Patterico's Pontifications

1/22/2014

All Readers Must Participate

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 5:58 pm



Dahlia Lithwick put this up on Facebook:

Screen Shot 2014-01-22 at 5.40.27 PM

That is silly, of course. The sentence will explain no such thing. However, I think it’s an interesting exercise, and I encourage you to post your answers in the comments. It’s a fun little exercise that gives people a chance to have a little insight into what you’re reading (or, if the nearest book to you is someone else’s, what someone close to you is reading).

My answer was: “I’m not jealous of Margot, never have been.” (The nearest book to me was one my daughter was reading.)

If we’re going with the nearest book to me that’s mine, the answer is: “If the standards of traditional sonata form are used as a basis for analyzing this movement, numerous deviations are found.”

One foot further away: “In the Adams Morgan neighborhood, black guys would shoot me sly grins and say. ‘Big pimpin’!'”

OK. Two rules.

First: don’t say what the book is. Just tell us the line. In some ways, this is reminiscent of the post where I asked for punch lines to jokes, but asked you not to tell the joke. Somehow, just giving us the sentence is more intriguing. There’s always Google if you want to find out where someone else’s quote came from.

Second: quote the first complete sentence. Sentence fragments don’t count. In a way, that’s a shame, because in the last book quoted above, it means I didn’t get to use this fragment, which appears at the very top of page 45: “even the nerdiest-looking white guys, bow ties and all, would fix on Hannah’s butt and not give me a passing glance.” Not a complete sentence; doesn’t count.

Third: everyone must participate. Even lurkers.

So, what’s your sentence?

384 Responses to “All Readers Must Participate”

  1. Whoops, I missed this book behind me, which was far closer than the other two:

    “You sensed her disapproval?”

    Hey! That does explain my love life after all!

    Patterico (9c670f)

  2. Okay, I’ll play…

    But if not, clearly you must follow her round, and that means six months’ provisions.

    Chuck Bartowski (7f50c5)

  3. I request an official clarification.
    If the first sentence is a quotation from another author or book, do I use that, or keep going until the first original sentence by the author?

    Oh, in addition, there happens to be a stack of 7 books in front of me by the computer. Do I choose the one at the top, closest to my eyes, or the one on the bottom, closest to my hand on the house? Or do you want them all, and if so, in what order?
    Am I being nerdy or what? The cold must have gotten into my brain.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  4. “Although Albert is healthy he does not jog regularly, but Carol does jog regularly if Bob does.”

    Of course… it’s so obvious to me now.

    CayleyGraph (fb6313)

  5. “The timed exposure of the Space Shuttle, STS-1, at Launch Complex 39A, depicted the space vehicle and support facilities in a unique way on April 12, 1981.”

    “Smithsonian Atlas of Space Exploration”, Roger D. Launius & Andrew K. Johnston, ©2009, ISBN 978-0-06-156526-7

    The full-page photo is a night shot of Columbia (STS-1) backlit by floodlights. Rather a nice image, actually.

    Somewhat similar to the first photo in this slideshow at space.com: http://www.space.com/11345-photos-nasa-space-shuttle-1st-flight-sts1.html

    Rusty Bill (e3b0ca)

  6. “Another way to apply number formatting is to use shortcut keys.”

    Well, what did you expect? I am at my computer in my office. My copy of Gibbon’s “The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire” is in the library.

    Texas Bob (f0a639)

  7. The book nearest to hand has a full page illustration on page 45, so it’s either “Little pocket hygrometer!” (pg 44) or “Now Prospero and Bacon could see two hunched men in the olive light; one of them was quite fat.” (pg 46)

    Paul (5578cd)

  8. Annually, the ministry provided Iran with more than one billion dollars in covert aid in the form of cash payments.

    debby (766ad4)

  9. Anna was a gift; she actually preferred shoveling shit to interacting with her fellow men and women.

    sybilll (b5ce11)

  10. If the first sentence is a quotation from another author or book, do I use that, or keep going until the first original sentence by the author?

    Kepe going.

    If there is a stack, choose the book on top. Or give as many as you are moved to give out of the stack. I have already given four!

    Patterico (9c670f)

  11. I had two equidistant.

    Προσταζει ο βεζιρης να του τον φερουν. (Ali Pasha commands that Karaiskakis be brought to him) — Demetres Fotiades, Karaiskakis

    “I don’t know just what you mean, Buddy,” he said.
    — Paul Cain, Black, Tough Guys and Dangerous Dames (col.)

    No, Mark.

    nk (dbc370)

  12. This is already fun for me and we’re only a few comments in.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  13. Well, since lurkers also have to play:

    Generally the movies being made still had kind of a fifties feel about them, but a few did reflect a sense of the times.

    Don’t know what that says about my love life…

    Mifty (a8edb6)

  14. house?, er, mouse

    hey, seeing all kinds of names we usually don’t see, great idea.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  15. If you can’t quite picture “the grasp,” think back to every department store you have ever been in where you saw a mother trying to get her misbehaving child’s attention.

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  16. And I didn’t read the rules. I withdraw abashed.

    nk (dbc370)

  17. Good luck guessing this one. 😉

    “But her father advised against it, and she followed his advice.”

    PolitixFireball (6991c8)

  18. It smelled like Douglas, all right.

    Barbara (a241dc)

  19. “There was no one on the highway for as far as she could see.”

    Nice.

    Nick D.B. (a0be2b)

  20. MD gettin’ his Finkelman on!

    Icy (b22f5c)

  21. “I told her my guitar would fulfill all my dreams for me.”

    Colonel Haiku (5a3fc1)

  22. “THE FREIGHTER NEITHER SLOWED NOR TURNED.”

    Scott (eb1e63)

  23. A couple of years after we moved into the new house something very frightening happened.

    elissa (ce2634)

  24. Next closest: “John’s not that bad, she reassures them.”

    Colonel Haiku (5a3fc1)

  25. By using different body postures and erecting its fur, the cat can considerably change its perceived size.

    Ed from SFV (3400a5)

  26. My sentence: “He won the job, even though other would-be singing cowboys tried out.”

    [True enough]

    Icy (b22f5c)

  27. Missed this one by a gnat’s eyelash: “John will do it… and he’ll kill himself to do it right.”

    Colonel Haiku (5a3fc1)

  28. From top to bottom:

    No plan of God’s can be thwarted; when He acts, no one can reverse it; no one can hold back His hand or bring Him to account for His actions.

    You shall make two rings of gold,, and put them at the two ends of the breastpiece, on its inside edge next to the ephod.

    I’m sorry to say this is about as bad as philosophy (well, apart from the blogosphere) gets; Christian charity, perhaps even good manners might require passing silently by the embarrassing spectacle, eyes averted.

    And what about Bruno?

    (They could reach his knees because Narnian Talking Beasts of that sort are bigger than the dumb beasts of the same kind in England.)

    “__________ (space, nothing) ____________ ”
    (A very beautifully bound journal that I haven’t started writing in yet, it is so pretty I feel like I need to have something good to say before I sully the pages.)

    The bare assertion of such a connection is not an acceptable stopping point.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  29. “Grandpa, can I tell you something?”

    DJMoore (89aba0)

  30. And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.

    Ibidem (707e5b)

  31. “He found himself tired, after the four hour session — the psychological drag of an upset kid.”

    The first part is OK.

    Kevin M (536c5d)

  32. That is why goodness is rare and praiseworthy and noble.

    Edoc118 (e6c879)

  33. “At the same time, he is more than eager to escape from the soft silks and leathers that have been fitted for him.”

    jim2 (31f75f)

  34. He was tall, about fifty, with darkly handsome, almost sinister features: a neatly trimmed mustache, hair turning silver at the temples, and eyes so black they were like the tinted windows of a limousine – he could see out, but you couldn’t see in.

    Dana (8def7b)

  35. Next closest book:

    “Nevertheless, you can execute yodel with the command

    sh yodel

    even if yodel doesn’t have execute permission since the command explicitly passes yodel to the Bourne shell sh.”

    This may explain a lot.

    Kevin M (536c5d)

  36. Well, the book doesn’t have pages marked in the traditional manner, so it’s technically page 2-29.

    “When a test definition is complete, it must be compiled to produce a test definition object file.”

    You know, that explains a lot about my love life.

    malclave (1db6c5)

  37. Sybilll @ 9, love it.

    Dana (8def7b)

  38. “Because of this…” Victor said, taking a knee and placing his fist on the cement.

    Joseph S (c1a474)

  39. “And very comfortable beds they are, too!”

    Very ironic and appropriate both, Patterico.

    Simon Jester (c8876d)

  40. @36 was the closest physical book. I do almost all of my reading on my Kindle now, which is sitting on top of the book I just quoted.

    The first sentence on page 45 of the most recently opened ebook on my Kindle is:

    “If she needed help with her homework, Teddy was never too busy to nurse an answer from her.”

    malclave (1db6c5)

  41. “Now the sum in this expression converges by the theorem of Section 2.5, and it decreases to zero as R increases.”

    Leonhard Euler (d1a9bd)

  42. If you think I’m lowering the recliner, deposing tho dog and going all the way to the garage where all my books are just to play a silly game you don’t know me very well. Try it again with E-Books. That I can do from here.

    Glenn (647d76)

  43. Oh missed the page 45… Geez…

    A shower of sparks jumped from the cable, and the lights in the house next door dimmed for a moment.

    Dana (8def7b)

  44. That room doesn’t belong in this time.

    E. Travis (d70713)

  45. As so often happens in life, each was discovered to hold exactly the view that the other might have been expected to hold.

    Beldar (8ff56a)

  46. “In an effort to halt the downward slide of our public school system, the government has, predictably, thrown a lot of cash and even more rules at the problem.”

    Mark (a3e482)

  47. Or, if I reach for my (much closer-to-hand) Kindle instead of an on-dead-trees book:

    His nomination was seen as a triumph for civil service reformers over New York senator Roscoe Conkling, who had run the port as his special fiefdom for years.

    Beldar (8ff56a)

  48. What he really means is he can’t stand the Church looking over his shoulder, making him accountable for his nutty pronouncements and for warping the minds of a generation of kids.

    Susan (2887a8)

  49. “The Paul Jones was now bound for St. Louis.”

    It was the closest book on top of a stack.

    Ag80 (eb6ffa)

  50. It was only the second time I went to see Alexia play, and they were all there.

    Gazzer (74e832)

  51. Minnesota Driveline Inc., Custom Drive Shaft Repair, Manufacturing and Balancing; New Clutch Kits for all Vehicles.

    The engine is blown, in a bad way.

    SmartSearch (05efc5)

  52. “Each morning he had carried a piece of chalk with him to his loom, and when unobserved, applied it to that small but important part of the machinery.”

    ManlyDad (d0a346)

  53. I do wonder, though, why you’re FB friends with Dahlia Lithwick, Patrick.

    Beldar (8ff56a)

  54. And no one was going to climb the hill just to browse through a few small shops.

    Kevin Connor (efcb8b)

  55. On the use of the passive: ‘What if I had said, instead of “We shall fight on the beaches”, “Hostilities will be engaged with our adversary on the coastal perimeter”?’

    :/

    Dustin (303dca)

  56. i could pick up a lot of books, some I am half reading, some I read in part, some i wanted to mention.

    ok, here is teh nearets book:

    ….understood the cruel decree as an invitation to murder and pillage. The prestgious communities Bari and Otranto, were virtually eradicted. Chisdai ibn Shaprut, the powerful Spanish Jewish leader, was able to exert pressure on the co-emperor, Consantine VII, to revoke his edict, but the damage had already been done.

    ——————————

    I haven’t read this before. I usually use a different part of this, as a reference.

    Did it occur to her that the top of page 45 might be the middle of a sentence.

    It might be interesting to do this with other books.

    And you can try guessing what the book is about.

    Sammy Finkelman (4227f2)

  57. 51. Just had a new distributor installed, pushing $1K in repairs in a month to the clunker.

    gary gulrud (05efc5)

  58. Sammy Pat says quote the first complete sentence…

    Gazzer (74e832)

  59. “The object of the game is to walk, or run, to the horse, touch it with your hand, and walk, or run, back to the starting point, which is here. ”

    Followed by – ” Can you hold your breath ?”

    Thanks for that starting sentence on that particular page. It being the start of one of my favorite parts of this particular book !
    Re-reading a book from my childhood.
    “Red Sky At Morning.”

    BuilderDoug (839426)

  60. That’s Constantine VII.

    Other books:

    At the time of this writing, the Google phonebook found 3 business and 22 residential listings for John Smith in Los Angeles, California.

    Clearly he wanted to see if I could take when Oren was dishing out

    Sefas Emes has an original view of the Generation of the separation.

    The total of trials (20 years x 14 corps) is 280; the total of deaths is 196; the figure of deaths per trial, therefore is 0.7.

    Sammy Finkelman (4227f2)

  61. “In the ranks, we knew little about the nature of the island that was our objective.”

    Russ from Winterset (4d44f2)

  62. Totally forgot my Kindle on my desk !
    From it – page 45

    ” The diner in Hope had a bottomless cup policy for its coffee and Reacher abused it mercilessly.”

    Dang. . . too easy. . .

    BuilderDoug (839426)

  63. Problem is, I have about 800 books reasonably equidistant.

    A few more:

    “She had him in a box.”

    ” ‘Is that one of your names?’ ”

    ” ‘Thank you for this, Peter’ ”

    ” ‘We got to get de ‘brids and our asses de hell out o’ here,’ grunted Tuk.”

    Kevin M (536c5d)

  64. In like manner, the guns were drawn by hand up the opposite slopes.

    (From a guy who normally just lurks.)

    TennLion (2b7ba2)

  65. 57. 51. Just had a new distributor installed, pushing $1K in repairs in a month to the clunker.

    Comment by gary gulrud (05efc5)

    Hey, I feel yer pain. I own a 33 year old foreign sportscar and that experience is like buying a new car one part at a time.

    Colonel Haiku (5a3fc1)

  66. Unlike mainland Europe, China,or Japan, the continental United States experienced no fighting or occupation.

    Peterk (c985d4)

  67. “And you think that enough?”

    Page 45 of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.

    I kid you not.

    Peter (371d15)

  68. “We’re thinking about a date,” I said, “but we haven’t settled on anything yet.” Liar, liar, pants on fire.

    BeachBumBill (0cb6ae)

  69. 1. He points out that Form Critics do not deal with the tradition of Jesus’ words as closely as they should.

    2. The store dimension describes every grocery store in our chain.

    Gerald A (bfbd30)

  70. someone needs to do something about this mutt who butchers “This Magic Moment” on the Dell commercial. It has me grabbing for a handgun every time I hear it now… and I don’t own one.

    Colonel Haiku (5a3fc1)

  71. 65. Just found that a coworker is driving a 69 Ford Falcon that sat in her alley for two years.

    When she tried it, the sucker started right up!

    gary gulrud (05efc5)

  72. “There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”

    That wasn’t on page 45, but it was the quote I had saved..

    steveg (794291)

  73. Regardless, I expect to survive the night

    steveg (794291)

  74. Just don’t tell her the pearls the boyfriend gave her are fake. Switch the necklace and pretend the thieves kept the good ones and left the fakes.

    nk (dbc370)

  75. “Consider the idea the the Martains might decide to make war on us – and win.”

    -Jubal Harshaw

    NavyspyII (96e9e0)

  76. “In May, 1964, six months after he was thrust into the Presidency, Johnson would sign an executive order exempting Hoover from compulsory retirement when the FBI director turned seventy the following year.”

    gramps, the original (64b8ca)

  77. “And the bodies are always going to be right where he says they are.”

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  78. 2nd closest…

    Vogon poetry is of course the third worst in the Universe.

    NavyspyII (96e9e0)

  79. *take WHAT Oren was dishing out.

    1. Page 45 has just a chapter number and title: 3 The Hard Way. Page 46 is blank, page 47 starts:

    I tell people the best thing about running a family-owned business is working with my family.

    2.

    This gave us a feeling of security.

    3.

    But the first deliberate, coordinated attempt to understand how global behavior might differ from local behavior came from mathematicians.

    4.

    There are no Catholic clergy in North Korea, so Mass cannot be celebrated.

    5.

    One of the most blatant paradoxes of the past twenty years is how the average size of a new American home has increased 25 percent while the size of the nuclear family has diminished (we’re not talking weight here).

    6.

    Cosmologists depend on observations rather than experiments.

    7. This has a copy of an engraving from the 1500’s entitled “SALOMANS TEMPLE” The first complete sentence on page 46 is:

    To the wealth brought by distant trade was added the labour of the whole nation, both being applied to embellishing Jerusalem with buildings which raised her above every other town in the country.

    8.

    A month later, the Russian Emigrants’ Relief Committee was organized under the chairmanship of Judge Meyer S. Isaacs.

    8.

    Astonishingly, Cockridge had prefaced his book with these remarks:

    Sammy Finkelman (4227f2)

  80. “Volatility is a natural part of the market.”

    Sadly, that is fairly accurate ;p

    Wyfaggro (d95bc6)

  81. “LEARN COMPUTER BUILD YOUR CAREEAR[sic] read a billboard on the way into town from the airport.”

    I was hoping for something a little more salacious…

    Beasts of England (5f461c)

  82. The son, with more youth in his blood and less rank upon his shoulders, snatched off his cap, and roared out his three “hurrahs” right heartily.

    Sarahw (267b14)

  83. “On 2 February 1421, China dwarfed every nation on earth.”

    A Proud Lurker

    the dave (047999)

  84. “The receiver hauled it in with a diving catch, giving the Packers a 22-20 lead with only fourteen seconds left in the game.”

    I have no idea what that says about my love life.

    Robin Sizemore (139795)

  85. We had a gigantic mobile unit, more like a moving van or a fire truck, that would invade driveways and tear up lawns.

    From a Christmas present that’s on the top of my “to read” pile. Right now job hunting is depressing enough that I spend my other time watching full series on Netflix while checking a few blogs and doing lots of logic puzzles.

    LibraryGryffon (1996ab)

  86. 1st – “But, before long, they were much farther ahead again.”

    2nd – “The room was silent, until Jan raised her hand.”

    SB (0cb8df)

  87. re:

    1. Quote on top of page: So much of left-wing thought is playing with fire by people who don’t even know the fire is hot – GEORGE ORWELL.

    2. The choice of the Book of Jonah as the Torah reading for the Yom Kippur Aternoon Service undoubtably stems from its universal lessons about the power of repentance.

    3. But if the TaRYag tradition is indeed a later tradition, why was the anomaly of 613 precepts for 620 letters left?

    4. A river can’t rise above its source and regression predictions can’t overcome insufficient data.

    5. …But mostly she’s worried that she’s made a bad impression, and that his mother will try to push Mary out of her son’s heart because she’ll think that Mary isn’t good enough for him.

    6. Then he noticed that the first two digits are the same as the last two, so the string of digits can be bent in a loop, swallowing its own tail.

    7. I’m not going to explain why this is funny.

    8. That portion of the western wall and the three “local” towers were torn by the Legion (with the aid of Jewish captives) in search of gold and other precious things soon after the war ended.

    Sammy Finkelman (4227f2)

  88. The drivers, Jaycee one and all, never noticed her; they kept their gaze straight ahead for the safety that was in it — tobacco gods would cough lightning should a Jaycee drive up the hindquarters of a Marlboro Filters float — but the waving Princesses, projecting eyebeam and toothlight into the multitudes, ever on the alert for kinfolk, boy friends, photographers and talent scouts, the Princesses would sometimes catch sight of a pleading pod, and for a crowd-pleasing second — Oh the perils of innocence in the servitude of nicotine! — lose their carefully coached composure.

    I swear this was the nearest book.

    aunursa (7014a8)

  89. ‘We have come too late,’ he said sternly, ‘whether to save or punish.’

    Amphipolis (e01538)

  90. The amplitude of any dither signal is an important concern.

    Douglas2 (5cfbf1)

  91. By ‘book’ I interpereted as including graphic novel, and the sentence “A Jedi…Does not surrender… so easily!” Which, is true, I’m a complete prude. The other book, a study bible, “Then the Angel of God spoke to me in a dream, saying, ‘Jacob.’

    To pick a sentence from the first paragraph, rather then the set up…

    “Lift your eyes now and see, all the rams which leap on the flocks are streaked, speckled, and gray-spotted; for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you.”

    G (bbda88)

  92. “Elsabet Getachew, the Queen of Sheba, coiled on her side of the table like a soft and sinister intention”

    Jeff (fc8398)

  93. “He’s a barbarian”, Coruth said when she had emptied her cup.

    (I swear, closest book, p. 45)

    SPQR (768505)

  94. One hundred twenty-five miles due north of Columbia lay the village of Davidson, North Carolina.

    Tony C (796f81)

  95. *delurks*

    “Within the document window, you can display the entire artboard or an enlarged detail of an illustration, or any preset view in between.”

    Heh. Voyeuristic.

    *relurks*

    Paul (creator of Staunch Brayer) (5f0905)

  96. “Whatever the successes of the early Church, they were the fruit of their faithfulness to Jesus Christ under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.”

    Betsy Rivera (553cfe)

  97. So vast an authority had Pericles obtained among the people.

    Roy in Nipomo (160066)

  98. “Can you fookin’ believe it”
    [quotation marks in original]

    NoCaliban (f9f2d3)

  99. “I didn’t have to go then”, Matthew replied.

    Comanche Voter (12e67d)

  100. When I awoke my eyes opened on two gray eyes in a white stroobly head.

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  101. Book on top: “Brad was usually his only student–but the thought of losing Brad in a plane crash was almost too awful to think about.”

    Book on bottom: “These ‘temporary’ rivers can have amazingly strong currents, so it is a good idea to stay away from areas that resemble river beds, the bottom of canyons, places right at the foot of cliffs, and other low-lying areas.”

    Virtual Insanity (1fcfe5)

  102. “The partner’s tone became more serious.”

    Tom (bea0bc)

  103. I’m worried sick about Brad.

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  104. The closest book to me was a Panosonic manual and the first page open was NOTES, pages to write notes for future reference. The sencond was in Spanish. The third, “These diagrams show our recommendations of how to connect the TV unit to your various equipment.”

    ric (c25cc2)

  105. “He called Clancy at headquarters and said “There’s a family of ducks walkin’ down the street!”

    marc (4a86fa)

  106. “And this hall, with its fifty workers or there-abouts, was only one sub-section, a single cell, as it were, in the huge complexity of the Records Department.”

    Strangely, it sounds about right for me.

    Pinwheel (32e7ec)

  107. “Her pallor had disappeared, and the famous ripple was in her voice again.”

    Rob Smith (7b8ea9)

  108. As the hideous fighting near Buna took place, the Japanese army was also suffering defeat on Guadalcanal.

    Steven Den Beste (99cfa1)

  109. By god this woman is right!

    She waved once through the tinted windows, then sped off, nearly peeling rubber over his feet.

    Carl Hiaasen, Double Whammy

    Steve57 (663093)

  110. It really was the book nearest me.

    Steve57 (663093)

  111. “So I studied Johnny’s strategy and saw that he didn’t try to win early in the tournament.”

    qdpsteve (7ed3c4)

  112. “A binding knot is used to secure a length of rope passed around an object.”

    lurker29 (a656f6)

  113. Mew, in this case, is a medieval word meaning a place of concealment, a hideout.”
    -Pat*

    Pat* (e6cc51)

  114. Had the question been about the nearest magazine (not the kind that holds ammo, the kind that you read) it would have said:

    You’d expect a 604ci Boss Ford in a ’69 Mustang – maybe even a Deuce show car or a replica ’70 NASCAR Torino.

    Hot Rod, August 2009.

    Still vaguely descriptive of my love life.

    Sometimes the ladies peel rubber over your feet. Sometimes they discover 604 cubic inches where they least expected it.

    Steve57 (663093)

  115. Why, it must be because you have no other purpose but to plague me. How many times have I refused you?

    That was the nearest FICTION book, which is alluded to but not actually stated. Since the nearest books to my computer are … gosh, what a surprise… computer books, this seems like an exercise in boredom otherwise.

    Here, in the interests of letter-of-the-law, not letter-of-intent, is the sentence as associated with the nearest book:

    Near the bottom of every subcategory page you can see a link list of numbers.

    At that, you’re lucky, Until recently, the closest book to my computer was an almanac I’d grabbed when the internet was down and just hadn’t put back… LOL.

    Smock Puppet, Gadfly, Racist-Sexist Thug, and Bon Vivant All In One Package (225d0d)

  116. For their evening’s entertainment the local band had been secured for a dance, and all concerned had been looking forward to a display from the convoy’s huge searchlight.

    roadgeek (85ec3d)

  117. A boring sentence having nothing to do with love, but with a cameo by the world’s most famous bad writer, writing badly:

    “Hunt received a note describing his Rienzi as ‘full of genius and high promise’ over the surprising subscription, ‘Your obliged and admiringly, E. Bulwer Lytton.'”

    Dr. Weevil (b84626)

  118. “Their fields of endeavor differed greatly, perhaps as widely as one could imagine.”

    Yep..nailed it…

    MJN1957 (06a09a)

  119. “In 1996, a mere five years before Karl and I were there for his story, I had overnighted in Vang Vieng and found little more than bowls of pho (Vietnamese noodles) available for a transient to satisfy his hunger.”

    BR (087e1f)

  120. I guess everybody can breath a sigh of relief knowing that my welding textbook wasn’t nearest to hand.

    I have no idea what it says in the first sentence on page 45, but if you didn’t know it was about welding…

    Steve57 (663093)

  121. Forever asking to leave, pesters and badgers me and simply can’t wait to live a life of drudgery down below.

    RWS (9d1bb3)

  122. Moreover, the Delaware legislature failed to select any senators from 1901 to 1903.

    Michah (708172)

  123. “The most serious gamblers congregated in bathrooms along with the heaviest smokers — smoking was banned in most other areas.”

    The second book on the stack. I’m really not seeing much Lathwick wisdom so far.

    Ag80 (eb6ffa)

  124. I spend my other time watching full series on Netflix while checking a few blogs and doing lots of logic puzzles

    “Binge Watching” is the term for it.

    I recommend the following series, if you have not found them yet — no promises, I have no idea about your tastes, but I have found them entertaining (these were all on NF last I checked:

    House of Cards (both the Netflix version and the original BBC trilogy of miniseries)

    Lilyhammer (amusing culture clash light dramedy of manners)

    Continuum (not a bad b-list SF series, from Canada. This one, since there is a possibly confusion. And no, I don’t mean “sci fi”. That term has specific meaning, for things like “Mansquito“)

    Sherlock (The BBC show with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman — an excellent variant on the whole Sherlock Holmes concept. Totally unrelated to the movies)

    .

    I also recommend (dunno what’s on Netflix):
    ===========================================
    Person of Interest (this series started out as a tech version of Early Edition and Touched By An Angel — not bad “Mary Worth” episodes of people meddling in others’ lives, unrequested, to help them. It since has morphed into much more as it has introduced “competing” factions, and made the real story the AI it used as its initial macguffin. So the early eps are distinctly different from the eps starting around the middle of the second season)

    Elementary (the CBS version of Sherlock. A very different version which has a very different take on it. Pretty good, though I think not as good as Sherlock, or the unrelated Sherlock Holmes movies. YMMV)

    Once Upon A Time (I didn’t see how this would manage to last in terms of interest, but the first season — it’s in season 3 right now — is certainly interesting and watchable.

    Breaking Bad (You’ve probably watched this one, but if you haven’t, and a story centered on an anti-hero isn’t something that turns you off, this is really good.)

    The Shield (another anti-hero series, probably peaked with s4 but was good all the way through)

    Dexter (yet another anti-hero series. Certainly watchable during its first four seasons. I’ve heard bad things about the way it went after that, but haven’t boosted it up the list to be watched/finished yet.)

    Smock Puppet, Gadfly, Racist-Sexist Thug, and Bon Vivant All In One Package (225d0d)

  125. The specific projective and conformal realizations of hyperbolic geometry that I have described above were both found by Eugenio Beltrami, and published in 1868, together with some other elegant representations including the hemispherical one mentioned in 2.5.

    Gabriel Hanna (faeafb)

  126. Playing my way, there are thirteen possible distributions.

    JRM (cd0a37)

  127. Leopole asked, “Jack, have you heard back from Main?”

    No clue how that relates to my love life

    FLBuckeye (03ccfd)

  128. The lieutenant felt relief, did not want blood

    reff (4dcda2)

  129. I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness You have shown Your servant

    Teflon Dad (425ecb)

  130. “Match the words to their definitions.”

    Blaze Miskulin (281129)

  131. The only way to turn the damn thing off is to get out of bed and find it.

    Albertabound (ba7a76)

  132. First complete sentence;
    “We were the only company that checked every box on the Navy’s list.”

    First fragment at top of page:

    “–putting sailors on planes to go train.”

    Fragments are funnier.

    poteen2 (e022b1)

  133. Keys that are not valid identifiers are invalid property names and are inaccessible when an array is cast to an object, but are restored when the object is cast back to an array.

    Westfred (275cb7)

  134. “That’s what I mean by protection, Sir.”

    There may be a closer book to me. It has a table and a graph on the indicated page, if I counted correctly. It has no real page 45. They’re numbered x.y.

    And that reveals me as a technoid critter. And as such I am expert enough in these things to realize that the proper number is 42.

    {^_-}

    JDow (c4e4c5)

  135. “…consumption of two and a half bottles she had not been able to achieve inebriation, but, she felt relaxed.”

    Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein Dead and Alive book 3

    Jim (145e10)

  136. @Smockpupper #124 – Thanks for the suggestions. I’ve watched Sherlock (several times), and saw the first few episodes of that particular Continuum last year before we discontinued cable and found it interesting enough that I’ll make sure to add it to my queue. I’m a few seasons behind with Once Upon A Time, and I hadn’t found Elementary yet on a streaming service but it’s been a few months so I should check again.

    Binge watching (I’ve also seen netflixing, used as a verb) is just so much more cheerful than going over the various job lists and discovering that there is still nothing in commuting distance, and very little that would pay enough to justify moving. The state DoL has unilaterally put me in their “enhanced re-employment services” program, which is for people they think will still be jobless when their unemployment benefits run out. Librarians are not in high demand at the moment.

    LibraryGryffon (1996ab)

  137. “Our Father, our King, for the sake of Your great Name, and for the sake of our ancestors who trusted You, and You taught them the rules of life to do Your will with a complete heart, so be gracious to us and teach us.”

    Milhouse (b95258)

  138. From the next closest book:
    “Auntie Gwen took a couple of steps away from the counter, paused, and pinned Charlie with a look that suggested a conversation involving the words we need to discuss your future was in the offing.”

    Milhouse (b95258)

  139. We would understand the verse if it said, “Bow to the king because he is your master”, or “The king will desire your beauty, and because he is your master you should bow to him”; but the verse seems to be saying that “the king will desire your beauty because he is your master”, surely an unexpected juxtaposition of cause and effect.

    Milhouse (b95258)

  140. In the last days of the war Hughes and Borden were infuriated to discover that the British War Cabinet had authorized Lloyd George and Balafour to go to the Supeme War Council in Paris to settle the German armistice terms with the allies without bothering to inform the dominions.

    mg (31009b)

  141. Peterson Field Guide “Atlantic Seashore”

    Soft and collapsing out of water.

    Have Blue (e97630)

  142. 2nd closest – It’s important to be loose and relaxed if you want to create a good spin.

    mg (31009b)

  143. Fragments are funnier.

    Comment by poteen2 (e022b1) — 1/22/2014 @ 10:14 pm

    yellowish, greenish, or white.

    Have Blue (e97630)

  144. Nothing can match the treasure of common memories, of trials endured together, of quarrels and reconciliations and generous emotions.

    Milhouse (b95258)

  145. Just because
    I’m carried around in a purse
    High above the dirty ground
    Does not mean
    I’m less of a pet
    Less of a dog
    Less of a true canine
    It just means
    I think I can fly
    And that I know
    What lipstick and loose change taste like

    Pasadena adjacent (7f88d2)

  146. no seriously has anyone heard from Brad

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  147. “And nobody blames him.”

    although I’m not sure if that is correct, it is actually from the 2nd closest book, the closest book doesn’t have a page 45. Page 1-23 of the closest sounds more fun:

    “Lower the vehicle and add the specified amount of fluid through the filler tube (see section 8).”

    max (131bc0)

  148. No specific contextual or logical indicators clarify the controlling concept behind the categorical references to old and new.

    Harry Phillips (52db02)

  149. “An apple, halved, is divided into sections, but an apple is composed of seeds, flesh, and skin.”

    Not bad.

    Carl B (3016c0)

  150. “Much like Van der Ahe, they resolved to buy a pennant.”

    The above refers to baseball.

    JVW (709bc7)

  151. “Newfield highlights its 8,000-foot lateral Boles 1H-14X as best-in-class in this area, producing 1,900 and 1,460 BOE per day at IP and 30 days, respectively (57% oil).”

    The closest book-like thing I have at the moment is a professional journal. I think it lost something in translation.

    Robert C. J. Parry (0f695d)

  152. “It was not the Viet Cong who had a surprise coming.”

    Blacque Jacques Shellacque (bff3f0)

  153. “Good morning, Lord Whaler.”

    Alastor (2e7f9f)

  154. The Monad, the great religious symbol of China, was adopted in this country by the NOrthern Pacific Railway Company as its official trade-mark.

    Ken in Camarillo (2c0dee)

  155. “Binge Watching” is the term for it.

    If anyone has not done it yet, I insist you go watch “The Wire.” So many good things there.

    Oh, and SmockPuppet: SF indeed. Sci-fi is to SF as hi-fi is to good audio.

    Kevin M (536c5d)

  156. Just got through rewatching the Urquart version of House of Cards. Francis is a bad, bad man. Frank Underwood is a prince in comparison.

    Kevin M (536c5d)

  157. world’s most famous bad writer

    I dunno about Bulwer-Lytton, he sold some books in his day. Have you ever read Lovecraft? It can get pretty bad.

    Kevin M (536c5d)

  158. “Despite the powers the Dark Jedi had unlocked, they were slowly weakened by the unity and determination of the Order, and ultimately defeated in the Battle of Corbos.”

    The Journal of Master Gnost-Dural – Compiled by Jedi Grand Master Satele Shan

    Ursus Maritimus (839d42)

  159. There are no physical books in my close proximity, but my E-book reader is right here. The closest book on my reader is probably the one I’m in the middle of. Its pages are virtual, but that’s the closest I’m going to get. First full sentence on page 45:

    “Slowly she tried to regain control of herself.”

    Robin Munn (76632c)

  160. “Go for the diamond, and you’ll look like one.”

    Hello everyone from a long-time lurker.

    Surfhut (4a5e24)

  161. Skipping text in figures on the page, I get:

    Well, that’s a nasty little error, isn’t it?

    The Sage (ba2a4c)

  162. “But the protest still holds: though the Landrum-Griffin Bill was an improvement over the Kennedy measure, Congress has still to come to grips with the real evil in the Labor field.”

    Rhymes With Right (da71f4)

  163. “If the index to []= is two numbers (a start and a length) or a range, then those elements in the original array are replaced by whatever is on the right side of the assignment.”
    Like Texas Bob, I’m sitting at the computer in my office. From the fourth-closest book, though:
    “The first society was between man and wife, which gave beginning to that between parents and children, to which, in time, that between master and servant came to be added.”

    Eric Wilner (3936fd)

  164. “How come you’re so late,” Lana screamed at her. “I told you to be here at one today.”

    Birdbath (716828)

  165. “Promising, fresh-faced young lad, is he?”

    kaf (81bcc7)

  166. “This frees his subconscious to do what it’s designed to do — to respond in the moment with what he already knows and/or to learn from what is actually happening.”

    Actually, that’s promising, if a bit wordy.

    Mr. D (063632)

  167. The ADA requires employers to provide adjustments or modifications to enable people with disabilities to enjoy equal employment opportunities unless doing so would be an undue hardship (that is, a significant difficulty or expense).

    Betsy B (f2e82f)

  168. “To state the obvious, a home chemistry lab requires chemicals.”

    Hmmm … while I like to think there’s chemistry in my love life ….

    Amiable Dorsai (5e9c89)

  169. Fortunately, Cocoa will automatically adjust the window’s position so that the window always starts on the screen, even if the location you specify would otherwise place it offscreen somewhere.

    My God! It’s uncannily accurate!

    Craig Mc (b890e3)

  170. “Nina was sharp, and always had her ear to the ground.”

    Does anyone know a girl named Nina? And what do I tell my wife?

    Brian Wohlgemuth (2e31bb)

  171. “Our handsome and smart Great Grandpa left the family farm and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh.”

    Looking at myself, I sense devolution.

    Richard Aubrey (c411da)

  172. What are “pages”?

    Ok, opening up the Kindle reader on my iPad which is closest to me, and opening the book I was last reading. Oh wow, it does have page numbers. Tapping “Go to Page…” 45.

    “How’d they even show up here?” I wondered.

    Chris J. Breisch (a042ad)

  173. #170:

    I do…stay away from her, she nucking futs (and not in a good, fun way).

    What do you tell the wife?

    There are two basic philosophy’s:

    First: Admit Nothing, Deny Everything, Demand Proof, and if faced with proof…make up a good story and STICK TO IT!

    Next, Never overlook the power of the Universal Answer: “I don’t know what the hell you are talking about” where the only thing that changes as the questioning evolves is the particular word you emphasize.

    MJN1957 (06a09a)

  174. “Since then the financial world has become more and more complex.”

    Being married to the same woman for almost 25 years, this is not a description of my sex life. 🙂

    John F. Opie (90286f)

  175. “A sugar cube placed in a glass of water will dissolve.”

    Hmmm… Interesting analogy for a love life, how a person can become so completely absorbed in their new relationship that they lose their individuality……..not me

    Thought #2……it would be interesting to read short stories developed from some of these sentences.

    Pine Baroness (a1d9be)

  176. “The bodies were hauled out from the annular compartments surrounding the reactor well to the emergency lock and laid at the feet of the incompetent chief engineer, who stood there, his face a deadly white.”

    WC Green (830584)

  177. “Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.”

    Robert Smith (3c836b)

  178. “When the top of her head actually touched the ceiling, George thought she was bound to stop.”

    NaBr (d2443a)

  179. “It’s going to explode.”

    dee nile (027946)

  180. I’m not sure if you mean the first full sentence, or the first words…

    “He was pretty sure that some of the things the younger guys were doing were pretty nutty.” This is the first full sentence of page 45 of Mark Tungate, `Adland: A Global History of Advertising’, 2007.

    Robert Burns Glennie (06e101)

  181. “Higgins also recommended that his 36-foot boat be used as patrol boats to protect the British coast.”

    David Aitken (e0d788)

  182. “Logging in to Discoverer Plus or Viewer is done via your web browser.”

    tek (2063de)

  183. For employers using hazardous chemicals, the most important aspect of he written program in terms of MSDSs is to ensure that someone is responsible for obtaining and maintaining the MSDSs for every hazardous chemical in the workplace.

    I’m not exactly certain how my love life is explained by the Hazard Communication book, but I should probably be worried.

    The Dana who runs a concrete plant (3e4784)

  184. The whole merry mob wound down through the streets of town to the old east gate, where the procession was to formally begin.

    TG (2c8903)

  185. antacid adj: counteractive of acidity.

    Amazed_476 (78a5e8)

  186. “We believe that deciding upon the engineer by negotiations is in the public interest”

    terminus (c5cd1e)

  187. Although government-wide regulations restrict the use of overtime for civil servants, the Special Projects Office personnel were required to work an extended hour.

    Corky Boyd (c95a33)

  188. Mussolini founded a new newspaper, Il Popolo d’Italia.

    pst314 (ae6bd1)

  189. The citizens on the pavement, waiting patiently for the parade to start, had something else to look at now.

    [Two quotes because there are two books equidistant from my desk.]

    pst314 (ae6bd1)

  190. “Thank you for the offer.”

    Matador (85f8b4)

  191. “Is the fun aspect still there if you are doing it thirteen hours a day?”

    S.B. Yadnow (e95473)

  192. Wow! A hundred and ninety something comments and counting already. This really is fun!
    Here’s mine: “Here’s the first rule of winning: don’t beat yourself. Your biggest enemy is you. Stay out of your own way…”

    The Emperor (fa12e9)

  193. Bolitho nodded, “Very Good.”

    Bar Sinister (b48c12)

  194. This column must also be used by a qualifying widow(er).

    Mike S (89ec89)

  195. “The Brothers Karamzov” (sentence started on page 44), “. . .worker who was martyred for his faith, and when they finally cut his head off, he got up, took his head, ‘kissed it belovingly,’ and walked on for a long time carrying it in his hands and ‘kissing it belovingly’?”

    srhoades (ba732a)

  196. “There are a number of infections that can be grouped under that category.” I’m not kidding. I’m a podiatrist and that book on Infectious Disease was closest when I read the post. I even was late for a patient because I just had to take the time to respond.

    dfbaskwill (a55c84)

  197. The first full sentence reads, “Is this true or not, honored fathers?”

    srhoades (ba732a)

  198. You will also know from the previous chapter that the products and products_types tables are related to each other via the foreign key column product_type_id.

    Andy Hough (39f29c)

  199. Oops, I broke the rules. Pays to read more than the png I guess.

    srhoades (ba732a)

  200. 1st book in stack:
    For the energy inputs into the systems (as fuels, petrol, diesel, gas or as electricity), in addition to the energy content delivered, energy will have been expended in drilling, mining, and/or production.

    2nd book in stack:
    New ways of displaying data are co9nstantly being invented.

    deadcenter, a lurker (ce7960)

  201. “Suddenly it was stilled, cut short in shock and appalled surprise, as from each lorry was uncoiled a length of heavy steel chain of about one inch diameter.”

    dhmosquito (759eb4)

  202. Closest book is my Kindle, here’s the quote from what I’m currently reading.

    “She started to say something back, quickly, but stopped herself in time, and Wallenstein smiled a bit grimly”

    SRT (3b05c6)

  203. “If you use the exclamation and equals together, you are asking Python for a comparison between any two values that are not equal (by the same set of rules of equality that you saw for the double equals sign) to result in a True value.”

    Vic (14c0f3)

  204. “If the ship in question is an oil tanker, the answer, then, would be ‘No'”.

    I would heartily agree. Amazing, it worked!

    Weltall (c1edfb)

  205. Nearest book to me. “A disloyal person is never satisfied. Even though you make him your second in command, he won’t be happy until he has taken your seat. Trying to please him is like trying to feed a beast that will ultimately eat you!”

    The Emperor (d356d4)

  206. The Joint Photographic Experts Group is a standards organization that defined the method of data compression used in JPEG files, technically known as the JPEG File Interchange Format (JFIF), and informally as JIF or JPG.

    mysterian (f109e3)

  207. If the amount you are looking up from the worksheet is (P45, RIA Federal tax Handbook p 209)

    Does this count?

    Andy (78d9f2)

  208. “I’m not going to talk about it.”

    That is the first sentence on page 45 of the book I am currently reading, and it matches my own public position about my love life.

    pa (4f643b)

  209. Or, Accordingly, the additional 5% rat applies to the taxable transfers of nonresident noncitizens prior to 2002 in excess of $10 Millions only to the extent necessary to phase out the benefit of the graduated rates actually allowed by stature or treaty (Master tax guide 2003 edition) (need to upgrade my tax books! )

    Andy (78d9f2)

  210. If we wish to make constructive changes in our lives, the place to begin is with an inventory.

    Charlie Davis (35738e)

  211. There are 2 books within arm’s reach, approximately equidistant. On my left:

    Jamieson’s warehouses in Norfolk and Gosport presented a busy scene. Side by side with barrels of flour and hogsheads of tobacco were casks of Jamaica rum and Antigua molasses; boxes of manufactured goods from England or Scotland; wine from Lisbon or Cadiz, or Madeira; salt from Turks Island; barrels of coffee, pimento, chocolate, spices, cocoa nuts, from various parts of the world. At his wharves were sloops or brigantines making ready to leave for the West Indies, or perhaps a two-hundred-ton ship just in from London or Glasgow. Seated on one side one might see a dozen or more slaves just in from the Guinea coast, watching with wondering eyes, while their more civilized fellow Africans worked busily loading or unloading the cargoes.

    On my right:

    Now, arise, get out of this land, and return to the land of your family.

    ropelight (ee02ef)

  212. Neglecting your own passed Pawn may deprive you of well-deserved victory; failing to guard against your opponent’s passed Pawn may condemn you to a defeat which might have been prevented if proper precautionary measures had been taken

    Mr. O (06cdd1)

  213. “Just don’t try to use them to come up with new ideas. They’re the wrong tool for that.”

    Hey! It really works.

    David (f4eccb)

  214. “But he denied it before them all, saying ‘I do not know what you are talking about.'”

    And now I’m worried. Perhaps I need to cut back on the margaritas.

    Annatar (c1d9a3)

  215. “Now, arise, get out of this land, and return to the land of your family.”

    Comment by ropelight (ee02ef) — 1/23/2014 @ 7:33 am

    Goodness me, ropelight I hope you are not sending her packing… Lol!

    The Emperor (4efdcc)

  216. Damn. That actually worked. though counter intuitively.

    “Arguments are most naturally interpreted as inputs to a function”

    Clean Code – A Handbook of Agile Software Craftmanship
    – Robert C. Martin

    WTP (5c621d)

  217. First book: “One lightweight sweater will do in summer; heavier ones will be needed in cold weather.”

    Second book: “Sometimes, even ‘baby,’ ‘hypoallergenic,’ or ‘all-natural’ products can trigger irritation or a rash-which means it’s time to pull a moisturizer switch (choose one with a different formulation).”

    They’re in the same series, but the second book kind of gives it away…

    pookysgirl (8475c3)

  218. The kernel has specialized locking primitives in its repertoire that help improve performance under specific conditions.

    mer (fe4339)

  219. More extreme failures, such as a violent outburst, an attack or serious insult against someone of higher station, or a breach of duty or loyalty, are punished much more severely.

    Burnside (8fa39f)

  220. At least he had batteries.

    Steve Scheiwe (a66e53)

  221. First complete sentence: “The hours fly.”

    Patricia (be0117)

  222. Following that, Sverdlov had issued a hysterical call for “merciless mass terror,” adding that there was no doubt that the assassins would turn out to be “hirelings of the English and French.”

    Mitch (341ca0)

  223. “Task 3: Evaluate the server requirements”

    CrustyB (69f730)

  224. In Visual C++ you will see a new project and solution named “Volume.”

    Kurt Duncan (e58eb2)

  225. “Hands swollen with radiation burns was another object lesson in what the energy of matter could do.”

    harkin (fa5ddc)

  226. “All honor to him,” Er Thom echoed dryly.

    “Indeed, he did much to prepare me for The Gazette.

    Loren (1e34f2)

  227. For purposes of this item 3.02, “the number of shares outstanding” refers to the actual number of shares of equity securities of the class outstanding and does not include outstanding securities convertible into or exchangeable for such equity securities.

    Jeffrey (2eddb6)

  228. ‘To find out more about the theme of this unit, choose from these reading suggestions”.

    gahrie (90844b)

  229. #215, E, it’s biblical, Genesis 31:13 New KJV.

    ropelight (ee02ef)

  230. The world of Egypt and Babylon and Assyria and Phoenicia had existed almost thirty centuries and the venerable races of the fertile valley were getting old and tired.

    p45 The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem van Loon

    Walruskkkch (100949)

  231. “Imagine having a QSO with a station in Ecuador while on your way to work” – The ARRL Operating Manual for Radio Amateurs.

    Zoltan (d5ef99)

  232. “Here, a SBPL fit to the GBM spectrum in the interval 11.5 to 33.0 s (Table S1) and a minimum variability time scale of 0.04 +/- 0.01 are used.”

    aphrael (d09290)

  233. However, of all inspection stations, only Receiving Inspection is concerned with the wrapping and packing of mechanized parts and other processed material shipped after finishing.

    Larry (60406d)

  234. (most of my reading is on ebook now, so anything on physical media is a bit … esoteric)

    aphrael (d09290)

  235. “Essentially, this pod is a sealed, energy-neutral environment.”

    J.P. (bd0246)

  236. These willing migrants did not dwell on how the region had been developed.

    From It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway, by David Satter.

    Dianna (b7aa4f)

  237. The junk man’s revolt marks the point at which a docile public declares that it will tolerate only so much idiocy.

    jem (a74c44)

  238. “If we are to develop an intimate relationship, we need to know each other’s desires.”

    Tanny O'Haley (c0a74e)

  239. this page intentionally left blank

    steveg (794291)

  240. “Check for a chafed area that could fail prematurely”

    Tony Hooker (1d5631)

  241. “Since oxygen is entrapped within the transition zone between the unsaturated and the fully water-saturated zone, the streamlines and the equipotential lines as well as the isochrones are deflected at the interface between the quasi-saturated and the fully water-saturated domain.”

    MikeHs (1a2353)

  242. When Erlendur got home that evening he buttered himself a flat-cake and topped it with smoked lamb, turned on the coffee-maker, then put Karen’s cassette back in the machine.

    George Warburton (736d20)

  243. “If a parenthetic expression is an independent sentence, its first word is capitalized and a period is placed INSIDE the last parenthesis.”

    John Barrett Jr. (5576b0)

  244. Locate and orient hole with respect to handle in latched position (as shown in next step).

    I am, of course, lurking from work…

    Chris (5d6f58)

  245. “Because macros generate their expansion at compile time, they can do relatively large amounts of work generating their expansion without having to pay for it when the file is loaded or the functions in the file are called.”

    From a lurker, of course.

    JoeH (379d21)

  246. Everything about this felt unbelievably wrong, but I was too far gone to care.

    phaedruscj (dc2574)

  247. “Portable, electric space heaters shall comply with Section 605.10.1 through 605.10.4.”

    Unfortunately that does in fact describe my love life perfectly.

    Fire Captain (aaf81a)

  248. But it was where most of the men and women lived who cut the lawns, cleaned the pools, washed the clothes, and cleaned the houses for the wealthier folks who called Paradise home.

    nbpundit (da5766)

  249. Note to Subdivision (b)(1): Challenges to the array and to individual jurors, although rarely invoked in connection with the selection of grand juries, are nevertheless permitted in the Federal courts and are continued by this rule.

    Yeah, my love life pretty much blows…

    Hayabusa (d3a02c)

  250. “a partnership or other unincorporated association with no such capacity under that state’s law may sue or be sued in its common name to enforce a substantive right existing under the United States Constitution or laws.”

    The fact that we’re all at work is skewing this.

    This has the potential to be a great exercise, but it should be re-posted around 8:00 pm, when a larger portion of the readers are home.

    Leviticus (f9a067)

  251. That said, some of these are bloody hilarious.

    Leviticus (f9a067)

  252. What I find interesting is that there is not one duplicate in here. Not one person is reading the same book as another!

    Gazzer (74e832)

  253. Actually, in deference to the complete sentence rule, mine should be “A minor or an incompetent person who does not have a duly appointed representative may sue by a next friend or by a guardian ad litem.”

    Leviticus (f9a067)

  254. What I find interesting is that there is not one duplicate in here. Not one person is reading the same book as another!

    We’ve had quite a few Bibles, but not the same volume or edition.

    Milhouse (b95258)

  255. If a pitched ball lodges in the umpire’s or catcher’s mask or paraphernalia, and remains out of play, on the third strike or fourth ball, then the batter is entitled to first base and all runners advance one base.

    Brett (c08c33)

  256. I wasn’t reading mine, they were just the ones within reach. I recognized The Face In The Frost and a Raymond Chandler short story collection and I know they’re around somewhere.

    nk (dbc370)

  257. #215, E, it’s biblical, Genesis 31:13 New KJV.

    Comment by ropelight (ee02ef) — 1/23/2014 @ 9:03 a

    Yes I know it’s biblical. Just couldn’t resist. 🙂

    The Emperor (cd1ca5)

  258. It was early evening of the next day before Chronicler came down the stairs to the common room of the Waystone Inn.

    John425 (6aa7df)

  259. One more from me. This one is in Hebrew, but here’s my on-the-spot translation of the first complete sentence on page 45:

    2) The authors of Berurei Hamidot and Minchat Baruch found by measurement that the width of seven barleycorns is not equal to the length of two, for two barleycorns lengthwise are six widthwise (and Meshiv Davar wrote that two barleycorns lengthwise are 2 cm), and they resolved the measurement by supposing that Maimonides meant seven barleycorns lying on their sides.

    Milhouse (b95258)

  260. “They’re family, Caroline. I’m sure they’re fine.”

    Jim S. (94591b)

  261. John425, Name of the Wind?

    SPQR (7e7cd2)

  262. Savage stepped softly toward the right side of the archway and peered with greater caution along the left flank of the corridor.

    Labcatcher (61737c)

  263. USB device drivers (or client drivers) issue requests to the USB bus driver via I/O Request Packets (IRPs).

    cdb (213b0b)

  264. “It was God who struck awe into ruthless and bloodthirsty hearts, who curbed and wonderously tamed them.”

    Estragon (19fa04)

  265. “Hang on” he said, patting my hand, seemingly prepared for my response. “I’ve been reading a lot about it lately. It’s making a comeback.” There wasn’t a hint of teasing in his voice.

    Southern as a Second Language by Lisa Patton, pg 45

    Syllabucks (5fbc97)

  266. 107-1.12 FOREST PROTECTION. The Contractor shall:

    JNorth (5fe1bf)

  267. “I’m impressed. He’s younger and smarter than I thought.”

    RagnarDanneskold (5fbc97)

  268. “When your folks nag you about tying your shoes, it is because they want you to be one of those people.”

    BeaPolite (5fbc97)

  269. He had a curious mimetic talent, and when he talked about cows, chicken, sheep, and dogs he was transformed, imitating their way of looking, their movements and voices, becoming very gay and seeming to turn into an animal himself, like a shaman.

    Bruce M (0e6adb)

  270. This evening, Alix has prepared two tables in the dining room for her guests.

    rochf (f3fbb0)

  271. Somehow, this falls apart:

    F, F1k, F2j Properties in the method of Constintinou and Gani, Eq. (2-2.4)

    DarthChocolate (e63bb7)

  272. Most of the betting action takes place in the seats closest to the ring.

    Charles (5e136b)

  273. “They were either being played in the background or my mother was singing them when I was three or four.”

    Uh-oh. This sounds perverted.

    equitus (e4bb2f)

  274. Closest “book”.

    “There are two flexures associated with the colon: The hepatic or right colic flexure, and the splenic or left colic flexure.”

    Fish (019d95)

  275. “The absolute potential at a radius ris given by”

    Man Mountain Molehill (d5ffcc)

  276. The Master came and touched my hands,
    (And crimson were His own)
    But when, amazed, on mine I gazed,
    Lo! every stain was gone.

    infidel (8ceb23)

  277. This is from a book which I was just consulting:

    And inevitably Regan and those around him would think and talk about Reagan’s populatity as “the bottom line.”

    I didn’t really consult it much. Rght there it’s biased.

    I don’t think any books about Iran-contra are good. This one is by Jane Mayer and Doyle Mcmanus. It doesn’t catch the postponement and the discrepancy from January 6 to January 17 and what changed bewteen those two dates.

    It was published in 1988, but it would seem this would be an important point.

    Sammy Finkelman (1892a7)

  278. “But instead of leaving her, he fluttered above her head, looking suddenly less dashing and a little nervous in the blue evening air.”

    Mr. Mav (f68379)

  279. 30. 91. 129. 211. It seems a number of thse quotes are from the b ible, and even though they are different Bibles, they all seem to be toward the end of Parshas Vayetzei and the very beginning of Parshas Vaysishlach. (the 7th and the 8th weekly readings in the synagogue.)

    The boundary between the two is after Genesis 32:3

    30 (Ibidem) is Genesis 32:2

    91 (G) is Genesis 31:11 and 12.

    129 (Teflon Dad) is Genesis 32:11

    211 (Ropelight) is the end of Genesis 31:13

    I have one near here too.

    The top of page 45 has as its first complete senetence:

    25 and Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.

    Sammy Finkelman (1892a7)

  280. 83. “On 2 February 1421, China dwarfed every nation on earth.”

    I thought I knew what book that came from, but it’s not on that page, and that exact quote doesn’t seem to be nearby anywhere.

    I have a chapter heading on page 45. Page 46 is blank. Page 47 starts:

    “ON THE NIGHT OF 9 MAY 1421, TWO MONHS AFTER ZHENG He’s armada had set sail, a violent storm broke over the Forbidden City:”

    The first line is all caps, which this book does every chapter.

    I first saw this book in the libary, as ahardcover, then I got it (paperback) (and other books and things) when a friend moved to California, partly as a settlement for $200 plus he owed me. I had been giving him money and gettinbg it back at the start of the month, and then lending it agaim.

    Sammy Finkelman (1892a7)

  281. Alas, I saw this while I was on the train in to work, and without the ability to snatch a book out of the hand of the seated passenger next to me, I had to wait until I got in. That left me with:

    The most common operation on a scalar variable is assignment, which is the way to give a value to a variable.

    Pretty spot on for my relationship.

    luagha (5cbe06)

  282. Son to Dad: Dad what’s the next country after USA?
    Dad to son: USB, son.

    The Emperor (3db71b)

  283. It was the start of the divergence between Edenist and Adamist culture, and also effectively ended Adamist use of bitek.

    I’ll be very surprised if anyone knows where this came from.

    jakee308 (e940d5)

  284. The student who wishes me luck in finding an introvert at HBS no doubt believes none are to be found.

    Bud Norton (29550d)

  285. Still more:

    1. He managed to establish among his informers an informal auditinng group that disclosed the true incomes of New Economic Policy enterprises in the 1920s.

    2. William Allen had sent detailed instructions to the managers of all one hundred thousand miles of U.S. railroads on the arrangements necessary for carrying out the conversion to standard time.

    3. What will happen to the Senate in the 2002 elections?

    4. Activities which involve excessive bother, or bother for the purposes of a weekday

    5. The data also showed that small offices are more honest than big ones.

    6. The sort of breakthroughs that make tumor virus research possible occurred ten years or so ago; not that you then had any illusions it was going to be easy, but you knew you could put a student into it and there’d be something for him to be doing ten or twenty years on. [quote from Watson in a book published in 1979]

    Sammy Finkelman (1892a7)

  286. Sammy, you missed #28 from MD, which is from Exodus.

    Of course it stands to reason that many editions of Genesis will begin page 45 in approximately but not exactly the same place.

    Milhouse (50cb78)

  287. Son to Dad: Dad what’s the next country after USA?
    Dad to son: USB, son.

    And C++ should have been called either D or P. Or at least ++C.

    Milhouse (50cb78)

  288. You can bring your horses in and gallop through the aisles.

    salfter (c6e8fa)

  289. The letters which form Part II of this book were written to Mr. Orvis in response to letters of inquiry which he sent to anglers in all parts of the country.

    bob in fl (db3c05)

  290. He had met him before and knew what an arsehole the man was.

    PatAZ (1b3b8e)

  291. Applied even to military and naval leaders, it errs by lack of qualification; but for the statesman, under whom the soldier or seaman acts, the political as well as the military conditions must influence, must at times control, and even reverse, decision.

    Lurking Navalist (d0bd8e)

  292. “Much would have depended on whether air searches spotted either TF-14 or TF-11 on 23 December.”

    Alas, my Kindle has no page numbers, so I couldn’t share those precious words. But I’m plowing thru two books, and the above quote is a valid response.

    bobathome (c0c2b5)

  293. 288. You can bring your horses in and gallop through the aisles.

    Comment by salfter (c6e8fa) — 1/23/2014 @ 2:13 pm

    Oh thank gawd. I was afraid somebody would try and steal them if I locked them to the bike rack.

    I know I wasn’t the only only one who didn’t shop there for this reason. This is going to be a huge load off my Mongol horde’s mind. I’ll let them know.

    Steve57 (663093)

  294. What’s your policy about nailing competing customers to the floor, planking them over, then suffocating them to death as you feast upon the platform you’ve built over them?

    Steve57 (663093)

  295. OK, here is my love-life explained:

    “That’s also why the rich blow their brains out at an alarming rate, more than the poor do: because a lot of money makes life predictable and controllable and therefore boring”.

    felipe (6100bc)

  296. Multiplication is ordinarily accomplished with the C and D scales. (left hand top of stack :: right hand top of stack) The Oxford Companion to Food defines American muffins as “small, squat, round cakes,” yet today’s deli muffins are, by comparison, big and buxom, inflated by chemical leavening and embellished with everything from chocolate chips to sunflower seeds.

    Actually there are eight stacks on the left, and five on the right, and I don’t know how many behind me.

    htom (412a17)

  297. yes, I had a small print double column, re version of the Bible I used

    Sammy, I don’t think there is a prize for most entries
    but if you insist, there is a public library about 50 yards from my front door
    and then there is Project Gutenberg…

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  298. Well, the Mongols don’t actually “feast upon the platform” they build. They’re not beavers, which eat wood. They build a platform then set up tables and benches and serve a feast. Whilst suffocating their enemies after sucking them into surrender by promising not to spill the blood of those who gave up.

    Or, at least they did. I’ll have to check to see if they still swing that way.

    Steve57 (663093)

  299. Nordstrom is really anal about all these things. I haven’t even got to the drinking blood part.

    Whoo boy!

    Steve57 (663093)

  300. After much trial and error, the researchers tried gluing two aluminum disks together.

    Hmmmm. yeah, that explains why I’ve been married 50 years…its the glue, stupid!

    Not a book I’m reading but it was closest to me. ‘Making the World work Better’, by Kevin Maney, Steve Hamm and Jeffrey M. O’Brien…published by IBM Press.

    Andy (b63f79)

  301. Me and the horde are really happy to hear that at least some retailers are liberalizing their rules about bringing horses into the store. It’s sort of icing on the cake that we can actually gallop through the aisles.

    You know, had Ross Dress For Less been at least decent about it we wouldn’t have pillaged the place.

    Now, let’s talk about piano music. The guys insist on a live pianist.

    Steve57 (663093)

  302. Sammy @ 278: Might be Gen. 32:2 in some versions. KJV has it as Genesis 32:1.

    Ibidem (f89abc)

  303. I netflixed for a year and binged on 3 seasons of Madmen straight through in one viewing session. I was so happy to hear the Beatles “Tomorrow never knows” highlighted et the end of one episode. That song really drove home (for me) how unique the Beatles were.

    I recommend ARCHER

    I burned out and let my subscription expire.

    felipe (6100bc)

  304. If, when you honestly want to, you find you can not quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic.

    M. Hiltzik (62e7f3)

  305. Sammy, Ibidem, my Douay Rheims (Challoner revision) Bible has it as Gen 38:14.

    felipe (6100bc)

  306. I mean to say that the first complete sentence on page 45 in my Bible is Gen 38:14. I should have made that clear the first time.

    felipe (6100bc)

  307. The guys insist on a live pianist.

    To start with. But I digress.

    Let’s move on to the Mimosas.

    On the steppe these guys get by on kumis, or fermented mare’s milk. Sort of a very low octane version of hooch.

    I’m just saying, except for when they’re buying Lamborghinis or impact weapons like war hammers or maces the the horde is in and out in like 15 minutes. The horde sez, “I don’t need to try those pants on. They’ll work. Gimme those pants. Can I pay here in electronics or do I need to go up front?”

    But, hey, if it’s a Sunday, and the wives are getting their hair done at Tony & Guy, and they’ve got a few hours to kill, the guys with the live piano and the mimosas win. Next thing you know you’re not dealing with a marauding nomad but just some guy who sez, “yeah, put that tie on the card, too.”

    Steve57 (663093)

  308. Sirens echoed throughout the ravaged city.

    Hal (ba71f9)

  309. 308. Sirens echoed throughout the ravaged city.

    Comment by Hal (ba71f9) — 1/23/2014 @ 4:45 pm

    I’ll have to work that into my epic. Thanks.

    It’s all gonna be based loosely on Oprah going to Switzerland and some clerk insisting on showing her the $18k purse instead of the $35k purse. Except with Mongols as the shoppers and illegal aliens as the clerks. Hilarity ensues, as it did in real life. So there’s your audience buy-in right there. Who hasn’t said, “It’s because I’m black” when experiencing slow service in Switzerland?

    Lucas Films has already contacted me about the movie rights.

    Steve57 (663093)

  310. But the Godzilla thing. Hadn’t thought of that.

    Steve57 (663093)

  311. A giant, enraged Oprah stomping the s*** out of Geneva because of teh racism just doesn’t click in a lot of markets.

    Steve57 (663093)

  312. Two are within equivalent distance:

    “You wouldn’t, necessarily, but your youth is a magical instrument with which you can accomplish anything.”

    Only if we understand why and how certain kinds of economic controls tend to paralyze the driving forces of a free society, and which kinds of measures are particularly dangerous in this respect, can we hope that social experimentation will not lead us into situations none of us want.

    Wayne M (8c1cf3)

  313. The American Museum of Natural History has over the years been unusually lucky; almost all of its expeditions have returned with valuable results and collections.

    Nora (50cb78)

  314. “An instructive place to begin is to compare past and present visions of the future”

    halflight (796243)

  315. It is always true of the neuter that the nominative, vocative, and accusative are always the same, whether in the singular or plural.

    Golden Eagle (4e9369)

  316. “The puppy on the left thinks he just met a new friend in the mirror.”

    Greg (32cc2c)

  317. “I groaned.”
    Haha.

    Wen (1c9ac9)

  318. “Ghosts can be very fierce and instructive.”

    Mike A (9e350d)

  319. “There is no doubt that the Soviet Union felt vulnerable after its recent experiences-Lenin called the country ‘an oasis in the middle of a raging imperialist sea’- and, now cast as a pariah state, remained ‘at risk’.

    Er…

    Strabo (97d72c)

  320. From the American edition of Perry Rhodan, a German Science Fiction series, I picked up #24, Infinity Flight. The sentence is: Bell’s red hair bristles stood on end and made him resemble a fighting mad porcupine.

    Definitely not my love life!

    David Crowley (970d6c)

  321. “Indeed, Luke 3:3 speaks of John ‘coming into all the region around the Jordan.'”

    As lovelife-related quotes go, this one seems unfortunate.

    Curmudgeonly Ex-Clerk (0cbc12)

  322. And there it was, acrid and alien, standing out because it so obviously did not belong.

    — first full sentence

    rd (8c8a6e)

  323. the first few episodes of that particular Continuum last year before we discontinued cable and found it interesting enough that I’ll make sure to add it to my queue.

    FWIW, at least as of earlier this month, it was in the main Netflix offerings.

    I hadn’t found Elementary yet on a streaming service but it’s been a few months so I should check again.

    FWIW, you may be able to watch it via
    http://www.tubeplus.me/
    Think of a pirate version of Youtube. I may be incorrect, but, while it’s illegal to upload to that, I don’t think it’s illegal to stream stuff, no matter the source. Patterico may offer a more valid legal opinion.

    Binge watching (I’ve also seen netflixing, used as a verb)

    Since Amazon has a similar service, and there’s also Hulu, you can “binge watch” on more than just netflix these days, which is why I’ve tended to use that term. You can also binge watch via rentals from the public library, or DVDs sets you own/possess.

    Librarians are not in high demand at the moment.

    Yeah, that’s unfortunately likely to be true. Have you tried to find peripheral areas, like researching stuff?
    http://www.guru.com/
    http://www.freelancer.com/dashboard/

    Perhaps you can at least pick up some extra money using that. There are a lot of jobs that basically involve scraping data off the internet there. Probably time-intensive — esp. when you first start out and don’t have a useful set of tools — but at least it would be money, even if “low pay” in an hourly rate sense.

    Just an idea, no clue if you’d be interested.

    Smock Puppet, Gadfly, Racist-Sexist Thug, and Bon Vivant All In One Package (225d0d)

  324. Just got through rewatching the Urquart version of House of Cards. Francis is a bad, bad man. Frank Underwood is a prince in comparison.

    True, but so far, we’re really only at the third ep of the first trilogy, so I think they’re fairly comparable at this point, after only one season of the Netflix version…

    Smock Puppet, Gadfly, Racist-Sexist Thug, and Bon Vivant All In One Package (225d0d)

  325. And C++ should have been called either D or P. Or at least ++C.

    But that would have violated c naming conventions for variables, which must start with a letter or underscore. Languages, being variable, are covered by this rule as an obvious extension of concept.
    😀

    Have you considered how C# got its name?

    ++
    ++

    😉

    Smock Puppet, Gadfly, Racist-Sexist Thug, and Bon Vivant All In One Package (225d0d)

  326. “Then too, there was a growing awareness that different kinds of fossils were found in different strata and in different localities as Lister had observed in the 17th century.”

    Jim Kidder (2c9c93)

  327. There must be some readers who are not cooperating, as there are more than 300 or so around, I am sure.
    The NSA knows who you are, and P will subpoena them.

    hey, Jimpithecus, glad you posted. I took a quick look at your website, hopefully I will have some time to look at it more and do some discussion.
    (My main question about evolutionary creationism is how does the idea of The Fall fit in, FWIW. From my background in the sciences and rudimentary philosophy, I think I can have some knowledgeable discussion about philosophy of science/limits of science issues, but I have very little background on anything approaching details of the fossil record, archeology, etc. ).

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  328. Jimpithecus,
    I actually had a professor in college, at the University of Wisconsin, once say in lecture, “If God created the Earth, why did He only put finches on the Galapagos Islands?”
    I kid you not. Even though I wasn’t a Christian at the time, and my two buddies were not very serious about any religious views they had, we all agreed that He did it that way just so He could hear people say silly things.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  329. Lurker here:

    “The possessive of a plural noun takes a single apostrophe (“Courts’ general adherence to precedent”).”

    Spot on.

    egd (2130a5)

  330. “…commander in the field was deluged with paperwork, for the Viennese war…”

    Todd G. (cfea93)

  331. A lurker submission

    “Word would get out, and this place would be ruined for them.”

    haha.

    Long haired nerd (2c2a07)

  332. “The Capuchins also adhered to St. Francis’ commandment not to wear shoes.”

    Mary (2ee203)

  333. *delurks*
    “Cut down the two Cherry trees in the Court yard” wrote Washington in his diaries on 18 August 1785, long after the fabled event of his boyhood.
    *relurks*

    Mike S. (f5d617)

  334. I needed 4 tries to get a complete sentence on a page 45.

    1) a photograph with the legend Two sides of the Maništušu Obelisk;
    2) birahhum —> birihhu, which leads to birihhu(m) ~ “string, bundle”, of vegetables, etc.;
    3) (giš)dimgul [MA2.MUG], mast, wooden post, mooring pole;
    4) In other words, the netherworld is a part of the realm of the dead; thus, they are not the same dimension.

    All right, that worked out rather (oddly) well: front and back sides, sex (squishy veggies, stiff poles) and death. . . all that’s missing for Modern Love is rock ‘n’ roll.

    Basta (1a28cd)

  335. I already paticipated in this on Facebook. Here is what I put down there:

    “Just like a jarhead to defend a bunch of hillbillies”

    rustypaladin (4c15c4)

  336. Sergeant Hester and I exited the canal system, and Sergeant Morris met up with us.

    Gus Bailey (3ba2ff)

  337. “Blueberry muffins were one of my mother’s specialties, and I dedicate this recipe to her memory.”

    Y-not (f3808d)

  338. The nearest book to me was a book of crossword puzzles, and the first clue on p. 45 is:

    Bride’s headware.

    I think there is a veiled meaning in that one.

    tankdemon (7d2fd5)

  339. No freaking way.

    This sounds like what my mother use to tell me when I was young.

    At the top of page 45 in Corporate Confidential, a book about HR policy, is the title of a new chapter: It’s Not Too Smart To Be Too Smart

    Niedermeyer's Dead Horse (c7cbff)

  340. “Does the architecture set space and speed budgets for each module?”

    From a lurker after work; this gives new meaning to designing software.

    Jim (09ab51)

  341. “Which means we were lucky to hold her to just five given names, all things considered”

    Ken (c48882)

  342. Burns, which occurred not only in battle but also when guns misfired during exercises, we’re usually cleaned and dressed with olive oil.

    That’s what I get for lurking.

    henry (6b55a1)

  343. “Now they moved steadily southward, with the fantastic peaks and ridges of the Gila Mountains on their right.” This was so perfect, I have to include the second sentence also. “The air was cool and pleasant and they held to a good pace, stopping at intervals, or after climbing a grade, to rest their horses.” Sorry, that Louis L’Amour is appropriately named.

    John (7f27fc)

  344. Oh, I should have also included sentence 3 and 4. “Nobody was any mood for talk. After a while Rodelo gave over the reins to Harbin and turned in, lying stretched out in the back of the wagon.” Oh Louis L’Amour, you devil!

    John (7f27fc)

  345. So, the Bubbles have cancelled their order for 60 Euro-fighting jets, saying they need the money to pay for the Olympic Games.

    Courtney (df964a)

  346. Originally posted this at The Other McCain.

    “When filling a soul gem, there are key points to remember.”

    Chandler's Ghost (332fb6)

  347. “The millipede-like legs turned out to be iridescent, bristly, almost winglike, which the creature used sort of like oars.”

    Jeff Weimer (bb9480)

  348. “Once, when he thought he had him safe, the fawn sprang over the bushes and disappeared.”

    Bill Lever (f63e39)

  349. The ground underfoot was a sea of mud and rubbish.

    Texas Annie (fbb554)

  350. “At the same time that the flow of goods to Greece from the Near East was increasing – particularly as emerging Greek institutions such as temples and religious sanctuaries grouped together to arrange the import of high-status offerings from the region – so too was the quantity of Greek pottery going in the opposite direction.”

    Dwight Brown (f5238f)

  351. “They managed to live like this for eighteen years.”

    The Histories, Herodotus

    andy (e23be8)

  352. “This lawlessness is getting pretty bad.”

    Becky (4f4ad6)

  353. “This was quite obviously a necessary consequence of the impressions just gained in the naval war in the Far East, because they suddenly added tremendous importance to the problems relating to the design of modern warships.”

    The “because…” clause seems to be near-gibberish.

    Rich Rostrom (00fcaf)

  354. “This model focuses the literature review, relates it closely to the variables in the research questions and hypotheses, and sufficiently narrows the study. ”

    I clearly need to get a life, but it may actually support the author’s hypothesis.

    al van court (7de907)

  355. “He then laid her on the floor between the wardrobe in the dressing table and pulled the silk eiderdown off the bed and laid it over … she was still struggling and knocking her heels on the floor.”

    Okaaaay. Not a good one. Try again:

    “This malfunction is created when the spent casing is not fully ejected from the weapon during firing.”

    Fuck.

    JohnC (325ceb)

  356. “It has been suggested that three short-tailed shrews could eat as many as 27 voles in a single winter season in a 1 – acre(2.5 ha)area.”

    cap'n john's nephew (9bf730)

  357. Off topic, of course, but add “Orphan Black” to that list of TV shows worth looking into. I’ve only seen 3 eps so far (there haven’t been that many) but, as with Continuum, it’s been pretty good so far, esp. for a b-list Canadian/BBC co-production.

    Nominally SF, though so far it’s not been particularly “S”, it’s more of a “Lost” type “WTF is going on?” show. Seems decently done, and so far the show has been adding to the different elements of confusion (in a good way).

    Smock Puppet, Gadfly, Racist-Sexist Thug, and Bon Vivant All In One Package (225d0d)

  358. “This malfunction is created when the spent casing is not fully ejected from the weapon during firing.”

    Well, that’s a pretty clear description of your problem with your love life.

    You’re not properly ejecting your spent casing.

    LOL 😀

    Smock Puppet, Gadfly, Racist-Sexist Thug, and Bon Vivant All In One Package (225d0d)

  359. 30. And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.

    279 by me:

    30 (Ibidem) is Genesis 32:2

    302. Comment by Ibidem (f89abc) — 1/23/2014 @ 4:11 pm

    Sammy @ 278: Might be Gen. 32:2 in some versions. KJV has it as Genesis 32:1.

    The chapters are not Jewish in origin, and don’t have any more significance than page numbers, except for the Psalms, which are separate Psalms, and were copied back into printed Hebrew books. The Hebrew divisions are more like paragraphs, although sometimes they can consist of two verses, or even, in the ten Commandments, one verse being divided into four parts.

    Sometimes the divisions are really at the wrong place, and when it is off by one, sometimes the division in Jewish references is moved one off. Not always, or often. Some Sedrahs of the week begin with verses numbered as low as 2 I think.

    This is an example, where the dvision should be at some other place. Here the division should be right before the verse with Jacob sending messengers to Esau (32:4) I don’t know , why if the KJV has it starting at 32:2, it would be be moved back one, instead of ahead two. That is neither more correct, nor does it help anyone find what a non-Jewish translation might say. Maybe the KJV already differed from the Vulgate?

    Sammy Finkelman (1892a7)

  360. 286. Comment by Milhouse (50cb78) — 1/23/2014 @ 2:05 pm

    Sammy, you missed #28 from MD, which is from Exodus.

    I’m afraid I wouldn’t recognize much from Terumah and Tetzaveh – the details for the uildimng of the mishkan and the garments of the Cohanim. On top of that it’s the second thing quoted in #28.

    If it had been toward the end of Exodus, in Vayakhel and Pekudey (and they made) when it describes the actual building I might have recognized it, because it says over and pver again “and they made”

    Once told it is there, and in Exodus, and the word Ephod, I knew where it had to be, and I managed to find it (Exodus 28:26)

    I had seen this, bit had assumed it was something from the Dead Sea Scrools, the Book of Esdfras, one of the Testaments of the Twelve Tribes, or whatever. A pseudographic work, where somebody was giving his version of hw=o things should be done.

    Genesis 32:25 was the first full verse in the 1917 Jewish Publication Society Scriptures.

    The new JPS translation (with Hebrew on half the page) has this as the first sentence on the top of page 45:

    He said, speak then.

    (end of Genesis 24:33, which is split into two sentences. It’s actually a separate sentence (although in neither case, a separate verse) in the 1917 translation.

    This deals with Eliezer’s effort to find a wife for Isaac. Laban is also mentioned here. The full sentence after that is:

    “I am Abraham’s servant,” he began.

    It’s too much of a paraphrase, or a rearranging of words, here.

    oth versions have prefaces with pages numbered with Roman numerals, but the odler version starts with page 3, and the later one with page 1 – there’s just less per page.

    Sammy Finkelman (1892a7)

  361. 351. Comment by andy (e23be8) — 1/25/2014 @ 10:31 am

    “They managed to live like this for eighteen years.”

    The Histories, Herodotus
    ———————-

    In “The Persian Wars” translated by George Rawlinson, (Modern Library edition) which I think is the same book, I have:

    “The combat was long; but at last, after a great slaughter, the Lydians turned and fled.”

    Sammy Finkelman (1892a7)

  362. “It has been suggested that three short-tailed shrews could eat as many as 27 voles in a single winter season in a 1 – acre(2.5 ha)area.”
    Comment by cap’n john’s nephew (9bf730) — 1/25/2014 @ 9:36 pm

    Who knew??

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  363. “Leaving the marks of his fingers.”

    Cicero418 (c7a8e0)

  364. “For years hedonists have talked about and sought the locus of pleasure, but it was not until 1954 that the specific brain systems were discovered that seem to form the physiological substrate of pleasure and reward”

    Thor Ingram Morse (b0f5ae)

  365. “He certainly knew that, as Saugnier put it, ‘the currents always set towards the Coast of Africa, that there are long banks of sand which run a great way out to sea, that in the morning and evening it is difficult to distinguish them from the water’.”

    k9ranger (0af3b8)

  366. But this specialization of labor is only possible in a system based on cooperation.

    sweetaura (44f0ac)

  367. More:

    1. One of the media relations people at Johns Hopkins had told me tghat the second day after a news release is the big day for media coverage.

    2. Just before dawn, Antonina awoke to the dostant sopund of gravel down a metal shute, which her brain soon deciphered as airplane engines.

    3. But at the same time we have to create an all-for-one atmophere.

    4. And federal revenues, heavily dependent on the tariff, collapsed.

    5. It might be too scary, but let’s look at what could happen if the judge actually leaned forward and decided something.

    6. Remove all appliances from your kitchen counter, including your toaster and microwave, to create a spacious-looking kitchen. (when preparing to sell)

    7. This relation is actually precise for a regular hexagon (six-sided shape; Fifure `2) since all the triangles have equal sides.

    8. Reuters was positioned well for that task.

    Sammy Finkelman (1892a7)

  368. Interestingly… the book nearest to me is “Experiencing God Day-by-Day”, a devotional by Henry T. and Richard Blackaby. Page 45 is, oddly enough, for February 14.

    Under the “don’t use a quote from another book” rule and assuming the Bible is a book, my first line is “No human can comprehend God’s love for His children!”.

    More interesting is the quote if we don’t apply that rule: “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans.'” (Hosea 3:1)

    Brian (182cf3)

  369. “The resulting chemcial composition of the mantle is similar to one proposed by Mason (1966), which was based on meteorites, and also resembles the estimate made by Hutchison (1974), which was derived from ultramafic lherzolite inclusions in ingneous rocks.”

    Yup, explains a lot about my life!

    – Lurker

    bralex the lurker (2d5b2b)

  370. Within a few days there is marked cellular infiltration by foamy macrophages and reactive astrocytes around the necrotic focus that contains stick like debris residual to either necrotic axons or vessels.

    Uh…. OK. I guess.

    HiHo (228bfb)

  371. In 1740 his father Wilhelm had been the aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Munnich, the key figure in the army and government of the Empress Anna.

    Bob D (d7ad49)

  372. “In 1920, Butsey and his gang were wheeling violently across New England.”

    gwjd (032bef)

  373. “Yet sometimes, like a boy on a dare, it might let things go very far out of control, even to the extent of letting itself forget that it had the power to awaken.”

    Beyond Theology – Alan Watts

    Well that was fun! LOL

    Frodo (a99061)

  374. 1. He also proclaimed that all exiled peoples in his vast realm, including the Jews, would be permitted to return to their respective homelands if they wished.

    2. But with the laser intensity turned down, we see the same pattern arise dot by dot.

    3. Mrs. Morgan made only two minor calculation errors, again related to her vision problems: she had trouble seeing numbers she had to carry.

    4. When you’re bidding in a Dutch auction, you not only have to place your bid, but you have to indicate how many of the item you’d like to buy.

    5. Instead of having to wrestle with the nearly infinite ways in which a wide range of molecules interact throughout your body, researchers can in theory just compare the genes of healthy people to those of sick people, and find the one gene or handful of genes that are linked to any given disease.

    6. After a short talk over a snack, Kenet and Primo set out in the rented car on a tour of Olivos.

    7. Hammurabi died in 1750 B.C., but for the last five years of his life he ruled an Empire as large as Nuram-Sin’s had been six centuries before.

    8. Around this time Siddirath “Sid” Shah was in Santa Rosa trying his hand as a developer and not having much luck.

    9. The same kind of pattern plays out in real estate migrations, in which people flee cities for suburbs, seeking more space and value, only to see sprawl increase, traffic explode, and prices soar, as new emigres overload the system.

    10. “Because I’m not married to him anymore.” (in a novel, a mother to her daughter as to why she couldn’t make medical decisions for her father)

    In the previous cllection, Numberd 1,2,3 and 7 have typos. Number 7 should read:

    7. This relation is actually precise for a regular hexagon (six-sided shape; Figure 12), since all the triangles have equal sides.

    Sammy Finkelman (8b8667)

  375. “No, I’ve got another box here with all her canceled checks, receipts for purchases, things like that.”

    JohnP (eb7cd2)

  376. A society, organized in 1919, composed of veterans of the U.S. armed forces. (From Random House Webster’s College Dictionary)

    Dejapa (1cd843)

  377. This theorem states essentially that among “smooth” absolutely continuous families of distributions with fixed support, exponential families are the only ones that permit dimensional reduction of the sample through sufficiency.
    (Theory of Point Estimation by E. L. Lehmann)

    W Krebs (1c89eb)

  378. 124. There are several books titled “House of Cards.”

    One of them:

    It is, moreover, not even necessary to hypothesize a random component in what is being observed.

    (about regression to the mean, which can cause punishment to look better than reward, because people getting praised do worse later, and people getting screamed at improve.)

    Sammy Finkelman (8b8667)

  379. From “The Battered Bastards of Bastone”. by George Koskimaki.

    Page 45. Sampson describes the confusion that resulted when a convoy fleeing the Bastone area was using both lanes of the narrow highway.

    That sentence explains my sex life? I think I need a shot of Jack Daniels.

    tyree (84087f)

  380. “Viewed as a market transaction, the deal produces gains for both parties and increases social utility.”

    Gavagai (d909ad)

  381. “He was ready to accept an exchange of ministerial declarations between the Powers specifying that the Triple Alliance had no points directed against Britain, but declined as superfluous to draw up a protocol on the question.”

    W S Jeans (56b2de)

  382. I have more. This sometimes captures, or lets you know, what a book is about. And other times, gets you some of the in between things you wouldn’t ordinarily quote, but with no real clue as to what the book is about. And sometimes it can be misleading.

    1. Finance, like other forms of human behavior, underwent a change in the twentieth century, a shift equivalent to the emergence of modernism in the arts — a break with common sense, a turn toward self-referentiality and abstraction, and notions that couldn’t be explained in workaday English.

    2. I quite agree it is time we dropped the “Miss” when writing to you.

    3. On the other hand, this rabbi had a point.

    4. She had some of the attributes of children of peripatic parents: she was adaptable and self-sufficient.

    5. European central banks and the U.S. Federal Reserve require the commercial banks they regulate to “freeze” a percentage of their deposits — in the case of the U.S. Federal Reserve, 12 percent of demand deposits aand 3 per cent of longer term deposits — in a safe-keeping acount that can only be unfrozen as customers withdraw their deposits. (1986 book)

    6. So did Gen. (his rank derived from the office he held in the Confederate veterans’ organization) Bennett H. Young, representative of the stock interests of the widow of John Haldeman, the third brother and co-heir to the properties.

    Wait. That’s not actually the first complete sentence on page 45. That’s “General Haldeman, the publisher’s elder brother supported Watterson.”

    7. Moreover, Ptolemy brought charges against Cleomenes and had him executed. 35

    Again that’s not the first sentence. That is: “Ptolemy’s seizure of Alexander’s body constituted defiance of Perdiccas and showed that Ptolemy no longer wss dependent on him.”

    8. Almost all attempts to address rising health care costs have focused on he provision of acute medica care in hospital settings — despite the fact that some 43 percent of total health care costs in the U.S. are attributed to non-acute care.

    Note: Where the books have a dash, directly connecting two words with no spaces, I have made two hyphens surrounded by a space on both sides. [ — ]

    Sammy Finkelman (344836)

  383. Still more:

    1. I hung three, then four rubbery half-gallon canteens from my pistol belt as well as seven clips of M-16 ammunition.

    2. Even when you make a phone call, make notes about the call — the date, who was contacted, and what was discussed.

    3. Herein lies an important advantage for the paper money producer once his money is widely accepted as a medium of exchange: The advantages of staying with the established medium of exchange are sufficiently large and the costs of switching to anew medium of exchange sufficiently meaningful that a considerable degree of ongoing decline on the monetary unit’s purchasing power can be expected to be tolerated by the public.

    Is that the reason? I think laws have an impact. Even without laws, how is somebody going to get the alternaive,?

    4. Having put this vile yarn down on paper, the ministerial conspirators sought a publisher.

    5. The system knows there are entities out there interacting with it, but it knows nothing about who those entities are.

    6. The career or type of work you choose — and whether or not you choose to work at it – can be paramount to your financial peace.

    7. He promised to give a trillion dollars in Social Security revenues to workers for investment in private accounts, while simultaneously insisting that there would be no benefit cuts or tax increases — which both he and his advisers knew was impossible.

    8. “The best one yet,” Hugh said.

    Sammy Finkelman (344836)

  384. 8 more books:

    1. Or think of the Gothic cathedral; its spires, flying buttresses, vaults and nave chapels are all variations on a singular methodology
    governed by its own intrinsic order and logic.

    2. An essential problem with environment-based theories — aside from the absence of strong data that can wthstand the test of rerplication —
    is getting any of them to firmly gel with what we know of handedness running in families.

    3. On March 5, before the British had fully digested the U.S. reply, the State Department issued a press release outlining the elements of
    the American note.

    4. But not of survival as yet; in fact that was the time for some big hurried mass killings followed by sloppy burnings of piled up bodies,
    the last of which were discoverd by horrified GIs.

    5. Now imagine that some small group of people had a different response to the cold.

    6. Of natural causes, Las Vegas, Nov. 24, 2005.

    7. Although Obama had a deeply generous heart, he was already showing a lack of emotional grounding needed to navigate the sweeping changes that
    would alter Kenyan society in the years to come.

    8. The “fertility odors” that men smell are likely hormonal, but their exact source is unknown.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)


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