Category Archives: Uncategorized

True Facts about Spaghetti

Posted on August 21, 2014 by Allen

During the years I lived in Seelisberg on Lake Lucerne (aka Lac des Quatre Cantons / Fierwaldstattersee) we often joined in the feast after a long afternoon watching the Swiss farmers (usually a mom and pop) harvesting. Curiously, the Swiss … Continue reading →

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Enhanced Text — Helpful or Annoying?

Posted on May 25, 2014 by Allen

What I’m referring to by “enhanced text” is the practice of highlighting text in some way for the purpose of clarifying its meaning. It’s something I tend to do in blogs and emails, but I try not to do it … Continue reading →

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Sound Quality of Audio Systems

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Allen

Are vinyl LP’s better in certain ways than music digitized and recorded on CD or into a computer file? This is an interesting area of inquiry that I’ve thought about a lot over the years since digital recordings became a … Continue reading →

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eBooks and Just Plain Books

Posted on April 20, 2014 by Allen

FIRST: I love the kindle3 and the “paper-white,” and find myself reading much more now — partly due to the amazing ease of staring at the e-ink screen, and partly due to the convenience of obtaining material from Amazon. I … Continue reading →

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Free Will — Another Reducto

Posted on April 3, 2014 by Allen

Some friends of mine were recently embroiled in another attempt to answer the perennial question of free will or determinism. Is everything pre-ordained? Or do we have control over the events in our lives? At least some of them, anyway… … Continue reading →

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Brain Frieze – New book, available now.

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Allen

I’m very pleased to announce the release of my latest book, Brain Frieze: ‘Barnaby Goes Home’ and 20 more stories of humor, mystery, sci-fi, and the mind, four days ahead of its April 1 publication date. (No, this is not an … Continue reading →

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Mary Malaprop #1

Posted on March 21, 2014 by Allen

I trust there will be more in this series, but here’s the first one. Re: Brits Here’s an amusing anecdote that only someone with Brit experience can appreciate: When the aerospace company I worked in some years ago was acquired … Continue reading →

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Clarification #409 – slash and backslash

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Allen

There is an old punctuation mark (some prefer to call it a symbol) popularly known as the slash. Its most frequent uses are to separate alternatives (this/that) or to signify a simple fraction (1/2). Sometimes it’s used to represent a … Continue reading →

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Windows 8.0/8.1 Start Screen — You’ve got to be kidding.

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Allen

Alright, obviously Microsoft will be unaware of this post, and would ignore it even if they read it, but still, I can dream, can’t I? Here’s the thing. Windows 8.1 isn’t all that bad, except if you consider the shell … Continue reading →

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The Descent of English

Posted on December 23, 2013 by Allen

Once in a while, against my better judgement, I get upset by the mis-use of English—not just in conversation, where perfection is rarely expected or appropriate, but in carefully scripted presentations, news copy, narrations and voice-overs, articles, books, etc. I … Continue reading →

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