Stuff that doesn't matter
Warblogging.com has an interesting article (Speaking of empire) about the recent tendency of the US towards an empire. Very interesting to read.
UPDATE: Warblogging is dead by now, however the archives still seem to be up.
UPDATE 2009-07-07: Even the archives are dead by now.
The creation of the Exford English Dictionary is nicely described in “The Professor and the Madman” by Simon Winchester.
The book’s cover describes it as “A tale of murder, insanity, and the making of the Oxford English Dictionary.” It’s an interesting story about how an obviously insane American Army officer ended up being perhaps the greatest single contributor to the OED. This might be one of the first examples of distributed User Innovation or crowdsourcing.
The Lord:
"mankind's activity can languish all too easily, A man soon loves unhampered rest; Hence, gladly I give him a comrade such as you, Who stirs and works and must, as devil, do."
Mephistopheles:
"Quite true! But don't torment yourself too anxiously; For at the point where concepts fail, At the right time a word is thrust in there. With words we fitly can our foes assail, With words a system we prepare, Words we quite fitly can believe, Nor from a word a mere iota thieve." (Denn eben wo Begriffe fehlen, Da stellt ein Wort zur rechten Zeit sich ein. Mit Worten läßt sich trefflich streiten, Mit Worten ein System bereiten, An Worte läßt sich trefflich glauben, Von einem Wort läßt sich kein Jota rauben.)
(Goethe Faust)
“Nor from a word a mere iota thieve.” Talk serves well to attack concepts that are yet unknown. Does it correspond to: “Talk is cheap, show me the code!” in Open Source?
UPDATED posts a little in 2011
My colleague Stefan Haefliger hurt himself on Sunday when using a small scooter. Sorry to hear that, get well soon Stefan. But what do we learn: Keep toys out of reach of adults :-).
Switched today to my new blogging system b2 (thanks for making it free!).
Therefore all old post were lost. Well, they were boring anyway.