Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Unsprisingly, I spent much of today asleep. Fortunately, I'd already figured out that I'd be spending today recovering from yesterday, so I didn't expect to get anything done.

"The only place you get technically accurate use of computers in a movie, is when according to the story, the world it's happening in isn't real." -- Charles Miller, commenting on The Matrix Reloaded. (Thanks to acroyear70

• A fascinating read, even for a vegetarian goy: The Feast of Delights. "In an effort to keep the mesorah [tradition of particular species being considered kosher] for other species going, my chavrusa, Rabbi Dr. Ari Zivotofsky, and Dr. Ari Greenspan, longtime friends and shochtim, arranged a 'halachic dinner.' During this dinner, all kinds of unusual species were served, along with lectures explaining why they are kosher, and a 150-page book of source material for each participant. The dinner thereby publicized and maintained the mesorah for these creatures. As preparation for this, the two Aris had spent twenty years interviewing elderly shochtim and asking them which species they remember slaughtering in Europe, Africa, and Yemen." (Many of y'all will have seen this on a mailing list last year, but a recent discussion reminded me of it.)
• High Levels of Toxic Rocket Fuel Found in Lettuce (California) "Sworn depositions and other courtroom documents show that the giant aerospace and defense contractor Lockheed Martin -- a major user of perchlorate responsible for widespread contamination of Southern California water supplies -- knew as early as 1997 that vegetables stored high concentrations of the chemical, but said nothing to the EPA or state health officials."
• A harrowing flight: Soyuz 5's Flaming Return (Flight Journal, June 2002, a story from 1969 but only recently told.)
• A tiger covered in pigs. Uh, not much more to say than that; it's a tiger, with pigs on it. Really. Cute.
• The Bartleby.com edition of Gray's Anatomy (1918) "The Bartleby.com edition of Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body features 1,247 vibrant engravings -- many in color -- from the classic 1918 publication, as well as a subject index with 13,000 entries ranging from the Antrum of Highmore to the Zonule of Zinn.
• baratron says of The Periodic Table of Desserts, A Scientific and Rigorous approach to patisserie, "Amusing and geeky - but the chemist in me goes all teeth-gnashy. If you have no idea what the difference between a Group and a Period is, you'll love it, if you do, you'll love it for as long as you can keep your inner chemist suppressed." Closeups of the table.
(Interestingly, that's exactly why I want someone who remembers more of the chemistry they've learned to help me with the "periodic table of periodic tables" that Fred suggested I put together.) Maybe this one should go on my fridge next to the Table of Condiments that Periodically Go Bad.
• On occasion, I've used the term "backhoe error" to describe one of many potential causes for a network outage (and one of the possible events one must take into account when designing a network). For anyone still confused about the meaning of that term, here's an example.
• I don't think I've already posted this ... Another professional wrestler got elected to public office (Mainichi Daily News, Japan) "The Great Sasuke announced that he would continue to wear his mask during prefectural assembly meetings to prevent revealing his true identity." Another photo
• ukelele recently reviewed a whole bunch of cheeses
• "The original warblogger", Julius Ceaser, governor of Gaul, chronicles his time there in Bloggus Caesari.

  "I'm heading up to Geneva. One of the Gaul tribes is planning on cutting through Roman territory, in an attempt to go and fight some other tribe. I'm the governor of Gaul now, so I have to stop them... I'm caught a little off guard -- there's only one legion up there, so I'm trying to raise some more at the same time.
   
  Well, it looks like I might be away more than I'd like, so I decided to set up this blog. My friends in Rome can keep track of what I'm up to amongst the barbarians.."

While listening to letscho74.mp3, by The First Vienna Vegetable Orchestra, it hit me: I was hearing the screams of the vegetables described in "Carrot Juice Is Murder" by The Arrogant Worms. (The other tracks I downloaded are not so wail-y.)

Excuse me, but my aeroplane appears to have been covered in monsters.

I'm not feeling 100%, but I'm more alert than yesterday, in better shape than Saturday, and in fact, feeling better than most of the past two weeks (and hoping to avoid pushing myself too hard and feeling crappy again real soon). So I'm catching up on little stuff, or stuff that can be done piecemeal, such as going through the countless (okay, countable but I don't feel like counting 'em and its a whole lot, okay?) browser windows I've got open on two different screens -- reading, commenting, forwarding, bookmarking, quoting, or adding to my "link sausage" notes. (Still procrastinating on a couple of important things, mind you, but at least I'm getting something done.) So there'll be multiple link-sausage entries this week.

A while back, I asked what a good length for those is, and I don't recall getting much feedback. So I'll ask again, in an entry that doesn't have a whole lot of other clutter in it:

I've been aiming for about ten to fifteen items in each "link sausage" entry. Is that a good size? Too long? Could stand to be longer?

When I've got a backlog, like now, would twenty items be too many? Or does it not really matter, 'cause the folks who'd find it too long don't bother with the link sausage posts anyhow and the people who like them can deal with pretty much any length without their eyes glazing over?

(Come to think of it, there's an implied question about the usefulness of the format as a whole, there...)