Back-to-school shopping

Jana Pruden still wants to go back-to-school shopping:

I never even liked school very much, but the Back to School season was still something special. Back to School was a time of such great newness it always left me feeling that anything could happen.

With my school supplies laid out all clean and perfect in those final days before school started, I could always catch a glimpse of the better me that could possibly emerge that school year.

Ah, supplies. Thomas Merton has a wonderful passage with a similar feeling.

Shopping for supplies was a late-summer ritual when my children were in elementary school. El fanatico (that's me) insisted on the best — Dixon Ticonderoga or Faber-Castell or Mirado pencils. It was only years later that I learned that all supplies were pooled for class use. I think that my kids didn't have the heart to tell me.

The school supplies we now buy are (thank goodness) for personal use — books, computers, notebooks, pens.

House?

The siding contractor has walked off the job.

You can see what the artist is after in the three Ernie Bushmiller panels at the top of this page. In Nancy, the result is elegant. In Hi and Lois, just clumsy. Time marches.

[Hi and Lois, August 29, 2008.]

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The Cupertino effect

I didn't know that there was a name for it. From Wikipedia:

The Cupertino effect is the tendency of spellcheckers to replace a misspelling with a completely inappropriate word.

Better: "to suggest a completely inappropriate word to replace a misspelled word," as it's the user who makes the decision to replace or keep the word. (I just edited the article.)

Someone just added to my revision:

The Cupertino effect is the tendency of spellcheckers to suggest a completely inappropriate word to replace a misspelled word, or a correctly spelled word that is missing from the spellchecker's dictionary.

That's better still. I just went back to condense the sentence:

The Cupertino effect is the tendency of a spellchecker to suggest inappropriate words to replace misspelled words and words not in its dictionary.

The Cupertino effect explains the Appellation Mountains, among other mysteries.

August 28, 2008

From the prepared text of Barack Obama's acceptance speech:

This country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that's not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that's not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores.

Instead, it is that American spirit — that American promise — that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

That promise is our greatest inheritance. It's a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night, and a promise that you make to yours — a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot.

And it is that promise that forty-five years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.

The men and women who gathered there could've heard many things. They could've heard words of anger and discord. They could've been told to succumb to the fear and frustration of so many dreams deferred.

But what the people heard instead — people of every creed and color, from every walk of life — is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked. That together, our dreams can be one.

E pluribus unum.

Susan Eisenhower

Is it common knowledge that Susan Eisenhower is speaking at Mile High Stadium tonight? As in Eisenhower: she is Ike's granddaughter.

Google that

Just a few minutes ago:

"Thank you very much, Eric Google."

Tom Brokaw, at the Democratic National Convention, ending an interview with Eric Schmidt, CEO of you-know-what.

Yes, the television's already on, and I'm wound up, as I suspect Tom Brokaw is.

August 28, 1963

Forty-five years ago today:

Finishing his prepared remarks, he seemed ready to sit down, when Mahalia Jackson called out from behind him, "Tell them about your dream, Martin! Tell them about the dream!"

James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 483

If you've never read or heard it, now's the time:

I Have a Dream (InfoUSA)
I Have a Dream (YouTube)

"Fake following"

This is a little bit genius. One of the new features of FriendFeed (a Twitter-like thingie) is "fake following." That means you can friend someone but you don't see their updates. That way, it appears that you're paying attention to them when you're really not. Just like everyone does all the time in real life to maintain their sanity. Rex calls it "most important feature in the history of social networks" and I'm inclined to agree. It's one of the few new social features I've seen that makes being online buddies with someone manageable and doesn't just make being social a game or competition.

I read this paragraph from kottke.org three times yesterday, trying to decide whether "a little bit genius" and the final sentence were meant ironically. An update seems to answer my question.

(Pretending to pay attention when you aren't is not a game of sorts? I guess I just wasn't made for these times.)

House?

They're not solar panels, oddly placed: the client's reply — "Now show me something I can afford to heat!" — rules them out. What then are those things? (And how many floors does this house have? And where's the front door?!)

Your speculations are welcome in the comments.

[Hi and Lois, August 26, 2008.]

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"Hey Jude"

Forty years ago today: the American release of the Beatles' "Hey Jude" (b/w "Revolution"). The promotional clips are still exciting to watch:

"Hey Jude" (YouTube)
"Revolution" (YouTube)

Wikipedia has helpful background on both songs.

That's my 45 above (mono!). It still works.

A related post
I remember Sgt. Pepper