Improve your vocabulary and help the hungry at the same time

The website freerice.com was started by a guy who worked for charitable organizations and wanted to help his kids study for the SATs. They ask you random vocab words, and for each one you get right, they donate rice to the UN World Food Program (or "Programme" since the UN uses standard international spelling for their "organisations").

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Amazon.com bought the $4 million copy of the fairy tales from Harry Potter (that Dumbledore left to Hermoine in his will, in case you don't remember). And while they couldn't print the text of the fairy tales on the website, for obvious copyright issues, they do have synopses of each of the stories. Clearly they will be published at some point, but since when that will be is unknown, for now everyone can just be content with the redacted version.

I seemed to have missed the news

I was recently driving behind a truck that listed the states where the company that owned the truck did business. A common enough practice, I'll grant you. Now this particular list included CT, NY, NJ, PA, MD, and VA - all well and good. It also included DC, which while not a state is a state-like entity. But then the list also included the Hamptons. Excuse me. The last time I checked, the Hamptons were part of New York. Did they break off from New York and form their own state without telling anyone? It just seemed an odd editorial choice as I was sitting behind the truck in traffic.

Happy Hannuka

I forgot to say it yesterday, so I'll say it today for the second night. Happy Hannuka to everyone.

Some things just need labels

S and I were putting up our grandmother's Christmas decorations today, and included among the decorations was the new nativity scene that we had gotten her last year (her old one was down to only having one wise man). So Jesus and Mary were pretty easy to figure out, as they were the only baby and woman, respectively. And we figured out two of the wise men (one had a king-like mitre on his head and one had a walking staff, as if he had perhaps followed the star of Bethlehem for a while) and we got which one was the shepherd. But then we were left with two people and we didn't know which one was Joseph and which one was the third wise man. So we made the executive decision that the one kneeling in adoration was the third wise man, but it would have been helpful if the proper designation to each of the figurines was written on the bottom.

This is awesome!

Having never gone to a Wesleyan football game, I don't know what they came up with for the halftime shows. But I bet it can't even hold a candle to this homage to classic video games.

Etymology is fun

I learned where the term "indenture" (as in indentured servant) comes from. Apparently in medieval times, after the fall of classical feudalism, but before the rise of the nation state with a standing army, when a king had to raise an army for every campaign, he would contract with each lord to get the services of the lord and his assorted underling soldiers. When they would write up the contract, they would then cut it in half in a wavy pattern (or "indented"), so when they were put together people knew they had the both halves of the same contract. The lord would then be "indentured" to the king for the length of the campaign (or contract life).

I learned this from the book I'm currently reading about the battle of Agincourt. Other funny things about the preparations for the campaign, Henry brought two almoners with him to France. Those were the people in charge of managing his alms giving. And he also brought 18 minstrels, because no self-respecting medieval monarch or aristocrat would ever go anywhere without his band of minstrels.