Indistinguishable from Jesse

Twice this week I have witnessed Mudd students recommending Mozilla Firebird to other Mudd students. Both students mentioned pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing. One also mentioned themes, Flash Click to View and other extensions, and the customizable search bar (he uses IMDb and dictionary.com in addition to Google).

MIT Perceptual Science Group: lightness; interaction between motion and form

Akiyoshi Kitaoka: static images that appear to move

The idioms "anything but" and "all but" have confused me as long as I can remember. Now I know why: they have nearly opposite meanings.

• Cambridge ALD definitions for all but, anything but
• Bruce Todd tries to explain the idioms
• An English test for Japanese students (charset: Shift_JIS):

  13. That boy is (　　　) a great trouble to his parents.
  A. all but　 B. anything but　 C. not but　 D. nothing but

• An English test for Chinese students:

  27. It was such a dangerous scene: the boy was ____ drowned in the river just now.
  A. nothing but B. all but C. anything but D. but that

Google searches used: "anything but" "all but" idioms (lots of results, mostly noise), "all but * anything but" (only 16 results, but some were relevent).

These idioms do not appear in any of the idiom dictionaries I have:

• NTC's American Idioms Dictionary
• NTC's Slang American Style (generally the most useful of the three)
• Betty Kirkpatrick's Clichés

From an e-mail titled "Terror Warning 3/18/03" and sent to all Mudd students:

The President of the United States has announced his intention to remove the current leadership of Iraq. As a result, the intelligence community believes there is a high probability of large and small-scale attacks that could involve mass casualties and seek to cause maximum economic, psychological and symbolic impact. Reports from Los Angeles County of Emergency Management, State Office of Emergency Services, and the Federal Department of Homeland Security suggest that terrorists may attempt multiple attacks against U.S. and allied targets.

Officials have expressed particular concern about buildings, subways, and other enclosed areas. There is also concern about Iraqi sleeper agents proficient in assassinations, kidnappings, and bombings.

To address the increased level of threat, the Department of Homeland Security has raised the national Terrorism Threat Level to Orange-Plus Alert (High).

Recommendations

In response to specific recommendations from the Department of Homeland Security, the HMC Incident Management Team suggests that as far as possible, we:

Limit visitor access to buildings and school campuses to a single entry point.

Effective Wednesday, March 19, 2003, limit access to each building to the main entrance. All other entrances will require key or combo access.

The "one unlocked door per building" policy was not implemented well. One building has a glass wall with many doors along it, and even there only one door was unlocked. The unlocked door for a building at the edge of campus faced a street rather than the rest of campus.

But even with those minor problems fixed, the policy was silly because it introduced inconvinience without protecting us at at all. The policy was killed within 3 or 4 weeks.

What security measures or "security" measures have you been affected by?

I connected to IRC soon after getting up on September 11. I didn't usually do that. My first class was at 8:10.

Session Start: Tue Sep 11 07:50:09 2001
[07:50] *** Now talking in #mozillazine
[07:50] *** Topic is 'Planes crash into world trade center's twin towers, Pentagon | http://www.abc.net.au/streaming/newsradio.ram Live Audio'
[07:50] *** Set by Hendikins on Tue Sep 11 06:52:42
[07:50] <ksosez> oh my goc
[07:50] <ksosez> god
[07:50] <ksosez> Jesse you okay?
[07:50] <nvs81> free to air tv does me good
[07:50] <rkaa> ...we have a report that ...airplane..pennsylvania...747...no details yet..but it's crashed southeast of pittsburg
[07:50] <ksosez> yeah i hear that
[07:51] <grissu> 2nd plane flying to pentagon !!!!!
[07:51] *** Hendikins changes topic to 'Planes crash into world trade center's twin towers, Pentagon | http://www.abc.net.au/streaming/newsradio.ram Live Audio [DOWN]&#15;'
[07:51] <Anthem> Arafat condemns plane attacks in U.S. - Reuters
[07:51] <sodapop3k> whoa.
[07:51] <Jesse> ksosez: yes, why?
[07:51] <doron> Anthem: he condemns everything
[07:51] <rkaa> poor sod
[07:51] <grissu> 2nd plane flying to pentagon !!!!!
[07:51] <Anthem> 10:48am 09/11/01 BOEING 767 CRASHES NORTH OF SOMERSET COUNTY AIRPORT
[07:52] <Hendikins> Jesse: read topic

How did you find out about the September 11 attacks?

I learned a cool word in my Acquisition of Language class this week: motherese, speech that is high-pitched, repetitive, simple, and typically directed at young children.

I found a message from Steven Pinker about the term (and 8 synonyms or related terms). He also talks about an early version of the American Heritage Dictionary's definition for "child-directed speech".

Pinker prefers the term "child-directed speech", saying it is the most transparent. I prefer "motherese" because it is clearly a term and therefore must refer to some phenomenon worth naming. "Child-directed speech" could be mistaken to mean "any speech directed at a child". "Child-directed speech" tries to be more inclusive, but still misses the fact that people also use it when talking to cats. I also prefer "motherese" because it's short, easy to remember, and slightly silly.

In the middle of August, Yahoo! Maps made several changes to the way it displays directions:

• The first step, "Start on [street]", became "Start at [address], [city]".
• A last step was added: "Arrive at [address], [city]".
• "Left" and "Right" were replaced by black circles containing "L" and "R", and the column on the right side of the table with arrows was removed.
• Distances and turns used to be separate columns, but now the main column contains lines like "Turn R on MIRALESTE DR - go 0.8 miles".

All of these changes slightly improve the printed directions. But one change can vastly improve directions copied by hand: adding the destination address as the last step.

When I had a small party at my house early in August (before the changes), everyone used Yahoo! Maps for directions because I included a Get directions to my house URL in the invitation. One friend called just before arriving to ask what my address was. Another friend asked a neighbor which house was mine. They both forgot to copy down the address, which appeared in the invitation e-mail and at the top of the Yahoo! Maps page but not in directions themselves.

Yahoo! Maps joins Mappoint in including the destination address as the last step in the directions. Mapquest and Expedia Maps still do not. Expedia's last step is "End: Arrive End".

I eat in my room a lot, but I don't drive and I don't like carrying heavy bags of groceries 2 miles. Instead of begging for rides, I order from vons.com. They deliver groceries to my dorm room. I've been using vons.com for a year, but most Mudd students don't know about it.

The site's "Favorites" feature makes it possible to order very quickly if you buy the same things each time. Many items have photos, so lists are easy to scan.

The minimum order is $50 and the normal delivery fee is $10. $10 is worth it for the time I save by not begging people for rides, riding to Vons, walking around the store to find the groceries I want, waiting in line at checkout, waiting for the people I rode with to finish, riding back, and carrying bags of groceries to my room in several trips. Orders over $150 have free delivery, but my orders aren't that large.

When you check out, you have to specify a 2-hour delivery window when you know you will be in your room.

My complaints about the site:

• The front page doesn't mention the $10 delivery fee.
• At 800x600, the "main" frame is tiny and I have to scroll a lot.
• I have to enter my credit card information for each order.
• The site isn't sure whether it's Vons or Safeway. (They're the same company. The store is called Vons in southern California and is called Safeway elsewhere.)

Tips for Mudd students:

• If you live in South, give your location as "South Dorm", not "Marks Hall". Many Mudders don't know where "Marks Hall" is, and there is also a "Marks Hall" at CMC.
• Give the address of your dorm (below), not your mailing address (340 E Foothill). I don't know if this is necessary, but it's what I tried first, and it worked for me. (Source for addresses: Dean Guy, "Cable Television" e-mail to all Mudd students, Sept. 2002.)

  Dorm	Address
  Garrett House	495 East 12th Street
  Atwood	1200 North Mills Avenue
  Case	560 East Foothill
  Linde	550 East Foothill
  South	400 East Foothill
  East	445 East 12th Street
  North	440 East Foothill
  West	425 East 12th Street

  (More addresses -- link added 2003-09-23)