Marco Arment, writing about persistent problems in Yosemite:
This is what’s so frustrating about today’s Apple: if a bug persists past the early beta stages of its introduction, it rarely ever gets fixed. They’re too busy working on the new to fix the old.As the discoverer of the sempervirens bug, I have reason to agree. Arment though is writing about serious problems, not minor ones that can be given playful names from Latin.
From a new novel of academic life, Julie Schumacher’s Dear Committee Members :
Alex Ruefle has prevailed upon me to support his teaching application to your department, which I gather is hiring adjunct faculty members exclusively, bypassing the tenure track with its attendant health benefits, job security, and salaries on which a human being might reasonably live. Perhaps your institution should cut to the chase and put its entire curriculum online, thereby sparing Ruefle the need to move. . . . You could prop him up in a broom closet in his apartment, poke him with the butt end of a mop when you need him to cough up a lecture on Caribbean fiction or the passive voice, and then charge your students a thousand dollars each to correct the essays their classmates have downloaded from a website. Such is the future of education.Maureen Corrigan talked about the novel on NPR’s Fresh Air. Thanks to Sean at Contrapuntalism for sending the link and this excerpt.
Friday and Saturday at Los Angeles’s Largo at the Coronet: The Lost Weekend, Van Dyke Parks’s last piano/vocal performances. There will be Very Special Guests. I wish I could be there.
[Has anyone out there read Charles Jackson’s The Lost Weekend?]
The gender-neutral title Mx may be joining the honorifics Miss , Mr , Mrs and Ms in the Oxford English Dictionary. OED assistant editor Jonathan Dent:
“This is an example of how the English language adapts to people’s needs, with people using language in ways that suit them rather than letting language dictate identity to them.”Here, from The Guardian , is the most helpful article on Mx I could find. Newspaper articles referring to the “next edition” of the OED are almost certainly in error: the online OED is updated quarterly.
From a New York Times interview: “I’ll miss it, desperately. One of two things: There will be reasonable, adult acceptance of transition. Or I will turn to a life of crime.”
I haven’t watched Letterman in years. I tired of the shtick. But I like his either/or.
Why did the ophthalmologist and his wife split up?
No spoilers. The punchline is in the comments.
More jokes in the traditional manner
The Autobahn : Elementary school : A Golden Retriever : How did Bela Lugosi know what to expect? : How did Samuel Clemens do all his long-distance traveling? : What did the plumber do when embarrassed? : What happens when a senior citizen visits a podiatrist? : Which member of the orchestra was best at handling money? : Why did the doctor spend his time helping injured squirrels? : Why did Oliver Hardy attempt a solo career in movies? : Why was Santa Claus wandering the East Side of Manhattan?
[“In the traditional manner”: by or à la my dad. He must take credit for all but the squirrel-doctor and Santa Claus.]
The yin and the yang of it: “How to do horribly on a final exam” and “How to do well on a final exam.” Which post did Nancy read?
Best wishes to all exam takers and givers.
[Three finals to go.]
Lucy Kellaway examines a sentence from Twitter CEO Dick Costolo: “Twitter chief’s six common crimes against the dictionary” (Financial Times). Here is the sentence:
As we iterate on the logged out experience and curate topics, events, moments that unfold on the platform, you should absolutely expect us to deliver those experiences across the total audience and that includes logged in users and users in syndication.All the money in the world can’t make a good sentence.
