July 10, 2008

Yahoo s New Build Your Own Search Engine Nips at Google s Lead - Webmonkey

Yahoo announced a new initiative Thursday called Build Your Own Search Service, or BOSS. It’s a set of programming tools developers can use to tailor Yahoo’s search index for their own use.

Good idea, but too late.

Official Google Blog: Google Mobile App: faster, easier search on iPhone & iPod Touch

Our first downloadable iPhone application is here. It’s free, and it makes searching faster and easier. It’s never as easy to type on a mobile phone
as on a full keyboard and the mobile network is rarely as fast as a desktop connection. So Google Mobile App starts working as soon as you type.

This would be a lot cooler (and more useful) on an iPhone Tablet.

If vu-graph or viewgraph is used, make all usages consistent, but go with author’s choice.

“Slides” is preferred. Idiomatically “Powerpoints” may be allowed, as in “Powerpoint Rangers.”

Re: Vugraph? Viewgraph?

Re: Vugraph? Viewgraph?

Subject: Re: Vugraph? Viewgraph?
From: Thom Randolph To: “Halter, Meg”
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2000 23:51:29 -0800

Meg:

If you mean the clear plastic sheets on which text and
images are printed, and which text and images are
projected onto a semi-reflective viewing screen by means
of light transmitted through the plastic sheet while the
sheet is positioned on a (usually) horizontal glass
or plastic panel….

The machine is properly referred to as an “overhead
projector”, and the sheets used to carry the text and
images are called “transparencies”. One is called a
“transparency”. The transparent plastic is available
in rolls for properly equipped projectors, or in sheets
with or without cardboard frames.

The term “viewgraph” is sometimes used to mean such a
transparency. I try to avoid using it, since when someone
goes out to purchase blank transparency film, they will
not find it under viewgraph. Dictionary.com does have
a definition for the word, from WordNet, but none of
the unabridged dictionaries I have include it.

I’ve also seen the sheets referred to as “viewgraphs”,
“Vue-graphs”, “Vu-graphs”, “overheads”, and “foils”.

I have always found the term viewgraph to be confusing,
especially when I’ve had to train non-English students.
Of course they’re supposed to “view” it, but there’s not
always a “graph” on it, strictly speaking. On the other
hand, many more people are likely understand what a
projector is, and can by extension understand what an
overhead projector is. Thus, the clear sheets used with
one are easily understood as “overhead projector transparency
sheets”, or just “transparencies” for short.

I hope that helps.

Regards,

Thom Randolph

Op-Ed Columnist - Gail Collins - Obama’s Flip-Flopping - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

But if you look at the political fights he’s picked throughout his political career, the main theme is not any ideology. It’s that he hates stupidity. “I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war,” he said in 2002 in his big speech against the invasion of Iraq. He did not, you will notice, say he was against unilateral military action or pre-emptive attacks or nation-building. He was antidumb.

Very shrewd of Gail Collins. This is one nuance I didn’t pick up in my Obama book. I think she’s absolutely right.

Review of: D.A by Willis, Connie

This was a very nice YA novella. I wish it had been full-length — she’s really good in this genre.

My only complaint is that when the character learns the meaning of the term “D.A.”, she should learn something of its history.

A bracing Brin-like approach to competition and education.

Oxford English Dictionary Urtext

An original text; the earliest version. Also attrib. or as adj.
1932 Times Lit. Suppl. 14 July 511/3 In these volumes..we have the nearest thing possible in Chopin’s case to an Urtext. 1959 Cambr. Rev. 6 June 598/2 Authoritative editions allegedly based on urtexts. 1963 S. WEINTRAUB Private Shaw & Public Shaw iv. 119 The earlier version still retains advocates, because of its more complete, ur-text quality, and the comfortable feeling that no Procrustean games were played with its vocabulary and sentence structure. 1974 Early Music Oct. 259/1 The edition is urtext, with prefatory staves, showing the original clefs and signatures. 1982 Times 2 Apr. 14/2 An urtext edition of the 21 Schubert piano sonatas. 1983 London Rev. Bks 7-20 July 21/4 Elaborate versions often point back to the gospel of Mark as a kind of cryptic Urtext.

I prefer Ur text, like Baltimore clamp (but unlike the Rosetta Stone). Ur is a place name. I veto OED’s single word version, urtext. Hyphenated is wrong, as the examples Baltimore-clamp or baltimore-clamp make clear.

Children Seen, and Heard - The Caucus - Politics - New York Times Blog

On Wednesday morning, in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show, Matt Lauer asked Mr. Obama whether he had made the right call in granting interviews with the girls. Mr. Obama said: “I think we got carried away in the moment. We were having a birthday party and everybody’s laughing and I didn’t catch it quickly enough … We wouldn’t do it again, and we won’t be doing it again.”

It’s absolutely ridiculous that he should feel the need to apologize for something so innocuous.