Author: Heather Meadows

For the past week, every time I have opened Bloglines, there it is: a piece on Yahoo! about Israel saving the kitties and doggies.

Every. Single. Freaking. Time.

I’ve seen the story four times today.

It’s the same headline. It’s probably the same freaking story. I don’t know, I have never, not once, clicked on it, not even the first time I saw it.

Maybe it’s happening because the picture they send along with the story each time keeps changing. Did you notice they’re doing pictures in the RSS feed now? Yeah, it’s pretty cool, unless that’s causing me to see “Israel to rescue cats, dogs from Gaza settlements (Reuters)” every time I check for news, in which case I will gladly go without them.

I mean it. Seriously. Make it stop. Just make it stop.

I don’t care, Yahoo! Leave me alone!!!!

It was Will who pointed out to me awhile back that “website” is not the proper spelling. Ever since he let me know, I’ve noticed the doofy spelling “Web site” everywhere, and it annoys the hell out of me.

“Website” is better. It’s faster, and doesn’t look stupid. People who actually have websites use “website”, I promise you.

A Google search for “website” gets 1,080,000,000 hits, while a Google search for “Web site” (as a phrase) gets 888,000,000–and Google asks me politely, “Did you mean: ‘Website’“.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition has this usage note:

The transition from World Wide Web site to Web site to website seems to have progressed as rapidly as the technology itself. The development of website as a single uncapitalized word mirrors the development of other technological expressions which have tended to evolve into unhyphenated forms as they become more familiar. Thus email has recently been gaining ground over the forms E-mail and e-mail, especially in texts that are more technologically oriented. Similarly, there has been an increasing preference for closed forms like homepage, online, and printout.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary chimes in:

It always takes a little time for new words to settle to a standardized form. Our most recent dictionary, the revised 11th edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary, published in July 2004, shows website as the standard form, and future dictionaries will reflect this.

We recommend capital initials for Internet, World Wide Web, the Web, but not for individual sites.

So, you see, the spelling is more than accepted. I think it’s only the AP Stylebook that’s living in the freaking Dark Ages.

My copy of the AP Stylebook (The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law, 2002), donated graciously to me by Kevin, states the following under its “AP Internet Guide” entry for “World Wide Web”:

The shorter the Web is acceptable. Also, Web site (an exception to Webster’s preference), and Web page.

But webcam, webcast, webmaster.

I have no idea what the current AP Stylebook states, but if news articles are any indication, the “exception to Webster’s preference” hasn’t changed.

Give up your sad devotion to that ancient spelling, Associated Press!

(It’s funny how I develop these spelling prejudices…ever since I was a teenager I’ve railed against the generally accepted spelling “alright”, because to me it looks lazy. [See, it’s wrong!])

Blogger’s comment thingy doesn’t seem to be working right–I’ve had people tell me they put their name in, only to come up as Anonymous–so please do me a favor and let me know who you are in your post. Thanks.

Eric Burns and the Magazine Man are both from New Hampshire…and both of them are also extraordinarily prolific and fabulous writers. Is there something in the water up there?

Tycho’s gonna be a father.

I always kind of assumed that Tycho wasn’t the type to have kids, that the closest he’d get to parenthood would be corrupting his niece, and perhaps Gabriel the Younger. So this post (scroll down to “I Have An Announcement To Make”) took me completely by surprise. Of course, he wrote it with that intent, didn’t he?

Congratulations, Tycho and Brenna!

The Micro Compact Home (via BoingBoing) is available anywhere in Europe.

The micro compact home [m-ch] is a lightweight, modular and mobile minimal dwelling for one or two people. Its compact dimensions of 2.6m cube adapt it to a variety of sites and circumstances, and its functioning spaces of sleeping, working – dining, cooking, and hygiene make it suitable for everyday use.

Further details are available here.

It’d be hard to host a party in one of those…

I find the idea of a tiny house, with just as much room as you need and nothing more, very appealing. At the same time, this flies in the face of everything I’ve grown up believing (bigger is better, etc.), so I have a hard time reconciling myself to the notion.

Mi Rancho, at Belair and Columbia Road, is awesome, and here’s why.

I had “La Favorita”, which is a chicken enchilada, a beef burrito, and something with beef and beans and a pile of guacamole. (I may be wrong about which was the enchilada and which was the burrito…I’m not really a connoisseuse of Mexican cuisine.) I had water to drink and fried ice cream for dessert.

Sean had a half order of Nachos Supreme, which, for a half order, was still quite a few freaking nachos. He had iced tea to drink.

Service was fantastic, as usual. Our meals arrived promptly, and we of course had plenty of chips to enjoy in the meantime.

Our bill, for food that totally and pleasantly filled us to the brim? Including tax and tip?

Fif. Teen. Dollars.

$15.00! We could have easily paid double that amount at another Mexican restaurant, for similar or even inferior food and service.

Sean and I were just sort of staring at our check, wondering how it could possibly be right. We found our entrees, each around $5. Drink, $1.50. Dessert, $2.00. ($2.00! T.G.I. Friday’s would have charged at least $3.95 for that ice cream.)

The check was right…Mi Rancho had done it again. Fast, attentive service, delicious food, and low, low prices.

For dinner at a sit-down (not fast food) restaurant, that’s tough to beat.

Ampontan at Japundit has a fabulous (as always) run-down of what’s happening politically in Japan right now. Koizumi has thrown up quite a few nontraditional candidates to run against the LDP members he ousted, including several women and a popular entrepreneur, Takafumi Horie.

It would be nearly impossible to find a candidate anywhere in the country guaranteed to attract as much media attention as the man they call Horiemon. A high-school dropout and self-made millionaire in his early 30s, Horie is the president of the Internet company Livedoor. He first gained public attention last year during the furor over the planned contraction of Japanese League baseball teams from 12 to 11 (and possibly 10). Horie offered to buy one of the teams, but the owners, led by the autocratic Tsuneo Watanabe, rejected his bid out of hand. The public viewed the baseball owners’ rejection of Horie’s offer (and their efforts to contract the league) as perversely stubborn and typical of the shortcomings of the old way of doing things in Japan. This created a classic old/new, hidebound/progressive contrast that won Horie public and media sympathy and support. A new baseball team was eventually formed after two others were merged, and Horie, though denied the chance to buy the new team, was widely credited with rekindling public interest in Japanese baseball.

Media interest in Horie more than redoubled earlier this year with his 80s American-style attempt to take over the Fuji Television network. Backed by the American firm Salomon Brothers, Horie made his move by buying up stock during off-hours trading. The entire process became a continuing daily soap opera on Japanese television and a media sensation. Though Horie failed again, he forced Fuji to make concessions to shareholders, and Livedoor and Fuji formed a business partnership in May.

It’s not easy to compare Horie to public figures in other countries, but try to imagine a combination of the star power of a young, ungeeky Bill Gates with wide public support and a Donald Trump who wasn’t such a jerk.

Global Voices Online mentions Horie in a roundup of Japanese blogs.

All I can say is I’m rooting for Koizumi. The man is brilliant. Plus he’s got balls the size of the moon. He’s just what’s needed to shake up the Japanese political system. It’s very exciting and inspiring to me to see this kind of reform taking place in a government that has too long suffered from bloat and complacency. I’d rather like to see something similar happen here in the U.S., but I’m not sure that’s really possible.

Japan Today: 6-month-old girl dies from heat in car while mom plays pachinko

Peachtree City is looking to bring in a new weapon against the kudzu threatening the life of its trees: goats.

The city is trying goats because it is believed they will be cheaper than using chemicals to fight kudzu, an ever-expanding weed considered a pest in much of the South.

The chemical approach would cost $16,750 per acre a year if 100 acres were treated, according to research by the City Council’s staff. But the goats would cost only $2,500 per acre.

Sounds like a plan…

I’ve heard that only 1% or 2% of Japanese people actually ever climb Mount Fuji, though I have no idea if those statistics are accurate. Whatever the true percentage, an Internet apparel retailer seems to be seeking to raise it.

The company will be sending executives up the mountain on August 24. Anyone hoping to get a job with the company must come along–interviews will take place at dawn at the summit.

“We are aiming to be the No.1 Internet retailer, so the No.1 mountain in Japan is very suitable,” said Yoshifumi Tsunada, head of public relations for Image Co, the parent company of ImageNet Co., which will do the hiring.

“A lot of people have said we are strange though.”

It’s easy for a lot of people to pretend that global climate change is not occurring. The hot summers we’ve been having in recent years can be explained away as flukes, or dismissed because “it’s been hotter”. Other possible effects–mild winters, an increase in tropical storms–can also be ignored, because they don’t have a significant effect on people’s lives, or they don’t affect a significant amount of people. Shortsightedness is rampant and even understandable; when all’s said and done, global climate change isn’t all that apparent in the 48 contiguous states.

This is not the case in Alaska.

In many ways, this separated US state is the frontline in the global warming debate. Environmentalists say the signs of climate change are more obvious there than perhaps anywhere else in the US.

Dan Lashof, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defence Council, a respected Washington-based group, told The Independent: “People in Alaska are starting to freak out. The retreat of the sea ice allows the oceans to pound the coast more, and villages there are suffering from the effects of that erosion. There is permafrost melting, roads are buckling, there are forests that have been infested with beetles because of a rise in temperatures. I think residents there feel it’s visible more and more, more than any other place in the country.”

[…]

Mr [Lindsey] Graham, a [South Carolina] Republican, said he had been moved by what he had seen. “Climate change is different when you come here, because you see the faces of people experiencing it. If you go to the people and listen to their stories and walk away with any doubt that something’s going on, you’re not listening.”

I don’t think it’s arrogant to believe that what we do has an effect on our environment. We have profoundly changed the face of our planet in the thousands of years we’ve been here. While we might not be in a position to fully understand the effects of our actions, we must be diligent in evaluating them.

By now, clinging to the idea that we’re not causing any harm is the same as clinging to fossil fuels. Neither of these notions will serve us in the long run. It’s well past time for us to grit our teeth and take some hits in the name of preserving our children’s future.

Slashdot links to this just-for-fun quiz: Is Your Boss a Psychopath?

From Slate’s Dear Prudence:

Prudie would like to take this opportunity to state that oral sex is sex. There is some kind of new-age thinking among kids that oral sex is not sex. This is like saying that shoplifting isn’t stealing because you’re not robbing a bank.

I used to know someone with that opinion…

:>

I haven’t done a thorough analysis or anything, but I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t a trend in my comments. Every now and then, all kinds of strangers will start posting out of the blue (and yes, three people is “all kinds” to me. My readership is small). These people typically only post once (to my knowledge) and then never return.

I’ve wondered why that is for some time, but it only occurred to me today that it might be directly linked to whenever I post about hotly contested current events. While these people don’t necessarily comment on the shackle-raising post, they may choose to linger for a bit to see if there is something they want to comment on. Finding such, they do comment, but then find nothing further to hold their interest, and surf away.

This is highly probable, I believe.

The idea of doing searches for blogs that discuss a particular topic, and then going there to post a comment and never return seems pretty boring to me. I’m typically not interested in reading someone’s blog unless it’s something I’m willing to subscribe to. (By this I mean that the blog is both well-written and engaging, and no, well-written does not mean it has to be grammatically perfect.)

I can’t imagine trolling zillions of blogs all day just so I could share my opinion. I’d rather just post my opinion here and be done with it.

In any case, for awhile I was concerned about the readers I was failing to entice to stay, but now I don’t think I care all that much. Trolls belong on forums ;>