Wednesday, November 19, 2003
apprently no one cares about my little word trivia, but, as promised, i will deliver the answer that the two or three of you who actually read this undoubtedly have already found with a simple google search.
There are, in fact, two answers to this question, according to my and my brother's research: uncopyrightable and dermatoglyphics. these are both utterly great and appropriate words to be the longest non-repeating in the english language. for those of you without dictionaries handy, dermatoglyphics basically means fingerprints (or footprints, or handprints, etc.), the "friction ridges" on the hairless skin of the hands and feet.
I love the english language. both of these words deal with individuality in a way. it's cool to think about someone's fingerprints as something unique, a non-repeating feature. uncopyrightable is even more fun--something that no one has the exclusive right to reproduce (or, perhaps repeat).
there are other great long, non-repeating words in the english language. here are a few:
14,"troublemakings"
14,"dermatoglyphic"
14,"ambidextrously"
13,"documentarily"
13,"consumptively"
13,"copyrightable"
13,"endolymphatic"
13,"flowchartings"
13,"hydromagnetic"
13,"lycanthropies"
13,"troublemaking"
13,"unpredictably"
13,"unproblematic"
13,"subordinately"
13,"metalworkings"
13,"multibranched"
here's the google search that found the word (thanks to my bro')
steve6:37 PM
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
speaking of soccer, the major soccer league just signed a 14-year-old to play next year for D.C. United. the kid, freddy adu, also has a multimillion dollar ad contract with nike. fourteen? is this ok? i mean, i've watched adu play (over the summer in the U-17 world championships), and he is definitely something special, but it doesn't seem to me that children should be playing professional sports. although, some (with obligatory snickering) would argue that the mls isn't a professional league. but it still seems a bit weird anyway you look at it. even in europe, where soccer reigns supreme even over catholicism, and where several clubs were courting him, adu couldn't play for the senior team until he was 18--that seems reasonable.
also, i thought it interesting that the story linked to above mentions that adu will graduate next may from high school, right before he turns 15. does that mean he's really smart? or does it just mean that he goes to a special academy where the u.s. soccer federation churns out high school graduates as fast as it can so it doesn't look like it is depriving children of a basic education. aren't there laws against this?
well, i wish adu well. he is fantastic, and by all accounts more talented in soccer than wunderkind lebron james is in basketball. it would be nice for us vicarious soccer players (in america, we are so few) to have a player who might one day become the best in the world.
by the way, he was born in ghana.
steve2:52 PM
This past weekend we celebrated my one and only niece's first birthday. granted, katie and i were a little late, as my car blew a tire, but we got there all the same and had a great time. the sheer number of presents the kid received was a bit intimidating (and difficult to walk around, but lauren was surrounded by much more love than material, so it was ok.
one of the presents was a winnie the pooh wagon loaded with wooden alphabet blocks. while all the letters were represented among the blocks, i realized to my dismay that there were only 24 blocks, and that q and x apparently weren't important enough to have their own (they shared space with more "important" letters like n and e).
So, forget using the building blocks to really learn the alphabet. damn you, Disney!
I digress.
despite the stumbling block of the missing blocks, i became enrapt with discovering the longest word i could create without repeating a letter. after probably an hour of this, as the party wound down around me, the longest i could come up with, without cheating, was "graciously"(10 letters). unfortunately i had to stop because i had to get my car from the auto shop. later, my brother-in-law attempted a google search to determine the longest word. he failed. Then i tried. I failed. Then my brother tried, and he found it in about five seconds. i'll post the word tomorrow. any guesses without searching from those who don't already know? the person who comes up with the longest word (longer than 10 letters) will get some kind of prize yet to be determined.
despite my inability to find the answer, my searching did take me to this fascinating site with all sorts of trivia about words and letters. for you scrabble lovers out there, this site is pure gold.
******
on an entirely different note, saul williams, the poet famed for _slam_ and for guesting on extremely cool indie rap albums (particularly Blackalicious' Blazing Arrow...particularly because the track is awesome, and it's the only album i have where he guests, though i know there are others, and that he has his own stuff as well), has a new book out, called_,said the shotgun to the head_. according to his web site, his new book is basically one long epic poem (with a wondeful title). while visiting the site, i highly recommend the "letters" section, the entries of which have a sort of stylized blog feel, or open letters addressed to any who might come to his site. his poetic half-rants about love, religion and politics make for great reading. anyway, he's a fantastic poet--i have seen slam (which is a great, intense film with great acting), and over the summer i bought one of his books, which is also great. loosely translated into plaintext as _S/he_, though he combines a square root symbol with the long division sign instead of a slash on the cover.
steve11:48 AM
Friday, November 14, 2003
The Bravo channel, usually my source for watching old episodes of The West Wing (you know, when it didn't suck) and occasional forays into the antics of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, attracted me for another reason last night: a little-known movie named Monkeybone.
What a great movie!
The movie stars Brendan Fraser as an upandcoming cartoonist whose alter-ego creation Monkeybone (a zany, sex-crazed wisecracking monkey) is about to hit the big time when Fraser gets put into a coma after a bizarre (and hilarious) car accident. A number of near-incoherent plot twists ensue, but the movie is fantastically done, and with a good-natured, easy-going attitude that prevails despite some very dark and sexually charged content. Beautiful stop-motion animation and gorgeous sets--this is an unexpectedly delightful movie that is gloriously off-kilter. i highly recommend it.
a shout-out to the friend who told me the movie was worth seeing: you know who you are.
******
a few weeks ago, a new denver friend told me about a great new radio station that has risen from the ashes of telecommunication evil. KCUV, "Colorado's Underground Voice," is a completely independent, more or less commercial-free (at least by today's standards) radio station that bills its format as "Americana". Now, those of you who know me well know that a radio station playing Johnny Cash, Calexico, Lucinda Williams, Neko Case, Steve Earle along with old-time blues, bluegrass, gospel and other roots music has me salivating at the mere thought of its existence. the fact that it exists in denver, and in the internet world, nearly has me frothing at the mouth.
After about 3-4 weeks the station already has a playlist of about 1600 songs, and it adds more daily through email requests made through the station's web site.
interestingly, the station was started and owned by NRC Broadcasting, a colorado company that recently bought a number of other colorado stations. the idea is to create local programming with fewer commercials and more interaction with the local community. sounds great to me--maybe even what radio should be.
even more interesting is that NRC is bankrolled by Phillip Anschutz, the billionaire founder of Qwest Communications (my phone service provider), who also owns at least one major sports franchise in the Denver area.
from what i hear of george soros, and now anschutz, it looks like not all billionaires are bad. here's hoping.
steve4:20 PM
Monday, November 10, 2003
in other news, katie and i attended the jessie nadler/charlie egan wedding in minneapolis this weekend. other than a struggle with having imbibed a bit too much alcohol, i had a great time. the wedding was beautiful, the reception was great, as i got to see many people that i had not seen in years along with some people that came to my wedding. it's a lot easier to be social and spend time with friends at a wedding when it isn't yours. so much less pressure.
the other great thing about going to weddings after your own is that they are such happy occasions, and they remind you of your own happy occasion, and you can empathize with the bride and groom as they stand at the center of the whirling storm trying to keep afloat amidst the emotion and chaos around them.
cheers to jessie and charlie, to ben and kim, and to casey and danielle. may you live happy lives together.
steve1:26 PM
So last night I went to see the much maligned third movie in a much maligned trilogy, and ever since, i have been trying to figure out the cause/motivation for such malignance.
i loved the matrix. i liked the matrix reloaded a lot. and i liked the final film, the matrix revolutions, almost as much as the first.
after reading several reviews using rotten tomatoes as my base (click on other at the top of the page), it seems that critics were mad because a) neo didn't blow up all the big, bad evil machines, b) it was too christian-like, c) it was anticlimactic (see "a" above) d) it wasn't as humorous as the first one. with the possible exception of "a" this seems to me a more apt criticism of the current season of "The West Wing", which i have stopped watching due to its horrendous metamorphosis into E.R. or Third Watch, only set in the White House.
anyway, i thought the matrix came to a fitting end. i loved the idea of balance, and the human explorations into what we think of as human, and that those explorations bring us to the possibility that human qualities need not be the sovereign property of human beings. the missing humor is the only apt criticism i see--revolutions is quite serious, but understandably so. and maybe i'm just an emotional basket-case, but i didn't mind.
steve1:04 PM
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
i've got a whole backlog of stuff to discuss, as i've been slightly distracted this past week or so with a job interview and a new job teaching a Saturday yearbook class at katie's school.
first: did anyone catch a story from npr's _all things considered_ last friday about our troops arresting three women related to a man they were searching for? they were looking for this guy and, when they didn't find him, decided to arrest and detain for three days the man's mother and two other female relatives.
i couldn't find a single mention of this story in any other american media outlet. the middle east online seems to provide the most comprehensive coverage, but it identifies the women as the man's wife, sister and daughter. an australian outlet, citing the AFP, says the women were the wives of three men the troops were looking for.
why isn't it news on cnn that our military is arresting innocent people in order to intimidate people whom they suspect are not innocent? to be fair, the base commander released the women and "promised" not to do it again (only after a major protest), but what kind of atmosphere are we creating in Iraq? It sure doesn't look like peace to me. and it definitely doesn't look like the country i used to think i lived in.
katie burst into our apartment to tell me about this story last week, and i think her comment would be appropriate to recall here: "Why are we doing this? This is not my country. It can't be."
steve11:50 AM
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
thanks to help from the world of slar, i've added a comments option. let the crossfire begin!
steve3:18 PM
Friday, October 24, 2003
after months of pointless and vain searching, i finally found myself on google. this might seem like a very silly thing to do, but i know a few of you are out there, afraid to admit you do it too. anyway, i had to be clever to obtain the right mix of searchwords, as i have the most common name out of nearly everyone i know. i started with "iris_out" (without quotes), which elicited 17 results, about half of which were postings on my blog. the other half seemed to be hits about some kind data-retrieving command. then i got brave, searching for _steve iris blogspot_, and there i was! i was beginning to think that there was no hope, that i would remain in obscurity for eternity, that i had somehow angered the google gods. it turns out, however, that they are pleased. it is well.
anyway, now that i no longer need to needlessly search for needless self-gratification, i should probably go find a job.
steve2:29 PM
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