September 2004

Puzzle Pirates

Puzzlepirates.com is an online game in which you play a Pirate character in an ocean world. Hundreds of your fellow player Pirates swarm these Isles and Sea-lanes. For Pirates who love acronyms, Puzzle Pirates is an massively multi-player online roleplaying game. Site has an active community forum. A good review of website can be found at warcry.

It all begins when a pirate purchases a boat. To sail that boat, the now-captain pirate must create a crew and name them. The crew doesn't need additional pirates immediately, though, they can hire jobbers or use NPPs (Non-Puzzle Pirates) to start their career. As friends are made, they may decide to join a crew full time. Doing so usually guarantees a larger portion of the "cut" when booty is won, and it certainly reduces the amount of time spent looking for work. Only officers in a crew can sail the boats, and to ensure that some "greeny" (or new person) doesn't jump behind the wheel, you must have a moderate experience in all of the important puzzles before you are even able to try. There are several ranks available to pirates in the crew, but their purpose is simply to determine rank, simplify divinding money, and limit who has access to goods on the ship like cargo and maps. For friends who are in different crews or who just fear any kind of commitment, you can keep up with each other with your "Hearties" list, sort of a private friends option that will keep you in touch without sacrificing your crew membership.

Jihad Watch

Jihadwatch.org is dedicated to bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology plays in the modern world, and to correcting popular misconceptions about the role of jihad and religion in modern-day conflicts. Website hopes to alert people of good will to the true nature of the present global conflict that radical Islam is waging against the rest of us. Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch. I clicked the articles page and read "Christopher Columbus, Multicultural". Quite interesting - he makes the point that politics, not history, is behind this new tale (below snip). Daniel Pipes is another author of terrorism articles, this is a short article entitled "The Islamic States of America?".

Rewrite the history books, indoctrinate the children, and you can own the future. Unfortunately for State and the schoolchildren of Massachusetts, there is not a shred of historical evidence for this. While assertions of this kind can readily be found on Islamic websites, none of the preeminent historians of Columbus's voyages — not Samuel Eliot Morison, Salvador de Madariaga, Paolo Emilio Taviani, or any other — has any record of this Muslim presence among the crew. And remember, Columbus was only sailing in the first place to find a way for European traders (who were Christians in those days) to avoid land routes to the Far East. Those land routes were controlled by Muslims, and passed through areas only recently conquered from Christians — most notably, the ancient holdings of the Byzantine empire, whose capital, Constantinople, had fallen to the Muslims in 1453. Columbus was commissioned by Ferdinand and Isabella, who had just defeated the last Muslims in Spain and driven them out of the country.

Did Columbus tag after the retreating Muslims and hire a navigator and a few sailors? According to the leading authority on Columbus's voyages, the historian Samuel Eliot Morison, the name of Columbus's navigator was Martin Pinzon, who served as captain of the Pinta. Of the known names of his crew members, there is an abundance of Juans and Pedros, but nary a Mahmoud or Ahmad. In those days, Christian names almost always meant the bearer was a Christian. As Muhammad Ali and Yusuf Islam can tell you, it is unlikely that a Muslim would have borne a Christian name.

Knights & Tournaments

WordIQ.com is a comprehensive and searchable reference tool on the web. They offer search results from a diverse array of dictionary, encyclopedia, thesaurus, and other valuable references. The website is completely free and non-profit. I found them googling woman knights during the Middle Ages (different web site). Tournaments began in the 12th century, becoming so popular in England that King Henry II outlawed the sport. Richard I relaxed his father's order, granting licences for tournaments. About 1292 the "Statute of Arms for Tournaments" laid down, "at the request of the earls and barons and of the knighthood of England," new laws for the game. Tournaments were, from the first, held to be a sport for men of noble birth, nobility was extremely defined in England, the lists were jealously closed to all combatants but those of the privileged class. In the German lands, questions as to the purity of the strain of a candidate for admission to a noble chapter were often settled by appeal to the fact that this or that ancestor had taken part in a tournament. Alot more is explained in the article. Read this page on the rules of knighthood. Codes of chivalry were propagated by the Church, the original knights were little more than unruly warriors. The below snip is on kippers:

The function of the kipper(s) is to follow his knight in combat and retrieve armour or arms from fallen adversaries. If the fallen adversary was not completely subdued and ready to give up his armour and arms the kipper would bang on the armour-clad opponent with various blunt non-lethal (hopefully) instruments, like heavy sticks or clubs, in order to knock him unconscious for the purpose of removing his armour and weapons without further protest.

This was done because it was the right of a knight to seize the armour and weapons of a fallen adversary during tournament. In the early days of tournament fighting it was not much diffrent from open warfare with few rules and none of the pomp and ceremony of the later tournaments. In this chaotic melee kippers were the foot soldiers as far as collecting the spoils of combat (tournament), but it was not their stated function or intention to actually participate in the tournament fighting.

In the later Middle Ages kippers were frowned on as tournaments began to less resemble real warfare and the chivalric code became more popular encouraging less war-like and more honorable tournament conduct.

Bellwether

Take Our Word For It is a bi-weekly word-origin webzine, Melanie and Mike collaborate on the site. Lately, they both have been busy with other projects. The below snip is the origin of the word bellwether. And you thought it had to do with weather. Another good word site is the Australian ABC FM Classic. In the 15th century, this word was used contemptuously. Ablemedia has a Greco-Roman Glossary that may interest some. I looked at the female gladiator page.

The word comes from the 13th century and first meant a wether (that is, a castrated male sheep) which wore a bell. Wether is Old English and dates from the 9th century. Bellwethers were noted for their docile nature and were used to lead flocks, especially to the slaughter. A curious feature of old sheep slaughter-houses was that the final run before the slaughter-pen had a side gate in the fence, known as a bellwether gate. Along comes the dopey bellwether down the sheep run, followed by trusting flock, then, at the last moment, wallop!, the shepherd slips the bellwether through the bellwether gate and the other sheep trot on, oblivious to their imminent doom. The bellwether was then introduced to a new flock and the sinister cycle was repeated.

NYT Crossword Answers

Answerguys.net will give you the answers to the New York Times crossword puzzle the night before the puzzle is presented in the paper. Explained in this bizjournal article (snip below). Should be an interesting copyright case if it goes to court. I believe he is infringing on the NYT newspaper (even though his service is cheaper for the consumer). The first Copyright Act was signed by George Washington in 1790. It was enacted to protect books, maps and other original materials. Interestingly enough, the passage was due mainly to Noah Webster. The first copyright law in the world was the Statute of Anne, passed in 1710 by the British Parliament. This Act introduced two new concepts - an author being the owner of copyright and the principle of a fixed term of protection for published works.

A local developer and real estate lawyer who turned his passion for The New York Times crossword puzzle into a for-profit Internet service has attracted the attention of the newspaper's legal department.

Each evening, Bailis, 61, retrieves the next day's puzzle through his subscription to the newspaper's pay service, solves it and posts his answers online by midnight. Subscribers to Bailis' site pay rates that range from $1 per day to $49.99 per year to access his answers.

The Times' daily crossword puzzle is available on its Web site the night before it appears in the print edition for $5.95 per month or $35.95 per year. Puzzle answers are available the day the puzzle is published through a paid telephone service that costs $1.20 per minute, or the following day in the newspaper.

Language Miniatures

Mini-essays about human language is the work of a retired university professor of foreign language and linguistics. A new essay appears about the first of every month. Left bar lists eleven categories and an index of all the essays. This language glossary from another site may be helpful (a more complex linguistic glossary). Another webpage has some funny quotes about the English language. Another interesting website is Mark Rosenfielder's metaverse, be sure to visit names of alchemy.

Think These Things Through

The TH-spelling, sound and symbol

There are some odd things about this common combination of letters and the sounds they represent. If you never thought there was anything unusual about them, see if you still think there’s not when we’re through here.

Before we get into the consonant sound itself, though, be sure you notice that we’re talking about two letters here, but that they don’t spell two sounds following each other. There’s only ONE sound there. If you’re not convinced of this, listen to yourself pronouncing think and bath (that’s quite different from using the same two letters in hothead where there really are two sounds). We also use two letters to spell a single sound in ghost, phone, shoe, and most of us do in whale too.

Now the sound itself. Look back at the title above. Were you by any chance aware that there are really two different th-sounds there? Since we use the same spelling for both, that usually escapes notice. The consonant spelled th in think, toothy, breath is called voiceless, while the one in these or the, other, lathe is called voiced. You can easily hear the two different sounds if you compare words that are identical in all other ways:

MoMI.org

The Museum of Musical Instruments (MoMI) gives people a unique opportunity to examine, explore, and experience the finest examples of 19th and 20th Century musical instruments. Hank Risan and Bianca Soros established MoMI in early 2000, choosing to build a virtual museum to reach the largest possible audience of music lovers throughout the world. Risan and Soros feel that guitars are an enlightening medium for examining our society, conveying important developments in technology, communication, and fashion. These soulful and beautiful icons of our culture now have a home where they will be preserved for enjoyment by future generations. The museum contains various exhibitions and collections. A great exhibition to view is the life and times of Woodie Guthrie (listen to the intro).

Woody Guthrie was born July 14, 1912 in Okemah, Oklahoma, a farming town that later experienced an oil boom in the 1920's. Guthrie's childhood was a heartbreaking experience. The family fell apart when Woody's mother, Nora, set her husband, Charley, on fire with a kerosene lamp. Charley survived and went to Pampa, Texas, to live with his sister, while Nora was institutionalized for the rest of her life. Woody's younger siblings went to Pampa while he and his older brother remained in Okemah. By the time Woody was 14, he was the leader of a gang that lived in an abandoned tin shack. When Woody was taken to see his mother for the last time, he realized that she did not recognize him.

Back Pain

Backspecialist is an informative and educational website on back pain. If you suffer with back pain, site will help you understand what your doctor means when he/she explains your condition and treatment with you. After the introduction and basics, learn some of the latest things available in the field of back pain treatment.

Muscular pain

The muscles around the spine can be an important source of pain. They may have been damaged initially or as a result of other damage be under strain from altered posture and biomechanics. Physical therapies aimed at manipulating the muscles such as by chiropractic, osteopathy or physiotherapy can be helpful. The use of stimulatory therapies such as TENS or acupuncture can ease the pain. If muscle spasm is evident and seems to recur despite the physical therapies then prolonged relaxation of the muscles by the injection of BOTOX can help.

Nerve entrapment

The spinal cord or the major nerves arising from it may be compressed by changes to the spine and be an important cause of back pain. In some instances the compression is due to changes in the skeleton of the spine and may require surgery but in many cases the compression is due to scar tissue. In these cases, the pain can be helped by techniques to dissolve the scar ( see epidural neurolysis).

U.S. Money

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) prints billions of Federal Reserve Notes for delivery to the Federal Reserve System each year (the BEP does not produce coins - all coinage is produced by the United States Mint). These notes are produced at facilities in Washington, D.C. and Ft. Worth, Texas. The BEP produces several other specialty printing products, such as postage stamps for the United States Postal Service, hand engraved invitations on behalf of the White House, and various miscellaneous security documents for other government agencies. As a novelty gift for that hard to find person, you can purchase uncut sheets of currency - prices for $2 bill denomination and use it as wrapping paper. Cut sheet later and spend it. Site has an FAQ and money facts sections, navigate thru the right column for related topics. Somehow I linked into the US Treasury index page of Coins and Currency and found the below page. Here are some interesting observations about the one dollar bill.

History of 'In God We Trust'

The motto IN GOD WE TRUST was placed on United States coins largely because of the increased religious sentiment existing during the Civil War. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase received many appeals from devout persons throughout the country, urging that the United States recognize the Deity on United States coins. From Treasury Department records, it appears that the first such appeal came in a letter dated November 13, 1861. It was written to Secretary Chase by Rev. M. R. Watkinson, Minister of the Gospel from Ridleyville, Pennsylvania, and read:

Dear Sir: You are about to submit your annual report to the Congress respecting the affairs of the national finances.

One fact touching our currency has hitherto been seriously overlooked. I mean the recognition of the Almighty God in some form on our coins.

You are probably a Christian. What if our Republic were not shattered beyond reconstruction? Would not the antiquaries of succeeding centuries rightly reason from our past that we were a heathen nation? What I propose is that instead of the goddess of liberty we shall have next inside the 13 stars a ring inscribed with the words PERPETUAL UNION; within the ring the allseeing eye, crowned with a halo; beneath this eye the American flag, bearing in its field stars equal to the number of the States united; in the folds of the bars the words GOD, LIBERTY, LAW.

This would make a beautiful coin, to which no possible citizen could object. This would relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism. This would place us openly under the Divine protection we have personally claimed. From my hearth I have felt our national shame in disowning God as not the least of our present national disasters.

To you first I address a subject that must be agitated.

Intellectual

IntellectualWhores.com is a strange site (but worth peeking in at). In short, the term does not refer to a "smart slut" as it were, but rather to males who are kept around by women for their mental entertainment. These men usually want to sleep with these women who usually consider these men friends. Let's start with the Ladder Theory, below snip is from the rating system. Just because I post this website does not mean I believe what they say.

The last 10% was my effort to give women the benefit of the doubt. A common question men ask of women is "Tell me what you want in a man"?, which is like asking how many guys she's slept with, an invitation to be lied to. Because she'll almost invariably answer with some combination of

• sense of humor
• intelligence
• sensitivity
• emotional stability

As far as I can tell this is mostly rubbish. But in an effort to be fair I have included this, since there seem to be a few rare cases of this. Just none that I have ever seen.

Another thing to watch out for is the code words women use. Here is a translation guide for dealing with women.

Says: I want a man who is motivated and has goals.
Means: I want a rich man

Says: I want a man who knows how to treat a woman.
Means: I want a rich man

Says: He's from a really good family.
Means: He's from a really rich family.

I'm sure you get the point. Let's move on.

Ol' Time Rock n Roll

Mamarocks.com is an enjoyable music site for all. Main page has an index of various songs. Click a song and sing along, page has words to song and the background music. So ya wanna start with Boot Scootin' Boogie?

TV Characters

TVacres has a television character/bio section, in alphabetical order of television character name. Summarizes the show and support cast and has a trivia part. Below is from Nash Bridges and the trivia on his Barracuda.

TRIVIA NOTE:  Episode No. 4 "High Impact" revealed that Nash treasures his car because it carries sentimental memories of his brother, Bobby who gave Nash the car before going off to fight in Vietnam. On episode No. 118 "Quack Fever" Bobby's son Dylan, hangs his dad's dog tags on the mirror of the 'Cuda and Nash finally grieves for his brother whom he has lost twice in one lifetime. Nash's 1970 Hemi Barracuda convertible [painted in High Impact yellow - a 1970 color known as "Lemon Twist"] was introduced on the series' very first episode. The car is "one of 14 ever made." Nash's 426 Drag Hemi engine with twin Carter AFB four-barrels is capable of 425 horsepower at 5,000 rpm, with 0-60 in 5.7 seconds. Reportedly, there were four different Cuda's specifically built for the show. One is a genuine 440 big-block strip-burner that was converted to a single 4-barrel. The 440 car and the 318 car are actually '71 'Cudas, while the 340 car and the 360 car are '70 'Cudas with cosmetic changes to make them look like '71s.

Men of Progress

Smithsonian Institute has a Civil War exhibit. Within the navigation bar to left, I opened leaders and it brought me to the painting Men of Progress. Magnify the painting and text will name 16 men and what they invented prior to the civil war.

Men of Progress—Invention on the eve of the Civil War

In 1857 the inventor of the coal-burning cookstove, Jordan Mott, commissioned Christian Schussele to paint a group portrait of eighteen living American scientists and inventors who had “altered the course of contemporary civilization.” A gathering of that sort never actually occurred, and to complete the work, Schussele traveled to the home of each subject to make a sketch from life. Just before the finished picture was delivered in 1862, John Ericsson’s Union ironclad vessel, the Monitor, had won its victory over the Confederacy’s Merrimac. To mark the occasion, Ericsson’ likeness was hastily added. In part because of these men and their inventions, the Civil War was America’s first modern war.

Coffee Time

SusansHumor is a very entertaining page, full of laughs. Joke below is found at the bottom of main page. Be sure to read her original quote.

Who should make the Coffee?
A man and his wife were having an argument about who should brew the coffee each morning. The wife said, "You should do it, because you get up first, and then we don’t have to wait as long to get our coffee."

The husband said, "You are in charge of the cooking around here and you should do it, because that is your job, and I can just wait for my coffee."

Wife replies, "No you should do it, and besides it is in the Bible that the man should do the coffee." Husband replies, "I can’t believe that, show me."

So she fetched the Bible, and opened the New Testament and shows him at the top of several pages, that it indeed says


"HEBREWS"

Pickles

ilovepickles.org has recipes, cooking tips, facts and fun activities for kids. Below is from perfectlyplausiblefacts.

• Pickling is one of the oldest forms of food preservation, discovered at the dawn of civilization, thousands of years ago in Mesopotamia.
• North Americans prefer pickles with warts. Europeans prefer wartless pickles.
• According to the U.S. Supreme Court, pickles are technically a "fruit" of the vine (like tomatoes), but they are generally known as a vegetable.
• The pickle got its name in the 1300s when English speaking people mispronounced William Beukelz’ name - he was a Dutch fisherman known for pickling fish.
• The phrase "in a pickle" was first introduced by Shakespeare in his play, The Tempest. The quotes read, "How cam’st thou in this pickle?" and "I have been in such a pickleŠ"
• On his voyage in 1492, Columbus not only discovered America, but gave peppers their name. In search of black pepper from the Orient, he assumed the spicy pods used to flavor foods in America were a form of black pepper and mistakenly called them "pimiento," or pepper. Actually, the plants are not related at all. The "hot" sensation one experiences when eating pickled peppers is caused by Capsaicin.
• When you eat hot peppers, the pain receptors on the tongue react and cause a physical reaction called "sweating." You start to salivate and perspire, your nose runs, your metabolism speeds up - this is all the body’s reaction working to cool itself.

NFL for Kids

PlayFootball is the official NFL site for kids. Be a player is the most interesting area of site. Below is a snip from the running back page. In lesson 3 of football facts, they explain the field in a cool way.

Running backs are sometimes referred to as North-South runners and East-West runners. A North-South runner is a player who just goes straight ahead, focusing his attention on the hole rather than trying to fool the defense with his fancy footwork. They may not always get big gains, but they usually always get something.

East-West runners are the ones you see dodging the defense back and forth as they try to make their way toward the end zone. At times you may see them almost dancing around the field, going in every direction, turning, jumping and quickly making decisions on where to go next. Sometimes this can make for quite an exciting run. They may get stopped for losses on some plays, but they also can break off some very big runs.

Count w/o Numbers

An article from news@nature.com (science journalism) entitled "Tribe without names for numbers cannot count". It is a short page of a recent study of an Amazon tribe, fueling a fierce debate about whether people can count without numbers. Can we conceptualize numbers without the language to describe them? The brain can not fathom or understand a never ending number. It will shutdown or short circuit. Try it if you don't believe me. It has to have a starting and ending point as reference.

Other researchers in the field have welcomed the study. But they disagree about what it means. Psychologist Charles Gallistel, at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, says that the Pirahã simply may not recognize when one quantity of items exactly equals another, so they have trouble with matching tasks. He argues that people do possess an innate, non-verbal ability to conceive of all numbers, and that language simply helps them to refine it.

Psychologist Susan Carey of Harvard University in Massachusetts argues the opposite: she says we lack an innate ability to count beyond very small numbers, and that the Pirahã difficulty with numbers proves it. "It's a spectacular finding," she says.

Carey and other researchers believe that children and some animals are born with two basic types of 'counting' but that these are limited. First, they can recognize one, two or three objects by recording an image in their memory. Second, they can make estimates of larger numbers, such as 'about twenty'. Carey believes that the Pirahã rely on these innate systems.

Punctuation

Punctuation made simple discuss’ several of the most useful punctuation marks that you will use as a communicator. Instead of listing many rules, as a grammar book does, we discuss these various marks in general so that you can get a sense of how to use them in your own prose. I have alot of trouble with the apostrophe. Gary A. Olson is a professor at the University of South Florida.

Some writers become confused when they must make a possessive of singular nouns that already end in s. As usual, you make the possessive by adding ’s to the word; however, some writers and editors argue that the two s’ are redundant and that therefore you can eliminate the second s, ending up with the s’. That is, they argue that there is really no need to include an s after the apostrophe, since the apostrophe already tells readers that the word is possessive. Others argue that you should drop the final s only on words of several syllables but retain it on short words. Since there is no agreement on this difficult problem, you must make your own choice. However, regardless of which option you choose, do remember to be consistent. Here are three nouns which already end in s and their corresponding possessive forms:

James	James’s	James’
Jones	Jones’s	Jones’
class	class’	class’

Deviant Art

Wenstrom, a 22 year old pixel artist from Argentina, is the deviousness award winner for Sept 2004. On August 7, 2000, deviantART was launched to provide a central location for graphical artists to display their creations for feedback and exposure. With an emphasis on digital works as pieces of art rather than desktop eye candy, the community grew rapidly. deviantART continues to commit itself to responding to the creative outlet needs of its members, releasing and revamping categories as interest grows. From humble beginnings as primarily a static image file gallery, deviantART is now proud to host poetry, photography, flash exhibits, cell phone art, as well as an enormous Indy art and wallpaper sections and skins for 105+ applications. Below are thoughts from Wenstrom.

And my view on the art at deviantART? Well, for one, it’s interesting to see how much it has changed since some years ago. Alas, deviantART is a victim of its own popularity. That means, more and more people (many of them who don’t have an idea of art) join. I think every person with good intentions towards the community and its members shall be welcome to stay. However, when you decide to upload your artwork, there are some things that you should have in mind. One of them is, having respect for your viewers and upload those things you have worked hard enough and/or are proud of to your main gallery. We now have a scraps section, on where you can upload those blunders and sketches you’re still interested to show, but that would otherwise pollute the quality of your gallery. It is completely understandable that we all have different levels of skill, so our "best stuff" will look like rubbish compared to the best stuff of other artists, but we here, what we care about, is how much effort you have made to come up with that, and how much you’re striving to improve. Trust me, we all can clearly see when you put effort on something and when you did not. Remember, your gallery is an art gallery, so you will want to show your most interesting works. This is not an image host, this is not a waste basket you can use to backup all your stuff. This is a gargantuan art display, and you should be proud to be part of it, and show your own best. You’re not showing for yourself, you’re doing it for others, your viewers, who deserve your utmost respect. Why else are you uploading stuff to an internet community?