I was pleased to discover that even crappy faux-pad thai made out of what you happen to have on hand can be pretty good. I broke fettucini noodles into short pieces, substituted lime juice for tamarind, assumed oyster sauce and fish sauce can't be that different, and passed on the shallots and scallions entirely, but in very little more time than just boiling the pasta takes I got something that tasted in the right ballpark and satisfied my craving for an interesting lunch without having to leave the house. I wish I'd known years ago how easy it would be to make. I might even try going to buy the correct ingredients some time!

Beyond the ridiculousness of the edits being made, the edited versions would seem to work against those students who had actually read the texts in question and have to choose between answering based on what the actual book says, and what the passage they are given says. If the literature in question is really unacceptable for "children" (as these high-school seniors are being labelled), then use passages that are acceptable. If existing literature is going to be torn apart in this way, then use the editing time to create original passages, which would have the tangential advantage of being equally novel to all of the students being tested.

Finally, to be an idealist for a moment, manipulating an author's work in this way isn't intellectually honest, and with plagiarism running rampant through schools and colleges, wouldn't it be a good idea to make sure that the educational system is setting the right example? [via Arts & Letters Daily]

reading:
Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies; Douglas Hofstadter

Though it's gotten some press, particularly in techy circles, after a very negative review from a friend I decided to pass on Wolfram's new book, A New Kind of Science. I appreciated this review of the book, though, which outlines the main arguments in what seems to be a fair manner while still pointing out the book's significant flaws, not the least of which, to me, is the observation that this 1200 page tome doesn't include a bibliography.

In my neverending quest to keep y'all up to date on the absurdity in the world, I must point out the Wal-Mart Ham Trial in which a woman is claiming that a 13-pound ham fell on her head in a Wal-Mart and caused her to develop epilepsy. Wal-Mart responds: "The ham could not have struck Mrs. Vasquez, ... Even in Wal-Mart, Isaac Newton's law of gravity still exists." [via Bad Hair Days]

In more weblog clique-age Fairvue has updated Blog.Elements, the periodic table of weblogs, to eliminate expired weblogs and eliminate the nonexistant element 118. I'm proud to maintain my place as Chromium, the shiny fender of the weblog community.

reading:
Remains of the Day; Kazuo Ishiguro
Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies; Douglas Hofstadter
The Raven and the Nightengale; Joanne Dobson

Just in case anyone is confused here, if you want to reduce the number of abortions in this country, reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies would be a good first step. Taking away the most effective, and easiest to use, forms of birth control will increase unwanted pregnancies. What's left? Diaphrams - which are notoriously tricky to insert properly and ineffective if inserted improperly. Condoms - which also have some reliability issues and require the man's cooperation. If you want to hold women to a zero-tolerance policy on unwanted pregnancies, then you have to give women the power to prevent those pregnancies.

Oh right - there's also abstinance. Which is a very good option for many groups of people (teenagers, I'm looking straight at you). But take a look around our society and the amount of sex in our media and then tell me that as a national solution to unwanted pregnancies, that's going to work anytime in the near future. Hell - if the introduction of the AIDS risk into the sexual scene didn't kill the problem, a moral argument from the government in the midst of thousands of competing messages isn't going to. Those people who want to build a society where sex is only acceptable for procreative purposes are crossing way over the line of protecting societal good and are trying to impose their own, almost certainly religiously based, morals on everyone to the probable detriment of societal good. [via News We Can Use]

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but when I receive an e-mail like the following, I have to assume that the writer is fishing for a homework assignment rather than actually showing interest:

I've read your review on Wicked online, and I was wondering have you ever done a in depth character analysis on any of the characters in Wicked by Gregory Maguire? If you have, do you think you can send me a copy, because I am very interested in reading it. I found the novel very fascinating. Thank You.

Not much else today since I spent my surfing time cleaning up my portal. All of the dead links are now gone and I worked a few of my bookmarks in. I also noticed that Google finally has my new domain name crawled and I'm back to getting hits through them.

reading:
Girl with Curious Hair; David Foster Wallace
Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies; Douglas Hofstadter

A nice little tool to make all of the content in eBooks more accessible, SearcheBooks does basic searching over online eBooks. And it's not just books that are getting put on-line as they move into the public domain. The Choral Public Domain Library catalogs thousands of sheet music scores available free on-line. Note, however, that not all of the music is truly in the public domain; many, for example, are freely available for religious use only. [via BookPeople]

If you don't get their catalog allow me to point out that Land's End women's tank tops are currently on sale for $8. These are absolutely great tank tops, with high enough arm holes and wide enough straps you can wear any bra under them, and they're out of a really good cotton knit fabric that lasts forever. I have two that are only just starting to wear out now after ten years. Even at the $9 each that shipping and tax add on, this is a great price for these and I'd recommend them to anyone.

In another reason to love Amazon, I was shipped a DVD by them last week which, this week, was lowered in price by $4. How do I know the price dropped? I just got e-mail from them letting me know that they're crediting my credit card with $4. Of course, one could also see this as a reason to dislike Amazon since I'm sure they dropped their price to stay competative with other stores and keep people from returning the movie and buying it locally at a lower price. But from the selfish consumer point of view, it was great.