short takes (pretty random)

I awoke today to frost. Apparently the temperature got down into the upper 20s last night. I'm used to light-sweater season, as opposed to jacket season, lasting more than four days. Perhaps it will return. (In case you're wondering, the four seasons are T-shirt season, light-sweater season (also known as sweatshirt season), jacket season, and mega-jacket season. They are not of equal durations; T-shirt season usually lasts about 5-6 months.)

I found this rant about Usenet interesting. And not solely applicable to Usenet. Thanks to autographedcat for the link.

Template for a badly-written poll: "Does X change your opinion of Y?" Sure it can, but neither "yes" nor "no" actually tells you anything else useful. If what you mean is "does X make you less inclined toward Y?", say that. (A current instance of this is a CNN poll, where Y is Schwarzenegger and X is his comments about Hitler.)

We had a very good On the Mark practice Wednesday. Robert, Kathy, and I will be performing at Darkover (without Ray, who can't make it), so we've been juggling some things around to make them work with just three people. We've also added a couple new pieces that we can just plan for three from the start. Things are sounding good, and we've still got more than a month and a half to practice. Kathy's been taking voice lessons and that's paying off, too.

( Jewish stuff, including some geeking )