Archive for August, 2007
Wednesday, August 29th, 2007
Here's a QA with the primary gatekeeper to the New Yorker cartoon caption contest:
Q. Did your predecessor or Bob give you any advice when looking through the responses?
A. My predecessor stared me in the eyes and warned me that reading too many captions in one sitting could make a man ...
Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Books, Literature, the Arts, Language | 2 Comments »
Saturday, August 18th, 2007
I was born William Alan Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald, of course is my family name, but I don't have any real connections to 'William' or 'Alan.' My dad sometimes says I was named after my Uncle Allen, but if so, why isn't my middle name spelled as he spells it? It doesn't ...
Posted in Personal and family, Whim | 1 Comment »
Saturday, August 18th, 2007
Accidentally nuked my WordPress theme; here's a new one.
Posted in Meta | 1 Comment »
Friday, August 17th, 2007
Phitsjerld's Fauxnetik Alfabett: (An attempt at the world's worst phonetic alphabet, on the lines of 'alpha, bravo, charlie'):
'A as in 'heir', B as in 'clime', C as in 'quire', D as in 'guest', E as in 'urn', F as in 'prophet', G as in 'bow', H as in 'owe', I as in 'synch', J as in 'genes', K as ...
Posted in Language, Whim | 6 Comments »
Tuesday, August 7th, 2007
This past weekend, Bess, Jane and I attended the 50th anniversary of the founding of Reba Place Church, the church we attended in the 90's when I was in graduate school and for a few years afterwards. Saturday was spent going though a decade by decade retrospective. Reba began ...
Posted in Personal and family, Religion | Comments Off
Monday, August 6th, 2007
Synonyms and antonyms
and matching terms and words that share a meaning.
All these alternate words to choose or substitute
why write 'crying'
when you could write 'weeping'
or 'shedding a tear or two,'
'blubbering', 'wailing,'
'choking up and balling,'
'sobbing both your eyes out,'
'turning on the waterworks.'
I am the Roget
I'm Dr. Roget
I am Thesaurus
Synon-ny-nyms!
Vocabulary dictionary wordy little ...
Posted in Language, Search technology, Whim | Comments Off
Thursday, August 2nd, 2007
There's a great interview by Sian Liu with Steve Newcomb, Powerset's COO (and ultimately my boss). He describes life and work at Powerset, some of the risks, the culture of openness at Powerset, and why we don't see Google as the enemy. Granted, it's not a hard-hitting interview (Liu even ...
Posted in Search technology | Comments Off