Such a cold finger beckons you to enter his web of sin
Both my ring fingers are longer than my index fingers (if you'd like to speculate as to my hormone levels).
I just noticed today that this is more true on my left hand than my right hand.
My left ring finger is about a quarter-inch longer than my right ring finger. All other fingers are the same length as their counterparts on the other hand.
This may sound odd, but I think my wedding ring has caused my left ring finger to get a little longer.
He's a lumberjack and he's okay
I'm watching an old
Monty Python's Flying Circus episode and the Lumberjack song was not rendered in the way that I'm familiar with it from Monty Python CDs. It referred to "dear mama" instead of "dear papa," and "rugged" instead of "butch."
I guess this shouldn't be surprising, since the Pythons have no doubt performed this bit somewhere between one thousand and ten thousand times, and one can easily see how "papa" would be substituted as an improvement on "mama."
I find little changes like that distracting, as when movie scenes differ from what was shown in the trailer or TV commercials.
Don't need to psychoanalyze or have a stiff drink
Lindsay Lohan was giving me an exaggerated wink from a movie poster today, inspiring the thought that photographs of people winking are always kind of weird... because a wink is an inherently transient thing, not something which can be frozen in time without changing its appearance.
Email from Amazon
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Celebrity Non-sighting(?): Oprah
On my flight from Denver to Los Angeles today, the pilot informed us that "We have Oprah working in economy class today, so I'm sure she'll be able to answer your questions and give you any advice you might need." Later, he announced, "Flight attendants please take your seats... You too, Oprah."
Sure enough, when they came to serve drinks, there was a flight attendant who bore a remarkable resemblance to Oprah Winfrey. She had "Oprah" embroidered on the lapel of her jacket. She gave me a Diet Pepsi and pretzels. There were no cameras that I could see.
On balance, I guess that the flight attendant was just an Oprah lookalike, the pilot was joking, and the embroidered jacket shows that the joke gets a lot of mileage. However, the resemblance of face and voice was striking. If they had put a fake TV camera on the drink cart, I would have definitely believed the woman was Oprah. (If one of the flight endpoints had been in Chicago, that would have helped also.)
DARPA Grand Challenge With A Vengeance
DARPA has announced the next Grand Challenge. Generally speaking, the twist this time is that the vehicle has to interact with 30 mph traffic in a safe manner: staying in a lane, changing lanes when appropriate, merging, stopping at intersections, etc. It also has to be able to pull in and out of a parking space, and to do a 3-point turn.
It doesn't have to be able to recognize signs and traffic lights, or drive faster than 30 mph.
Currently neither Golem vehicle can shift into reverse, so we'll have to implement that...
Another wrinkle: vehicles now more-or-less have to be based on full-size commercial platforms. No more ATVs or motorcycles.
