Well…Pattern Recognition is 2 years old today, after morphing from Blogger, to Radio, and finally to WordPress. Here’s my first month of posts, and while there’s not a ton of content there, it does include some ruminations on seeing Jack Valenti at Duke and a few other interesting tidbits.
Thanks to all the friends that I’ve made since then, and those that read this little corner of the Interweb I call my own.
The question is now “Is there anything that Google can’t improve on?”
They made searching better. Then they made news easier to gather. Price comparison shopping.
Now there’s Google Maps, which seems to improve upon the standard that Mapquest set in nearly every way. The maps are completely interactive, you can get directions using simple strings like “41164 to 37375” and just linking zip codes. Zooming gets you right on top of individual streets…click here, and go to the tightest zoom and you’ve got where our house is. I’m blown away.
It’s that time of year again….Carnival or Mardi Gras, whichever you want to call it, it’s here. As this and Halloween are my two favorite holidays, I’m just the tiniest bit bummed that I can’t be down in the Big Easy enjoying it, but I’ll just dream of King Cake, Chicory Coffee, Beignets, and beads.
Ernst Mayr, the evolutionary biologist who has been called “the Darwin of the 20th Century” has died aged 100.
Mayr was incredibly influential in evolutionary theory, and his definition of “species” is still the most prominent definition in use today for the concept. I read his work extensively while I was doing philosophy of science, and he was truly one of the great scientists of the 20th century. While he can no longer defend his positions, there are generations of scholars that will do his work for him. I can only hope to count myself in that group.
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It was Lundi Gras 4 years ago today that Betsy and I ran down to New Orleans and got married by an Orleans Parish judge. I’m not the sort for mushy confessions on my blog, but I will say that I can’t imagine spending my life with anyone else. We’ve been partners for 12 or so years, and husband and wife for 4, and it just gets better every moment. Just in case I don’t say it enough, I love you Bets. 😀 |
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You may notice if you check the certificate above that technically our anniversary is Feb 26th…at least, that’s the day in 2001 we tied the knot. However, being the wacko’s that we are, we decided it would be more fun to celebrate on Lundi Gras. Since Lundi Gras is dependent on Mardi Gras, and Mardi Gras moves depending on Easter, and Easter moves depending on the phases of the moon…suffice it to say that it keeps us on our toes. Oh…and ignore the terrible website design of the wedding pictures linked above. I’ll just blame not knowing any better at the time, and remind everyone it was pre-SILS. |
…you pass a car that’s parked beside the road, and soaped on it’s window is the slogan:
“Philosophers do it a posteriori“
I was just notified that I’m having a mini-review that I wrote published in MAKE, the new magazine/book from O’Reilly. Mark Frauenfelder posted a call for reviews on BoingBoing, so I thought what the hell? Sat down, whipped up a couple hundred words on something, and got word from him yesterday that they were going to run it. What’s the product? Pick up issue two of the “mook” and find out. 🙂
After thinking about it last night, after all the book reviews I’ve written, the academic papers, the random poems that got published during my undergrad days…this is the first piece of writing I’ve gotten paid for. That makes me smile a lot.
It’s not updated much, but still…very cool.
Especially, evidently, North Carolina.
For those interested, there’s an absolutely mad trailer for the upcoming Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean collaboration Mirrormask up now. Gaiman wrote it, McKean directed it, and special effects and such were handled by the Jim Henson Company…the trailer is amazing but hard to describe.
Think: Alice in Wonderland imagined by Dali while on an absinthe binge. Or, alternatively, Narnia if written by H.P. Lovecraft on a bad day.
