When you see one of these, they mean it.

Posted on January 2, 2013 by The Old Wolf

Back in 2009 I hit a coyote at 80 MPH around Carlin, NV. Did some damage to the front end of my Prius, but nothing severe – mostly plastic fairing knocked off under the left wheel well, and took out one of my fog lights.

But this would be different.

You notice this is a race car, the driver is wearing a helmet, and he manages to maintain control. But that was one heck of an impact, and I’ve heard of accidents where the carcass goes straight through the vehicle, taking out the driver.

Be careful out there.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

The Religious Chain Letter

Posted on January 2, 2013 by The Old Wolf

Occasionally I will get this sort of thing in my mailbox. I have to say I remember my mother typing chain letters with carbon paper and sending them to myriads of people in the 50’s… but now with electronic communication, it’s possible to annoy millions without effort or cost.

Look at this Picture Closely

The President of Argentina received this picture and called it “junk mail”: 8 days later his son died. A man received this picture and immediately sent out copies: His surprise was winning the lottery. Alberto Martinez received this picture and gave it to his secretary to make copies but she forgot to distribute it – She lost her job and he lost his family. This picture is miraculous and sacred.”

You were chosen to receive this novena (prayer).

The moment you receive it, say :

[Insert the Lord’s Prayer here]

GOD WANTED ME TO TELL YOU, It shall be well with you this coming year.

No matter how much your enemies try this year, they will not succeed.
You have been destined to make it and you shall surely achieve all your goals this year.
For all of 2013, all your agonies will be diverted and victory and prosperity will be incoming in abundance.
Today God has confirmed the end of your sufferings, sorrows and pain because HE that sits on the throne has remembered you.
He has taken away the hardships and given you JOY. He will never let you down.

I knocked at heaven’s door this morning.
God asked me, “My child! What can I do for you?”
And I said, “Father, please protect and bless the person reading this message.”

This is a Novena from Mother Theresa that started in 1952.

It has never been broken. Within 48 hours send 20 copies (Or as many as you can – God does know if you don’t have 20 people to send it to – it’s the effort and intent that counts) to family and friends.

Do not send it back to the person who sent it to you.

This is a powerful Novena. Can only help. All prayer is powerful.

Please do not break it.

Now: I have nothing against sending out good energy, or prayer. I appreciate people who exercise their faith on my behalf. But I have serious issues with this kind of email because they’re – to be charitable – a crock of .

I’m supposed to believe that

I was “chosen” to receive this special communication (along with the countless other “unspecified recipients”)
Some stock photo taken off the Internet is miraculous and sacred
Some really bad writing can be attributed to Mother Teresa in 1952
The chain has never been broken
If I send it to 20 friends, I’ll have amazing luck
If I don’t send it on, I’m opening myself to apocalyptic consequences, loss of job, family, life, and limb. (The idea that a prayer for the blessing of people would automatically morph into a curse if not sent onwards defies logic. Oh wait, we’re talking about religion, excuse me.)

People! In the name of anything you hold sacred or worthy of respect, if you want to send good energy to your friends, great. Pray for them privately (see Matthew 6:6 if you’ve forgotten the admonition), but please don’t forward hqiz like this. Above and beyond all the things I mentioned above, some of the folks in your address book will invariably be humanists or atheists, and you don’t want to send them to the hospital with intense pain caused by prolonged and forceful eye-rolling.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Playing in the World Game – 2012 in review

Posted on January 2, 2013 by The Old Wolf

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. Not bad for my first year. I was most interested to see where in the world my readers were coming from. Thanks to everyone who read and/or commented – I hope to make 2013 even more interesting!

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 35,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 8 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

Tie One On

Posted on January 2, 2013 by The Old Wolf

Hopefully people have recovered from their hangovers by now, and are ready to face the new year with aplomb and panache. For better or for worse, the necktie is still a part of the formal and business scene, and how that tie looks can say a lot. There are over 100 ways to tie a necktie, although three knots are the most commonly used. Here are the old standards, and some attention-grabbing newcomers:

The four-in-hand – the simplest knot to tie.

The Half-windsor. Always seems a bit lopsided to me.

The full Windsor. Balanced, symmetrical, and classic.

Atlantic Knot

Ediety Knot (wide blade in front)

Ediety knot (Merovingian knot) with narrow blade in front. To get the two-toned look, two ties need to be sewn together.

The Ediety knot (for Matrix fans, also called the Merovingian knot.) This is a doubled Atlantic knot; it can be knotted with the thin end over the wide end (top), as with the Atlantic knot, or with the wide end over the thin end to mimic the look seen in the film, with the narrow blade in front (bottom). There’s a lot of controversy on how to tie this knot – many claim that it’s a simple Atlantic, but that’s not the case. Google around, there are a number of tutorials out there – and choose the one that gives you the look you like.

The Trinity Knot. Very sharp looking.

The Eldredge Knot. Unique and eye-catching.

A comprehensive list of knots is found here, although the instructions (in shorthand notation) can be confusing and look more like a solution to the Rubik’s Cube. However, if you find a knot you like, there are usually video or other tutorials available that will give you a better idea of how to proceed.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Himalayan Road, Tibet

Posted on January 1, 2013 by The Old Wolf

Everything I can find out about this photo indicates that it’s a Tibetan landscape. No idea who took the photo, or exactly where it is. If you find a definitive attribution, let me know in a comment and I’ll update the info. Whate’er the case, it’s breathtaking.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Bakeries

Posted on December 29, 2012 by The Old Wolf

Zito’s Bakery, Bleecker Street – Berenice Abbott (American, 1898–1991)

Old bakery, 7th District, Vienna – 2007, Friedrich Walzer

Boulangerie / Patisserie, Cessenon, France

Old bakery in Orta S.Giulio, Italy – Daniela Minardi

Bakery in Saranda, Albania, 1991. The shelves were devoid of bread.

Modern bakery, Albania. Plenty of bread available, and many other things. Photo by Angela Gjoligu.

The Old Wolf is now hungry for bread.

Hello Central!

Posted on December 28, 2012 by The Old Wolf

Earlier this year I posted this essay about telephone operators; today I happened across this picture which brought back the same kinds of memories.

In an age of smartphones and global cellular service, this is an aspect of life that neither my children nor my grandchildren will never know. I used to think it odd that my own grandparents grew up in an era without airplanes or television, and now I am experiencing what that double-perspective must have been like for them.

The Old Wolf has Spoken.

Rule 101: You haven’t seen the scariest thing on the internet

Posted on December 27, 2012 by The Old Wolf

See, that’s the way the Internet is. But even knowing that, it will often surprise you.

In the mid 19th century, Brigham Young came up with a new alphabet designed to help foreign-speaking immigrants to the State of Deseret (otherwise known as the Utah territory) learn to read English. Developed by the board of regents of the University of Deseret (later the University of Utah,) it was known as the Deseret Alphabet. Four volumes were published in the alphabet in 1868 – two primers (the Deseret First Book and the Deseret Second Book), extracts from the Book of Mormon and a complete volume of the latter. The Deseret News published a column printed in the new alphabet, and there are still diaries, letters, meeting minutes, coinage and one headstone in Cedar City, Utah, to attest to its brief existence.

Mormon five-dollar gold piece, inscribed with “Holiness to the Lord” in Deseret Alphabet.

The gravestone in Cedar City. The inscription reads,

“In memory of John T. Morris Born Feb
14 1828 Lanfair Tahaira
Danbyshire North Wales.
Died Feb 20, 1855 Aged 27”

The Deseret Second Book.

Sample from the Deseret Second Book. Lesson 3 is entitled “The Spring,” Lesson 4 is “The Hare.”

As with other spelling reforms initiated during the same period of history, it never caught on. Immigrants preferred to learn English with all its horrid spelling ^[1] in a script that most of them already knew than try to struggle with an entirely new alphabet, and the Deseret Alphabet quietly died.

Or so it seemed.

Searching this morning, just out of curiosity as to what the printed volumes are selling for these days (I own copies, you see,) I happened across this:

It seems that an afficionado of the Deseret Alphabet (as intimated above, there are afficionadi for everything, no matter how obscure) has taken the trouble to transliterate every XKCD into Deseret Alphabet. I, too, am an afficionado of the Deseret Alphabet; this dude is the linguistic equivalent of Techno Bill. The irony here is delicious – I couldn’t think of a more appropriate, edgy strip to retrogress back into a failed religious experiment. For the curious, the original page where this strip is found includes links to the English version of the comic so you can see what it says. It is of note that the Unicode Consortium took note of the Deseret Alphabet, so regardless of whether or not interest in the artifact continues, it will always have a place in history.

As obscure as it is, this delights me no end, as I made a study of the Deseret Alphabet during my days as a master’s candidate in applied linguistics. And, just in case you think that you’ve reached the bottom of strangeness with this little bit of whimsy, you may want to have a peep here, if you dare. Rule 101 has no bottom. ^[2]

𐐜 𐐄𐐢𐐔 𐐚𐐃𐐢𐐙 𐐐𐐈𐐞 𐐝𐐑𐐄𐐗𐐤.

[1] You’re not certain English spelling is all that bad? Try reading “The Chaos”, found at this page. I triple-dog dare you to read it through without any mistakes. Any non-native speakers who can do so win the Internet. I’m looking at you, Bjornar.

[2] I’m not even talking about the dark underbelly of the internet. Trust me, you don’t want to go there. That way lies madness.