KVARESTO8
Walking Projects
Fairfax Cross County Trail, 41 miles: completed 2 July 2010.
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Monthly Archives: July 2008
Shortening
Adam DuVander explains the new bit.ly service: it’s TinyURL with an API.
Incorruptible: an update: 3
We can see the end of the tunnel. Sonya brought in the remaining props yesterday evening; all we have left to do is to pack the body bags and to dress up the letters. Andy and Andrea simplified the intermission changeover, so Leta and I got through it in seven minutes. The light board is new to me, and I like it better: compared to the previous one, it’s a lot easier to jump back into a cue when you have wandered off somewhere you don’t want to be. (As happened yesterday when I double-bumped the GO to start the second act.) Overall, last night’s run was pretty clean; a little more polishing and cleanup and we’ll be ready for a preview audience on Thursday. I’m not yet sure who my sound operator will be tonight, but we can deal. Neil put together a kit of pictures for the press (link updated 18 August 2008).
The teeth within our mouths
Of the beasts of the field, and of the fishes of the sea, and of all foods that are acceptable in my sight you may eat, but not in the living room.
Ian Frazier’s vintage “Laws Concerning Food and Drink…” hits the spot.
(Link via Scott Rosenberg’s Wordyard.)
Cruciform
Henry Phillips received a patent for his screwdriver and screws on this day in 1936, as Randy Alfred summarizes. The fastener and tool were designed with power tools and automated assembly lines in mind, and indeed General Motors adopted the system for the 1936 Cadillac. Supposedly it’s harder to overtorque a Phillips screw.
The Phillips cam-out—when you’ve gone far enough and the tool pops out of the screw—has led to plenty of workshop profanity. And loosening a machine-driven Phillips screw with a hand-held screwdriver has apparently reminded many, judging from their language, of the tenacity of a female dog protecting its newborns.
Still, remember Henry Phillips gently. His screws are holding your life together.
Not to mention your set.
A job for the Horn Farm Paste Mob
bit-player asks an interesting question: are there any board positions in Scrabble that are stymied, i.e., in which no additional words can be formed? (Let’s stipulate a two-player game, and that only acceptable words are played. As we know, it’s perfectly legal to invent a word and play it, so long as your opponent doesn’t challenge it; it may be in your opponent’s interest not to challenge a bogus word.) I suspect that such a stymied position, if it exists, uses all four of the S’s. This is actually a two-part problem: find a board position and state of the players’ racks that is stymied, and (harder) find a board position that is stymied no matter how the remaining tiles are distributed.
Aw, nuts
But not a big surprise: following the recent closure of its Penn Quarter store, local independent bookseller Olsson’s has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, reports DCist and Anita Huslin. My list of favorite things in D.C. keeps getting shorter.
