February 06, 2008
Pangrams
A pangram is a sentence that includes each of the 26 letters in the alphabet.
The most familiar one is the old chestnut: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."
I was sitting on the train to Philly with about an hour to kill.
I completed the crossword and sudoku in the local paper but still had about 20 minutes, so I created a game for myself: what is the shortest pangram I can write that doesn't use any of the words of the example just given? (with the exception of the word, 'the')
I started flexing my brain by trying to shorten the original sentence. The original has 35 letters, but it can be adjusted to: "The quick brown fox jumps over lazy dogs" at 33 characters.
So my target is less than 33 characters, although that seems ambitious with only 7 letter repetitions.
After some time I came up with: "A jovial bird maps the fog, quacking in the waxy haze." (42 characters)
It could be a little shorter, but the sentence would lose some of its coherence and rhythm.
I encourage everyone to try and come up with their own.
AskOxford.com is a fun site to surf around on if you enjoy fooling around with words.
Posted by mslaybau at 10:59 AM | Comments (0)
January 24, 2006
Top 17 Country & Western Songs
This was in my inbox:
Top 17 Country & Western Songs
17. I Hate Every Bone In Her Body But Mine
16. It's Hard To Kiss The Lips At Night That Chewed Your Ass Out All Day Long
15. If I Can't Be Number One In Your Life, Then Number Two On You
14. If The Phone Don't Ring, You'll Know It's Me
13. How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?
12. I Liked You Better Before I Got To Know You So Well
11. I Still Miss You Baby, But My Aim's Getting Better
10. I Wouldn't Take Her To A Dogfight 'Cause I'm Afraid She'd Win
9. I'll Marry You Tomorrow But Let's Honeymoon Tonight
8. I'm So Miserable Without You It's Like You're Still Here
7. If I Had Shot You When I First Wanted To, I'd Be Out Of Prison By Now
6. My wife Ran Off With My Best Friend And I Sure Do Miss Him
5. She Got The Ring and I Got The Finger
4. You're The Reason Our Kids Are So Ugly
3. Her Teeth Was Stained But Her Heart Was Pure
2. She's Looking Better After Every Beer
And the Number One song is . . .
1. I Ain't Never Gone To Bed With an Ugly Woman, But I've Sure Woke Up With A Few
Posted by mslaybau at 08:37 PM | Comments (1)
December 01, 2004
Schlappach
My last name is Slaybaugh.
Some in my family have wondered what it means in its (presumably) Germanic origin.
Does it mean 'Limp' or 'Sleeping River'?
Here are my findings.
This site
http://www.rootsweb.com/~pasomers/amsurs.htm
says that one common Amish name is Slabaugh (Schlappach)
I've seen other similar names, such as Schlabaugh and Schlabach
This English-German dictionary
http://www.iee.et.tu-dresden.de/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/wernerr/search.sh?string=Schlap&nocase=on&hits=50
defines 'Schlapp' as:
- 'flabby'
- 'flaccid'
- 'flagging'
- 'floppy'
- 'limp'
- 'muscleless'
- 'slack'
- 'spiritless'
- 'weak-kneed'
- 'yellow'
'ach' on its own means 'Oh!' and seems to be an odd suffix, but, according to
http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/
'schlappmachen' means 'to break down'
'schlappmachend' means 'breaking down'
'schlappgemacht' means 'broken down'
Ah, pride
Although, the original name could have been Schlabach, in which case, the etymology could have been 'Schla' + 'bach'.
'Bach' means brook or stream
'Schla' could be any of:
- 'artful' or 'astute' (Schlau)
- 'asleep' (Schlaf)
- 'bash' or 'blow' (Schlag)
- 'battle' (Schlacht)
'Artful Stream' or 'Battle Brook' are much better than 'Flaccid, oh!'
edit:
d51slay@aol.com wrote to say:
"the name slaybaugh was previously spelled schlebach. my ancestors are from adams county pa. the older grave markers have it spelled the old way and the newer ones have it spelled the english way."
So, assuming bach means 'river' (or small river) all we have to do is translate 'schle'. There is no word in German spelled that way, but looking at close matches we see that 'schlecht' means 'bad' or 'amiss' or 'bum' and 'schlendern' means 'amble'.
My money is now on either 'winding river' (ambling river) or 'bad river' or 'hobo river' (bum river).
'Bad River' sounds kind of cool, so I'll go with that.
Posted by mslaybau at 03:24 AM | Comments (1)
October 26, 2004
Band Names
Fecal Urgency
Necessary Fungus
Unsung Tuber
Posted by mslaybau at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)
October 07, 2004
HTML Koans
Is your path relative or absolute?
A path begins with an anchor and a reference - do you have a target?
Does your style cascade?
Is your style inline or external?
Do you generate statically or dynamically?
What color is your background?
Content exists in a cell. Is your cell padded? Does it have a border?
If your path does not include a target you will remain in the same frame you are now.
Posted by mslaybau at 03:09 PM
February 26, 2004
Ranthers, Delling, and Strags
Mr. 14 Minutes has a webapp that lets you coin new, currently undefined, yet syntactically correct words. If it's not clear how he does it, just know that it's all about Markov chains
I hereby declare the word "matious" to mean "related to Matt"; "mathing" to mean "looking for Matt"; and "matiblyness" to mean "having the qualities of Matt".
And why is "mation" not a word? It should be. That's a quality word.
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Posted by mslaybau at 03:36 AM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2004
Computer Speech has Arrived
AT&T has done good work on their text-to-speech work (click this underlined text to travel via hyperspace to the destination link!) The link takes you to a demo where you can type in a sentence or two and hear it 'spoken' by one of several voices. It's surprisingly good, especially in comparison to what was available just a year ago. I can't tell if it's produced entirely via AM/RM/FM sythesis, or uses samples of human voice. Either way, try it out. You'll be hearing lots of it in the near future, in those automated telephone labyrinths, as well as radio and TV eventually.
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Posted by mslaybau at 02:52 AM | Comments (0)
February 20, 2004
Skunk Works
Word(s) of the day: Skunk Works
Definitions: wikipedia.org, whatis.com
A team working 'outside the box' (man, I'm tired of that phrase) usually on a technical problem.
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Posted by mslaybau at 02:43 AM | Comments (0)
January 11, 2004
Kluge Kludge
Kluge is German for 'intelligent' or 'clever'.
Kludgie is old Scots for 'outside toilet'.
The two words have been combined in modern English (spelled both 'kluge' and 'kludge') to mean 'an ad hoc, cleverly made, though clumsy solution'. The term suggests a Rube Goldberg-type contraption, sort of like what Wallace would make, but more hastily put together, especially in response to a sudden need for a solution when resources are not available. When the Apollo 13 team managed to repair the craft using only available materials, that was a Kluge Extraordinaire.
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Posted by mslaybau at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)
January 07, 2004
Hobo Runes
Other than human beings, I suppose, pretty much everything worth caring about can be categorized using two mutually exclusive rubrics: that which is funny and that which is cool. Some things are cute that are neither funny nor cool, but I don't care about those.
Some cool things are:
- Robots
- Outer Space
- Medieval Warfare
- Explosions
We live in a literal society. That is why cynicism is so rampant; it is a reaction to the lack of abstraction and indirectness that we evolved to understand.
For tens of thousands of years our societies developed to appreciate the meaning of patterns in the stars at night, and to interpret weather as communication from the gods.
But now we know better and are left with digits and clarity.
Still, there is one place where ciphers are (were) used for communication - ciphers that would not be understood by someone not in the know: hobo runes. Hobo runes are cool.
The modern equivalent is 'warchalking', where people make marks to indicate to others where to find unprotected WiFi Internet access they can use.
But hobo runes are much richer than that, and are interesting since they are a sort of modern hieroglyphics, based partly on English, but mostly on pictograms and something much closer to the mind than typical written language, which is so far abstracted from the things that are represented by words, that it may as well have been created out of nothing. (Onomatopeia being the exception).
Some runes are easy to understand. 
But some are more abstract Some have inscrutable etymologies 
And some seem almost kabbalistic. I grabbed the above images from here, and there are other, similar sites here, here, here, and here.
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Posted by mslaybau at 09:32 AM | Comments (0)
December 29, 2003
Alpha Brazo Yankee Zulu
Quite often, I have to speak or understand information given over the phone that contains numbers and digits, such as IP addresses or convoluted Web site URLs. Because of the limited bias of phone lines, the higher frequencies of the human voice are cut out and letters such as 'P' and 'T' or 'F' and 'S' or 'D' and 'B' or 'N' and 'M' sound alike. So this comes in handy.
In British English my name is spelled Mike Alpha Tango Tango, but in Esperanto it's spelled Maŝino Asfalto Triumfo Triumfo
(Note the unicode for the 'ŝ' [ŝ] since 's' doesn't have a circumflex over it in the standard 7- or 8-bit encoded character set.)
--------Posted by mslaybau at 11:07 AM | Comments (0)
December 17, 2003
Finger Punctuation
You know how people use their fingers to indicate quotes?
What if we started using our fingers to indicate other punctuation?
Parenthesis - hands cupped, palms toward each other
Elipsis - three fingers pointing forward, palm down
Colon - two fingers pointing forward, palm facing sideways
Semi-colon could be awkward. try it!
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Posted by mslaybau at 12:59 PM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2003
Robots of Venery
Terms of Venery (Collective Nouns):
A group of unicorns is called a blessing. (how often does that happen?)
Twelve or more cows (kine) are known as a flink.
A group of frogs is called an army.
A group of rhinos is called a crash.
A group of kangaroos is called a mob.
A group of whales is called a pod.
A group of ravens (or crows) is called a murder.
A group of larks is called an exaltation.
A group of owls is called a parliament.
So, once we begin hunting robots for sport, what shall we call a grouping of them?
A 'can of robots'?
A 'bismuth of robots'?
A 'bottle of robots'?
A 'leet of robots'?
Most of my ideas come from my amusement at the image of a small container full of struggling robots - eager, in their way, to get out, but too stupid to know how.
But, robot-hunting could be a lucrative endeavor in the near future. Get some woods and some hillbillies and toss in a robot. Everyone wins!
Posted by mslaybau at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)