A boilermaker, sort of, in the news

I don't care if it is in stages; I don't care if there's pizza. I say it's a boilermaker, sort of. From ABC News:

Sen. Hillary Clinton stopped by Bronko's Restaurant and Lounge in Crown Point, Ind., tonight. Clinton stood by the bar and took a shot of Crown Royal whiskey. She took one sip of the shot, then another small sip, then a few seconds later threw her head back and finished off the whole thing.

Clinton later sat down at a table and enjoyed some pizza and beer, and called over Mayor Tom McDermott of Hammond, Ind., to come join the table. . . .

The senator was eager to get a slice of pepperoni.

Breathes there a voter so gullible as to be taken in by such transparent pandering?

Ad hoc

Friday's syndicated New York Times crossword has taught me a couple of things:

1. The first words of Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" are "Yo, V.I.P., let's kick it." (52 Across: "1990 #1 rap hit that starts" — you already know the rest.)

2. The Latin phrase ad hoc is more complicated than I thought. (7 Down: "Having a single purpose.")

I've known ad hoc as a matter of administrative improvisation, as with various ad hoc (i.e., not standing) committees I've served on in my academic life, committees put together as impromptu ways to address unexpected issues. The Latin words ad hoc (which I've never before bothered to think about) mean "for this." The phrase's first use as an adverb in English (1659) carries that meaning: "For this purpose, to this end; for the particular purpose in hand or in view." In the 19th century, ad hoc functions as adverb and adjective: "Devoted, appointed, etc., to or for some particular purpose."

It's in the 20th century that the phrase's emphasis on a response to the needs of the moment ("in hand or in view") becomes associated with flying by the seat of one's pants or, to change the metaphor, winging it. Thus ad hoc is now also a verb: "to use ad hoc measures or contrivances, to improvise." And the phrase gives rise to several ugly nouns: ad hoc-ery ("the use of such measures"), ad hocism / adhocism ("the use of ad hoc measures, esp. as a deliberate means of avoiding long-term policy"), and ad-hoc-ness ("the nature of, or devotion to, ad hoc principles or practice"). Thank you, Oxford English Dictionary.

By the way, I'm not merely ad hocking in writing about ad hoc. This post is in keeping with a "long-term policy" of writing about anything that prompts my thinking and seems potentially useful and/or delightful to others.

Phishing

[Click for larger version.]

When I saw the subject line of this e-mail — "Slight error regarding your account," I knew that someone was going phishing. I was curious enough to open this message and see what it looked like. Look carefully:

The greeting is generic, no name or account number.

The words inability and regularly are misspelled. The word your appears as you.

The odd phrase "address changing" suggests a lack of familiarity with American idioms.

The end punctuation of the numbered items is inconsistent.

The numbered items are out of sequence! (Sheesh! Thes guys ned to proofred.)

The sentence in red is missing a pretty obvious comma. The unnecessary then in that sentence also suggests that the English of this message is a matter of labor.

If I were reading this e-mail in panic mode, I'd be likely to miss these details, just as the dim phishers themselves have. But even in panic mode, mousing over the link to read the URL before clicking is all that would be necessary to determine that this e-mail is a phony. The words in blue point to a Chilean URL that (of course) has nothing to do with Chase. I have no idea what is to be found there.

[Update: A comment on this post suggests that mousing over might not be enough. So even if the revealed URL appears legitimate, don't click. If you suspect a genuine problem with an account, use the phone or visit the appropriate website.]

A phisher who reads this blog post might learn something about creating more plausible-looking e-mails. But that remote possibility is outweighed by the more likely possibility that some reader will stop and think before clicking on a questionable link.

You can check on or report a specious URL at PhishTank. The URL in my e-mail has already been verified as belonging to a phisher. PhishTank also has a page with suggestions about what to look for in a phishing message.

[Thanks to Eustace of The Lock and Key, whose comment prompted me to update this post.]

Related post
Phishing

By Glen Baxter

I realized this afternoon that part of what I like about the surreal machinery of The Experimental Study of Foods is that it reminds me of Glen Baxter's cartoons.

This image is from The Impending Gleam (New York: Knopf, 1982).

The penetrometer

"Penetrometer with light cone as used to test the firmness of baked custards."

Figure 16-8 in Ruth Griswold's The Experimental Study of Foods (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962).

Related posts
By Glen Baxter
The shortometer
The tenderometer

The shortometer

The shortometer: "a device used by commercial bakers for testing the shortening power of various fats in dough" (Webster's Third New International).

The above images come from a home economics textbook, a booksale leftover, Ruth Griswold's The Experimental Study of Foods (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962). Griswold describes the shortometer as a device to test "the breaking strength of pastry, cookies, and crackers." The device in Figure 16-5 is a commercial product. Figure 16-6 shows a do-it-yourself device made with a postal scale. Griswold explains: "In either instrument, the pastry or other wafer is put across two horizontal bars, the single upper bar is brought down by means of a motor until it breaks the wafer, and the force is recorded with a maximum registering hand." Imagine, going to work to smash graham crackers.

My brief acquaintance with shortometers has cleared up a line from The Honeymooners episode "Alice and the Blonde" (1956) that always puzzled me. Ed Norton to Bert Wedemeyer: "I do like a short cookie, Bert, and you do make 'em short." The Third New International explains it all: "easily broken, crumbling readily (as from shortening content)."

Note the name Kroger in the caption for 16-5. The Kroger Co. is still going strong, not crumbling readily.

Related reading
By Glen Baxter
The penetrometer
The tenderometer
All "dowdy world" posts (via Pinboard)

Grad-school-ruled notebook

After decades of only offering ruled notebook paper suitable for college-level education and below, school-supply giant Mead introduced its new grad-school-ruled notebook Monday, which features lines twice as narrow as college-ruled paper.

Mead Releases New Grad-School-Ruled Notebook (The Onion)

(Thanks, Ben!)

Hillary Clinton's roots

April 2007:

At a recent gathering of donors, [Mark] Penn said, he asked the group: "Who here knows where Hillary is from?"

"Not one, really, guessed that it was in the Chicago suburbs," Penn said. "They really didn't know. They drew a blank. So, a lot of people always say to me, well, they know everything about Hillary. It's not true. There's really a lot to tell."

April 2008:

Hillary Clinton's campaign hit the airwaves in Pennsylvania with five new ads Tuesday, including spots that feature two of the state's most high-profile Democrats — Gov. Ed Rendell and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter — and one that plays up her roots in the state.

Messy desk

Thought and work are unpredictable, varying, and ambiguous. They're messy. Why shouldn't your desk be messy too?

Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman, A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder (New York: Back Bay Books, 2007), 32

Related post
In search of lost objects

Spam names

In the spam folder recently: Horace Fish, Madge Herring, Jewell Mayo, and Ham, just Ham.

Related posts
Achilles and stochastic
English professor spam
The folks who live in the mail
Great names in spam
Introducing Rickey Antipasto
The poetry of spam
Spam names