how now brownpau
No one mention Nostradamus again. PLEASE.
(It already amused me to no end that initial quotes of the fake quatrain said “City of God” — a title which cannot even be loosely connected to NYC. And by late afternoon of that same day, they were quoting it as “City of York.”)
From Dani:
And then, knowing that the 30 odd Americans in the room would be feeling a very long way from home, and in a declaration of our empathy and shared horror with them, the band played the opening chords to the Star Spangled Banner. And we all sung.
“I’ve gotten soup in the WTC mall in the winters when it’s cold.”
“They simply were no longer there.”
There is soot falling out of the sky outside my apartment in Brooklyn.”
“He said there were burning bodies flying out of the sky.”
“It just so happens that today is An International Day of Peace, declared so by the UN.”
“How do we now tell our children that the world is a safe place to be? How can I convince them of something that I no longer believe — at least not at this moment?” (lots of Diary-X quotes. Very much worth reading.)
Visible from orbit, say the ISS crew.
Also check out these IKONOS satellite photos.
The visual impact on New York’s scenery became clear when I touched up a photo of Manhattan and turned it into an animated GIF: Do you recognize this skyline? (Thanks to this guy for the photo taken from Ellis Island.)
Update: Better pictures comparing the Manhattan skyline before and after the attacks.
Oh my God, what a disastrous day it has been on the opposite end of the world. I have just watched, on TV, the unthinkably catastrophic scene of two hijacked passenger airliners crashing into the World Trade Center, utterly destroying both towers. In Washington DC, and possibly elsewhere, similar attacks have occurred or are occurring.
Who did this? What will America do about it? You folks in the United States, I hope things go well for you and your loved ones. I will be praying.
“You will hear of wars and rumor of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.” (Matthew 24.6) But today, oh my God, oh my God, please protect the people of America, and console the many who have lost someone in this awful, awful terror.
Before I retire for the night, I wish to address a small techie pet peeve: the difference between a BLOGGER, and a BLOG. I’ve seen a few people saying on discussion boards, “Oh, I have a blogger on my website,” and that’s terminologically incorrect! The webpage is the blog (or weblog), and the person updating the blog is the blogger (or weblogger). The word blog can also be a verb, referring to the blogger’s act of blogging to a blog. The blogger is not blogging to a blogger. That’s just wrong. The blogger is the one blogging to the blog. The blog is blogged by the blogger. Blog blogs blog. Okay?
Excerpt from a month-old Inquirer editorial on Senator Ping Lacson, who is suspected of money-laundering and drug-trafficking…
That Lacson considers Marcos the greatest president the country ever had speaks volumes about the senator’s values and sense of right and wrong. As members of the younger generation would say, “Hello?” Never heard of the decision of a Hawaii court validating the slaying and torture of close to 10,000 victims of human rights violations during the martial law regime? Doesn’t he know that Marcos and his heirs are facing several cases for the recovery of billions of pesos in ill-gotten wealth? Never heard of the citation in the Guinness Book of World Records of Marcos having committed “world-class theft”? Doesn’t he know that Marcos during his 14-year dictatorship corrupted, debased and destroyed the country’s institutions, from the Supreme Court down to the military and the police?
Let me admit that Index 36, the graphic that appears on it, and my ill temper of yesterday are all related. Yes, it’s a broken Nokia Lithium-Ion phone battery, which flew off my phone when I threw it to the floor in anger during a tiff with, um, Tiff.
But don’t worry. We’re fine now, the phone’s still working, the battery was an older spare, and I have more. At the very least, it made a cool graphic.
Those of you who’ve met me in real life have probably noticed that, because of poor childhood posture, I stand with a severe stoop, shoulders hunched and head pushed forward like a vulture’s. Continued slouching can lead to a condition called Dowager’s Hump, so I’m now taking measures to correct my slouch, with these exercises from this book on posture and pain.
Update, Oct 2004: I’ve compiled a list of books on posture and back health, since the book linked above seems to have gone out of stock:
Check them out; many of the exercises are good for people who suffer chronic headaches from sitting at a computer all day, and are neither demanding on your time nor embarassingly conspicuous.
