ‘AI Dependency’ Sparks Backlash”:

Some students and faculty are calling for the provost’s firing after he allegedly used generative AI to write professional articles. He’s admitted to using ChatGPT, but says it didn’t replace his own intellectual judgment or authorship.

The provost is one Santiago Schnell. Semafor found that Pangram identified a Washington Post opinion piece by Schnell as 100% AI-written. (Schnell disputes that.) Dartmouth’s student newspaper, The Dartmouth, found that Pangram identified 96% of nine professional articles by Schnell as “AI-written.”

I’d say that Schnell’s intellectual judgment went down the drain when he chose to have AI do the work of writing for him.

A before-and-after headline

[The New York Times, October 27, 2026.]

My son Ben noticed the ambiguity of the original headline — though given the current occupant’s affection for all things Russia, it would probably be safe to guess that sanctions were being discontinued, not imposed. And then before I could do anything with the first headline, Ben noticed that it had been emended.

Google/Blogger is listening

Over the past few months, I’ve posted to the Blogger Help Community about four problems:

~ the malfunctioning Newer Post link at the bottom of posts

~ a post missing from the sidebar’s monthly archive

~ the switch to a spindly font for typing comments

~ Blogger’s (apparent) default to Anonymous for comments

The fourth problem, as Blogger expert Arkadiusz Narowski explained, arises when Safari prevents cross-site tracking. That was on me. The other three problems are now fixed: the Newer Post link works, the limit for monthly posts has gone from 100 to 128 (a fittingly computer-y number, as in 128K), and the font for typing comments is once again substantial and readable.

If you look at Google’s Blogger blog, it’s reasonable to wonder whether the company is paying any attention to Blogger: the last post there is from May 2020. But these improvements suggest that, indeed, someone is paying attention.

Tad’s White House

In today’s Zippy, “Chew On This,” Zippy speaks to a giant bust of Abraham Lincoln:

“You wouldn't believe th’ White House! It looks like a Tad’s Steakhouse from 1962!”

N.B.: daily comic strips are prepared weeks ahead of time, which means that Zippy’s comparison of the White House to Tad’s Steakhouse predates Barack Obama’s comparison of the White House to a Saddamesque Cheesecake Factory.

A Times Square Tad’s appears in person (so to speak) in a previous strip. I put one panel and some background on Tad’s in this post: Zippy’s Tad’s.

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

OOHFM watch

Yesterday the current occupant wrote or dictated 1,321 words about “this COMPLETE AND TOTAL LOSER, Bill Maher.” Laser-focused, as always. And out of his, &c.

WindowShade Redux

From Totally Not Malicious Software: WindowShade Redux, a Mac app that brings back the option to roll up windows to their title bars. For me, that’s enough, but the app does much more, as this short video shows. Note: the sound effects and animations are optional.

I began rolling up windows with WindowShade X not long after switching to a Mac in 2007. When that app stopped working, I switched to WindowMizer in 2013. And when that app switched to a subscription model, I decided to forget about rolling up windows.

WindowShade Redux is free to try and inexpensive to buy ($10, or $7 until October 31). My only connection to the app is that of a happy paying customer.

Now I just wish that macOS 27 didn’t make title bars so ginormous.

AppDelete

The venerable Mac app AppDelete, which I wrote about in 2012 (and began using in 2009), won’t work in macOS 27 without Rosetta, the app that allows Intel-based apps to run on M1+ Macs. And Rosetta will no longer work when macOS 28 arrives. So it’s time for a new app. I chose the free app AppCleaner.

AppDelete hadn’t been updated in a long time, and I never wondered why — the app just worked. But now I see that Reggie Ashworth, the app’s creator, died in 2017. As I could tell from a handful of e-mails I exchanged with him, he was a good guy. I offer belated sympathy to his family.

Recently updated

Hidden Bar: Updated to work with macOS 27.