A Cranky Post

As in: How things work

Having just finished conference season, I wish OED had sent me this word a while ago:

maunder, n
Idle, incoherent, or rambling talk or writing; an instance of this.

TANSTAAFL

As in: How things work

I dropped my business card--naively, it turns out--in a fishbowl at COSI, looking for that gift cert for a free lunch. Turns out I have to go to a financial planning seminar to get it. Damn! There really is no such thing as a free lunch.

Discovering the world

As in: How things work

Now that Avery has begun noticing the world and watching the things around her, she's hooked on the mobile over her crib. She stares in wonder at it. Having some quiet time today, she started to get fussy when the mobile stopped. I went in and wound it up, and the moment the music started again, she cracked a huge smile and stuck her hand back in her mouth.

Where are my damn flying cars?

As in: How things work , Rants

ComEd sent me this notice today:

...Because your electric rates have been frozen since 1997, rates will increase in 2007. Quite simply, the cost of electricity has increased during the nine-year freeze, as have our costs to deliver that power.

I understand the latter. You have to buy new trucks and new hardhats for the meter-readers. I don't even begrudge your workers their COL increases and a little extra, even. What I'm grumpy about is that the cost of electricity has increased. Why? Because the energy producers have no motivation not to increase it. We need a NASA program for energy, one devoted to the common good (not the business good). While delivery costs should be going up, electricity should be getting cheaper. I want my techno-utopia, with energy so cheap it won't be worth metering.

Neato

As in: How things work

From WPA:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Petrty amzanig huh?