Edwardian Movie

Someone shared a link to this movie on Facebook (at least part of it was filmed in Manchester, England in 1901). What makes it so interesting to watch is that the video has been edited to make it more normal. If you’ve ever seen early films, it seems like they’re running on fast forward. (This film from early New York shows people moving very quickly.) This apparently stems from the fact that early cameras were only able to shoot about 18 frames per second, which is slower than the human eye functions (24 fps is what looks normal to us). In order to keep the movie from looking jerky (think flip-book turned too slow), they played the movie back at the correct 24 fps, which made all the movement slightly faster than normal.

This film, however, corrects for that by using a computer to generate a few extra frames so that it has 24 fps and can be played at normal speed. It makes a remarkable difference because it makes people look so much more real. In the sped-up originals, they seem more like cartoon characters than real people.

A Study in Geek Conversation

The following is a true story.

Husband: I need to start thinking about what I’m going to do for food this weekend [at an 18^th century re-enactment].

Me: Yes, you need your vittles.

[Pause]

Me: I wonder where the word “vittles” comes from?

Husband: It’s a bastardization of the word “victuals.” Now, ask me to make up some b.s. about where the word “victuals” comes from.

Me: It’s Latin.

Husband: I thought it probably was.

Me: I would think it’s related to words like “vitality.”

[Thoughtful pause]

Husband: It’s probably from the Latin “vitae,” which means “life.”

Me: Yeah, that’s the root of “vitality.”

Husband: You’re on the internet. Look it up. We need our daily geek quota.

[I look it up on the internet]

From English Language and Usage:

c.1300, vitaylle (singular), from Anglo-Fr. and O.Fr. vitaille, from L.L. victualia “provisions,” noun use of plural of victualis “of nourishment,” from victus “livelihood, food, sustenance,” from base of vivere “to live” (see vital). Spelling altered early 16c. to conform with Latin, but pronunciation remains “vittles.”

Conclusion: So, we were right that it was originally a Latin word, although we didn’t get the root quite correct (although we were clearly in the neighborhood). What we didn’t know, however, is that the word “victuals” is actually pronounced the same as “vittles.”

As Paul Harvey would say, “And now you know the rest of the story.”

When Our Leaders Become Evil….

Said on the floor of the House of Representatives by Sheila Jackson Lee, Representative of the 18^th Congressional District of Texas:

“Don’t condemn the gangbangers. They’ve got guns that are trafficked — that are not enforced, that are straw purchased and they come into places even that have strong gun laws. Why? Because we don’t have sensible gun legislation.”

Don’t condemn the gangbangers….

Don’t condemn the gangbangers….

Don’t condemn the gangbangers….

Mind = BLOWN.

I never thought such an illogical, perverted sense of justice could ever invade America, but there it is: criminals are not to blame for committing crimes.

So, whose fault is it that they commit crimes?

Apparently, it’s ours (meaning law-abiding citizens). We somehow force them to buy guns illegally (straw-purchasing is illegal and has been for years). And we somehow force them to trade guns illegally (it’s illegal to sell a gun to a felon and it’s illegal for a felon to have a gun in his possession). And we somehow force them to cross state and/or municipal lines with said guns in violation of that location’s gun laws. Oh, and since the cops didn’t catch them doing it, then it’s our fault if they then commit a crime with said illegal gun because we didn’t enforce the law before the crime was committed.

But if we had more laws regulating guns, we could stop that.

How?

See, I took this class in college called phil-o-so-phy. It’s a fancy word that basically means thinking about thinking. You might think that the sky’s pretty at sunset, but phil-o-so-phy asks why you think that. And, for that matter, what is the definition of “pretty”?

One tenant of phil-o-so-phy is that thinking should make sense. You could also say “logical” or “reasonable.” If I say 2+2=4, you see that as sensible. According to all accepted rules of mathematics, that is correct. If I say that 2+2=1,236,769, you would say that’s illogical. That is wrong according to mathematical rules.

So here’s a simple bit of logic for Ms. Jackson Lee:

1)      If current gun laws aren’t stopping crime (according to her); and

2)      If we aren’t able to enforce the laws we do have (also according to her);

…then, according to her own premises, the logical conclusion is:

Adding more laws will not stop crime, nor will those new laws be any more enforceable than the laws we already have.

At which point, you ask: What’s the point of passing more? What’s the point of doing something again that didn’t work the first time? Einstein himself said that was the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Now, doesn’t that make sense?

I’m not sure whether we’re headed faster towards the world of “1984″ or “Atlas Shrugged,” but when blithering idiots like that are in charge of our government, it’s for certain we’re entering some sort of dark, dystopian era.

Although, Representative Jackson Lee not an idiot so much as she is evil.

Yes, evil.

When someone commits an act of evil (a crime) and then you say they’re not to blame for it, but rather the fault lies with the victim (i.e. the society who had to bear the brunt of the crime), then that is evil.

In fact, I would hold that’s even more evil than the criminal and the original crime, because the criminal is usually honest that he’s doing something wrong; he knows and he does it anyways. (I say this from experience, having worked for nearly 3 years in a law office; our criminal clients almost always admit some level of guilt.) What’s not honest is blaming the victim.

This is like a man who hits his wife and then tells her, “You made me do it.” According to Ms. Jackson Lee, gangbangers aren’t to blame for shooting people; society is to blame for not keeping the gangbangers from breaking the law. We were asking for it.

I’m not much of a Bible-quoter, but the prophet Micah warned that the destruction of Israel would come because the “heads of the house of Jacob detest justice and make crooked that which was straight.”

And I can’t think of a better example of the straight being made crooked than by Representative Jackson Lee’s remark, “Don’t condemn the gangbangers.”

Even if you don’t believe in Divine Justice, simple logic will tell you that any system which turns the victim into the criminal and the criminal into the victim will not long survive.

And don’t think she’s Texas’ problem. According to her website, “Congresswoman Jackson Lee has been a leader, setting policy for the security of America’s airports, chemical plants, refineries, hospitals and other critical infrastructures.”

That’s not environmental policy she’s setting; that’s as a “senior Member of the Committee on Homeland Security.” That means someone who says gangbangers aren’t to blame for being violent criminals, and who obviously can’t think logically, is in charge of the policies which guard our airports, chemical plants, refineries, hospitals, and other critical infrastructures.

Talk about putting the lunatics in charge of the asylum.

BiC Pens for Her

When people display a sense of humor, my faith in humanity is restored a little bit.

Background: Apparently BiC Corporation couldn’t afford to have two different slogans for their products, so they applied their “for Her!” razor slogan to…

Ink pens.

Result: Hilarity on Amazon.

Someone has answered my gentle prayers and FINALLY designed a pen that I can use all month long! I use it when I’m swimming, riding a horse, walking on the beach and doing yoga. It’s comfortable, leak-proof, non-slip and it makes me feel so feminine and pretty! Since I’ve begun using these pens, men have found me more attractive and approchable. It has given me soft skin and manageable hair and it has really given me the self-esteem I needed to start a book club and flirt with the bag-boy at my local market. My drawings of kittens and ponies have improved, and now that I’m writing my last name hyphenated with the Robert Pattinson’s last name, I really believe he may some day marry me! I’m positively giddy. Those smart men in marketing have come up with a pen that my lady parts can really identify with.

_______

A user-submitted image on Amazon

BIC Cristal For Her Ball Pen

Dear Bic, thank you for this charming pen, although I do wish the ink were scented, perhaps like strawberries or lilacs or kittens.

However, as much as most women would like to have a Cristal for Her Ball, sadly we do not have balls. Could you kindly change the name to Bic Cristal for Her Ovary? It would be so nice to have sparkly ovaries.

Thank you!!!!! <3 <3 :0)

______

My goodness. I don’t know how I ever lived without a pen made especially for my delicate female hands. And in such pretty shiny colors too. Everyone knows that women are just like squirrels and we absolutely must have pretty shiny objects. Heaven forbid we try and write with just a simple regular black or blue pen. Why, the depression of such a fate would be enough to cause one to give up writing altogether. Thanks to Bic for it’s crystal shiny clear understanding of how to market to women and provide products that we so desperately need. And for Bic’s lack of condescension and patronizing efforts to create something for us poor delicate females and in solving such a monumental problem of huge, big, unwieldy, and plain masculine pens.

_____

OMG, I have to steal this. It has to be my official propaganda poster.

Gee, and here I’ve been using man pens all my life. It’s about time we women had a more expensive pen to use that only comes in pastel colors! We’ve come a long way baby.

_____

I love them! Right from the first time I used them, my hand was no longer strained by those terribly enormous manly pens. I noticed the difference immediately after, when applying make-up: my hand was steady and creative. Everyone kept asking what had I done to look so fabulous. I can’t wait for the 2.0 version, that comes with pen on one end, and eyeshadow on the other.

Tasteless News

I’ve complained before that today’s news outlets are sorry. (I mean “sorry” in the Southern definition of the word, which means disgraceful–with the implication that the object of the discussion doesn’t even feel shame for their faults.) Most of the time they’re trying to pass off gossip as news.

Today, for instance, the top news stories on MSN include such fascinating news articles as whether or not Ellen DeGeneres and her soon-to-be-wife want to have a baby, and the fact that a two-headed pig was born in China, but nary a mention on the front page that North Korea keeps threatening to launch a missile–possibly a nuclear warhead–at the United States.

Silly me for thinking that the news that our country might be attacked or forced into war might be relevant to my life (and the lives of many other Americans) when, clearly, Ellen DeGeneres’ reproduction decision is of more impact to my personal life.

This article from the Daily Mail also caught my attention a little while back:

How the seven dwarfs of Auschwitz fell under the spell of Dr Death:
The hideous experiments carried out by Nazi Josef Mengele on seven trusting brothers and sisters

Having studied the Holocaust in both high school and college–and I seem to recall I wrote a paper on Mengele–I’m past the point of finding stories like this one shocking. But what I did find surreal is that, in this news article about a serious and horrific subject–which touches on death, survival, and the depravity of some humans’ souls–the right-hand sidebar was filled with celebrity news which frequently (at the time I originally read it) featured starlets falling out of their clothes/bikinis.

You would think that whoever put the article together would say, you know, it’s tacky to advertise meaningless Hollywood news next to a story about the Holocaust. Let’s turn that sidebar off.

Instead, having it there makes the story (which was otherwise decently presented) look like just one more piece of cheap entertainment for public consumption.

I’m not British, but I seem to recall that the Daily Mail is not known for its intellectual pieces. If you’re going to be an entertainment rag, just be an entertainment rag. By trying to tackle serious subjects in the midst of Hollywood’s lewdness and depravity, you just make yourselves look like idiots and you demean your serious subject. (And MSN needs to decide where it’s going to go: entertainment or news; you can’t straddle the line indefinitely.)

Does no one in the news media have any common sense?

 

 

Close Encounters of the Owlish Kind

You know how I said our phone (including internet) was working again?

Well, it stopped. Again.

I have not been having a terribly good week. Monday morning we woke up to snow (where’s spring? In Tennessee, you’re supposed to be able to plant anything after Easter because the danger of frost has passed). We also woke up to no phone line.

It was cold in the den Monday, because our radiator finally died. So I went out to the barn to get an old space heater. When I went upstairs, though, I heard something scrambling around overhead. I ignored it–thinking it was squirrels or a buzzard on the roof (when the buzzards get on the metal roof on our house, it sounds like they’re about to fall through it)–then something white flashed up in the rafters.

What the hell was that?

I slunk around, dodging boxes of fabric and junk, and then it flashed overhead again. It was a definitely a wing with white feathers, tipped with gray. And it was big. But every time I tried to get closer, it flew to the opposite end of the barn. Finally, though, I saw the outline of an owl, and then I got a brief look at its face. (We’ve since confirmed with bird watchers that it is, oddly enough, a barn owl.)

If we could get our owl to sit still long enough for a picture, it might look like this.

So that made my day a bit better. It’s not everyday that you have a close encounter with an owl as big as your 18-pound cat.

I’ve spent the week monitoring it. Every time I went back upstairs, it was still there. I got concerned, though, when I went up there at night and it hadn’t left; I was afraid it might not know how to get back out. We have a window at one end that my husband boarded up because there wasn’t any glass left in it. I took down the board, thinking the owl might have an easier time figuring out how to fly out of it, instead of going back down the stairs. Then I turned out the upstairs light and the downstairs ones too, because I was afraid it might not be able to tell night from day with all that light.

Last night, while I was working on the computer, I heard an owl calling nearby. I told my husband, “That’s probably our barn owl saying, ‘Hey, ladies, come up to my place.’”

He needs to earn his keep, though. We have had a problem in the past with mice chewing holes in our canvas tents (despite the fact that we keep them stored in plastic boxes, they still manage to find a way in).  When you have close to $2,000 worth of tentage, you get a bit tetchy about it.

I was going to put out some poison to keep the mice out of our stuff, but I don’t want the owl eating a poisoned mouse. So I won’t put the poison out, but in exchange, he better start eating some mice. (It’d be nice if he could reduce the overall population, since we keep getting them in the house; I’ve killed 3 in 3 weeks.)

Up and Running Again

Just to add insult to injury, not only did my hard drive go out last week, but our phone service has been down most of the week, which meant no internet at our house.

My husband has my computer restored, however, and I’ve got most of my essential software back on it. And, as of yesterday, the phone was working again (although I’m not as confident in it; it’s been up before, only to go back out again). So maybe I can go back to my regularly-scheduled business.

My husband’s tools will soon be organized like this.

I have to admit, though, that I did accomplish a lot this past week while I had no computer or internet service. The weather was pretty decent, so I spent several days doing a major clean up of our barn/garage. I filled the back of our truck up with trash (and have more to go!) and used nearly an entire box of 10-penny nails. There are so many things hanging from the walls now that it looks like an old-timey general store. I still have 2-3 more days worth of work to finish getting it completely organized, but the weather has turned icky (as it seems to be in most of the country right now), so I’m not going to get to work on it again for a week or more.

As a follow-up warning to backing up your data:

Saving your “My Documents” folder is great, but that usually doesn’t contain everything that you might like to save.

• Make a back-up of your address book/contacts program. (I lost this at work and it sucked big time.)
• Make a back-up of your e-mail program (e.g. Outlook)
• Back-up your internet favorites/bookmarks
• If you have programs that allow you save settings/preferences (like Scrivener), back-up those settings files.
• Back-up game downloads, custom maps, etc.
• Back-up playlists (this is not the same as backing up your music; it has to be done separately)
• Back-up your e-books (Amazon and Smashwords makes it easy to re-download anything you’ve ever bought from them, but you’ll have to hunt and peck to find all of your free downloads from places like Google and Project Gutenberg. So just back up your e-reader every once in a while and save yourself the hassle.)

Also, when you download software or drivers for your computer, save a copy of the executable file to your backup drive. (I now have a folder on my spare hard drive called “reinstall.”) This makes it easy to reload all of your software and saves time. (Don’t forget to save your registration codes, too! If you need to, make a text file with all the codes in it and save that in your Reinstall folder, too.)