Ramblings & ephemera
From Timothy Noah’s “Bush’s Fart-Joke Legacy” (Slate: 2 October 2006):
Legend has it that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, once farted in the presence of Queen Elizabeth I, whereupon he went into exile for seven years. On his return, the queen reputedly greeted, “My lord, we had quite forgot the fart.”
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Ulysses Grant [...]
Posted on November 5th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Language & Literature, history, politics | Comments Off
From Claudia Roth Pierpont’s “Tough Guy: The mystery of Dashiell Hammett” (The New Yorker [11 February 2002]: 70):
There is one section of “The Maltese Falcon” that could not be filmed, and for many readers it is the most important story Hammett ever told. A dreamlike interruption in events, it is a parable that Spade relates [...]
Posted on October 1st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, Language & Literature, security | Comments Off
From Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville (384):
When [Pierre Gustave Toutant de Beauregard's men] stole out of the intrenchments [at Corinth] after nightfall, they left dummy guns in the embrasures and dummy cannoneers to serve them, fashioned by stuffing ragged uniforms with straw. A single band moved up and down the deserted [...]
Posted on April 23rd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Webster U: InfoSec Management, history, security | Comments Off
From Greg Goebel’s “Februrary 1862: Unconditional And Immediate Surrender” (interpolation from Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville [187]):
On the afternoon of 5 February, during a conference between Grant, Foote, and the two division commanders, the captain of a gunboat sent a message to Grant that he had actually pulled a torpedo out [...]
Posted on April 16th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history | Comments Off
From “Happiness: The Chinese zombie ships of West Africa“:
We’re in the big African Queen inflatable, cruising alongside an anchored trawler. It’s more rust than metal - the ship is rotting away. The foredeck is covered in broken machinery. The fish deck is littered with frayed cables, and the mast lies horizontally, hanging over the starboard [...]
Posted on April 2nd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Writing Ideas, business, weird | Comments Off
From The Age:
Scientists running a pioneering experiment with “living robots” which think for themselves said they were amazed to find one escaping from the centre where it “lives”.
The small unit, called Gaak, was one of 12 taking part in a “survival of the fittest” test at the Magna science centre in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, [...]
Posted on November 29th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Cool Stuff, Technology, science | Comments Off