things twice

What it’s about

It started with “google” — an internet term which became a standard word in any word class and in any language. Then it was “blog”, which is apparently the word that most quickly has been entered in French dictionaries.
But where I live, “Stumble” tops them all. People can be ‘thumbs-upped’ for their great stumbles. It’s the best example I can think of of an idea which in itself is great, but which, when put into practice, not only proves itself as great in the way it was meant, but also has a potential for growth in all possible directions, which the originator could never have imagined.
The basic idea is this: say you’re interested in cats. You look for pictures …

I try to be meek and mild. I try to be humourous too. And I’m always serious. Honestly. To some people, those don’t seem to go together well.
I’ve never received more complaints — verging on the indignant — than after I wrote about Wedding Song that
It may be a silly song, hastily written, badly rehearsed, and with some of the least successful poetic images Dylan has ever written (“I love you more than blood” – yuck!)
I’m sorry if I hurt someone’s feelings by trashing their favourite song, but I do think it’s a silly song; all reports agree that it was hastily written; and the recording bears ample evidence to the short rehearsal time, even though the performance miraculously …

And, gee, it’s nice to be here!

I’ve collected some browser statistics from the visitor tracker for the blog. IE is still in the lead, but nowhere near the 90% which was the state of affairs at the main site before november 1, 2004. A third of the visitors now use Firefox/Mozilla, which is what specialist’s and web developers’ sites usually have. I’m very satisfied with you!
The main site statistics are not as accurate — they only track the last 100 visitors — but there, the figures are 68%–18% at the moment. A little less for FF, which is expected, but still a good share.
Those of you who haven’t made the change yet, may want to read my top seven reasons not to use the thing …

Going off the rails
Norman Lebrecht has a lot of critical insight to share for those who care about the classical music scene (I don’t know if I do, anymore, but I do appreciate people caring). Recently (well, in January anyway — I’m slow) there were reports of railway stations in England playing classical music over the speakers, with the effect that the crime rate dropped dramatically.
“Wonderful! Behold the soothing effect of classical music on the human mind!” We’ve heard it before (“Mozart makes you smarter”, etc.).
Lebrecht comes to a different conclusion:
It works as a deterrent effect rather than a corrective one. Hooligans are not reformed by Mozart, so much as driven away by a noise that is as …

Now that I’ve come up with some new tabs, I think I’ve earned the right to talk about something else again. I’ve revamped my computer lately, and found some stuff that I thought I’d pass on.
After two years of heavy use, loads of downloads, installations, ex-stallations, trial versions etc., my computer was becoming excruciatingly slow — so slow, I couldn’t stand it anymore and decided it was time to do something more drastic than just a defragmentation.
The first step was a major clean-up of registry, junk files, etc. It’s not a good idea to mess around in the registry too much on your own (and if you don’t know what/where it is, don’t worry), but there are many programs …

I’m getting more and more comfortable with this blogging software. The latest additions are, as you may notice, a list of recent comments in the sidebar, and a different color to my own comments. What you may not notice, since it is not noticeable anywhere, is that I’ve installed some logging equipment — now I can track down what you had for breakfast and the angle of your screen.
Not to worry — that was a slight exaggeration. It’s fun, though. What is recorded is browsers, referrers, number of hits, that kind of things. I notice that a little more than half of the blog readers use Firefox. The statistics I have for the main site (available here) show …

The Nation | Article | Our Godless Constitution | Brooke Allen

As the Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion — as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity of Musselmen — and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

The Treaty of Tripoli, 1797 (endorsed by president John Adams, unanimously ratified by the senate)