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The English alphabet includes only 26 letters. That’s one of the few limits to American baby-naming creativity and diversity—and we’re pushing its boundaries. Formerly rare letters like X are now popular, and new spellings and letter combinations continue to expand our name pool. Since the year 2000, 17 different letter pairs made their all-time debuts in US baby name statistics. Meet the new letter combos, and the names that introduced …

A new hat puzzle from Gribalko, reminding me of traffic lights. Puzzle. You and six of your mathematician friends each have a hat placed on your head. Each of you can see the hats of all the others but cannot see your own. You were all told that there were three red, three yellow, and three green hats in total, but two of them were hidden. Your friends began to …

This week, US Presidential candidate Kamala Harris announced that her choice to join her on the ballot as running mate is Tim Walz, who's currently governor of Minnesota.A number of people on Bluesky, in the …

Hearing rumours that the Americans have invented a holiday that is like Christmas, but exclusively the part where you get into arguments with your extended family. Fascinating.

A leader starts their management journey in reactive mode, and graduates to the strategic mode over time.

The National Panasonic R-2500B was sold between 1971 and 1974 and is a great example of old-school portable radio design. By that I mean it is SOLID with a heavy steel chassis and all discreet components. It is big and heavy and has no FM but covers AM from 525 – 1605 KHz and SW from 1.6 to 30 MHz in 4 SW bands. It uses 11 transistors and has …

San Gimignano is a tiny Tuscan hill town just an hour outside of Florence. People come to San Gimignano to enjoy its stone architecture and medieval towers; its museums and views — oh yes, and one particular gelato shop. San Gimignano is as touristy as Tuscany gets — but it’s still a fun place to visit. Planning your trip to San Gimignano last minute? San Gimignano is very popular, especially …

Rock and Jane in front of the picture window.All That Heaven Allows (1955). My second favorite Douglas Sirk film (after Imitation of Life with Lana Turner) stars Jane Wyman as Cary Scott, a wealthy widow in a New England town who falls in love with Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson), a younger man who works as a gardener. Their romance faces the disapproval of Cary’s snobbish children and her country club …

November 18, 2024 Tip of the Week How to Loop Against Deep, Heavy Backspin. MDTTC Open and My Books Here are the results of the MDTTC Open, held at my club this past weekend. Winning the Open was Stanley Hsu (2521), who recently turned 16. (He defeated MDTTC coach Bruno, rated 2558, in the final, 9,9,9.) In the semifinals were Mu Du (16, 2376) and Ryan Lin (just turned 15, …

Despite the best attempts to software to stop me, I recorded a take on Thom Yorke’s Black Swan which has been buzzing around my head the last few days. Your browser does not support the video element. I think this song and the rest of the album didn’t land properly for me when it was first released, but now I regularly come back to it. It’s understated compared to Radiohead …

Panel from the Dec. 26, 1965 edition of Our New Age by Athelstan Spilhaus (Novak Archive) We often think of the internet as a piece of infrastructure that cannot be changed. But people built the internet and all the devices we use to connect ourselves to it. People made conscious choices about the way we interact with our devices and the way that the internet is structured. And with that …

Band:ToxaemiaCountry:SwedenGenre:Death MetalYear:2024Buy the original!BandcampDownload

1. Booleans are a trap : Booleans, while seemingly simple, can introduce complexity and limitations into domain modeling. When used to represent complex states, booleans can lead to unclear code and potential errors. To avoid these pitfalls, consider using enums or enum sets. These approaches provide a more expressive and maintainable way to model complex states in your applications.My Take: I wish I had learned this earlier in life. When …

In between stuff I've had a few roach off the tidal, lately on corn to get past the runts.Pre corn, and hardly a runt.Topped off by this one at 1lb 3oz. It's not quite so photogenic other side