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| Wednesday, September 20, 2006 |
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Cheap hotel coffee strategy 
| | My cheap hotel isn't a bad one. The wi-fi is free (though weak, so I'm using my Verizon EvDO card, which works well here), the HVAC works and isn't too noisy, the bathroom lacks the customary noisy fan, the window actually opens a bit, the bed is comfortable, and there's a desk. |
| | But of course, the coffee maker comes with lousy coffee and little packets of powderized non-dairy creamer and sugar. |
| | So last night I stopped at the grocery store nearby, ground 1/8 pound of local gourmet dark roast, bought that, 99¢'s worth of coffee filters and a half-pint of half-and-half, and put the latter in the little refrigerator in the hotel room. This morning I'm enjoying the best coffee I've ever had from a hotel room coffee maker. |
I was overheard to have said...
| | Doc talked a lot about the importance of the metaphors we use when thinking about the Internet. He referred to Lakoff's books about the language as something that largely operates our thinking (the language "speaking" us) as opposed to the everyday understanding of language as something we merely use as a tool to communicate our thoughts (we "speaking" the language). Without having read Lakoff, my impression is that he is mostly re-telling European post-structuralist theories from 20-30 years ago to American audiences nowadays reluctant to read French authors (for whatever reason). |
| | Now I've got a reason to go read those French authors. [Later... ] For what it's worth, I'm not sure George has, either; and I think his science stands on its own. More here. |
| | It's a great privilege to join the Berkman Center — a terrific bunch of smart, generous people, all doing interesting and influential work. Can't wait to get started myself. |
| | By the way, some clues toward the thread I want to draw through my work with Linux Jounal, Berkman and CITS can be found in Turning the World I-Side out, in Linux Journal. |
'servations
| | "Arse", incidentally, has much more raw power than its American counterpart "ass". "Arsehole" packs a bigger punch, too; it is a full-bodied ale of a word, compared with the Budweiser-lite of "asshole". Furthermore, "arse" lends itself to a better class of pun — about art, rather than about donkeys. But I digress. |
| | Really, vegetarians should stay at home, but they don¹t. London is heaving with them. While failing to make decent guests, they also fail to make a difference to animal welfare. Movements for "cruelty-free" meat, such as Compassion in World Farming, could make a difference. But the world is not going to become vegetarian and nor should it. Moreover, a vegetarian who eats dairy products condemns male calves to slaughter. And what is a vegetarian who doesn¹t eat dairy products? A vegan. Vegans are whey-faced, cadaverous lunatics, but they are consistent. |
| | Intelligent design wins the Golden Bossom Award for being neither one thing nor the other. The trophy — for obvious reasons we cannot call it a booby prize — is an amorphous globule placed between two stools, on top of which sits a fish with a beak. |
Day Fire at .5 months
| | Latest info: Size: 84,035 acres Containment: 15 percent Cost: $19,498,601. |
Landmark re-relocation
| | Thanks to fellow radio veteran Dean Landsman for news that WOR's three 689-foot towers in Seacaucus are coming down this morning. The towers have been landmarks near Exit 16 of the New Jersey Turnpike since 1967. From 1935 to 1967, WOR radiated from another landmark: two Eiffel-shaped towers and a wire suspended between them, in Carteret. I believe those were dropped to make room for the new Turnpike. Before that the transmitter was on the roof of Bamberger's in Newark. In radio's early years, most stations were owned by stores, hotels and churches. |
| | Jim Hawkins has a tour, with some history, of the soon-to-be-late Seacaucus facility. |
| | And I got a shot of the site from the window of an airplane recently, on approach to the airport in Newark. That whole series of shots was a good one, featuring shots of the George Washington Bridge, Wanaque Reservoir, a hunk of Bergen County (barely missing a shot of the two houses in Maywood, where I grew up — the old Bergen Mall and E.J. Korvette is as close as I got), the Pulaski Skyway, midtown Manhattan, the WMCA/WNYC facility, WBBR, WEPN, and even one of WOR's new towers in Rutherford. |
| | Here's a list of all the WOR transmitter licenses, construction permits and applications for changes. Interesting that the new facility features shorter towers and a tighter pattern across the city. The lobe to the southwest is pulled in, and there are two deep nulls toward the northwest. What WOR's doing here is becoming less of a regional station and more of an urban one. |
| | And I love that most readers don't give the least shit about this stuff, but about five of them really care. This is for them. |
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