2012 — 15 February: Wednesday
Having survived Valentine's Day1 I'm supping my morning cuppa to the, erm, sweet refrains on offer from "PlanetRock". Though if Jethro Tull makes the cut can a channel change be far away? It's 08:17 and looking bright for a walk in a couple of hours. Breakfast and a packed lunch before that, of course.
Harmless
Recall how the entry on "Earth" in the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy was eventually changed from "harmless" to "mostly harmless"? There's a chap whose attempts to get a Wikipedia article amended must make him feel the same way as Ford Prefect. Source and snippet:
A couple of years ago, on a slow day at the office, I decided to experiment with editing one particularly misleading assertion chiseled into the Wikipedia article. The description of the trial stated, "The prosecution, led by Julius Grinnell, did not offer evidence connecting any of the defendants with the bombing. ... "
He managed to get the adjective "credible" accepted, to read "credible evidence". But it was a struggle that continues. I can empathise. I had to fight long and hard to get the adjective "simple" accepted in the opening sentence of the Preface to the CICS application programming primer and I bear the scars over quarter of a century later. Still, I have now outlived the main objector.
The sun is still shining, and it's time I wasn't here.
A little over...
... six miles later, with the sun shining through ever-thickening clouds, I'm back in time to miss Mr Postie's attempted delivery (I assume) of my new toner cartridge. However, his little lair remains open until 20:00 on a Wednesday, so I shall leave the car out, and sneak down there somewhat later today. It's currently 14:24 and time for my next cuppa, despite having one with Mike when I dropped him off. Addicted? Me? Perish the thought.
It's a good time to dump another 77MB of security updates on to my laptop PC, too. I note the Silverlight patch is optional. I'm fairly sure I didn't put it on this system in the first place. Logical, Jim.
I've just finished...
... reading the book "Drive" by James Sallis (Mike kindly lent me his copy even before he read it himself). To my considerable surprise, this actually is the same James Sallis whose SF anthology ("The War Book")...
... I bought back in February 1971 (and have kept since then largely because it contains that sublime little masterpiece by George MacBeth — "Crab Apple Crisis"). A wonderful riff on Herman Kahn's ladder of thermonuclear escalation. Right. I think enough time has now elapsed for me to nip out to pick up the packet Mr Postie has with my name on it. [Pause] Blimey, I don't miss rush hour commuting at all.
Not quite the...
... Horse Head nebula, but I liked Mike's picture of this imposing sculpture. Pity the sun wasn't out at the time. Click the pic for a bigger image:
