Month: July 2009
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Note to a seriously obese woman
A 530 pound woman complains about being treated like a social pariah: It’s not just the super-obese like me who have to take this punishment: There are people out there who are literally no more than twenty or thirty pounds overweight, yet they have to put up much of the same crap that I do.…
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Please Excuse Robert’s Tardiness
I have been busy doing a lot of writerly activities. I’ve even been blogging quite a bit on Teleread. Quite a bit of what I’m doing will appear later on this blog (in some form). It’s one of those times when so much is going on that blogging is the last thing on my mind.
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Random comments about Henry Louis Gates and false arrest
You may have heard about the false arrest of Henry Louis Gates (read Dr. Gates’ statement here). Below are some fascinating comments I found from the New York Times discussion section. First, I wanted to mention that Henry Louis Gates deserves credit for discovering by accident the first African-American novel ever published in 1859. Here’s…
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Ducks lecturing on Lorenz (and other comments about sex)
Jacob Bronowski on the dangers of applying lessons learned from the animal kingdom to humans (mentioned in the Ascent of Men film series). “…the wonderful work on animal behaviour by Konrad Lorenz naturally makes us seek for likeness between the duck and the tiger and man; or B.F. Skinner’s psychological work on pigeons and rats.…
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You make a mistake when you when say, “make no mistake”
TX Blogger Robert Nagle dissects the strange cliches which US presidents use.
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Wikipedia Follies (Part 29)
It probably comes as no surprise, but the fact that Wikipedia has an article about the musical career of William Shatner but not an article about one of America’s most talented authors underscores the project’s inherent inability to value cultural objects. See also: my takedown of Wiki-deletionists.
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Job Interview Test
Yesterday I interviewed for a technical writer job. Three people interviewed me, and overall it went well. At the end, they asked me to take a short written test. This was a little unusual, but it went fine. They handed me a written set of instructions and left me alone with a laptop. On the…
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The World’s Only Swimming Channel
I’m at a loss to explain this. I do not have cable TV, but my TV has an antenna which receives 8-10 major channels, plus about 15-20 others. I almost never watch those minor channels (actually I almost never watch the major channels either), but recently I found a channel with swimming – lots of…
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Kindle and the decline of cultural signaling
James Wolcott on cultural signaling and the Kindle: In New York City (can’t speak for the other metro systems across this great land), every subway car is a rolling library, every ride an opportunity to spy on the reading tastes of fellow passengers and make snap judgments that probably wouldn’t hold up in court. Single…
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Psychoanalytic interpretations of Wizard of Oz by random people
Random & Funny Interpretations of the Movie (and Book) Wizard of Oz. By Texas blogger Robert Nagle
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Charles Dickens on Email (1856)
Charles Dickens on electronic communication: O, what a thing it is, in a time of danger and in the presence of death, the shining of a face upon a face! I have heard it broached that orders should be given in great new ships by electric telegraph. I admire machinery as much is any man,…
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My thoughts on Video on Demand with the Roku
As you know, I bought that $99 Roku box that lets me watch 12,000 Instant Videos on Demand on my TV set. Instant Video on demand is a freebie if you have any Netflix subscription. (my subscription is $9 per month). It has totally overwhelmed me. It has excited me about movie watching in a…
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More on Questions for the Superintelligent
Yesterday I posted a list of open-ended questions that I would ask the woman with the highest IQ. I enjoyed composing these questions so much that I’ve decided to try to answer each one myself. I plan to make this a semi-regular feature. I’ll spend an entire post to answer a single question. My answer…
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Friday Links
Despite my lack of blogging, I regularly come across some things that are amazing and bloggable. I have second thoughts about sharing them because 1)most other bloggers already know about them, and 2)I have so few readers as it is. I’m going to resolve to do a linksdump at least once per week (although to…
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Houston Job Search Links
Here is a collection of job/career links which might be useful for the Houston job seeker. A good source of the company listings is Houston Business Journal’s Book of Lists (which unfortunately is available only in print — although most local libraries possess a copy). This is a work in progress. If a link doesn’t…
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Questions for the Superintelligent
Ouch! My computer Viewsonic monitor has stopped working! Luckily it’s still under warranty, but I still need to make do while I wait for a replacement. I’m thinking of buying a second monitor and living a 2 monitor existence (especially because I’ll be doing more video editing). Today has been a wash because of the…