Abort, Return, Renew?

I'm all for technology. Really, I am. I run my own computer repair company. I take class notes on a laptop, not in a notebook. I check online dictionaries before using certain words. I organize my life on a digital calendar. I think cars should be driving themselves. I prefer self-checkout at CVS because I want to see how good the tech is.

But when I walk into my local library and check out my own books, without interacting with a librarian, something is wrong.

Treading on Thin Ice

For decades, the northeast corner of Alaska has been designated the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It means that area is protected from development and, most famously, oil drilling. But all that may be about to change. In March, Royal Dutch Shell won permits to begin exploring the viability of oil drilling just off the shores of ANWR, in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. If successful, oil companies are projected to flock to the Arctic in search of more oil. Things are getting heated among activists and icebergs alike.

Wanted: A Grammar Lesson

Anadiplosis. Anadiplosis is your new reason to get excited, because you're about to learn what that word means. That word means repetition; specifically, a type of repetition with which you take the last part of a sentence or clause and use it as the first part of the next sentence or clause, tying the two together. Together, the ending and beginning create a doubling up, or folding up, as it means in the original Greek. Greek etymology aside, this post examines the fun bits of English interspersed throughout The Wanted's hit single, "Glad You Came." You came to the right place for a blend of pop music, linguistics, and everything between.

Fun Fact: This Blog post didn't save the first time I wrote it. Ouch.

An Educated Guess

I was talking about Sudoku with my dad and my brother the other day over lunch, when we got into an unexpected argument. I had been considering how a computer might go about solving a Sudoku. I talked about how it could test many possibilities near-instantly; it could look at a square and think, "Could a 1 go here? Well, this would lead to that, and then we'd have a conflict. So, no, it can't be a 1." And my brother objected. "That's just guessing," he said. I was certain, however, that this was how people solved the puzzles, too. What my family was calling "logic, not guessing" was no more than mental guess-and-check. I set out to demonstrate it.

Chop Sticks, to Taste

It's summer time, and that means unlimited access to a fully-stocked kitchen. That, coupled with the mounting anticipation of having to cook every meal for myself in Scotland (who needs a meal plan when the supermarkets have haggas?) means that I could really benefit from learning a few recipes. My hunt for a fun  recipe program for my PC may appear in a later post (sources report that the PC culinary app market far exceeds Mac equivalents; take that Apple-lovers), but for now, I'll focus on the few new dishes I've been cooking up this summer. They're Asian-cooking-themed and can easily be done vegetarian. Enjoy!

This side of chicken-less chicken goes great with the chicken-stock soup behind.