I'm a lasagna boy!

amain

amain: "at full speed; with great haste; with all your strength; with full force"

ditto

The word I learned in kindergarten for the double-quote mark on our lunch-leader list ("Lunch leader: Monday, Salim; Tuesday, ditto"; et c.) comes straight out of Latin along an almost unremarkable path, as I learned from the Houghton Mifflin dictionary:

Italian dialectal, past participle of Italian dire, to say, from Latin dicere; from the Indo-European radical deik-.

Ditto, which at first glance seems a handy and insignificant sort of word, actually has a Roman past, for it comes from dictus, "having been said," the past participle of the verb dicere, "to say." In Italian dicere became dire and dictus became detto, or in the Tuscan dialect ditto. Italian detto or ditto meant what said does in English, as in the locution "the said story." Thus the word could be used in certain constructions to mean "the same as what has been said"; for example, having given the date December 22, one could use 26 detto or ditto for 26 December. The first recorded use of ditto in English occurs in such a construction in 1625. The sense "copy" is an English development, first recorded in 1818. Ditto has even become a trademark for a duplicating machine.

In which we go in circles

Some might sing, 'Get me off of this East Bay Roundabout': Berkeley plans to codify its traffic circles, as part of its city-wide traffic calming.

The antithesis of traffic calming is probably the weaving area, as described in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Travel section (but, still, about Pittsburgh).

In which we return to (short) form

I managed to crash iTunes twice while working on this relatively straight-forward playlist: songs recorded in the past forty years, shorter than 2' 46" (that cutoff was intended for some specific song, but I can't remember which —), and that I have either played more than ten times or have rated four stars or more. (Aside: iTunes keeps the rating as an integer from 0-100, so through AppleScript one can pick at ratings to far great wankiness^W precision).

The real point, though, is the playlist. The traditional rock'n'roll radio anthem clocks in around four minutes, or one side of a big-hole single. Punk rock, throwing convention to the winds, cut this in half. This playlist does have variety: deliriously good 80s American punk in the form of The Minutemen and Mission of Burma; some hilariously succint late-70s British punkrock rebellion from Wire's first album; eerie California hippy music embodied in "Witchi Tai To" by Harper's Bizarre; a few songs to pull out the rusty razor, by Tindersticks; but, unfortunately, no Elvis ("The King"), as I lost the great boxed set (during a move?) some years ago, and never digitized any of the LPs. Some other bands represent the pop side of rock'n'roll: The Minders; The Apples in Stereo; The Shins.

Fortunately, this playlist magically skips the progressive rock in favor of some musique concrete, and art- in favor of post-rock: Chicago Undergound Trio, Tortoise, and . Red Norvo and Theolonious Monk show up as well.

Plenty of Elvis Costello, whose brevity shines. In fact, I bet all of the forty-plus songs from the Get Happy!!! elpee appear on this list, and probably another several dozen from the 2 1/2 Years era. Plenty of completely mind-blowing pieces by Wire, whose first three albums are again available tasty box set that includes two early concerts. Listening to these songs makes me laugh aloud.

Some odd songs: "Mr Pink Eyes" by The Cure; the pretty ballad "The Ballroom" by Paul Kelly and The Coloured Girls (that name was not suitable for the album's release in the States, and was changed to The Messengers). A few tracks from a Movie Sounds generator, the audio equivalent of clip art, appear: Ship Alarm Under Attack, Rain Falling with Thunder.

I also sheepishly found no fewer than three different recordings of "I am a Scientist" turned up. Such a pretty song! I think that's the reason I splurged on the Live at the Threadwaxing Space limited-edition album (now available for under $3 through Amazon dot com!). There are some other all-time fave-raves: "Unfair" by Pavement; "History Lesson Pt I" by The Minutement; and the hypnotic, insistent driving song "The Thing" by The Pixies.

Rock. Punk rock.

pernickety

Pernickety is the original and Scots spelling of the word many spell as persnickety: "characterized by excessive precision and attention to trivial details". Pernickety is itself of uncertain origin, and may be an extended form of Scot. pernicky, itself perhaps a corruption of particular. The s probably crept in for euphony; I don't know whether the American tongue deals more readily with the sibiliant intervening, as compared to the prickly sound of the Scots. I can feel my lip curling in a sneer each time I say it.

In which I accumulate

After several years of living in the same apartment, I have some ad-hoc collections. Not the sort of collections that will lead to a museum, but the sort that come from a nervous disinclination to throw out items that may someday be useful.
Some items accumulate synergistically: the empty whisky tubes fill with wine corks; the plastic tubs (mostly from Tom's Peasant Pies, and those in turn from the time when kozmo ran rampant through San Francisco) fill with twist-ties and other grocer's miscellania.
I also found a wax-paper envelope stuffed with colourful transit receipts and passes from various parts of Spain. I long ago abandoned my MUNI transfer journal ("There's a story in every trip on MUNI!"); perhaps I had retained these for some grand scheme of a worldwide transit card journal?

In a bundle of more than a dozen large cylinders (tubo, in Castilian, as I learned when scrambling about the Barrí Gotic on the last day of a trip to Barcelona, hoping to protect the majestic city maps I had obtained from the government bookstore. I still have not framed the maps; they remain in their tube, three trips later), I finally uncovered the laminated Tintin posters I bought at Camden Lock Market. I have been thinking about these off and on for the past several years, and have indeed bought new Tintin posters — and have even framed and hung them! An inspiring poster from the otherwise disappointing National Maritime Museum hangs in the stairwell. A couple of smaller prints hang around the apartment. Of this collection of tubes, fewer than half actually contained anything.

In which Gibraltar is still firmly attached

One of the casualties of being unceremoniously dunked in a tepid lake was my wallet, which began rusting — the lake was fed by sea-water, apparently, and was unusually saline. The wallet has accompanied me for about fifteen years, since I bought it on an expedition to The Alley (Clark St location, mind you) (and, quite probably, Mama Desta's. Yum). I salvaged most of the contents, bought new stamps, but alas!, a Financial Times clipping is almost ruined. For posterity, I include it here, although without the slight pink tint characteristic of that journal.

From the Marques de Lendinez.

Sir, The informative item in your People column (December 20) about Sir Francis Richards, the next governor of Gibraltar, was marred by the repeated references to Gibraltar being an island. Last week, when I was on the Rock, Gibraltar was firmly attached to the Iberian Peninsula.
[The address, in boldface type, is now illegible and ragged]

The original clipping came to my wallet by way of Mr Aram Shumavon, a careful reader indeed.

In which we never drive again

The DMV sent me a renewal form.

I have lived at the same address for seven years.

The paperwork notes that because I am so firmly planted at this address, I can renew my license "VIA INTERNET". Awesome. The web site immediately launches some garish video with horrendous sound, and the "Sound On/Off" widget does nothing. Nothing. I kill the volume on my computer and click through the online renewal business. At the glorious conclusion ("click once", the site advises for each "Continue" button"), I see the confirmation:

CONGRATULATIONS!

You have successfully completed your internet transaction. Please allow up to ten days for processing.

What internet is this, that takes two business weeks for processing? In an age where a Google search for "California DMV turn off sound on homepage" takes a quarter of a second, why does a transaction at the DMV -- which has already confirmed my Driver's License Number, Date of Birth, Address, special Renewal Identification Number (sent via postal mail), and a half-dozen other pieces of personally-identifying information; and has already vetted my bank card for the payment -- why does this transaction take 3,456,000 times as long?

I also really like that I avoid having to submit to a vision exam by renewing over the internet. The state requires that this exam accompany all renewals processed in person at a DMV Field Office. Presumably the state made an assumption because of my age, although they already know that I have an CORR LENS restriction on my license.

In which we get wiped out

It's almost too much: I walked into Jerry's Fine Used Records last weekend, and the very first record I saw was a copy of Number One Cup's Possum Trot Plan. Hotcha! Then I flipped through a few more bins (Good Stuff! Good Stuff Overflow! Rare Good Stuff! Weird Stuff!) and found a 12" of the Fat Boys collaboration (and I use the term loosely) with the Beach Boys. Imagine the dulcet harmonies of the Beach Boys overlaid with the big-bad-wolf sound of the Fat Boys beatboxing, and layer on some guitar, and then add in a Latin Rascals remix (!!), and you have this particular slice o' vinyl.

Jerry's has no web site, and maintains no catalogue. All of the inventory is scattered physically and mentally amongst the various rooms and curators at the shop, in the former Leslie Dresbold Office Supplies building on Murray Avenue. Jerry Weber, who has run the shop for at least as long as I have been buying records (I walked past the shop every day on my way home from summer jobs my fifteenth through seventeenth years, and this led to a substantial expansion in my record collection) recently tried to sell the shop, but found no takers. He then formed the Squirrel Hill Co-Op, which will add video and CDs to the space currently overflowing with vinyl (a half-million 45s!). I was pretty happy to stumble in during the 33 1/3% off sale, so I picked up an armload of excellent stuff (yes, the Fat Boys, but also a nice Aisler's Set 12" single and a copy of David Thomas & The Wooden Birds' Blame The Messenger — of which I have at least one other copy, on the David Thomas CD anthology — and a couple of weirdie-but-goodies) for about fifty bucks. And the seven-inch big-hole of Jimmy Cliff and Elvis Costello singing "Seven-Day Weekend", which later turned up on the Blood & Chocolate 2xCD. It's a sweet song, and Cliff's vocals add a certain mellowness to the plaintive lyrics.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Dweezil Zappa plays the guitar bits on the Fat + Beach Boys rekkid. Weird and weirder. I have, or had, a seven-inch of this same song, somewhere.

In which we have one for the road

Through the Campaign for Real Ale, I discovered that the Hardys & Hansons' Brewery will close following its acquisition by the Greene King corporation. H&H brew distinctive English beer, including Olde Trip, the beer of the Crusaders.
Greene King brew some excellent beers, but this consolidation runs the risk of ruining a proud and traditional British beer by moving it away from its home. Much of the beauty of real ale is its locality, and its fidelity to its home turf.

HOWTO Downgrade iPod firmware?

A few months ago, my iPod (two generations old) broke. To be precise, the interaction between the computer to which the iPod syncs broke: an iTunes upgrade forced a firmware upgrade on the iPod, and the firmware in turn required a more recent version of iTunes -- which is not available with the 10.2 version of the Mac OSX. Crap.
I thought, well, I can downgrade the iPod. I keep older versions of the iTunes application bundle handy because each rev disables some functionality that I had particularly enjoyed. No such luck: one Updater helpfully noted that "An iPod is connected, but is not mounted on the Desktop." Now, if only I could force OSX 10.2 to mount the dam' thing, I'd be in business. I turned to the wisdom of the Internet.

Threads on iPodHacks and iPodBank (cache, because the site appears down) sounded helpful but did not work in practice. On the reasonable-sounding advice on these sites, I hacked various BuildIDs into the SysInfo file; restored the iPod itself to old, older, and ancient versions of the firmware; and downloaded somewhat sketchy updaters from third-party sites on the 'net. No go. What now?

In which we bounce on the Reload

The Nietszchean Family Circus:

Not quite a web comic, but entertaing (in the I'm-glad-it-didn't-happen-to-me sense), well-written, and neatly-illustrated: The Worm Within. An excerpt:

My tapeworm did not pant, did not throb, did not shake or tremble. It lay tangled in itself, seemingly harmless, and I had a momentary urge of scientific inquiry, wondering whether I should not scoop it out with my bare hands, place it in an airtight jar, and take it with me on trips to show to people when I tell this story and relive this life-changing experience. Share. Publish it online or in learned print journals. With illustrations.

In which the laundry smells of donut!

One man's experience with a second-hand donut robot.

A similar donut robot, the Donut Robot Mark II in situ at the Pike Place Market in Seattle.

In which we get a quote

The inappropriate usage of quotation marks has long held a fascination for me, and I have a small collection of photographs on this topic. Erik pointed me at this flickr pool and flick group which both collect photos of unconventional and incorrect punctuation.

In which time flies like an arrow

but fruit flies like a banana. Or, rather, fruit thieves like avocados and almonds. These twain are high-revenue, easily-portable, hard-to-spoil crops.
A few years ago, Patricia Leigh Brown had an engaging piece in the New York Times about avocado thieves in Southern California.

January 26, 2004
Someone Is Stealing Avocados, And 'Guac Cops' Are on the Case
By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN

The thieves come in the dead of night, after it rains and the hillsides are empty, or during a full moon. They disappear into jungly thickets on steep, remote hillsides, stepping carefully through the groves to avoid crunching leaves before doing their dirty work. They operate stealthily, without clippers, amassing warty, thick-skinned booty by the hundreds.

Allen Luce, a retired beekeeper, suspected the worst recently when he spied an unfamiliar red pickup truck parked beside the lush canopies of his neighbors' thousand-acre avocado grove. ''At a dollar or more a pound, it adds up pretty fast,'' he said, speaking of the Hope diamond of these parts: the avocado.

They call it green gold.

''When the Super Bowl comes, there is going to be thievery,'' Mr. Luce said. ''People want guacamole.''

Here in San Diego County, the source of nearly half of the nation's avocados, harvest season brings with it not only the promise of some $43.5 million worth of cilantro-laced party dip, but also a dreaded local crime: avocado theft. With the price now hovering around $1.20 a pound -- roughly two avocados -- Karen Grangetto awoke after a full moon last month to the telltale phantom stems at eye level on plucked boughs. She figured she had lost $1,000 to $2,000 worth of fruit.

''It gets pretty eventful at this time of year,'' Ms. Grangetto said, her emotions betraying none of the thick skin of the coveted Hass avocado variety. ''It gives you a bad feeling. It's like somebody breaking into your home.''

In unincorporated towns like Valley Center and Fallbrook in San Diego County, and north to San Luis Obispo, avocados are what oranges are to Florida and chardonnay grapes are to the Napa Valley. California is no stranger to agricultural theft. In an eight-county area of the Central Valley last year, for instance, an estimated $8.4 million worth of pesticides, sprinkler equipment, diesel fuel, tractors and other farm property was reported stolen, including $100,000 worth of gnarled walnut burls, prized for furniture, which had been yanked out of the ground with chains and pickup trucks.

But nowhere is agricultural theft taken more seriously than in San Diego and Ventura Counties, which together grow 68 percent of the nation's avocados and where at this time of year the grove roads are literally paved with guacamole from vehicles squashing fallen fruit.

''It's a tough type of investigation,'' said Clyde Kodadek, a lieutenant in the Fallbrook substation, one of several county sheriffs' stations where ''guac cops'' track avocado thieves, a mission that includes periodic undercover investigations with code names like Operation Green Gold.

''It's like identity theft,'' Lieutenant Kodadek said. ''The problem is, when God made avocados, he didn't put serial numbers on them.''

Avocados have been a way of life here ever since the early 1970's, when farmers began planting lucrative groves at high elevations.

The size and price of avocados, which are hard as baseballs until they ripen several weeks after picking, conspire with geography to make them particularly vulnerable. Unlike crop loss due to freezes or other natural disasters, the theft of avocados or any other fruit or vegetable is not insurable, said Eric Larson, executive director of the San Diego County Farm Bureau. In Valley Center and other rural areas, the ratio of law enforcement to avocados is slim, with two deputies, who must also attend to homicides and other crimes, patrolling 400 square miles.

''Avocados grow on large plots straight up a hill, which impedes the ability to fence them,'' said Jackie Cruz, an agricultural crime prevention specialist for the San Diego County sheriff's office. ''It gives the crooks a huge opportunity not to be detected. And they obviously feel there's a good rate of return.''

In Ventura County, the only major growing area statistically tracking avocado thefts, guac cops arrested 29 suspected thieves last year, charged with stealing an estimated $115,000 worth of avocados. ''It is a rare instance when someone who steals avocados doesn't go to jail,'' said Tom Connors, senior deputy district attorney for Ventura County.

Stealing more than $100 worth of avocados -- like stealing more than $100 worth of olives, lemons, oranges, artichokes, kelp, domestic fowl and other farmed crops and animals -- is a felony in California, Mr. Connors added.

''Most people don't think of agricultural areas as crime-ridden,'' said Don Jennings, the agricultural crimes detective for the Ventura County sheriff's office, who periodically scopes groves with night-vision goggles, and by helicopter with infrared heat-detecting equipment, to detect thieves beneath tree canopies. ''Many don't consider avocados a theft item.''

Noel Stehly, 35, a third-generation avocado rancher in Valley Center who owns or manages 200 acres of groves, said he lost 5,000 to 6,000 pounds to theft on a 60-acre grove last year. While they are a small portion of the grove's annual yield of about 150,000 pounds, stolen avocados add up.

''That was two months of water bills,'' Mr. Stehly said. ''It's a frustration, dang it. You feel violated.''

Although there is no set profile of an avocado thief, law enforcement officials say many of them are transients or petty thieves who steal to support a drug habit, sometimes selling avocados to naïve or unscrupulous roadside stands and restaurants or to wholesalers in Los Angeles. Last summer, in broad daylight, avocado thieves in Bonsall, west of Valley Center, shot at grove workers as they made their getaway. There were no injuries, but he thieves were never caught.

Ms. Cruz of the San Diego County sheriff's office said there tended to be a correlation between price and theft. Although reputable packing houses require documentation showing where avocados were grown, including an authorized signature, she said it was not difficult to launder avocados -- especially around the Super Bowl, which, along with Cinco de Mayo, is the biggest avocado day of the year. ''They go anyplace you can think of,'' she said of rustled fruit. ''There's a lot of guacamole out there.''

The most prominent arrest occurred three years ago, when a three-month sting called Operation Green Gold resulted in the conviction of Ariel Varela, co-owner of a packing company in Fallbrook, who bought more than 1,100 pounds of avocados from an undercover agent. He served a year in the county jail.

''It was the first time to my knowledge a packer had been prosecuted for fencing or laundering stolen fruit,'' said Elisabeth Silva, the deputy district attorney for San Diego County, who specializes in agricultural crimes. Nine other buyers of stolen fruit were arrested that week.

''You've got to play the game crooks play,'' said Tim Mahoney, a corporal in the San Marcos substation, who posed as a thief in Operation Green Gold, selling fruit out of the trunk of a four-door sedan with hidden surveillance cameras.

Fed up with thievery, some growers, like Richard Price, a retired firefighter, are taking an aggressive stance. Most nights between the waxing and waning moon, Mr. Price stakes out his 6 acres of avocados and 14 acres of cut flowers with night-vision goggles, accompanied by Mugsy, his 130-pound Rottweiler. After thieves stole flowers from him recently, Mr. Price, who could become the Charles Bronson of guacamole, planted his hillsides with long-thorned finger cactus -- ''enough to completely engulf the valley,'' he said.

Other nights, he keeps a decoy camper parked with the lights on near the entrance to the grove, where some $30,000 to 40,000 worth of avocados await harvesting. His baby cactuses glint menacingly in the moonlight.

''You nurture something, water it, deal with all its problems, and right when it's perfect and ready for picking, someone in a truck with no overhead comes along and takes it,'' Mr. Price said. ''I'm going to make life real difficult for them. I just really resent being stolen from.''

* Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

In which we suffer the Mint

The US Mint once again tries its hand at issuing dollar coins. In their write-up of the dollar coin's history, CNN helpfully refers to Susan B. Anthony as a "sufferage (sic)" pioneer.
I have long figured that the US Mint should consider a series of historically significant as well as culturally relevant coins, and make them according to some reasonable numismatic guidelines. None of this three-quarter profile Sacagawea stuff.

In which the headline has written itself

Sausages affected by draconian trade laws.

A spicy sausage known as the Welsh Dragon will have to be renamed after trading standards’ officers warned the manufacturers that they could face prosecution because it does not contain dragon.

The sausages will now have to be labelled Welsh Dragon Pork Sausages to avoid any confusion among customers.

Jon Carthew, 45, who makes the sausages, said yesterday that he had not received any complaints about the absence of real dragon meat. He said: “I don’t think any of our customers believe that we use dragon meat in our sausages. We use the word because the dragon is synonymous with Wales.”

His company, the Black Mountains Smokery at Crickhowell, in Powys, turns out 200,000 sausages a year, including the Welsh Dragon, which is made with chili, leak and pork. A Powys County Council spokesman said: “The product was not sufficiently precise to inform a purchaser of the true nature of the food.”

If only this were St George's brand, the confusion would be utter.

The Three Investigators

One of the more enjoyable series of books I read was The Three Investigators series, which followed a formula familiar to readers of The Bobbsey Twins, The Hardy Boys, McGurk, et c. Unlike these other series, the Three Investigators lived and breathed 1950s Los Angeles, and so the narratives consist of thrilling chases down LA freeways (to San Pedro piers, no less!), adventures in the old, unused subway tunnels around the city, and many realistic locations. The flavour of old Hollywood appears in the character of Alfred Hitchcock, the gutsy trio's sponsor. At times improbable -- the unlimited use of a gold-plated Rolls and chaffeur, appropriately British? -- and raw, such as the difficulties faced with double de-clutching when hi-jacking a bus in order to stop a bank robbery. The use of real locations and realistic plots (well, mostly realistic) combined with the everyday travails faced by working-class boys appealed to me, and I still enjoy the books today.

In which I take an advanced degree

The MacBook Pro now runs much cooler (under 60º), thus making it a more likely candidate for a laptop.

In which we have more adventures with the umbrella

I recently realised the origin of the word "umbrella", but had not actually used one of these devices until yesterday evening, when I walked out of the office into a downpour. I went back inside, borrowed an umbrella, and then walked back home. Nifty device, the umbrella (or brolly, or bumbershoot).

The umbrella should be an epoynmous device, like Phillips screwdriver or the Harvey wallbanger; I still fancy the idea of a Guglielmo da Umbrella excitedly holding his invention over the pretty head of a Tuscan lady as the summer rain begins to fall, and a scheming fellow-inventor stealing the carelessly-guarded secret mechanism that propels the canopy.

Scene: The town square. Rain begins falling.
Damsel: Oh! my curls! they are becoming all wet from this rain!
Guglielmo: Here, please allow me ...      neatly pops open a large cloth device
D: But what is this magical machine that you have?
G: shrugs modestly    It is nothing, I have just invented it for you, my pretty lady ...
D: You are so clever! It keeps the rain away! ... and my hair and dress are dry! How marvellous!
G: Also, when the sun comes out again, this will keep you quite nicely in the shade, while you eat strawberries and cream!
D: ooohs and aaahs, and takes Guglielmo's arm

Cut to scene: a caped and jealous Marco, Visconto di Pantalones, steals into Guglielmo's laboratory at the back of his cottage. He casts his eyes around the room
Marco Aha! The plans for the device are on the table! I will take them, and soon I will be escorting all the pretty ladies around the town!
Throws back head and laughs.
Fall curtain.

Rain continued through the night, and into the morning; I used the umbrella again on the way back to work today.

In which we superimpose

Photographer Michael Hughes and his hijinks: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michael_hughes/sets/346406/show/.

This stuff has a nice physical sense of comedy to it, especially the bobby helmet and the girl eating the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The whimsical coloured Eiffel Tower and the croissants-in-perspective amuse me much.

cachinnate

Latin cachinnare, cachinnat-, imitative; "to laugh hard, loudly, or convulsively; guffaw" If you split your sides, roll in the aisles, or die laughing, you may be cachinnating.

Although this word has been in my vocabulary for about twenty-five years, since I first read The Castafiore Emerald, a Tintin adventure (a "comic book", I suppose.), I never looked for it in a dictionary until just now. I think I just assumed that it was one of Captain Haddock's colourful epithets; but, then again, even bashi-bazouk has a proper origin!

The Comics Museum in Brussels -- the Musée des Bandes Desinées, to be precise -- has excellent exhibits in a beautifully-restored Art Deco warehouse.

You can see the rocket-ship from Destination Moon and Explorers on The Moon through the atrium.

HOWTO watch al-Jazeera's English-language broadcasts

Although no U.S. broadcaster has begun carrying al-Jazeera's new English-language channel, you can watch it over the internets -- for free, if you can stand the tiny video frame that Real supports. Ignore the instructions on their web site -- these are confusing, if colourfully illustrated, and do not apply to viewers in the States.

Don't expect stories about the States, though; the anchors and analysts may be speaking language we recognise, but that does not mean that they are talking about you. You will hear about stories that American stations simply don't cover. You will also hear commentary and perspectives from sources that American broadcasters rarely interview. This is a different perspective on world news, available in English. Although I am tempted to compare it to the propaganda-laden Voice of America, al-Jazeera does not speak for a specific political entity.

You will hear stories that my sister produced! Big up to the lil sis.

UPDATE: Google Video has the goods.

In which the mystery of wallet corrosion deepens

This BBC story explains why my fifty-euro bill disintegrated neatly when I first pulled it from my (now-rusty) wallet.

Sulphates used in the production of [crystal methamphetamine] could form sulphuric acid when mixed with human sweat, they say, causing banknotes to corrode.

Drug users sniff powdered crystals through rolled up banknotes.

About 1,500 banknotes have crumbled after being withdrawn from cash machines, German banking officials say.

Much of Germany's supply of crystal methamphetamine is believed to come from eastern Europe, and has a high concentration of sulphates.

Its corrosive effects are also spread between contaminated notes and clean notes in wallets and purses.

The Bundesbank announced in early November that reports of bank notes worth between five euros and 100 euros disintegrating began to be received in the summer.

A 2003 report by the Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research in Nuremberg found that 90% of German euros were contaminated with cocaine.

Amphetamine Reptile is such an awesome name for a record label.

Building Big and Rome Antics

I read through two recent books by David Macaulay, the eminent and whimsical author of books about -- well, mostly about engineering topics, but he sneaks in the odd bit of drama (or humour!), sometimes in his text, sometimes in his comfortably loose line drawings.

Rome Antics and Building Big both demonstrate Macaulay's wry humour and keen grasp of the details in the big -- very big! -- picture. He tackles the massive pieces of manufactured infrastructure that we have added to the natural world: bridges, dams, tunnels, and skyscrapers, paying special attention to the planning and construction details. This becomes even more interesting when he explores ancient bridges and tunnels, as he unravels the story of their construction. His narrative, both in words and in pictures, engages the eye and the mind. Although I chuckled at the description of the several tunnels which make up The Chunnel (Northbound: Croissants. Soutbound: Crumpets.), he included pertinent yet out-of-the-way details that add depth and colour to the story of construction.

Rome Antics follows a pigeon as it carries a timeless message through modern Rome. The pigeon perspective is charming, and the spare use of colour adds a remarkable piece of drama to the story.

In which we have eaten something disagreeable

She said, "You look like a rainy Sunday in Pittsburgh!' And I said, 'I feel like a rainy Sunday in Pittsburgh.' And she said, 'Have you been eating something that disagreed with you?'

(I think this quotation comes from "Service With A Smile", by P G Wodehouse, who, for an Englishman, had a suprisingly negative view of Pittsburgh's climate.)

In which we ho-ho-ho with a twinkie in our eye

Chocolate-Espresso Twinkies and Hostess-Style Cupcakes, from the New York Times Magazine.

For the cakes:

Twinkie-style canoe pan for Twinkies or a muffin pan for Hostess-style cupcakes
Nonstick cooking spray
1 ¼ cups cake flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 ½ cups sugar
3 large eggs
½ cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup strong coffee

For the filling:
8 ounces cream cheese
3 tablespoons heavy cream
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon ground espresso beans

For the frosting:
(for Hostess-style cupcakes):
1 ½ cups finely chopped bittersweet chocolate
½ cup heavy cream
White chocolate, optional.

1. Place a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a canoe pan or muffin pan with cooking spray.

2. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt 3 times. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on high speed for 15 seconds, until combined. On low speed, add the eggs, one at a time, mixing until each is incorporated. Beat on high speed until light and fluffy, about 6 minutes. On the lowest speed, beat in 1/3 of the flour mixture. Beat in the buttermilk and vanilla, then another 1/3 of the flour mixture. Add the coffee, then the remaining flour.

3. Fill each mold halfway with batter and bake for 15 to 17 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cake comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 30 minutes. Loosen the cakes from the edges with a sharp knife. Invert the pan and gently tap the bottom to release. Cool the cakes completely — Twinkies top-side down and cupcakes top-side up — on a wire rack.

4. Make the filling: In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese, cream and vanilla until fluffy. With the mixer on low speed, gradually add the sugar and beat until combined. Add the espresso and beat until combined.

5. Transfer the filling to a pastry bag fitted with a 1/4-inch tip. For the Twinkies, insert the tip at 3 points on the bottom of the cakes and fill. For the cupcakes, insert the tip at the top center and fill.

6. If making Hostess-style cupcakes, prepare the frosting. Place the chocolate in a large bowl. In a small saucepan, scald the cream. Pour the cream over the chocolate. When the chocolate softens, whisk the mixture until smooth. Let the frosting cool, then whisk until fluffy. Spread over the cupcakes to cover the filling. If you choose, decorate with melted white chocolate. Makes 20 Twinkies and 24 Hostess-style cupcakes. Cake and frosting recipes adapted from the Hostess Twinkie Bake Set Recipes booklet by the Interstate Bakeries Corporation.

Filling adapted from “Joy of Cooking.”

Uncommon Grounds

I have read several books, fiction and non-, about coffee, and Mark Prendergast's Uncommon Grounds is not only the lengthiest, it is undoubedly the dullest. Clocking in at around six million pages and zero fact checkers (his chronology and vocabulary are especially error-prone), I do not think I am going to finish the book. I read the first 120 agonizing pages, and then skipped around to check out pieces that especially interested me, such as the genesis of Peet's and of Starbucks.

Thunderstruck

Thunderstruck has the hallmark parallel stories of Larson's tremendously good "The Devil in the White City", about the Chicago Exposition and the cruel murderer H H Holmes, in its interleaving of the advent of wireless radio and the murderer H H Crippen. The foreshadowing becomes a little heavy-handed in this book, and this detracts slightly from the amazing detail. The story of Marconi -- did you know that he won the 1909 Nobel Prize for Physics? -- and his obsession with the wireless radio, which matched his detachment from his family -- is fascinating, and dovetails neatly with the emotional decline of "Dr" H H Crippen and his eventual capture via wireless. The capture itself entailed a daring guess at Crippen's escape route and means, a cross-Atlantic chase, and a triumphant success for Scotland Yard.
Thunderstruck is not as compelling a book as was The Devil in the White City, but it is a damn good yarn.

In which we have just enough time

for the punk-rock donuts of The Daily Dozen, before heading away for even colder climes.

In which I am lost in the foothills of my pride

In which we count our lucky stars

I stopped at a busy espresso counter (readily identifiable through the Seattle fog thanks to its neon "Caffeine" sign) for the second time in as many days. The long line moved quickly, and the woman at the counter recognised me as I walked up, and asked if I wanted a macchiato -- the drink I had enjoyed the day before. Wow.

(Initially, I was going to contrast this experience with another town, another shop, but Seattle gave me a great opportunity for comparison. To wit:)

A few hours later, I walked into a fancy restaurant with a sharp-dressed friend, and we asked for a table. As the hostess walked us past the (tuxedo-clad) waiters and the (informally-dressed) patrons, past the neon-lit "Boys Room" (cigars, not pole-dancers), and along the open kitchen, she turned to me and asked pleasantly, "Do you live here in Seattle?" To w. I replied, "No, I am visiting," and my companion ditto*. She said, "Well, it's fortunate that we are an informal town, and we don't have a dress code." She looked snottily (snootily?) at my grubby shirts, stained with the espresso of the day, and put the menus down on the table.

Snap.

* he actually does live in Seattle. Sort of.

In which I didn't think of this

The ideas of permutation, of duplication, and of parallelism fascinate me, but I have never expressed these ideas as artistic impulses. Cue Simon Pope, an artist whose most recent installation is "Gallery Space Recall", an exhibit which invites the audience to an empty room where they can contemplate other art exhibits they have seen.
Not.

In which we re-think the sync

OSDI has a blog.

In which San Francisco may be a cyclist's heaven

The New Yorker has a decent article about cycling advocacy in New York City.

Tom Bernardin knows the traffic laws as well as anyone. In fact, he has often dreamed, while looking out his apartment window at midday, of sketching the intersection of Fourteenth Street and Seventh Avenue t document all the traffic violations he observes. “You know, like those line drawings from when you were a kid—‘Circle everything that’s wrong with this picture,’ ” he says. He has never encountered a Critica Mass rally (“I actually time my activities to avoid people as much as possible”), but he occasionally engages in his own kind of protest theatre, marching into a nearby noodle shop on Sixth Avenue to deliver wha he calls “performance pieces,” in which he complains loudly about civic transgressions Several years ago, Bernardin, who works as a freelance tour guide, started an anti-noise group called FANNY (Friends Against Noisy New York), but lately he has concluded that the problem is intractable. “Noise is the bastard child of the environmental movement,” he says. His latest cause, which he announced in the winter, 2006, edition of the Greenwich Village Block Association News, is pedestrian safety, and by his reckoning the enemy is not S.U.V.s but Schwinns. “No doubt the most egregious assault on the lives of all New Yorkers in recent times is the relatively new phenomenon of sidewalk bicycling,” he wrote. “Remember the sidewalks before the Pooper Scooper law? . . . Without the mayor, police commissioner, and media stepping up to the plate for this problem, perhaps, we all had better be prepared to continue to dodge these louts.” Bernardin’s rant prompted a follow-up in the spring edition, entitled “Back to Bikes,” with many more Village residents weighing in. Ostensibly, the piece was about the “problem” of bicycles, like Paul White’s beater, that remain locked (or “leashed”) to public street furniture for extended periods, cluttering the neighborhood. “Every time I round the corner on to Morton Street, the first thing I see is the bikes everywhere, rather than the tulips and daffodils,” one man complained. But others evidently perceived Manhattan bikes as akin to hybrid cars in Hollywood: conspicuous presumption. “They don’t care how what they do affects others and you’re not going to change their attitude,” one resident said of bikers. “They’re morally superior because they are not polluting the atmosphere.” The hierarchy of urban piety is ever delicate. Still another Villager, a biking enthusiast, railed against the unctuousness of the anti-bike pedestrians. “I’m tired of joggers using the bike path, getting in the way,” he said. “They tell us to get off our bikes and jog because it’s more environmentally sensitive. To them bikes are manufactured things. The metals that go into them are mined. And there’s the plastic, too . . . made from oil.”

In which I still cannot lock the screen

I have long struggled with OSX's lack of resource for locking the window manager and the screen. I am not content with the Hot Corners available in the Screen Saver Preferences Pane: not only might pointer bounce away from the edge, but it requires mouse movement, and I prefer a hotkey or a command-line to do this. I am also not happy with the two-click lock icon provided in the Menu Bar by the Security Pref., for reasons you now understand.

I have tried hacks such as a short shell + AppleScript to invoke the ScreenSaverEngine (/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Versions/A/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/), which is what I thought locks the screen. Although this is not the right thing to do, because I might end up with multiple ScreenSaver instances (and a totally unlockable screen!). Apparently the right way to start the screensaver is the private API used by the keychain menu item to lock the screen, and this is used by the LockTight application. I want to try the MenuMaster program, which allows hotkeys to bind to things like scripts, but am a little nervous about third-party OS extensions.
UPDATE:
Quicksilver's LockScreen plugin loads the Keychain menu extra internally as a bundle, and then invokes the keychain menu's "_lockScreenMenuHit" selector directly.which calls the same code path as selecting the screen lock icon from the keychain menu.

In which the headlines write themselves

Police: Nude Man Hides Awl in Buttocks.

(11-03) 19:35 PST El Cerrito, Calif. (AP) --

A naked man was arrested on suspicion of carrying a concealed weapon after telling police he had a screwdriver in his buttocks. The man was lying on a tree stump masturbating beside a nature path near the El Cerrito Bay Area Rapid Transit station Thursday, police said.

John Sheehan, 33, of Pittsburg was initially arrested on suspicion of indecent exposure. But when asked if he was carrying anything police should know about, Sheehan mentioned the tool, said El Cerrito Detective Cpl. Don Horgan.

"You can't get much more concealed than that," Horgan said.

Officers drew their weapons and firefighters were called to the scene, but Sheehan removed a 6-inch metal awl wrapped in black electrical tape without incident.

Sheehan, who was paroled from state prison last week, was then booked into the county jail in Martinez on suspicion of parole violations, indecent exposure and one felony count of possessing a concealed weapon.

"When you're talking about an awl or an ice pick and you're dealing with somebody who's fresh out of prison, it's a weapon. That's a stabbing instrument," Horgan said.

He noted that the rear end is a common hiding place for weapons being smuggled into prison.

It was not immediately clear what Sheehan was on parole for.

sweal

sweal, v.i.

1. To melt and run down, as the tallow of a candle; to waste away without feeding the flame;
2. To blaze away;
3. To singe, as a hair on a pig or a hedgehog; to scorch, as skin on ditto;

I could not find this word in my dictionary; I need a bigger, or older, set, methinks. I like that this verb does not take an object.

Some thoughts on trash

Some comments in aFrieze column about trash reminded me that I am very curious about how civilization measures itself on trash collection. I take photographs of recycling schemes, and of street cleaners, and I wonder about whether our advanced in trash separation mean that our society is progressing.