other rats in the race

http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=773

No idea where Zeus is. Probably off leaping on something.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/shoeblogs/MJXb/~3/293027914/

http://shoeblogs.com/?p=4119

Manolo says, here is the best of the week from the Manolosphere.

Glinda…

There was nothing else but this infant and their momentary bond. Which is touchingly sweet, and yet is at the same time a wee bit creepy.

Spirit Fingers…

Did nobody tell these two that they are supposed to be promoting the launch of another money-spinning fragrance?

Plumcake…

I feel that many of my shoes really need a yacht to truly be shown to their best…

Raincoaster…

Loyal TeenyManolites know that we’ve long kept a beady eye on the jaded escapades of debauched homunculus known as Elmo. The back alleys of Hollywood swarm with the tainted, broken bodies of those he has used and tossed aside.

Diable…

Sí, efectivamente, si usted pensaba que ese pequeño hombrecillo al frente de la banda Radiohead era un alienígena en la tierra, pues estaba muy equivocado.

Isidore Gallant…

Izzy wonders whether Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is a card-carrying member of NOMSBH.

Mr. Henry…

For longer than he cares to say, he has been promising to buy Mrs. Henry a proper set of knives, forks, and spoons in everyday stainless steel, a set that balances nicely in the hand, lies beautifully on the table, and washes easily in the dishwasher.

Francesca…

Francesca cannot repeat often enough: Make friends with a seamstress!

Twistie…

Claude was flying his B-29 on a bombing raid over Yowata, Japan in August 1944 when the engine of the plane caught fire. He and his crew bailed out with their nylon parachutes. During the night while they waited rescue, Claude used his trusty parachute as a blanket and a pillow. After he and his men were rescued, he kept the parachute. When he proposed to Ruth in 1947, he handed her the parachute and suggested she make her wedding gown out of it. She did.

Never teh Bride…

Creating your own moon garden is simply a matter of populating a patch of earth with flora that fulfills its true potential when the sun goes down.

Diablesse…

La mayoría de los amantes de la moda y empedernidos espectadores de Sex and the City lo esperaban con ansias locas (si no pregúntenle a Diable) y por fin el anhelo encuentra un poco de papel couché y corona a Sarah Jessica Parker como portada de VOGUE USA.

Patri…

Me voy a repetir una vez más en Manolo Moda: ¡ADORAMOS los zapatos! pero no solo los destinados a cubrir el pie femenino, sino a cubrir el masculino también y que mejor manera que buscar por toda la red la selección de las romanas pero en versión masculina.

http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=771

I’ve been led to understand that Bebo is one of the more popular social networking sites over there on your fair continent, and several folks there have asked me to put up a Bebo profile, because the inability to friend me on their social network of choice is causing them unspeakable amounts of angst and pain. Well, fine: Here you go. Hope your angst gets better. Tums help.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/292970252/nyu-student-shares-h.html

NYU Interactive Telecommunications Program student Drew Burrows, 28, engineered a "virtual girlfriend," and showed her off at a recent Tisch School of the Arts show:

It's simple to behold — a single mattress, tucked into a dark, curtained back room of the showcase space. On it: a lithe brunette. She's perfectly quiet, but once you sit or lie down, she responds to your every move. Lie on your back, she snuggles up right next to you in a log position. Curl up in the fetal position, she spoons. The only hitch: She's 2-D. "Yeah, you can't feel the girl. That's the thing," Burrows explained as he demonstrated his invention, an "infrared sensitive" light projection (meaning it reacts, and the projected woman moves, based on an infrared sensor) called INBED. "Still, it's so nice if you're tired and worn out to have someone to curl up with."

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/292965884/social-networking-ma.html

A visualization of the purported marketshare of various online social networking services. It's super interesting, but incomplete: I wonder where the data on China is? Click for larger size. From Le Monde, via Azeem Azar on twitter, via Tim O'Reilly's blog. (thanks Jolon Bankey!)

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/292965886/web-zen-leftover-bac.html

hover bacon
tux
bra
salt
mints
cups
coffee
vodka

previously on web zen:
bacon zen

Link, Web Zen Home and Archives, Store (Thanks Frank!)

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/292963599/us-postal-mail-rate.html

Ben Scott had better things to do than listen to a bunch of little magazines rant about their unreasonable postage bills. As the policy director of Free Press, a group that specialized in fighting media concentration, he and 10 co-workers in Washington were wrapped up in defending internet accessibility. But in late February 2007, Scott’s phone started buzzing with accusations from panicked publishers of small-circulation magazines. The United States Postal Service, they said, was hammering the last nail in the coffin of independent publishing.

Periodicals with circulations of fewer than 250,000 (some with much fewer—even in the hundreds) had just discovered that the rates they paid the USPS for postage were about to skyrocket, and they had only eight business days to dispute the proposed increase. While these independent publishers had expected the rates to rise, they believed it would be by about 12 percent, which had been the USPS’ own suggestion. However, during an arduous 10 months of hearings on postal rates in 2006, during which the small-magazine community was conspicuously absent, the stakes changed dramatically.

Instead of a simple markup, the entire rate system was overhauled, imposing a cost-based structure on a branch of government originally established to provide a public good, one that the Founding Fathers deemed vital to our democratic society. The Postal System was built on the premise of promoting the free flow of ideas by giving preferential treatment to their most common method of conveyance: the printed pages of periodicals.

Of particular concern to Free Press was the discovery that the biggest force behind the formula by which rates were to be increased was none other than Time Warner, the largest magazine publisher in the United States, which had been working overtime to influence the outcome of the hearings.

This afternoon at 2:00 p.m. Cory Doctorow will be at the library, signing books and being cool. I know his schedule says the “Seattle Public Library,” but it’s not the downtown one; you’ll find him at the Ballard branch, 5614 22nd Ave NW.

I’m going to zoosh out and pick up a copy of Little Brother as soon as I’m finished with breakfast, so I’ll have something new for him to sign.*

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=169

A few days ago an unusual article appeared in The Hindu. It is about the fragment of a pot shown above, a pot used for collecting toddy (palm sap, modern Tamil கள்ளு) made about 1800 years ago. The writing on the pot is in Tamil Brahmi, a writing system that only fairly recently has come to be well understood. It says: n̪a:kan uɾal, Old Tamil for "Naakan's (pot with) toddy-sap". In modern Tamil writing this would be: னாகந் உறல். As the article points out, the fact that a poor toddy-tapper would write his name on a pot is indicative of mass literacy at the time.

The article is interesting to me in part just because of the photograph. I've seen photographs of Tamil Brahmi texts before, but never in color, and having never been to India, I've never seen such a text in person. The other interesting thing about the article is the authorship. Newspaper articles are usually written by reporters. As we not infrequently note here on Language Log, there are a few good ones, but all too often they get things wrong. Well, this article is not by reporters; it is right from the horse's mouth. The authors are S. Rajagopal, retired senior archaeologist with the Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology and Iravatham Mahadevan, an eminent student of early Indian writing and leading authority on Tamil Brahmi, author of the Early Tamil Epigraphy volume in the Harvard Oriental Series, which belongs on every shelf. This is like having a newspaper article on physics written by Stephen Hawking. I hope it's the beginning of a trend.