Retro Injuries

I keep glancing curiously at the faint scratches on the backs of my hands, and then remembering oh yes, that's from sticking them way, way into the VCR in an attempt to retrieve some crayons.

Yes, we still have a VCR. Mainly for crayon storage at this point.

I was going to say "solely for crayon storage," but then remembered that it's also decorative.

Me Being Right

The internet is only as good an information source as the information that people put on the internet. Duh, I know. It's just that sometimes people seem to attach a sort of weight to stuff on the internet that may not be justified.

Often the information that people put on the internet is stunningly good. Or at least passably good. But sometimes, if the actual information that people have to put there is quite sparse, or mistaken, it's...not that good.

Following is a dramatically paraphrased version of an exchange I recently had:

ME: That photo you've identified as person X is not X, it's actually person Y.

PERSON: Explain how!

ME: Gladly. You see, the archives holds a vintage 19th century copy of that very photo, signed in pen "Yours, etc., Y." I take this as solid evidence that the photo depicts Y, rather than X, who is nowhere mentioned on it.

PERSON: We got this copy from someone who told us it was X. Also, Google Images has it with X's name. So basically, conflicting information, and we're going to leave the identification as is.

ME: Suit yourself. I'll just be up here thinking to myself about how wrongity wrong wrong you are, unless I can find some evidence suggesting that X was in the habit of signing Y's name to his photos.


I mean, yeah, I get that it's a pain to change a whole display (especially since there's no known photo of X to replace the current--wrong--one), and seriously, the guy's been dead for 150 years no matter who he was so it's not as if anyone is going to know the difference.

And sure, conflicting information, that happens. Sometimes--kind of a lot of times, actually--it's impossible to be sure who's in an old picture. But I have this PRIMARY SOURCE, signed in the very hand of Y (or X, if he liked to sign Y's name...maybe this was a thing they did for fun), and you have...Google Images, and someone who had a copy of this picture and thought it was X.

Gimme a vintage 19th century copy of the same photo signed "Yours, etc., X," and you have conflicting information. When you have rumors and a vague internet reference versus a PHYSICAL ITEM with CONTEMPORARY IDENTIFYING INFORMATION on it, you have...you being wrong.

Sorry about all the shouting. I just think this is kind of hilarious.

Don't get me wrong, I love the internet to pieces and I have every intention of literally marrying it as soon as that inevitably becomes legal (we've had same-sex marriage in Massachusetts for a while, so any minute now). But loving someone or some combination of software and networked servers means recognizing the flaws as well as the good things.

My Technology is Abandoning Me

As most everyone who uses it must have heard by now, Google has announced that it is shutting down Reader. Sigh. Dude, that's my window to the internet! I will have to find another window through which to view the internet, and that's a hassle.

I remember there was some talk of Reader closing quite a while ago, but nothing came of it for so long that I had mostly forgotten about it.

I've also just been informed by my Hotmail account that Microsoft will soon be 'upgrading' this account to Outlook. This comes after several previous invitations to upgrade to Outlook, all of which I have declined on accounta I think the Outlook interface is ugly. And the only customization you can do is change from one glaring, dramatic color to another. I'm going to miss the little graphics you could put on your Hotmail account.

It's been a rough couple of days for my web habits. I suppose next I'll hear that Amazon is going to stop shipping to Massachusetts.

Monsters! Science! Giddy Joy!

You must join me in saluting an awesome article summarized by Scicurious at Scientopia. It is awesome because it looks at monsters from Dungeons and Dragons (in the course of some totally scientific research about gaze following).

I wish I'd thought of that.

Well, you can be sure that my entire future research energy is going to be dedicated to figuring out a way to make D&D relevant to some totally scientific medical library topic.

Perhaps this will give me the 'in' I need to begin my study of the information needs of liches.

You have inspired me, Levy J, Foulsham T, and Kingstone A! Time to haul out my battered research texts, by which I mean the Monster Manual and associated monster-heavy tomes. There are a lot of monster books published for the d20 System under the Open Gaming License, and for a while I bought every one I could find.

You can never have too many monsters, that's what I say.

I Could Use That Much Sleep, Though

Because everyone loves to hear about other peoples' dreams, here's last night's entertainment at the Theater of My Brain.

I dreamed that I was very tired (also true in real life), so I went to bed, and when I woke up I realized I had slept for three days straight, and missed my flight to Portland, OR, for Christmas (this flight is real).

I was very distressed that not only had I missed a holiday vacation of awesome familyness, but it was all my fault, and I was therefore not going to be able to get any use from the enormous amounts of money that I spent on the plane tickets (the high cost of these tickets is true in real life).

Doing a little highly sophisticated dream interpretation, I perceive that certain themes occupy my mind:

• sleep
• time/being late*
• money* 

Obviously my spirit is troubled, and vague premonitions of ill fortune disturb my peace of mind. I should take a nap.


*These themes also appear in another recent dream, suggesting ongoing preoccupation.

Goose-Related Observations

I saw that someone had won a "Golden Goose Award."

Why Golden Goose? I thought. What's a golden goose? There was never a golden goose! There was an ordinary-looking goose that laid golden eggs!

I was filled with outrage.

Then I found out that there actually was a golden goose (egg type unspecified), helpfully noted by Wikipedia as "not to be confused with the goose that laid the golden eggs." Upon reading the summary of the tale, I recalled that actually I did once know about the Golden Goose, because I remember all the people being stuck together. I suppose it must have slipped my mind in the 25 years since I first read it.

Thank you, Wikipedia. I will not make that mistake again, I can tell you.

It remains unclear why someone named an award after this Golden Goose, or whether the recipient now has the power to make people stick together after the first one tries to pluck a goose feather. One can only hope so.

In seemingly unrelated yet also goose-related news, I understand that kiwi fruits are also known as Chinese Gooseberries. Chinese geese must be enormous.

I want one.

At Least I Had Clothes On

My work sent around one of those helpful "check on your withholding status because the end of the year is coming and we're going to be preparing your W2" notes recently.

I can only assume that it was this which prompted my brain to deliver me a dream in which it was April 15th and I had completely forgotten about taxes.

I was frantically explaining to someone that it was all because of the baby having distracted me (a pretty good excuse) and trying to gather my paperwork, convinced that I could still get it done in time.

With online filing, this is probably true, although not recommended, so I was right not to be totally panicking in the dream.

"Having a baby should just automatically get you an extension!" I said.

So thanks, I guess, work. That was entertaining.