Wasn't it Thanksgiving just last week?

I was talking to a friend today about the holidays, holiday plans and the how general relativity doesn't seem to apply to holiday seasons.

To wit: from the perspective of any given yearly celebration(Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.) looking back at the previous occurrence of that day causes some sort of counter-relativistic time dilation. The rearly celebrations seem to recur at some crazy speed that defies Newton and Einstein and, seemingly, the speed of light. Want proof?

Think back to last Thanksgiving. How long ago does it seem? A year? Can you remember where you were? What you did? Who was with you? what you ate? I can. Seems like it was last month, doesn't it? Not last year.

Now think back to last the Thursday just before Thanksgiving. Just one week before. Can you remember where you were? What you did? Who was with you? what you ate? I can't.

See? The holidays suffer from time dilation.

Happy holidays! Enjoy them while you can. They'll be back in just a couple of weeks (or so it will seem). ;-)

Poignant Fallujah article in the NYT

Yesterday, in the New York Times, I read a disturbing article by an embedded reporter who is with the Marines in Falluhah: In Falluja, Young Marines Saw the Savagery of an Urban War by Dexter Filkins.

I was first struck by how it seemed more like a story from a novel, or a biography, more than an article from one of the most important newspapers in the world. The style wasn't sterile and fact-bound, though it was certainly factual. It was an account written by someone who was touched by what he saw, touched by the soldiers he met and who he saw die.

It was a very moving account and gave me some insight into what these young kids are going through, though, obviously, I could never being to understand the true horror and terror these young soldeirs must have felt during the assault.

Worth reading...

When it rains, there are multiple posts...

So, I go for weeks without posting, then I get all prolific-like. What's up with that? Anyway...

This one's about FireFox, the new kid on the browser block.

I've been a paying user of Opera for years. I wasn't going to look at FireFox because I paid for Opera. I've always been happy with Opera, its features and performance (usually) and it's certainly way more secure the Internet Explorer.

For some reason, I broke down yesterday and installed FireFox. Now, I suspect, Opera may fall by the way side.

Though Opera is faster than IE, FireFox is even faster than Opera -- and FireFox is free. It starts up faster and its page loads are snappier. Both support tab-based browsing, stop pop-ups, are skinnable (not that I care much about that), and are more secure than IE. But the quick response from FireFox is refreshing.

Recommended.

Are you a whacker?

No, not that!

I'm referring to GoogleWhacking, a game wherein the contestant (you) sends two-word search requests to Google to get back a single result. With over 8 billion pages served, it's tough to find the perfect combination.

However, I did it with cryonic gerrymandering. And it only took 45 minutes of trying random words that I didn't think fit together.

If you hurry, you can still see my "whack" in the "WhackStack" at www.googlewhack.com

What I found interesting about this is that there are pages out there that I was sure would come up either without hits or maybe one, but I'd get 10, 50 or a hundred. It was amazing.

Wanna play? There are rules for this, but it's pretty easy. Go to Google.com, type in two words that can both be found at Dictionary.com, get back a single hit and you can record your hit in the WhackStack.

Fun and an insidious time stealer.

Enjoy!