From my quotations file, a gem from two years ago:
Mr. Newman makes his own salad dressing at home, too, though he occasionally reaches for the stuff that started the Newman’s Own empire. To date, the food company has generated $220 million in charitable donations and has expanded to include popcorn and a line of fruit drinks and salsas, which he sometimes buys in jars at the grocery store. While the stunned checker grapples with the fact that Paul Newman is buying Newman’s Own salsa, he gets a kick out of saying, “It must be really good if I’m paying retail for it.”
I noticed that the type of rocket ferrying the taikonauts on China’s first spacewalk mission is known as Long March II-F.
Does it seem appropriate to name a rocket after a massive and bloody military retreat?
“Come closer, people! We’re not armed, even though we are black.”
I was startled to hear on the radio this morning the voice of the unpopular former Massachusetts governor Jane Swift. She is now the head of a “truth squad” tasked with countering “vile rumors and smears” surrounding Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin. During her interview with NPR, Swift blamed the “elite media” for their troubles.
First, I object to the tired implication that the media’s criticism is part of a hidden political agenda. If the McCain campaign is so certain that she is a capable candidate, they would let her prove it to the world. But so far Palin’s handlers have not allowed her to speak to the media. Says the Associated Press:
So far, Palin has barely spoken with voters either. Since the convention, she and McCain have breezed through a Wisconsin ice cream shop, a New Mexico restaurant and a Missouri barbecue place, shaking hands with diners but not taking any questions. Photographers and television cameras have been allowed full view while reporters are typically kept too far away to ask questions or hear most of the conversations.
I could understand why they’re scared. Palin had a chance to speak her mind prior to being selected as the VP candidate, and she said this: “As for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day.” Yikes.
Finally, a comment for the McCain campaign. Could you have chosen a creepier, more Orwellian name than “truth squad?”
They fired up the Large Hadron Collider this morning. There are two things I enjoy about the LHC:
The Internets were down in the office this morning. Turns out the LHC was not responsible. (Hi, Marc!)
I watched Helvetica over the weekend, and it must have stimulated that part of my mind that thinks graphically.
I had been complaining at work that our new schematic symbol for resistors
has seemingly unnatural proportions, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why.
What is “natural” about a resistor symbol?
To try to answer this question, I culled a selection of resistors from a bunch of old schematics I have worked on. These include default symbols from OrCAD, Eagle, Gschem, and Altium. Often you can look at a schematic and immediately identify the tool that was used to create it. That graphic signature is not unlike a font, I think.
The two symbols on the left are the official shapes set forth in IEEE 315-1975 (“Graphic Symbols for Electrical and Electronics Diagrams”), which is the reigning standard in North America (ANSI, CSA, Dept of Defense). Notice how none of the real-world examples seems to reproduce them too faithfully.
What, I wonder, is second?