Kinsley on the The 3 meanings of conservative, when applied to supreme court judges: conserving precedent, conserving meaning, and conserving society. I like the 2nd, have mixed feelings about the 1st, and fear the 3rd.
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(1)
11:36:51 AM,
Friday 4 November 2005
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Grar. Shutterfly decided it wanted to 'correct' the colors on all my prints. It is a feature that can be turned off, but too late for this round of pictures. I'm particularly upset about this one. I ordered a 11x14 and it's all wrong. the grass is too red, and the sky lost the blue tinge. It upsets me to look at it, but I don't want to reorder.
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07:52:43 PM,
Thursday 3 November 2005
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If Google Print happens, there is going to be an avalanche of plagiarism scandals. People will be stumbling across it accidentally all the time in published works. Also, whenever someone gets suspicious, they can just go and check.
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03:17:08 PM,
Thursday 3 November 2005
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Something I failed entirely to photograph, at length: The cold, humid air under the stands of spruce near the top of the mountain, with snow melting off the branches, light through the trees, the shadows and the sparkling water, the sound of dripping everywhere. There is no way to photograph the sense of being surrounded, or the feel of the air, or to draw the eye to the drops of water.
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06:30:26 PM,
Wednesday 2 November 2005
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06:11:04 PM,
Wednesday 2 November 2005
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To satisfy Ling's morbid curiousity, here I am, cold, and chewing a muffin.
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(3)
06:10:32 PM,
Wednesday 2 November 2005
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The noble history of the dishonest use of literally, and the recent outrage about it. The trouble with exaggeration and metaphor is that the language then needs a way to indicate that this time you aren't lying; but these then get used for exaggeration, so you need new ones. 'I am not making this up' comes to mind. I don't think Dave Barry ever used it dishonestly, but others do; it already means 'this is a good one' rather than 'this is true'. It's the same sort of erosion that effects words for crazy people or, um, LPs. There is something vaguely sad about these erosive forces on language, but such changes must be accepted. In practice, correcting someone's usage comes off as snobbery, even when it wasn't intended as such.
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11:39:29 AM,
Tuesday 1 November 2005
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I hate doorbells. I don't want to go home, because I know people are going to ring the doorbell. People who I should know but don't who ring the doorbell to take my chocolate away from me. But hiding in house with all the lights off may not save me from the ringing. I'd stay at work, but there's nothing to eat here. And anyway, I can't leave my cat alone, undefended from doorbells. He feels the same way I do about them. In fact, I suspect my irrational fear of doorbells was picked up from the family cat. In years past the cat and I hid well away from the front door, twitching whenever it rang, but this year we've been abandoned.
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04:37:07 PM,
Monday 31 October 2005
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indoor sky diving.
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02:41:20 PM,
Monday 31 October 2005
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Today, it being lovely and 65, we decided try to climb Mt. Monadnock again. However, we got a late start, so turned around here. Was not nearly as wet and slippery as last time we tried, but the final section was very much like climbing a small partially frozen waterfall. Got back to the car a few minutes after sunset.
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(3)
07:14:17 PM,
Sunday 30 October 2005
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05:02:12 PM,
Saturday 29 October 2005
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(6)
05:01:46 PM,
Saturday 29 October 2005
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site & script courtesy of Moss
