My parents put a birdfeeder outside every winter. A wonderful array of birds used to stop by for birdseed. The most striking were the bright red cardinals. And when the season started to turn, we’d keep an eye out for the red-breasted robin, the harbinger of spring. There seems to be less of a variety of species now, but the cute chickadees still come by, picking their way through the seeds to get to their favorite sunflower seeds. My dad has a constant battle with the squirrels. They’d always come by, scare away the birds and have their fill. My dad started altering the cylindrical bird feeder to discourage them. But those rascally creatures are smart and agile. They could clamber across the horizontal wire the feeder was hung from and eat their meal upside down. When he changed the hanging method, they would take flying leaps from nearby trees and land on the feeder (most of the time). He put a narrow, metal cone on top of the cylinder so they would slip off when they tried to grasp it. They were stymied for a little while, but soon learned to deal with that too. I kept telling my dad that he was just breeding smarter squirrels. He’s given up, mostly. But I still think he may be secretly plotting his next move. I almost don’t want to send him a pointer to this feeder that zaps squirrel visitors (found on memepool).

I should know better than to tell people “don’t ask”. It just makes ’em even more curious. But it is comforting to know that many of you would like to ask. So thanks for asking (or not!). As you may have surmised from yesterday’s resignation letters links, I gave notice this week. I am not on the job market yet so call off the referral hounds. I’m going to relax for a while. And I’m taking this Cheney cartoon, which a former boss who shall remain nameless sent to me, to heart (apologies if the f-word offends you). But I’ll still be posting here, of course.

In reading the Wired article about the online news readers study and the web site of the study itself, I was annoyed by the generalizations the article makes. This reporting “style” is typical of the news media and makes me always question headlines and distilled reports of scientific studies. The Wired article repeatedly says things like “22 percent of online readers look at graphics” and “online readers read, on average, 75 percent of each article they click on.” It sounds so legitimate. But when you look at the details of the study, you find that they studied only 67 people. Here are their demographics. The FAQ states that this was a study of a certain subset of people, and “this study is not statistically valid as would be a survey”. The results need to be interpreted with their known conditions. But the media tends to forget little details like this, opting instead for juicy general statistics. They don’t seem to enjoy qualifying their facts. It’s unfortunate that we can not depend on the media to accurately present information to their readers. Besides cutting down on hype, it would save me all the time I spend tracking down the reality myself!

It’s been a tough week already (you may get an inkling why a little further down), but, hey, at least I’m not Bill Gates. He and his lawyers are so preoccupied they forgot to counter-“cease & desist” the Digital Divas for using a term Microsoft obviously invented all by their lonesomes.

Who could forget Eloise, the girl who lived (lives!) at the Plaza? My mom recognized her subversive behavior immediately and requested that I stop filling my brain with her exploits. Thanks for the memories, Eric.

Here are some resources for writing a resignation letter (don’t ask): keeping it simple with just one sentence, being more verbose, but positively, and remembering not to burn any bridges. Also for your inspiration here is a scan of Richard Nixon’s to the point resignation letter, accepted and initialed by Henry Kissinger, and, from the other side, Nixon’s acceptance of the Commissioner of Social Security’s resignation. And, just for kicks, a resignation from adulthood.

I can’t believe Simon & Schuster is publishing PANTY RAIDER: FROM HERE TO IMMATURITY.
“Gamers will Seek Out Supermodels to Strip Them Down to Their Bra and Panties.”
I was trying to be open minded and see the humor in it, but I’d rather repeat that mantra to myself:
“if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” sigh.

The Post and Courier newspaper in Charleston, South Carolina now
has bar codes to take readers to web sites relevant to stories (oh, and ads of course!). Hmm. This provides a solid way to track traffic
driven to sites via the printed paper. Think of the marketing possibilities: the first 100 people to swipe this ad get free
shipping on their order! or perhaps: swipe here if you’re planning to vote for Al Gore or here for Bush Jr. or perhaps if the laser pen software is also providing personal data (which I’m sure won’t fly for many consumers), swipe here and a salesman will call to show you our wonderful new set of encyclopedias on CD-ROM. Of course, how many people
will be reading their newspaper next to their computer? Will this make everyone want to have Internet access
in their breakfast nooks?

Here’s an informative and amusing interview with Onion head writer, Todd Hanson.
It provides some insight into how The Onion comes up with those
wacky, wacky stories. And don’t you want to write for The Onion?
“I guess pretty much everybody who works at The Onion, almost
everyone, is really unstable and apparently they need to process
their psychological instability through doing that sort of humour.
I don’t know whether someone who is completely mentally healthy
could do the same thing.” Amen!

There’s an exhibition about The Art of Food for Festivals at the Getty Research Institute.
“Ornate edible architecture and sculptures were often created
for celebrations in the cities and courts of early modern Europe.”
Yum! Nowadays we often see ice sculptures (which are, strictly speaking, edible) at significant “feasts”. And I’ve seen some spun sugar concoctions, and
glorious wedding cakes that most definitely are works of art. But grandiose food
sculptings are not as common as they were back in other times.
I found an interesting fact amongst the exhibit listings. Sugar
was first sold with drugs and herbs at apothecary shops
and was used as a medicine in addition to being a sweetener as we
know it. Someone once told me that if sugar was discovered today
it would be treated as a controlled substance! I’m not sure how true that is, but it makes some sense.
(via Yahoo’s Weekly Picks)