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Issue of February 4, 2003
Thirty days hath September, April, June and November; all the rest have thirty-one except February, which is just one very long bitterly cold day punctuated by the howling of dogs and great dark bat-like things circling the house. Or maybe that's just here in rural Ohio. In any case, I seem to have slid right through January without noticing. Wake me in May.
I've just spent the weekend trying without success to get my wireless internet connection to work properly. Out here in the boonies, where Time-Warner refuses to venture ("Too many squirrels" seems to be the latest excuse), we are poster children for the abject failure to develop rural net access. No cable, no DSL, satellite way too expensive (especially considering that the satellite TV thingy we have doesn't work when it rains), and, thanks to the tin-can-and-string Verizon phone lines, modem access tops out at 24 Kb/s, the speed I had in NYC in 1995.
Fortunately, a local ISP has set up a wireless system that beams the net to folks like us from the top of the water tower in town a few miles away. (I'm sure that sounds charmingly rustic to those of you living in civilized places with libraries and bookstores and delicatessens, but, take it from me, water tower in town a few miles away may be one of the most depressing phrases in the English language.)
When this system works it is a thing of beauty, pretty much equivalent to cable. But it tends to have problems if anything pops up between Word Detective World Headquarters and the water tower in town a few miles away, including, but not limited to, birds, trees, birds sitting in trees, clouds, rain, snow, fog, sleet, hail, heat, cold, plagues of locusts, wind, lack of wind, Windows XP, unusually tall cows, bright sunlight and/or any day ending in "y." If you've always longed to see a man reboot his computer nine times in the space of a single hour, feel free to swing by any old time. Please bring a gun.
But, as I said, when it works it is brilliant, and I am deeply indebted to Stewart, the guy who runs the company, for almost dying of heatstroke last July while installing the cabling in our wasp-infested, 120-degree-plus attic. And Les, who held the ladder for Stuart. Les is also the barber (quite good) I go to when my hair starts drifting towards that Cousin It look. You know you're living in a small town when your barber shows up to install your internet hookup.
Ask a question, win a book. -- Hey kids, got a science question (how do birds fly, do bugs sleep, etc.)? Send it to How Come? and, if your question is used in the How Come? newspaper column, you'll win a copy of the latest How Come? book, How Come? Planet Earth. See the How Come? web page for details.
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Dear Word Detective: This is a pretty straightforward question. A friend of mine asked me what the significance of the "apple" was in the phrase "apple of my eye" and his wit tickled me to the point of actually looking into it. I came up empty handed and have turned to you. Where did this phrase come from? -- Melissa, via the internet.
Ah, the old "tickle with wit" gambit. Crafty fellow. Of course, if you two eventually end up getting hitched and spawning sprogs, the standard agreement will apply. You will name your first-born after me and the little nipper will spend at least three summers tending the crabgrass crop here at Word Detective World Headquarters. Hey, it's cheaper than summer camp, and the kid goes home every fall with a free cat.
To say that someone or something is "the apple of one's eye" is to say that he, she or it is the most cherished or valued among many, the favorite, the pet. The metaphor first appeared in English around A.D. 885 and has been in nearly constant use ever since, though more recent citations have taken a rather cynical turn ("He may have been the apple of your eye, but to me he was only a cinder" -- Frank Gruber, Hungry Dog, 1950), and in modern usage the phrase is regarded as a hoary cliché.
Although apples have long been used as symbols of health or good fortune, the origin of "apple of one's eye" reflected a remarkable misunderstanding of human anatomy. Before ocular structure was fully understood, the pupil of the eye (the small dark opening at the very center) was thought to be not a hole, but a solid, globular object. As apples were perhaps the most common spherical object in everyday life, this "tiny sphere" became known as "the apple of the eye." And, since vision is generally regarded as our most vital sense, it made sense to use the apparent core of vision, the "apple of the eye," as a metaphor for that which is most precious to us.
Hand me the shovel -- I'm going to the store.
Dear Word Detective: We were entertaining some friends last night who had just moved into a new home. I proposed a toast to their new "digs," whereupon, my innate, natural curiosity prompted me to say, "Hey, why is the place you live called 'digs'?" I remember reading that term in a Sherlock Holmes story some years ago. Is it because one tends to dig himself into his lodgings, or is it to imply that our homes are nothing more than glorified burrows? -- Ed Colman, via the internet.
Quick Watson, the game's afoot! To the internet! Curious as to how often Conan Doyle actually used the term "digs" to mean "residence" in his Sherlock Holmes stories, I poked around on the net and found a remarkable page, called Searching for Sherlock, that permits you to search the complete Holmes canon for specific terms. I can report that the term "digs" in the "living quarters" sense is actually used only once, in "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," but the longer form "diggings" crops up in four Sherlock stories: "A Study in Scarlet," "The Boscombe Valley Mystery," "The Adventure of the Stockbroker's Clerk," and "The Adventure of the 'Gloria Scott'." ("Mr. Trevor mumbled something to us about having been shipmates with the man when he was going back to the diggings, and then, leaving us on the lawn, he went indoors. An hour later, when we entered the house we found him stretched dead drunk upon the dining-room sofa.")
"To dig," of course, basically means "to excavate or make a hole in the ground or something else," but "dig" has long spawned figurative and slang meanings, from the 18th century "dig" meaning "to study hard" (which led eventually to the 1930s "dig" meaning "to understand") to the 1940s "dig" meaning "to pay" (from digging deep in one's pockets). "Diggings" as a colloquial term for "lodgings" or "residence" does indeed seem to be derived from a humorous sense of "a glorified burrow," perhaps with overtones of a place where a student might spend hours "digging" in the "studying" sense.
In any case, "diggings" first appeared in early 19th century Britain, and was used by popular writers, including Dickens, to lend color to their characters ("She won't be taken with a cold chill when she realises what is being done in these diggings?" -- Martin Chuzzlewit, 1844). "Digs," a jaunty abbreviation of "diggings," had appeared by the end of the 19th century.
Quit whingeing and finish your boiled felt.
Dear Word Detective: My mother was raised in a bomb shelter in Lancashire, and when I was a tot growing up in California in the early 'sixties she introduced me to a vocabulary not like that of the other moms. In the instance that I was not satisfied by my mother's response to a given complaint, and continued to express resistance while ostensibly setting myself to the task at hand, she would admonish me by saying "Stop your mythering." I recall that usage in relation not to the existence of my complaint, but to its persistence. A consultation with the Oxford English Dictionary brought me to a similar word indicating "forbearance," but it was unlikely to have been pronounced anything like my mother's word. I wonder whether there may have been a Celtic component in the word (maybe it was "moithering"), for although my mother's indoctrination was Anglican, my adult experience of Scottish culture often more closely resembles the world I knew when visiting Uncle Billy and Mrs. Bailey and her budgie, bob-a-jobbing with cousin Philip and taking jam butties up Billinge Lump. I have been unable to find this word in any dictionary or slang glossary. Are you acquainted with the expression "mythering"? -- Steven Strauss, Oakland, CA.
Oh yes, Mrs. Bailey and her budgie, I knew them well. The bird was nabbed a few years back for smuggling jam butties into France, was it not? They take culinary malpractice very seriously over there, of course. Well, at least it wasn't Marmite.
All right, for the rest of y'all, "jam butties" are slices of bread spread with butter and jam, "bob-a-job" is the annual fundraising campaign by the British Boy Scouts (doing tasks for a shilling each), and Billinge Lump is a large hill near the coast in Lancashire. Marmite is a yeast product, resembling axle grease, inexplicably regarded as food in Britain and spread on bread.
And now, the envelope, please. The word you're looking for is most often spelled "moider," though "moither," "moidur," "mither," "myther," "meyther," and "meither" are common variants. To "moider" is to babble, to speak foolishly, to act in a weak-headed or childish manner. Your mother probably meant it in the sense of "whining or complaining." The origin of "moider" (which first appeared in the 17th century as the transitive verb "moyder," meaning "to confuse or perplex") is obscure, but it is probably related to "muddle."
Dear Word Detective: My daughter recently moved to San Francisco so that she might enjoy the vehicular traffic. On a visit to the panhandle of Golden Gate Park, she noticed quite a few "panhandlers." She wondered if there was any relation between the two "panhandles." She asked me to submit the question as she was not sure you would answer questions from someone who moved to San Francisco on purpose. -- John Berthold, via the internet.
Well, your question certainly snags this week's gold ring for weirdness. "Moved to San Francisco so that she might enjoy the vehicular traffic" I understand, I think, although I've never found a driving venue that for sheer pulse-pounding thrills can match Manhattan's West Side Highway on a Saturday night. But why do you presume that I am hostile to San Francisco? It's in California, true, but if I were forced at gunpoint to live in that state, San Francisco would be my first choice. And as for your daughter moving there "on purpose," I think that's how you're supposed to do it. I moved to Ohio by accident a few years ago and haven't felt quite right ever since.
Onward. Both "panhandle" in the sense of a narrow, elongated piece of land (usually attached to a larger, more squarish chunk) and "panhandler" meaning "beggar" probably derive from the common kitchen pan. In the case of the geographic kind of "panhandle," the term dates back to the mid-19th century in the US, where the borders of several states encompass long, thin strips of territory usually sandwiched between two other states, making a map of the state resemble a pan with a long handle. In order to drive from Central Ohio into Pennsylvania on Interstate 70, for instance, one crosses the very narrow "West Virginia panhandle" at Wheeling, which takes all of about fifteen minutes if one is loony enough to drive at the posted speed of 75 mph.
The origin of "panhandler" meaning "beggar" is a bit less certain, but the term probably originated in reference to beggars holding out kitchen pans into which passersby were encouraged to drop coins (since donors are generally thought to be more willing to drop coins into a pan or cup than to touch the beggar's hand). "Panhandle" in this sense is also a US coinage, first appearing in the late 19th century.
Dear Word Detective: A coworker and I often use your web site to find the origin of various interesting sayings. When we started discussing why the alcoholic strength of a beverage is called the "proof," we immediately checked your website for the answer, and were summarily disappointed. My friend heard that the origin of "proof" in this case was nautically influenced, because it had something to do with how much gin could be mixed with gunpowder before an explosion would occur. This argument sounds a little weak to me, but I don't have any better ideas about the origin of this word. What is the origin of the word "proof" as used to describe the alcohol content of a beverage? -- MS, via the internet.
"Summarily disappointed" by my web site's failure to explain "proof"? Well, we do boast an archive containing hundreds of back columns, but the English language is a pretty big place, so it's still a work in progress.
The noun "proof," meaning "evidence that proves the validity of something" is, as you might suspect, quite closely connected to the verb "to prove," and both are rooted in the Latin verb "probare," meaning "to test or prove."
As strange as the theory you heard about gunpowder and gin may sound, it turns out to be not all that far from the truth. As a measure of the alcohol content of distilled spirits (or vinegar), "100 proof" refers to a mixture of alcohol and water containing roughly fifty percent of its weight or volume in alcohol. Modern distilleries use sophisticated hydrometers or other techniques to determine the "proof" of liquor, but before such gizmos were developed, distillers did indeed use gunpowder to "prove" the alcohol content of their beverages. Equal amounts of gunpowder and the alcoholic brew were combined and a flame was applied. If the concoction didn't burn, it was "underproof" and contained too little alcohol. Too bright or too yellowish a flame and it was "overproof" and too strong. Just right -- 50% alcohol -- and the mixture burned with a steady blue flame.
Dear Word Detective: What is the origin of calling someone "yellow" to imply they are a coward? All I can find out about the phrase "yellow bellied coward" is it allegedly came in to use around 1910 in this country, but I thought I remembered Shakespeare using it in at least one of his plays. Any ideas on where it came from? -- Curious in Cleveland.
Good question. Yellow is, of course, the color of gold, butter, egg yolks and several notable flowers. Although yellow is one of the primary colors and one source of great beauty in the world, as a metaphorical attribute, "yellow" has had an image problem for centuries. For reasons that are not clear, yellow has been long associated with both treachery and jealousy. According to Christine Ammer's excellent book on color terms, Seeing Red and Tickled Pink, yellow as a symbol of betrayal or heresy dates back to Biblical times, when Judas Iscariot was often portrayed in yellow garb symbolizing his betrayal of Jesus Christ. More recently, Jews in Nazi Germany were forced to wear yellow Stars of David on their clothing.
Other associations with yellow have not enhanced the color's reputation. Jaundice, a condition caused by liver disease, produces a yellowish discoloration of the sufferer's skin and eyes, and "yellow fever," an infectious viral disease that causes jaundice, was a serious public health menace throughout the 19th century. The yellow of tree leaves as they age and die, as well as the yellowing of old books and papers, led to the association of yellow with old age and illness. Anti-Asian racial prejudice, epitomized by the "Yellow Peril" propaganda depressingly widespread in Europe and the US throughout the 20th century, probably also strengthened the popular bias against yellow. "Yellow dog contracts" in the 1920s and 30s (so-called because, in the eyes of labor stalwarts, only the lowliest cur would sign one) prohibited workers from organizing a union. And sensationalistic "yellow journalism," named after an 1895 circulation war between New York newspapers involving a cartoon strip character called "The Yellow Kid," is alive and well today.
Given the bad rap the color yellow has had over the centuries, it's not surprising that "yellow" has been a popular synonym for "cowardly," a sense that probably derives from yellow's association with both treason and weakness and first appeared in print in 1856 in the memoirs of circus entrepreneur P.T. Barnum.
Dear Word Detective: My dog (who I am convinced despite a complete lack of evidence is part wolf) has a tendency to go off and sit by herself and will only come if you call her several times. I refer to this behavior as her being aloof and I was curious if the word's origins had to do with the French for wolf. (I know wolves are social animals, but the idea of the lone wolf has obviously been popular for centuries.) -- Jessica Carstens, via the internet.
Ah yes, the old "I can't hear you because I'm busy staring at this dandelion" routine. Our dog Brownie, also known as "Doorbell" for her keen vigilance while indoors, apparently suffers total hearing loss whenever she leaves the house. Even a call of "Dog Food!" that will bring her canine colleague Pokie tearing across the lawn at near light speed leaves Brownie unmoved, gazing dreamily into the distance and thinking deep doggy thoughts. Not surprisingly, she also apparently thinks she's invisible, and often only by pointing directly at her and saying "I can see you, Brownie" can I get her to budge. And you folks wonder what I do all day.
The French word for "wolf" is, of course, "loup" (pronounced "loop"), which does sound a bit like "aloof," but there is no connection between the two words. "Aloof" first appeared in English in the 16th century, and although we now use "aloof" to mean "emotionally distant, detached or unsympathetic," it was originally, of all things, a sailing term. When the captain of a sailing ship ordered the helmsman to "steer aloof," he meant to steer the ship closer into the wind. The root of "aloof" in this original sense was the Old French word "lof," meaning "toward the wind" or "the windward side of a ship" (a sense also found in some meanings of the sailing term "luff").
More importantly for our purposes, if a captain wanted to maintain a clear distance from another ship, that was often accomplished by staying upwind of the other vessel and, thus, was called "standing aloof." Given the centrality of sailing and maritime commerce to 16th century life, it's not surprising that the nautical term "standing aloof" (or just "aloof") came to be used by landlubbers to mean "at a distance" and, by 1607, in the modern figurative sense of "cold, remote and unsympathetic."
Down Under, I think they say "Chew the Kangaroo."
Dear Word Detective: The local newspaper asked readers for the origins of the expression "bite the bullet." Most answers seemed to relate to soldiers biting on a bullet during crude battlefield surgery. My own theory comes from a B-grade movie about the Khyber Rifles where the soldiers had to bite the bullets to allow them to fire and the system came unstuck when the Indians or such found the cartridges were coated in animal fat and therefore against their teachings. Luckily, Tyrone Power still saved the day. Could you clarify the expression for me please? Thank you from Down Under. -- Alex Graham, Australia.
I'm a bit foggy on the title of the B-movie to which you refer, but as I recall it was a highly romanticized and not very accurate Hollywood rendition of what is often called the Sepoy Mutiny, which was actually a large popular uprising against British colonialism that took place in India in 1857. The spark for the rebellion was, at first, considered a minor incident. Indian troops under the command of the British East India Company were issued new Enfield rifles, which employed a type of cartridge encased in paper wrappers, one end of which had to be bitten off before the weapon could be loaded. Word soon spread among the troops that the new cartridges were greased with a mixture of cow and pig fat. Unfortunately, cows being sacred to Hindus and pigs being considered unclean by Muslims, biting the cartridges would have been a serious religious transgression for members of either group, so they refused to use the new rifles. Mutiny, repression and a popular uprising lasting 14 months were the result. But while the cartridge incident is often cited (at least in the West) as the "cause" of the rebellion, discontent among the Indian people over colonial occupation had been growing for years, and although the British did finally suppress the uprising, 1857 is generally considered the birth of the ultimately victorious Indian nationalist movement.
None of that, however, has anything to do with "bite the bullet," meaning "to endure an unpleasant situation or perform an unpleasant task," which first appeared (in the form "bite on the bullet") in print around 1891. The geographic point of origin is uncertain, but "bite the bullet" almost certainly did originally refer to the practice of surgery before the invention of effective anesthesia, when patients were sometimes given an object (such as a leather strap or, on the battlefield, a bullet) to bite on to help them bear the pain.
Dear Word Detective: In a recent op-ed article in The New York Times, Frank Rich used the word "bloviate" in an extremely colorful manner. I had never heard of it before and none of my dictionaries contained the word. I did eventually find that it meant to speak or write at length in a pompous or boastful manner. The word sounds exactly like its meaning. Could you give me some information concerning its origin? -- Walter M. Jackman, via the internet.
Well, in the insolent tradition of replying to the question "What time is it?" with "Time to buy a wristwatch" (a witty riposte I first heard at about age ten and have never, as my family will attest, tired of), let me begin by noting that it's time for you to buy a new dictionary. While "bloviate" was indeed mysteriously missing from many major American dictionaries for many years, it does appear in the latest offerings from Random House, American Heritage and Merriam-Webster, so get thee to a bookstore. After all, who knows what else is missing from the dictionaries on your shelf?
On the other hand, to be fair, "bloviate," being an American coinage and still largely confined to these shores, does not appear in any British dictionary that I know of, and is apparently, even today, sufficiently obscure in the U.S. as to set off "typo" alarms in Microsoft Word.
To "bloviate" is, as you have discovered, to speak (or write) in a pompous and self-important manner, often at great length. The exact origin of "bloviate" is uncertain, but it first appeared in the mid-19th century and probably arose as a fanciful variant of the very old colloquial term "to blow," meaning "to boast" (still heard in the term "blowhard").
The terms "bloviate" and "bloviation" were popularized by President Warren G. Harding, but Harding's own "bloviations," ironically, inspired H.L. Mencken to pen a classic definition of "bloviation": "He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash."
OK, I've got his arms. Induct him.
Dear Word Detective: I am a member of a club (that is, an association). My club has a logo with a picture of a club (bludgeoning tool) in it. My dictionary lists both meanings of "club" under one heading, so it appears that it's no coincidence that we use this term for both meanings. What is the connection between them? -- Dan Robrish, Philadelphia.
Hmm. I'm not much of a joiner, myself, and haven't actually belonged to anything more organized than a roving band of malcontents since I resigned from the Cub Scouts. I don't know how I ever ended up in an organization that put so much emphasis on going outside (which I strenuously endeavor to avoid) in the first place.
It does seem a bit odd that our term for a friendly association of like-minded people would be connected to the word for a thick stick used as a weapon, but that's the wild and wacky English language for you. The original sense of "club" was "a heavy stick or staff used as a weapon," specifically one that, while relatively slender at the grasping end, becomes quite a bit thicker and heavier at the business end, a feature whose importance will become apparent in a moment. "Club" first appeared in print in English in the 13th century, most likely borrowed from the Old Norse "klubba," which also has descendants in several other European languages.
Shortly after the noun form of "club" appeared in English we developed a verb form, "to club," which meant, of course, to hit someone with a club. But by the early 17th century "to club" was also being used to mean "to create something shaped like the thick end of a club," specifically to arrange one's hair into a "club-shaped" knot atop or behind one's head. From this sense derived "to club" meaning "to form into one body or mass" or "to gather or force together" ("London … is equal to half a dozen great towns clubbed together," James Payn,1884). By the late 17th century, "club" was being used in its modern sense of "association of like-minded persons meeting periodically." Interestingly enough, one of the distinctive aspects of early "clubs" was the practice of "clubbing," or sharing, the expenses of the group's meetings.
Dear Word Detective: I was scanning through your past issues recently and came across a phrase which I had heard before. You were explaining the origins of the phrase "practical joke," and you wrote the line "... routinely published by the hoity-toity academic journal Social Text." While I know nothing about this uppity journal of which you write I am not worried about that part. I am worried that I don't know the origin of your colorful descriptive term "hoity-toity" because I have heard it used a few times (more then once by you) and am mystified as to where it may have come from. Could you help me out? -- Shawn, via the internet.
Trust me, you can lead a long and happy life without ever reading Social Text. "Hoity-toity" is a good example of how English words can dramatically change their meanings over time. Although today we use "hoity-toity" to mean "stuck up or snobbish, self-important, pretentious and disapproving," the original meaning of "hoity-toity" was almost exactly the opposite. When "hoity-toity" appeared as an adjective in English in the late 17th century (as "hoighty-toighty"), it meant "giddy, flighty or frolicsome." To be "hoity-toity" was to act in a silly, childish, impulsive manner, as if always on the verge of instigating a pillow-fight. The root of "hoity-toity" seems to be the obsolete verb "hoit," meaning "to indulge in mirth, to romp inelegantly," apparently related to the venerable term "hoyden," meaning "boisterous or rude girl or woman." ("Hoyden" originally applied to both men and women, and was probably derived from the Dutch "heiden," meaning "heathen.")
Now here's where the story gets really interesting. It was apparently not uncommon for prim-and-proper folks in the 18th and 19th centuries to look down their noses at "foolish" or rowdy behavior and exclaim "Hoity-toity!" with a snort of derision, much as you or I might mutter "Nitwits!" at skateboarders on a crowded sidewalk. But in a stunning display of verbal jujitsu in the late 1800s, the targets of such derision gradually began to use "hoity-toity" as shorthand for the "disapprovers" themselves (mocking their constant use of the phrase), and "hoity-toity" gradually took on its modern meaning of "haughty, huffy and pretentious."
Boy toy gal pal in Bat Boy brawl shocker.
Dear Word Detective: What can you tell me about the word "tryst"? I've been seeing it in the headlines of supermarket tabloids for years, and I sense that it figures prominently in romance novels (not that I have any direct knowledge of the genre). But it doesn't seem to resemble any other English word I can think of. The longer I look at the word "tryst," the weirder it seems. -- L.H., via the internet.
Well, that's true of many, if not most, words. I worked for a time as a legal proofreader years ago, and I discovered that the harder I stared at any particular word to make certain it was spelled correctly, the more it would appear to be horribly wrong in some elemental way. After a few hours of such torment I found that I couldn't even read street signs without feeling dizzy.
The New Fowler's Modern English Usage calls "tryst" an "archaic word for a date, an assignation," but I beg to differ. "Tryst," in addition to being a staple of the popular romance novel, is alive and well in nearly every issue of nearly every supermarket tabloid in America. Movie stars, after all, do not "go on dates" -- people who live in Des Moines "go on dates." Movie stars have "secret trysts." If they really like each other, they might shell out for a "love nest."
The great thing about "tryst," from a tabloid editor's viewpoint, is its brevity compared to the alternatives "rendezvous" (which also lacks the steamy punch of "tryst") and "assignation" (which their readers may not understand anyway). The same economy accounts for the popularity of such terms as "hooker," "brawl," "shocker," "gal pal," "tot," "spat," and the inevitable "dumped" on tabloid front pages.
"Tryst" first appeared in English around 1375, adopted from the Old French word "tristre," meaning "an appointed station in hunting" (i.e., a spot where a hunter was supposed to stand as other hunters drove the game toward him). Over the past few centuries "tryst" has gone from meaning simply "a prearranged meeting" to being used almost exclusively to mean "a secret meeting of lovers." Ironically, given the current overtones of deceit (and possible infidelity) associated with the word, there is some indication that "tryst" is related to our modern English word "trust."
Dear Word Detective: I think the word "brouhaha" can be traced from the French back to the Hebrew. My dictionary has "brouhaha" as making an appearance in medieval theater as the "cry of devil disguised as clergy" (an always popular theme, presumably). It then gives its origins in the phrase used by the Levites as a greeting in the Temple, "Blessed be he who comes," or "barukh hab-ba." -- Jennifer Randle, via the internet.
Well, I'm not quite as certain as your dictionary, and there are other theories, but you may well be correct. "Brouhaha" is, of course, a wonderful word meaning "an uproar, confusing commotion or hubbub." A good example of a "brouhaha" is the sort of public clamor that erupts in the wake of scandalous or shocking revelations about the rich, famous or powerful in our society, whether it be Michael Jackson dangling his child over a balcony railing or Martha Stewart wrestling with her multitudinous legal problems. I wonder, come to think of it, why some supermarket tabloid hasn't ditched its implausibly journalistic "Enquirer" or "Globe" moniker and simply changed its name to "The Weekly Brouhaha."
"Brouhaha" first appeared in English around the end of the 19th century, borrowed directly from French. Evidently, as you note, "brouhaha" was commonly heard in French stage dramas from the 16th century onward as the cry of the devil at various critical dramatic junctures, and there is a possibility that "brouhaha" arose as nothing more than a nonsense word, signifying nothing.
But there is a good deal of evidence that "brouhaha" is an adaptation of the Hebrew "barukh habba," or "welcome," which is used in various Jewish prayers as well as a standard greeting at weddings and other ceremonies. If this theory is true, the logical link between "welcome" and a word meaning "confused uproar" would have come from the festive commotion common on such occasions. And, backing up for a moment, a modified form of the Hebrew greeting "Barukh habba" coming from the mouth of a character portraying the devil in Medieval dramas would certainly be consistent with the anti-Semitism common to the period.
One final bit of evidence that the "barukh habba" theory is probably correct is the fact that the dialectical Italian word "barruccaba," also meaning "confusion," is definitely a mutation of "barukh habba."
Dear Word Detective: My mother is about to leave for a trip to Sri Lanka and I saw the city of Kandy on her itinerary. Does the origin of the word "candy" have anything to do with the city? p.s. --I gave four copies of "The Word Detective" as holiday gifts. -- Jerry, via the internet.
So, I guess we can expect three more of your relatives or friends to leave the country? I've received a variety of responses to my book, ranging from praise to stunned silence, but fleeing abroad is a new one on me and seems a bit of an overreaction. Tell your mother that she's welcome just to stay home and mail me a brick postage due if it'll make her feel better.
Sri Lanka is, as I'm sure we all remember from geography class, an island republic off the southeast coast of India, known until it gained its independence from Britain in 1972 as Ceylon. According to my handy "Oxford Desk Dictionary of People and Places," Kandy is a large city in Sri Lanka, formerly (1480-1815) the capital of the independent Kingdom of Kandy, and location of the Dalada Maligava, one of the most sacred Buddhist shrines. Kandy is also the center of Sri Lanka's tea industry. The languages spoken in Sri Lanka are Sinhalese, English, and Tamil, a member of the Dravidian family of languages.
Now, as to any possible relation between "candy" the sweet treat and Kandy the city, I'd have to say it is unlikely, but the word "candy" does have an interesting connection to Sri Lanka. Our modern English word "candy" was adopted from the Old French phrase "sucre candi" ("sugar candy") in the 15th century, and shortened to simply "candy" by the 18th century. The French "sucre candi," as well as the terms for candy in several other European languages, had been adapted from the Arabic "sukkar qandi," which came from the Sanskrit root "khand," which came in turn from (drum roll, please) the Tamil word "kantu" (ball of sugar).
So our English word "candy" has its roots in the Tamil language, spoken only in Southern India and Sri Lanka. To my knowledge, there is no connection between Kandy, Sri Lanka and our word "candy," but it remains at least an interesting coincidence.
Dear Word Detective: Here's a puzzler: the origin of the phrase "carte blanche." I'm told that it refers to having your list of crimes wiped clean during the French Revolution, and am also told that it arose from being able to pass as white in New Orleans prior to desegregation in America. Or was it something else altogether? -- MK, via the internet.
OK. Say, before we get started, would you happen to remember exactly who it was who told you those two stories about "carte blanche"? And maybe their telephone numbers and/or addresses? We'd like to have a word, just a little chat, with them, and we promise not to shout.
When we say that someone has been "given carte blanche," it means that the person has been granted the freedom to take whatever action he or she pleases or thinks appropriate in a certain situation or in order to accomplish a given task. There was a time not so long ago, for instance, when you would often read of a business hiring a new CEO and giving him or her "carte blanche" to reorganize the troubled company by any means he or she deemed wise. (Of course, now that it has become apparent that many of these weasels "deemed it wise" to line their own pockets while the businesses foundered, such "cartes blanche" have become considerably scarcer.)
As one of the theories you heard implies, "carte blanche" is originally from the French, where it literally means "blank paper." The term "carte blanche" was probably of military origin, meaning an agreement of unconditional surrender submitted by the loser to the victor consisting of a sheet of paper blank except for the defeated commander's signature, signifying that the victor could fill in his own terms. "Carte blanche" first appeared in English in this literal sense around 1700, but by later in the 18th century was being used in its modern "do whatever is necessary" sense.
Dear Word Detective: I've tried several places and can't find an explanation of the word "despot." I'm wondering if there was a specific person or situation it referred to as in the case of "draconian." -- Charles Stutsman, via the internet.
Good question. A "despot," of course, is an absolute ruler, especially one who rules ruthlessly and with a high brutality quotient. These days it seems the world is chock-a-block with despots, and you can't tell the good despots (ours) from the bad despots (not ours, at least at the moment) without a scorecard. Of course, despotism is in the eye of the beholder, and the good despots aren't usually called "despots" (except by bad despots and people who don't sufficiently appreciate how bad the bad despots are). Back in the Cold War, good despots were usually called "strongmen" (as in "Philippines strongman Ferdinand Marcos"), but I haven't heard that term in years.
Since you brought up "draconian," meaning "very harsh or severe," I should explain that Draco, whose name, appropriately, means "dragon" in Greek, was a lawmaker in Ancient Athens in a time of great popular unrest. The Athenians were upset about unequal treatment under the existing laws, so Draco instituted a new legal system guaranteed to shut folks up. Under the Draconic code of 621 B.C., darn near everything from murder to mopery was punishable by death. When questioned about the fairness of such a one-size-fits-all approach, Draco is said to have declared, "Small crimes deserve death, and for great crimes I know of no penalty severer." Draco is generally considered to have been a bad despot, although at the rate things are going that estimation may yet change.
The word "despot" itself comes from the Greek "despotes," which meant "lord or master" in the sense of "master of the house," and initially had no pejorative connotations. (In fact, in modern Greek, "despotes" means "Bishop.") The Greek word was adopted into Latin as "despota" and then by French as "despot," and finally into English around 1562 with the neutral sense of "ruler." By the time of the French Revolution, however, democracy was in vogue and "despot" had acquired its modern connotation of an autocratic ruler who maintains power through brutality and oppression.
Dear Word Detective: I suspect most of us know what a "donnybrook" is. What I don't know is whence the word originated. How did it come to mean what it means, a melee or free-for-all, usually involving fisticuffs (another interesting word)? -- Mitch Clark, Phoenix, AZ.
While it's true that a "donnybrook" is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "a scene of uproar and disorder; a riotous or uproarious meeting; a heated argument," there are some shades of meaning and usage to the word that deserve exploration. A "donnybrook" is not quite the same as a riot or melee. In modern usage, "donnybrook" carries connotations of a great deal of sound and fury, but not much actual damage or injury. In fact, "donnybrook" is most often used today to mean a verbal "ruckus or uproar" rather an actual physical fight, and the word more likely to turn up in descriptions of political debates than in accounts of soccer rioting. Of all the words we have to describe mass interpersonal conflict, "donnybrook" is actually one of the more lighthearted.
The original "donnybrooks," on the other hand, were evidently intensely physical and posed serious danger to life and limb. The town of Donnybrook is a suburb of Dublin, Ireland, and for many years, from 1204 until the mid-19th century, it was the site of the annual Donnybrook Fair, by all accounts a raucous and crowded event. While Donnybrook Fair must have had more to recommend it than simply fistfights, over time the tendency of fair-goers to punch each other out, apparently en masse, made "donnybrook" a popular synonym for "spontaneous riot" or "melee." According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term "donnybrook" in this sense first appeared in print in 1852, ironically just three years before the City of Dublin permanently abolished the fair in response to complaints that it encouraged drunkenness and disorderly behavior.
"Fisticuff" is a fine old word meaning "to fight with the fists," combining "fist" with the verb "to cuff," meaning "to beat or strike with the hand." The origin of "cuff" in this sense is unknown, but it appears to be unrelated to "cuff" meaning "band around a sleeve." "Fisticuff" first appeared in the early 17th century.
Dear Word Detective: Having been a bookworm as a child, I've managed to retain lots of odd and unusual phrases and vocabulary words that burned tidy grooves into my mind after re-reading favorite stories over and over again. One of these is the phrase "like a hurrah's nest," to mean something akin to "horribly untidy." (Source: A beloved horse story, "Stormy, Misty's Foal," author Marguerite Henry, from the quote: "...yer Grandma'll say, 'Clarence Beebe, this floor looks like a hurrah's nest!' And then she'll get right down with her brush and pail, and she'll begin purrin' and hummin' like Wait-a-Minute with her kittens."). I still love to use this expression almost automatically whenever encountering an awesome mess, but then have to explain to people that I haven't even the slightest idea what a "hurrah's nest" looks like, or whether it would be quite dangerous to stumble onto -- or into -- one. Can you help with this obscure simile? -- Sherry (mom to three Professional Hurrah's Nest Simulators).
Whoa, a Misty of Chincoteague flashback. My parents actually took us to Chincoteague Island once when I was a kid (at the prompting of my sister, who was a big Misty fan) to see the wild ponies driven across the channel between Assateague and Chincoteague islands off the coast of Virginia. There are some great pictures of Misty and the gang on the web.
A "hurrah's nest" is indeed a terrible mess or scene of commotion and confusion, and the phrase dates back to at least the early 19th century. The "hurrah" involved is the same "hurrah" we shout when the home team wins, a cheer of exultation that dates back to around 1686. "Hurrah" has close relatives in several European languages and was probably (like the earlier "huzza") developed from the throaty shouts of soldiers charging into battle.
In 19th century America, "hurrah" came into use as slang noun for "an uproar, a commotion," and anything wild and lawless was described as "hurrah." With "hurrah" meaning "disordered," it made sense for something very, very tangled or disorderly to be described as a "hurrah's nest," as if the "hurrah" were a creature with bad housekeeping habits. There is some evidence that "hurrah's nest" was first used by sailors to describe a tangle of lines aboard ship.
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All contents Copyright © 2003 by Evan Morris.


text:
Posted by Editor on 08/3/98
North American Bicyclist Online is Alive!
We told you awhile ago about the new bicycle trade publication we would be managing, well, the online version is now active at www.biketrade.net. Check back regularly at this site for bicycle industry news. (Of course, if it is a Canadian story, we will be posting it to Daily News also).
Horseshoe Cup, Horseshoe Valley, Ontario - International E Sanction
Pro-Elite Men
1 Julian Hine ON GT Canada 2:10:50.1
2 Andrew Pinfold ON Neworld at 0:02:36.7
3 Josh Hall ON Schwinn Canada 0:03:45.2
4 Nat Faulkner ON Jet Fuel Powerbar 0:06:15.8
5 Jeff Weber ON Kona Bikes 0:06:32.4
6 Andrew Croutch ON Trek 0:07:25.0
7 Greg Reain ON Klen Canada 0:09:11.0
8 Osmond Bakker ON OGC - Gary Fisher 0:10:57.5
9 Chris Lech ON PowerBar / Ski Proshop 00:11:02.3
10 Jesse Jakomait ON Power Bar 0:11:37.7
Pro-Elite Women
1 Lisa McGilvray ON Schwinn Canada 2:09:25.2
2 Leslie Greene ON GT Canada at 0:01:40.3
3 Jenny Brown ON Trek 0:21:15.2
4 Susan Trimble ON Fitness Technique 0:21:15.4
5 Amanda Kellett ON Impala Cycles 0:21:32.1
6 Maria DiLello ON Kona/Bicycle Works 0:22:34.0
7 Trisha Westman ON Rocky Mountain Bikes 0:30:46.5
Junior Expert Men
1 Ryan Dey ON Rocky Mountain 1:48:26.6
2 Mike Vollmershausen ON Woodstock C.C. at 0:08:37.9
3 Matt Patterson ON Impala Cycles 0:08:44.0
4 Phil Karasinski ON OGC/Fisher 0:08:59.5
5 Brad Porter ON Neworld Cycle 0:10:15.5
6 Mathew Martindill ON Jolleys 0:10:43.9
7 Jan Roubal ON Trek 0:12:33.6
8 Adam Wade ON Silent Sports / T B L 0:13:27.9
9 Peter Sanowar ON Rock Mountain 0:15:02.9
10 David Costigane ON Revolution Bikes 0:15:29.9
Junior Women
1 Helena Coney ON Boyds Sports 1:46:43.8
2 Melissa Lunstead ON at 0:05:23.0
3 Jenn Mountenay ON 0:40:40.6
4 Ashley Clark ON Kona 0:55:36.9
Veteran Expert Men
1 Vernon Chant ON Speed River Bicycles 2:00:20.2
2 Mike Clarkson ON at 0:01:39.5
3 James Brooks QC 0:03:01.6
4 David Dermont ON Bike Depot / GT 0:03:55.2
5 Kevin Simms ON Hardwood Hills 0:05:59.5
6 Rob Freeman ON 0:10:54.5
7 Mark Kirby ON Bicycle Works 0:11:59.4
8 Kris Tobias ON Speed River Bicycles 0:12:48.2
9 George Morgan ON Schwinn Canada 0:13:09.5
10 Philip Barnett ON Freewheel Cycle 0:13:31.9
Veteran Expert Women
1 Linda Dufour ON 2:05:46.4
2 Lori Pol ON Norco / Ryder at 0:01:38.6
3 Ingrid Coney ON 0:13:41.5
4 Tanya Flemming ON Dukes Cycle 0:27:20.3
Full results for all categories can be found at www.hardwoodhills.on.ca/results/ontcup/meet.htm.
Comox Cup Crit, B.C.
(courtesy Ed Schum)
Open A
1. Jeremy Storie - Escape Velocity - 34 laps - time 53:42
2. Dennis Manke - Nanaimo BC
3. David MacLeod - Juan de Fuca
4. David Campbell - Victoria Wheelers
5. David Dutton - Nanaimo BC
Open B
1. Dan Stevenson - Blacks/CVCC - 26 laps - time 45:29
2. Dieter Tschauner - Lifesport/CVCC
3. Russ Petersen - Bikesmith
4. Simon Brampton - Simon's/Kona
5. Ernie Klassen - Spokes
Dionne Wins Tour de Å'Toona!
(courtesy Josée Robitaille)
Yesterday was the end of the Toor de Toona, a 6 day stage race for Pro 1-2 in Pensylvannia. Charles Dionne, 19 years old, riding for Team Radio Energie, was able to take the yellow jersey in yesterday's last stage, a 30 mile criterium. Before that last stage, Dionne was in 2nd place, 3 seconds behind leader at the time Elliot Hubbard of Navigators.
Every 5 laps, there was time bonification - 4sec, 2sec and 1sec. For Team Radio Energie, the plan was to lead out Charles for that first sprint, take the yellow jersey and then send 2 riders in a break to get Team GC (Radio Energie were 5 sec. behind Navigators in the team standings). Everything went as planned: Dionne won the sprint, so he was now the leader with 1sec on Hubbard. Then Jack Landry from Radio Energie broke away with Chris Wherry for Saturn. Things were looking good for both of them, until Landry broke his rear wheel and front derailleur. Neutral support gave him a 56cm bike - Jack usually rides on a 60cm. But he went back in the break, looking like a guy who just stole a bike! There was now more riders in the break: Eric Wohlberg from Shaklee, Mark McCormak from Saturn, Sylvain Beauchamp Radio Energie, and David Clinger from Mercury. They were going quite fast, and things were looking really good for Radio Energie for the Team GC. Behind, Navigators were chasing to close the gap, they had help from some other riders, then Landry was not able to stay in the lead group, having too many problems handling the bike. He got back in the main pack, with almost 5 laps to go. Wohlberg and McCormack then broke away and made it to the finish - Eric Wohlberg won, and Mark McCormak ended up second. Radio Energie didn't make enough time to take over the Team GC, so they ended up second - only 5 sec. behind Navigators after 6 days of racing!!!!!!
No need to say that Charles Dionne was really ,really happy. For him, it was a major victory. Team Radio Energie started Toor de Toona with only 4 riders: Dionne, Beauchamp, Landry and Chevrier, with these 4 guys Radio Energie were able to be really agressive and were in the action all the time. Team effort was the most important thing and all the guys were ready to work really hard to win the Toor de Toona. Charles Dionne won, but at the end he was ready to share the yellow jersey with all his teammates, however, the jersey was not big enough to fit all of them in it!
The team would also like to share this victory with all their sponsors: Radio Energie, Specialized, Boost, Oakley, OGC, Pedro's, Toyota. Thanks everybody for being part of the team.
Wind-Del Track League, Ontario
(courtesy Val Davidge)
There will be a gala event at the Wind-Del Track in Windham Centre on Saturday 8th August.
The planned Track League is combined with the Second Annual Old Time Bicycle Races.
The usual Track League events will be held with racing planned from 1.00 to 5.00p.m. Events will be interspersed with the Old Time Bicycle races.
There will be High Wheel Bicycles, Early Safety Bicycles (pre ww1), Wood-rim Era Track Bicycles and special events for Masters
This will be an afternoon of friendly competition and a spectators are encouraged.
For further information on the Old Time Weekend, call Larry Strung at 905-713-0382.
Regular League information at 905-824-8906 or e-mail email@example.com
Note to League Riders: There will be a serious wheel check this time. Make sure your tires are well stuck.
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Sea-Doos, Experiential Markets, Nokia Blogs, Cement Speeds
- AdFreak says two out of the three Sea-Doo films are pretty good. We'll take thier word for it since, like many bloated sites, it wouldn't load well for us. Then again, that could just be our crappy Internet connection. And if you're wondering what Eric Roberts is doing these days. Here's your answer.
- Jack Morton has published a white paper which finds experiential marketing to be more likely to "increase understanding, lead to action and inspire advocacy."
- Nokia is running a blog-based campaign in Toronto and Vancouver to promote its new 6682 phone. The company has promised to send bloggers the phone for free if they qualify (age, blog size, location, etc.)
- An Iowa construction company which is building the Iowa Speeday is promoting the track by outfitting ten of the company's cement trucks with Iowa Speedway decals.
- Crispin Porter + Bogusky's VW Configurator, which was developed in part by IQ Interactive, took home a Cyber Lions Grand Prix.
- It's in French so we're not sure what it's all about but we do know it's for Coke BlaK. We've also seen the hippy-dippy floral/bubble theme before. Yup, we have and it was for Coke's M5 project.
Topic: Celebrity, Industry Events, Online, Outdoor, Research, Weblogs


text:
A Promise for All Time
"I shall be as I shall be." (Shmot 3:14)
This is what G-d instructed Moshe to answer to the enslaved Jews in Egypt who would ask what is the Name of the G-d who sent him to them with a promise of liberation.
Rashi explains that this double phrasing of the Divine Name was intended as a message that G-d would be with his chosen people in the present exile and would be with them in the future exiles as well.
This promise should serve as a source of comfort for Jews in our own time when we face such a shocking increase in anti-Semitic acts throughout the world and an escalation in the danger to Jews in their own land.
We must never lose sight of the promise which G-d fulfilled for our ancestors in Egypt and in subsequent exiles and must strengthen our faith in the inevitable fulfillment of His promise to protect Israel forever.


text:
Sunday Brunch at EQ!
June 15, 2025 @ 11:00 am - 3:00 pm
|Recurring Event (See all)
An event every week that begins at 11:00 am on Sunday, repeating indefinitely
Sunday Brunch at Equilibrium!
We are happy to offer brunch on Sundays from 11AM-3PM.
Whether it's sweet or savory dish you crave, we have you covered. We also serve Bloody Marys and Photon Mimosas!


text:
Oskar is convinced that his father, who died in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, has left a final message for him hidden somewhere in the city. Feeling disconnected from his grieving mother and driven by a relentlessly active mind that refuses to believe in things that can't be observed, Oskar begins searching New York City for the lock that fits a mysterious key he found in his father's closet. His journey through the five boroughs takes him beyond his own loss to a greater understanding of the observable world around him. (Source)
Find more trailers and clips on our homepage.


text:
The Cyrus IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) server provides access
to personal mail and system-wide bulletin boards through the IMAP
protocol. The Cyrus IMAP server is a scalable enterprise mail system
designed for use from small to large enterprise environments using
standards-based technologies.
A full Cyrus IMAP implementation allows a seamless mail and bulletin
board environment to be set up across multiple servers. It differs from
other IMAP server implementations in that it is run on "sealed" servers,
where users are not normally permitted to log in. The mailbox database
is stored in parts of the filesystem that are private to the Cyrus IMAP
system. All user access to mail is through software using the IMAP,
POP3, or KPOP protocols.
The private mailbox database design gives the server large advantages in
efficiency, scalability, and administratability. Multiple concurrent
read/write connections to the same mailbox are permitted. The server
supports access control lists on mailboxes and storage quotas on mailbox
Cyrus is a highly scalable enterprise mail system designed for use in
enterprise environments of various sizes using standards based
technologies. Cyrus technologies scale from independent use in email
departments to a system centrally managed in a large enterprise.
For more information on how to install and run cyrus-imapd, see
README.SLACKWARE that came with this package (which is also installed
with the documentation).
Patches for autocreate and autosieve are no longer needed so they were
Make sure to read the Upgrading to Cyrus IMAP 2.5.0 notes:
You must have a "cyrus" user and group to run this script.
Something like this will create them:
# groupadd -g 238 cyrus
# useradd -d /var/imap -s /bin/sh -u 238 -g 238 cyrus
See http://slackbuilds.org/uid_gid.txt for uid/gid suggestions.
Maintained by: Mario Preksavec
Keywords: cyrus,imap,imapd,mail,cryrus-imapd
ChangeLog: cyrus-imapd
Download SlackBuild:
cyrus-imapd.tar.gz.asc (FAQ)
(the SlackBuild does not include the source)
|Individual Files:
| cyrus-imapd.SlackBuild
| cyrus-imapd.info
| doinst.sh
| imapd.conf
| rc.cyrus-imapd
| slack-desc
© 2006-2023 SlackBuilds.org Project. All rights reserved.
Slackware® is a registered trademark of Patrick Volkerding
Linux® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds


text:
The Secret Beyond Matter
Everyone has to spend some of his daily time sleeping. No matter how much work he has or how he struggles to avoid it, it is inescapable that he will fall asleep and remain in bed for at least a quarter of the day. Hence, man is conscious only eighteen hours a day; he spends the remaining time – a minimum of six hours a day on average – in complete unconsciousness. When assessed from this standpoint, we come across a striking picture: one quarter of an average 60 years of life is spent in total unconsciousness.
Do we then have an alternative to sleep? What would happen to someone who said, "I do not want to sleep?"
First, one's eyes become red and one's skin colour pales. If the duration of sleeplessness extends, loss of consciousness results.
Closing the eyes and the inability to focus attention are the initial phases of falling asleep. This is an inevitable process, and beautiful or ugly, wealthy or poor, everybody experiences the same process.
Similarly to death, just before sleep the body starts to become insensitive to the outer world and gives no response to any stimulus. Senses that were exceptionally keen a while ago start to fail. In the meantime, perceptions are altered. The body reduces all functions to a minimum, leading to disorientation in place and time and slower body movements. This state is, in a way, a different form of death, which is defined as the state in which the soul leaves the body. Indeed, while sleeping the body lies in bed where the spirit experiences totally different lives in completely different places. In one's dreams, one may well perceive oneself on a beach on a hot summer's day, unaware that one is sleeping in bed. Death, too, has the same outward appearance: it separates the soul from the body which the soul uses in this world and carries him away to another world in a new body. For this reason, Allah, in the Qur'an, the only remaining authentic revelation which guides humanity to the true path, repeatedly reminds us of the similarity of sleep to death.
It is He Who takes your souls by night, and has knowledge of all that you have done by day: by day He raises you up again; that a term appointed be fulfilled; In the end unto Him will be your return; then will He show you the truth of all that you did. (Surat al-An'am: 60)
It is Allah that takes the souls (of men) at death; and those that die not (He takes) during their sleep: those on whom He has passed the decree of death, He keeps back, but the rest He sends (to their bodies) for a term appointed. Verily in this are Signs for those who reflect. (Surat az-Zumar: 42)
Totally deprived of all the functions of the senses, in other words, "in a dead faint", a person spends up to a fourth of his life in sleep. Yet, he little contemplates this fact, never realising that he leaves behind everything deemed important in this world. An important exam, huge sums of money lost on the stock exchange or a minor personal problem, in brief everything that appears to be of crucial importance during the day fades away as one falls asleep. This simply means having no relationship with the world at all.
All the examples that have been presented so far give a clear idea about the shortness of life and the huge amount of time spent on "compulsory" routine tasks. When the time spent on such "compulsory" tasks is subtracted, one realises the scarcity of moments left for the so-called joys of life. In retrospect, one feels astonished at the long time spent on nourishment, body-care, sleep, or working to attain better standards of living.
The calculations of the time spent on routine tasks necessary for survival are, undoubtedly, worth thinking about. As stated earlier, at least 15-20 years of a 60-year life are spent asleep. The initial 5-10 years of the remaining 40-45 years, however, are spent in childhood, another period that is also spent in an almost unconscious state. In other words, a sixty-year-old man will have spent perhaps half of his life without consciousness. Regarding the other half of life, many statistics are available. These figures, for instance, include the time spent preparing meals, eating, bathing or caught in traffic jams. This list can be further extended. In conclusion, what remains from a "long" life is only 3-5 years. What is the importance of such a short life in comparison to an eternal one?It is right at this point that a huge gulf yawns between those who have faith and disbelievers. Disbelievers, believing the only life to be here on this earth, struggle to make the most of it. Yet these are useless endeavours: this world is both short and its life is beset with "weaknesses". Furthermore, since the disbeliever does not put his trust in Allah, he lives a troublesome life, one fraught with concerns and fears.
Those who have faith, on the other hand, spend their lives remembering Allah and in His presence at each instant, during all of the minor and troublesome occupations of bodily care, eating, drinking, standing, sitting, reclining to sleep, and seeking livelihoods, etc. They spend their lives only to attain the contentment of Allah and thus lead peaceful lives, isolated completely from all worldly sorrows and fears. In conclusion, they attain paradise, a place of eternal happiness. Similarly, the ultimate purpose of life is stated in the verse:
To the righteous (when) it is said, "What is it that your Lord has revealed?" they say, "All that is good." To those who do good, there is good in this world, and the home of the hereafter is even better and excellent indeed is the home of the righteous. (Surat an-Nahl: 30-31)2009-05-20 15:20:25


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It is indeed a sad day in the land known as CardNation. We have lost our beloved leader to the dbags in cattle land. Here are my complete thoughts on the situation. I don't blame coach for wanting to go to Texas, it's a top 5 dream job for anyone who has been a coach. But the way he has treated the staff, players, recruits, and us the fans in the process is worse than anything I have ever seen. He was telling recruits, players, staff members, and even his own friends and family he was staying as late as yesterday. How do you do that to people you care about like that? I'm really not sure. In the end I really hope he succeeds and I wish him the best but as an example to young men you have to do things the right way and this was by no means done the right way. With that being said guys, we are gonna be just fine. ACC, Tom Jurich, our future is so bright. No worries or need to trash coach. Let's just regroup, show these recruits our love for the school, and carry on. Go Cards!
P.S.- Just an example of what made me mad


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A rich person searching for escorts service in Khatipura will scan for the term Escorts in Khatipura over the web. Dear perusers what the web measurements lets us know is that part of refined men and rich folks from other major areas like Pratap Nagar, Mahesh Nagar, Nirman Nagar, Mansarovar will be looking for Call Girls dwelling in the city of Khatipura. So what is the purpose for this? Young ladies of Khatipura are extremely exquisite or as it were exceptionally open to dating and sex. They love to be with folks, they love lengthy drives, eating, lunch or informal breakfast in places like Pizza Hut, McDonalds and Shoping Malls. Numerous school young girls nowadays meet in bistros in the day time searching for some rich kid or noble men whom they can Escort. They are continually watching out of the window of the café for folks driving in costly vehicles like BMW, Mercedes, Toyota Prado, Audi and so forth.
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NOTE: This page is outdated. Please use the new location of ant-phone's homepage at http://www.nongnu.org/ant-phone/
ANT is a desktop ISDN telephony application written for GNU/Linux. It supports OSS (Open Sound System) and I4L (ISDN4Linux). Its user interface was made for GTK+ 2.x (GIMP toolkit).
It directly interfaces OSS and ISDN devices, so there is no need to install extra software or hardware like PBX (Private Branch Exchange) or telephony cards, if you've got direct access to an audio capable ISDN card (teles or HiSax chipset, e.g. AVM Fritz Card) and a full duplex soundcard or two sound devices.
NOTE: Currently, this is a work in progress (beta version) and may contain bugs. But for me, it runs quite stable now. So don't hesitate after looking at the rather small version number and try it out. Any comments, suggestions and bug reports are welcome.
Have a first look at ANT with this screen shot:
Also listen to vbn-stereo.ogg or vbn-stereo.wav to have an impression of the power of the recording feature in ANT. (Don't be frightened, it's recorded from the voice mailbox of http://www.vbn.de/ - a serious company! :)
The following list isn't very exhaustive yet. :-) Please supply me with the vendor and product name of your ISDN card, if you successfully tested ANT with your card not mentioned in the following list. Basically, every card based on the Siemens chipset supported by the Linux HiSax driver should be supported by ANT. Please give me the name of your driver if use a different one.
Supported Cards:
This software is delivered in different forms:
Please note that the operating system distribution specific packages (Debian, SuSE etc.) are sometimes a bit out of date. Besides, I don't personally support the OS distribution specific packages (except Debian). Please contact the respective maintainers when problems arise.After downloading the source tarball, just unpack it, build (compile) and install the executable and run it:
tar xfvz ant-phone-X.X.X.tar.gz cd ant-phone-X.X.X ./configure make make install ant-phone
(Further documentation is included in the tarball.)
This program is free software and is covered by the GPL (GNU General Public License, Version 2), but could also be licensed in other ways by sponsors. Please contact me for that.
A: After reading this FAQ, please write me an email containing:
$ ant-phone --debug
A: Try with the development files (headers), instead of only with the binary package. The headers are usually contained in <packagename>*-dev (for Debian) or <packagename>*-devel (for SuSE) or something like that. Note that you need libsndfile version 1.0 or above.
A: Please make sure that:
A: I'm sorry that I noticed that too late. I have planned to release "my" ANT back in the end of 2000 and didn't check the whole web for namesakes. My compromise is to use the name ANT always in conjunction with "ANT is Not a Telephone" or as "ant-phone". As long as there are more people happy with my little project than complaints, I won't change the name. Besides, even in the FRG, there are many computer/IT related companies with the same name. We seem to have to arrange with each other. And fortunately, "Another Neat Tool" plays in a completely different category (league? ;).
A: This is a kernel-internal problem. While reading blocks from a kernel OSS audio device (and ISDN), select(2) consumes much kernel cpu time. But that seems normal/ok for now. The problem doesn't seem to appear with ALSA.
A: Make sure not to run a sound daemon (like aRTs).
Besides sponsoring :) there are some other ways to contribute to this project. Here, I've got some points from the TODO list which I definitely can't do myself in the near future for different reasons. If you like to take one, please write me an email. Thanks!
Any suggestions, comments and bug reports (which are highly appreciated) go to the ant-phone mailing list firstname.lastname@example.com. For discussion and announcements, you can subscribe to the list. You can also browse the Mailing List Archives. If this fails or for non-public discussion, contact the maintainer directly: Roland Stigge <firstname.lastname@example.com>.


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Home Page Chess Life Online 2009 November Ice Cream, Two Minute and Norm Hopefuls at the University of Texas at Dallas
|Ice Cream, Two Minute and Norm Hopefuls at the University of Texas at Dallas
|By WIM Alexey Root
|November 24, 2009
From November 21-29, 2009, The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) Chess Program is sponsoring two norm-opportunity tournaments for its students. To make norms possible, these 10-player round robin tournaments include four invited players (GMs Zviad Izoria and Giorgi Kacheishvili in the GM-norm tournament, and GMs Babakuli Annakov and Ildar Ibragimov in the IM-norm tournament). Since I am writing this report after round three of nine rounds, it is not yet clear which students, if any, will make norms. TD Jon Haskel tells me that it takes 6 points to make a GM norm in the GM-norm round robin. It takes 6.5 points to make an IM norm in the IM-norm round robin. Also in the IM-norm tournament, WFM Bayaraa Zorigt can make a WIM norm with 4 points and Zorigt and WIM Karina Vazirova need 6 points for a WGM norm.
Opening Ceremony
After speeches by dignitaries, the highlight of the opening ceremony was to be a two-minute, touch-move, two-game speed chess match (the Richardson Cup) between defending cup champion GM Babakuli Annakov and GM Amon Simutowe. When the time for the match came, UTD Chess Advisory Board President Rodney Thomas and visiting Chess Drum Web master Daaim Shabazz searched their cell phones for the missing Simutowe's phone number.
It soon became clear that Simutowe would arrive too late. So IM Jacek Stopa stepped in on short notice. In game one, Stopa had K and B and 3 Ps vs. Annakov's same material, but touched his king when he meant to touch his bishop. Annakov pointed out Stopa's touch move, captured the bishop, and won the game. The second game was dominated by Annakov, who forced resignation after using just 46 seconds on his clock.
Leading the tournaments
After three rounds, the GM-norm tournament is led by GM Zviad Izoria, who had a win, a draw, and then a forfeit win over Simutowe in round 3. For the past 3.5 years, Izoria has called Brooklyn, NY home. He maintains his Georgian chess federation membership, however, and competed as part of the Georgian Olympiad team in 2008 and in two prior Olympiads as well. This is Izoria's second time participating in the UTD norm tournaments; he previously played in 2007. He and compatriot GM Giorgi Kacheishvili are enjoying the warm Dallas weather and local restaurants before each evening's 6 p.m. game.
The leader board of the GM tournament may change after Friday morning. Two of the round three games (GM Puchen Wang vs. IM Jacek Stopa, and IM Marko Zivanic vs. GM Alejandro Ramirez) have been postponed from Monday night because of these students' university classes. Leading the IM-norm tournament after three rounds are NM Tautvydas Vedrickas, GM Ildar Ibragimov, and WFM Bayaraa Zorigt with 2.5 of 3.
Ship me an IM norm
Before the IM-norm tournament, UTD junior Tautvydas (Taut) Vedrickas posted on Facebook, "Ship me an IM norm please, thank you very much." I asked Taut if he had any previous IM norms. He said he had a 2449 performance at one event, but 2450 is the IM norm. So, no, he didn't have any norms. Taut is off to a good start this tournament, winning round one, drawing round two, and winning round three. Taut showed me his first round win over National Master Mihail Bantic. (Taut's comments in italics.)
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 c5
Taut explained his thinking behind 3….c5. Bantic is not a lifelong d4 player. So he might not know the Blumenfeld Gambit.
Bantic needed to play 4. d5 for this to turn into the Blumenfeld. Now I didn't want to play 4….d5 because you have to know a lot of Tarrasch theory for Black.
4….cxd4 5.Nxd4 a6
By playing 5….a6 I am following how Sal Bercys plays the Paulsen Sicilian. It's not exactly the same, because White does not have e4 in. But Sal is a really smart dude. I am also trying for a Hedgehog formation.
6.Bg5 Qc7
After the game, I could only find 6….Qc7 played twice previously and Black won those games. But those results don't mean too much because Black had the higher rating in both cases. More common is 6….Be7.
7.Bxf6 gxf6
I used to play the French so I don't mind doubled f-pawns.
Taut liked this move by Mihail, as 8. e4 would allow Black's dark-squared bishop free rein.
8….Nc6 9.Nxc6
Taut was surprised that Mihail exchanged here. He expected instead 9. Be2.
9….dxc6 10.Bd3 Bd7 11.O-O c5 12.Qf3 f5 13.e4 Bc6 14.Qh3
This is a key point in the game. Black could now choose 14….fxe4 with equality. But Taut decided on
Taut gave the following line 15. Qxh7 Rg6 (with the idea of Rh6) 16. g3 0-0-0 17. Rad1 Bg7 with hopes of trapping the white queen.
Taut said that Mihail played this piece sacrifice in a minute and a half. Taut spent 45 minutes thinking of his next move. When he considered not taking the sacrifice, he found only bad lines. So he thought to himself, "I don't think I made any bad moves this game but maybe now I'm losing by force." Ultimately, he decided he could take the piece and so played
15….exd5 16.exd5 Bd7 17.Qxh7
This is the best move. If instead 17. Re1+ Kd8 18. Qxh7 Rg7 19. Qh8 Qd6 and Black is fine. Or if instead 17. Qh4 Be7 18. Re1 Qd6 and Black holds.
Now if instead 17....Rg7 18. Qh4 Be7 19. Re1 Qd8 20. Qh8# with mate to follow.
18.Rae1 Kd8 19.Qxf7 Qd6 20.Bxf5
Taut saw this far in his 45-minute think, but thought he could play 20....Rf6. But this fails to 21. Qxd7 Qxd7 22. Bxd7 Kxd7 and the ending favors White.
20....Rg7 21.Qh5 Kc7 22.Bxd7
Better for White are simple moves such as 22. b3 where Black is tied up. It would be hard for Black to develop.
22....Qxd7 23.Re6 Bd6 24.Rfe1 Rh7 25.Rh6 Rah8 26.Ree6 Qg7 27.Reg6
This was the only move for White.
27....Qf7 28.Qg4
Taut says that his analysis engine, consulted after the game, showed the surprising 28. g4! as the best move. Then if 28....Qxg6 29. Qxg6 Rxh6 30. Qf7+ Kb8 31. g5 Rxh2 32. g6 Rh1+ 33. Kg2 R8h2+ 34. Kf3 Rf1 35. Ke2 R(2)xf2 36. Qxf2 Rxf2 37. Kxf2 and White can draw this endgame.
28....Bxh2 29.Kf1 Be5 30.Rxh7 Rxh7 31.g3
This move forecloses the possibility of Qg3+. So Black does not have to maneuver his king to a7, and can instead win more quickly.
31....Bd4 32.d6 Kb8 33.Qf4
Mihail played this move very quickly. If 33....Qxg6 then 34. d7 discovered check works for White.
33....Qxc4+ 34.Kg2 Qd5+ 35.f3 Ka7 36.Rg4 Bxb2 37.Rh4 Be5 38.Qe4 0-1
I scream for ice cream
After round 2 of the IM-norm tournament, I gave UTD freshman Tyler Hughes and John Daniel Bryant a ride from the Marriott Quorum tournament location. This ride, I said as we departed the hotel, will be a great opportunity to get your comments on your games. John replied, "I think you should talk to the people who won about their games." Tyler chimed in, "Yeah, we are zero for four." As we approached UTD, the pair suggested that I instead drop them at Braum's Ice Cream restaurant. After round one Tyler and John had a competitive eating contest there on hamburgers and ice cream, but for round two Tyler said they would go straight for the ice cream. Tyler added, "I always get ice cream after I lose." I asked, "Then how do you do the next day?" Tyler replied, "Usually about the same." On the bright side, John and Tyler were paired for round 3 so one of them had to get on the scoreboard. As it turned out, both did when they drew.
Dr. Alexey Root, WIM is the author of Children and Chess: A Guide for Educators. Her blog is on the MonRoi site. Root is also teaching a series of online classes in Chess Education. Registration for Spring 2010 classes is now open.
Check out tournament details and live games on Monroi. The events are directed by Jon Haskel.


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Turbulence: spiller of coffee, jostler of luggage, filler of barf bags, rattler of nerves. But is it a crasher of planes? Judging by the reactions of many airline passengers, one would assume so; turbulence is far and away the number one concern of anxious passengers. Intuitively, this makes sense. Everybody who steps on a plane is uneasy on some level, and there's no more poignant reminder of flying's innate precariousness than a good walloping at 37,000 feet. It's easy to picture the airplane as a helpless dinghy in a stormy sea. Boats are occasionally swamped, capsized, or dashed into reefs by swells, so the same must hold true for airplanes. Everything about it seems dangerous.
Except that, in all but the rarest circumstances, it's not. For all intents and purposes, a plane cannot be flipped upside-down, thrown into a tailspin, or otherwise flung from the sky by even the mightiest gust or air pocket. Conditions might be annoying and uncomfortable, but the plane is not going to crash. Turbulence is an aggravating nuisance for everybody, including the crew, but it's also, for lack of a better term, normal. From a pilot's perspective it is ordinarily seen as a convenience issue, not a safety issue. When a flight changes altitude in search of smoother conditions, this is by and large in the interest of comfort. The pilots aren't worried about the wings falling off; they're trying to keep their customers relaxed and everybody's coffee where it belongs. Planes themselves are engineered to take a remarkable amount of punishment, and they have to meet stress limits for both positive and negative G-loads. The level of turbulence required to dislodge an engine or bend a wing spar is something even the most frequent flyer—or pilot for that matter—won't experience in a lifetime of traveling.
Altitude, bank, and pitch will change only slightly during turbulence—in the cockpit we see just a twitch on the altimeter—and inherent in the design of airliners is a trait known to pilots as "positive stability." Should the aircraft be shoved from its position in space, its nature is to return there, on its own. I remember one night, headed to Europe, hitting some unusually rough air about halfway across the Atlantic. It was the kind of turbulence people tell their friends about. It came out of nowhere and lasted several minutes, and was bad enough to knock over carts in the galleys. During the worst of it, to the sound of crashing plates, I recalled an email. A reader had asked me about the displacement of altitude during times like this. How many feet is the plane actually moving up or down, and side to side? I kept a close watch on the altimeter. Fewer than forty feet, either way, is what I saw. Ten or twenty feet, if that, most of the time. Any change in heading—that is, the direction our nose was pointed—was all but undetectable. I imagine some passengers saw it differently, overestimating the roughness by orders of magnitude. "We dropped like 3,000 feet in two seconds!"
At times like this, pilots will slow to a designated "turbulence penetration speed" to ensure high-speed buffet protection (don't ask) and prevent damage to the airframe. This speed is close to normal cruising speed, however, so you probably won't notice the deceleration from your seat. We can also request higher or lower altitudes or ask for a revised routing. You're liable to imagine the pilots in a sweaty lather: the captain barking orders, hands tight on the wheel as the ship lists from one side to another. Nothing could be further from the truth. The crew is not wrestling with the beast so much as merely riding things out. Indeed, one of the worst things a pilot could do during strong turbulence is try to fight it. Some autopilots have a special mode for these situations. Rather than increasing the number of corrective inputs, it does the opposite, desensitizing the system.
Up front, you can imagine a conversation going like this:
Pilot 1: "Well, why don't we slow it down?" [dials a reduced Mach value into the speed control selector]
Pilot 2: "Ah, man, this is spilling my orange juice all down inside this cup holder."
Pilot 1: "Let's see if we can get any new reports from those guys up ahead." [reaches for the microphone and double-checks the frequency]
Pilot 2: "Do you have any napkins over there?"
There will also be an announcement made to the passengers and a call to the cabin crew to make sure they are belted in. Pilots often request that flight attendants remain in their seats if things look menacing up ahead.
Predicting the where, when, and how much of turbulence is more of an art than a science. We take our cues from weather charts, radar returns, and, most useful of all, real-time reports from other aircraft. Some meteorological indicators are more reliable than others. For example, those burbling, cotton-ball cumulus clouds—particularly the anvil-topped variety that occur in conjunction with thunderstorms—are always a lumpy encounter. Flights over mountain ranges and through certain frontal boundaries will also get the cabin bells dinging, as will transiting a jet stream boundary. But every now and then it's totally unforeseen. When we hit those bumps on the way to Europe that night, what info we had told us not to expect anything worse than mild chop. Later, in an area where stronger turbulence had been forecast, it was perfectly smooth. You just don't know.
When we pass on reports to other crews, turbulence is graded from "light" to "extreme." The worst encounters entail a postflight inspection by maintenance staff. There are definitions for each degree, but in practice the grades are awarded subjectively. I've never been through an extreme, but I've had my share of moderates and a sprinkling of severes.
One of those severes took place in July 1992, when I was captain on a fifteen-passenger turboprop. It was, of all flights, a twenty-five-minute run from Boston to Portland, Maine. It had been a hot day, and by early evening, a forest of tightly packed cumulus towers stretched across eastern New England. The formations were short—about 8,000 feet at the tops, and deceptively pretty to look at. As the sun fell, it became one of the most picturesque skyscapes I've ever seen, with buildups in every direction forming a horizon-wide garden of pink coral columns. They were beautiful and, it turned out, quite violent—little volcanoes spewing out invisible updrafts. The pummeling came on with a vengeance until it felt like being stuck in an upside-down avalanche. Even with my shoulder harness pulled snug, I remember holding up a hand to brace myself, afraid my head might hit the ceiling. Minutes later, we landed safely in Portland. No damage, no injuries.
So that I'm not accused of sugar-coating, I concede that powerful turbulence has, on occasion, resulted in damage to aircraft and injury to their occupants. With respect to the latter, these are typically people who fell or were thrown about because they weren't belted in. About sixty people, two-thirds of them flight attendants, are injured by turbulence annually in the United States. That works out to about twenty passengers. Twenty out of the 800 million or so who fly each year in this country.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that turbulence is becoming more prevalent as a byproduct of climate change. Turbulence is a symptom of the weather from which it spawns, and it stands to reason that as global warming intensifies certain patterns, experiences like the one I had over Maine will become more common.
Because turbulence is so unpredictable, I am known to provide annoying, noncommittal answers when asked how best to avoid it.
"Is it better to fly at night than during the day?" Sometimes.
"Should I avoid routes that traverse the Rockies or the Alps?" Hard to say.
"Are small planes more susceptible than larger ones?" It depends.
"They're calling for gusty winds tomorrow. Will it be rough?" Probably, but who knows.
"Where should I sit, in the front of the plane or in the back?"
Ah, now that one I can work with…
While it doesn't make a whole lot of difference, the smoothest place to sit is over the wings, nearest to the plane's centers of lift and gravity. The roughest spot is usually the far aft—the rearmost rows closest to the tail.
As many travelers already know, flight crews in the United States tend to be lot more twitchy with the seat belt sign than those in other countries. We keep the sign on longer after takeoff, even when the air is smooth, and will switch it on again at the slightest jolt or burble. In some respects, this is another example of American overprotectiveness, but there are legitimate liability concerns. The last thing a captain wants is the FAA breathing down his neck for not having the sign on when somebody breaks an ankle and sues. Unfortunately, there's a cry-wolf aspect as well. People get so accustomed to the sign dinging on and off, seemingly without reason, that they ignore it altogether.
There's also something known as "wake turbulence." This is a different phenomenon…
If you can picture the cleaved roil of water that trails behind a boat or ship, you've got the right idea. With aircraft, this effect is exacerbated by a pair of vortices that spin from the wingtips. At the wings' outermost extremities, the higher-pressure air beneath is drawn toward the lower pressure air on top, resulting in a tight, circular flow that trails behind the aircraft like a pronged pair of sideways tornadoes. The vortices are most pronounced when a plane is slow and the wings are working hardest to produce lift. Thus, prime time for an encountering them is during approach or departure. As they rotate—at speeds that can top 300 feet per second—they begin to diverge and sink. If you live near an airport, stake out a spot close to a runway and listen carefully as the planes pass overhead; you can often hear the vortices' whip-like percussions as they drift toward the ground.
As a rule, bigger planes brew up bigger, most virulent wakes, and smaller planes are more vulnerable should they run into one. The worst offender is the Boeing 757. A mid-sized jet, the 757 isn't nearly the size of a 747 or 777, but thanks to a nasty aerodynamic quirk it produces an outsized wake that, according to one study, is the most powerful of any airplane.
To avoid wake upsets, air traffic controllers are required to put extra spacing between large and small planes. For pilots, one technique is to slightly alter the approach or climb gradient, remaining above any vortices as they sink. Another trick is to use the wind. Gusts and choppy air will break up vortices or otherwise move them to one side. Winglets—those upturned fins at the end of the wings—also are a factor. One of the ways these devices increase aerodynamic efficiency is by mitigating the severity of wingtip vortices. Thus a winglet-equipped plane tends to produce a more docile wake than a similarly sized plane without them.
Despite all the safeguards, at one time or another, every pilot has had a run-in with wake, be it the short bump-and-roll of a dying vortex or a full-force wrestling match. Such an encounter might last only a few seconds, but they can be memorable. For me, it happened in Philadelphia in 1994.
Ours was a long, lazy, straight-in approach to runway 27R from the east, our nineteen-seater packed to the gills. Traffic was light, the radio mostly quiet. At five miles out, we were cleared to land. The traffic we'd been following, a 757, had already cleared the runway and was taxiing toward the terminal. We'd been given our extra ATC spacing buffer, and just to be safe, we were keeping a tad high on the glide path. Our checklists were complete, and everything was normal.
At around 200 feet, only seconds from touchdown, with the approach light stanchions below and the fat white stripes of the threshold just ahead, came a quick and unusual nudge—as if we'd struck a pothole. Then, less than a second later, came the rest of it. Almost instantaneously, our 16,000-pound aircraft was up on one wing, in a 45-degree right bank.
It was the first officer's leg to fly, but suddenly there were four hands on the yokes, turning to the left as hard as we could. Even with full opposite aileron—something never used in normal commercial flying—the ship kept rolling to the right. There we were, hanging sideways in the sky; everything in our power was telling the plane to go one way, and it insisted on going the other. A feeling of helplessness, of lack of control, is part and parcel of nervous flyer psychology. It's an especially bad day when the pilots are experiencing the same uncertainty.
Then, as suddenly as it started, the madness stopped. In less than five seconds, before either of us could utter so much as an expletive, the plane came to its senses and rolled level.
If you're interested, it's possible to stake out a spot near and airport and actually hear wingtip vortices as they drift toward the ground:
You need to be very close to a runway—preferably within a half-mile of the end. The strongest vortices are produced on takeoff, but ideally you want to be on the landing side, as the plane will be nearer (i.e. lower) at an equivalent position from the threshold. A calm day is ideal, as wind will dissipate a vortex before it reaches the ground. About 30 seconds after the jet passes overhead you'll begin to hear a whooshing, crackling and thundering. It's a menacing sound unlike anything you've heard before. See—or hear—for yourself in this footage captured on my iPhone.
It was taken at the Belle Isle Marsh Reservation, a popular birdwatching spot about a half-mile north of runway 22R at Boston's Logan International Airport. The plane is a 757. Excuse the atrocious video quality, but the sound is acceptable and that's the important thing. You begin to hear the vortices at time 0:45, and they continue pretty much to the end. Note the incredible gunshot-like noises at 0:58.
Play loud!
Excerpted from Cockpit Confidential: Everything you need to know about air travel by Patrick Smith.


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TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — A man accused of taking off a woman's shoe and sucking her toes without permission at an Ohio mall is now accused of massaging the feet of other women without their consent.
Joseph Jones, of Toledo, was in court Tuesday to face menacing and sexual imposition charges.
He told a judge that he's being targeted after earlier pleading not guilty to sexual imposition.
Court records show he was first accused of sucking the toes and kissing the cheek of a store employee at a Toledo mall in December.
Two women who work at the same store then came forward to say Jones took off their shoes and began massaging their feet. Another woman says he grabbed her foot.
Jones has been banned from the mall.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Senate Republicans have been holding out on a number of President Obama's recent administrative nominees — including Gina McCarthy for Environmental Protection Agency chief, Tom Perez for head of the Department of Labor, the recess-appointed director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Richard Cordray, and nominees to the National Labor Relations Board among them — while they pointedly wait for the Obama administration to cough up answers for some of their more pressing queries, and Democrats are pretty vexed about the whole thing.
He's threatened to do so before, and the issue of the stalled nominations is resulting in our esteemed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid again finding himself confronted with the question of whether or not to trigger the "nuclear option" by moving to amend Senate procedure and put some restrictions on the minority's right to filibuster. It's apparently gettin' real on Capitol Hill, via Politico:
Reid has refused to answer questions on the topic even as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) continues his campaign on the Senate floor to see if Reid will "keep his word" on not changing Senate rules in January — which Democrats are only too happy to turn on McConnell for promising "to work with the majority to process nominations."
It's still unclear whether Reid has the votes to change the rules, although the Sierra Club, Communications Workers of America and top Senate aides are confident Reid can marshal 51 members of his 54-member caucus to support at least easing the path for executive nominations such as Cabinet members.
There's far less certainty on whether the caucus would like to tweak rules for judicial nominees as well. …
"We'll certainly have a lot of delayed nominations up shortly, and we'll find out if the Senate can function or not," said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who along with Tom Udall of New Mexico is among the strongest advocates of a rules change. Neither has served in the Senate minority.
Several veteran senators, however, tend to take a little less readily to the idea of changing Senate procedure (the door swings both ways on minority-party rights, after all). Either way, Reid is taking the thing to caucus later this week to find out if enough Democrats really want to go there, via The Hill:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced Tuesday that he planned with meet with his colleagues in two days, at which point a decision will be made on whether to change the upper chamber's filibuster rules with the controversial tactic.
"I'm going to caucus on this Thursday, and I think Thursday by the time the day is out you'll have a better idea of what we're going to try and do on this," he told reporters.
Reid is facing pressure to advance several stalled nominees by making a Senate rule change that would eliminate filibusters on nominees. Typically, a change to Senate rules requires 67 votes, but the parliamentary maneuvering of the nuclear option would require only a majority vote.
Thursday's meeting will be Reid's final chance to determine how badly his colleagues want to push several stalled presidential nominees…


text:
OK Go 'Invincible' Video
OK Go are out with the video to their new single 'Invincible'. Watch it via Vimeo below.
OK Go are out with the video to their new single 'Invincible'. Watch it via Vimeo below.
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I have rarely felt so strongly that about the importance of a piece of genealogical writing.
The author who writes as 'The Ancestry Insider' has is writing about how computer programs and online trees handle evidence and conclusions; more to the point, how they should handle it.
You need to read this post, now. Reading this explains why many beginning genealogists have problems understanding analyzing what they have found. It also explains why so many people have ongoing problems reaching conclusions regarding evidence. Computer programs have no way to display evidence systematically to aid decision making.
Lately, I have seen many examples of individuals conducting research to support a IWAG1, instead of gathering evidence to lead them to a logical conclusion. Down with guessing! Down with posting guesses in on-line family trees!
- Illogical Wild A** Guess. Did not want to offend you with my opinion of some of the things I have seen lately until you read the important part!


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Apple EarPods—or whatever crap headphones came with your phone—aren't the best way to listen to music, but nice gear is expensive. You can't blame people for not wanting to spend a lot of money on something they're just going to lose or destroy. Well here's a $40 alternative to garbage that's almost certain to sound pretty good.
Why are we so confident that Sol Republic's new Jax in-ear headphones will sound better than other stuff in its price range? Since its first over-ear headphones came out a couple of years ago, Sol Republic has built its reputation on solid, aesthetically handsome gear that's cheaper than the competition's offering.
The buds have a newly designed drivers, tangle free cables, and your standard three-button remote. While they're not as striking to look at as other Sol Republic stuff, they've got an admirable minimalism—hopefully Sol Republic making sure the guts sound great. [Sol Republic]


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