Acetio | Blogma

Etymology lesson:
cybernetic:
A thermostat is cybernetic in nature: There is a mechanism in place which keeps the room from getting too hot or too cold; it regulates things to ensure everything is in balance, that if something gets too far one direction, the system kicks on to bring it back in line.

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

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.

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.

AT&T has done good work on their text-to-speech work.

This is 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.

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.

Kluge is German for 'intelligent' or 'clever'.

Kludgie is old Scots for 'outside toilet'.

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 list of phonetic dictionaries comes in handy.

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!