April 16th: Today in 1746 the British put an effective end to the second Jacobite Rebellion crushing the mostly highland army at Culloden. As battles go it was a massacre and was followed by executions and exile for many more on the losing side. As a last gasp of a lost cause it is of [...]

Pettiness: I was reminded of one more Eurodisney annoyance today, the popcorn. I love popcorn and will eat it darn near anytime, but I want it salted. In Disneyland Resort Paris, they only have it sugared. An entire park filled with popcorn stands whafting the glorious popcorn smell and all of it is unedible. Les [...]

This is a nice feature I found on the National Geographic site while looking for some photo advice. It is their photo of the day feature and they are very nice. Go back a few days and look at the volcano shot from Hawaii. I am a sucker for volcano shots.

Woman defends home with a garden gnome, hope she comes out of it better than this lady who did the same with a pellet gun. They really don’t like you to defend yourself in England. Six months for a pellet gun, I betcha the gnome gets her a year.

April 15th: Today in 1802 poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy see a big patch of daffodils along Lake Ullswater in the Lake District of England. This sight, unsuprisingly, inspires him to write a poem, Daffodils. I am not a huge Wordsworth fan, as you might be able to tell, but dedicate today’s entry [...]

I am often more suprised by competence than by incompetence out there in the wild world so this story doesn’t suprise me. Students at MIT have created an automatic Computer Science paper generator that creates scientific papers at random. They are nonsense of course, but look very real to someone who doesn’t actually try to [...]

Came across this article on the staff of the Onion. The Onion is there every week for me, but it is pretty hit or miss. Some stories are brilliant, sometimes I suspect that committee think has gotten to them. Still, I check it every week like a pavlovian dog so they must hit often enough [...]

April 14th: Today in 1865 President Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth. I went to High School at Surrattsville High School and every day passed the house of Mary Surratt who was hung as one of the conspirators in the murder. Since then there have been calls for a pardon for her, but [...]

April 13th: In 1984 Pete Rose became the only National League player to collect 4,000 hits. Pete, of course has had a long fall since breaking the all time hit record in 1985. Banned from Baseball in 1989, he was banned from the Hall of Fame in 1991. Many of us who had him as [...]

A good article reviewing various online music stores is up on Extreme Tech. I don’t really agree with some of there calls, they run contrary to mine in that they really like streaming, which doesn’t interest me as much as owning my music does. The review does cover all the big services and lists a [...]