Random Headlines in Random Order Making Scary Sense

The three headlines appeared in the more news box in the center of the NYTimes.com home page a today. Read one after the other, they make their own story:

Venezuela Will Investigate Report of Massacre
Yale President Says He Will Step Down
5 Australian Troops Die in Afghanistan

I am sure there is no link between these stories except they all occurred on the same day. Still, imagine this:

The news that a massacre of miners in Venezuela causes the president of Yale U. to announce he's quitting. What did he have to do with the massacre. And was it his announcement or the massacre in Venezuela that led to the attack on Australian troops - rather than those of some other nationality?

Informed people want to know. Or do they?

I will not guarantee that clicking on the links will take you to the stories, but it might happen.

what the internet is good for: Volapük

Have you ever heard of a language called Volapük?

Until today, I never heard of it and though I've heard of it now, I don't really give a damn about it. What I thought was interesting was how this "constructed language" claimed upwards of a million users - Wikipedia.org says "adherents" - in the late 19th Century, declined to about 20-30 by the beginning of this century, and has revived in the last decade, nearly tripling its users, most likely because they can find each other on the internet.

Considering the numbers - that is roughly 90 adherents, it is noted in Wikipedia that there are approximately 119,000 articles in the Volapük Wikipedia, which ranks it 37th.

So what's my point?
That the internet helps preserve things that would otherwise have faded away.

Maybe next time I'll tell you something you didn't know already.

Ambiguity a la carte, or who did the Panda shoot?

Down at the bottom of the NYTimes.com web page was a photo of what looked like a tent full of stuff and the following lede:

San Jose Stores Property of Homeless After Sweeps.

Wow, how ambiguous can you get?

occasion musing on email subject lines

Today, catching up with the false positives - Postini flags roughly 20% of the newsletters and other legitimate emails as SPAM and no matter how often I try to train the program, the percentage remains about the same - I got to musing on subject lines.

Here's an example: Learn more about our permanent hair loss solution.
I said to myself, is this an ad for a depilatory? Certainly, the way it's phrased makes it seem like the product is meant to make sure hair you lose doesn't come back. I personally don't care to lose any hair.

Somebody ought to write a book

Some title I saw at Posman's Bookstore in Grand Central yesterday struck me as very funny, because it wasn't a very interesting title. Of course I forgot that title but not the one that somebody ought to write:

Phrenology in the Age of Texting and Twitter: How to read the bumps you get on your head from pounding it with your smart phone after sending that stupid tweet or drunken text.


Maybe I'll get around to it someday.
Nah, it's too much like beating your head against the wall.

Transformative food names

Why eat a Philly Cheesesteak in NYC? Why not something new and high priced, like a Chili Feesteak (or Chilly Feesteak)?

Ok, so NYC is known for cheesecake, which is not served by the slice but by the piece, as in "have a piece of cheesecake." I love a piece of cheesecake but today I'm in a different place and want a cheese of peacecake.

Fertilizer season - a very quick thought

In the film "Apocalypse Now," Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall) sniffs the air and says "I love the smell of napalm in the morning."

Well, it's fertilizer season, and though I don't know if anyone's making a movie about the end of farming to be called "A-Crop-alypse Now" or such, but I can imagine a farmer wearing a hat of the same shape as Kilgore's, standing in the middle of his/her field on a cool, spring morning, sniffing the air and saying  "I love the smell of manure in the morning."