Ramblin' with Roger

March rambling: quotation marks

Support the Albany High School robotics team!

tractor_beam_2x — **From https://xkcd.com/2579/**

In a world-historic first, microplastics were detected in human blood

The Our World in Data COVID vaccination data

How American conservatives turned against the vaccine

Cameroonians fleeing conflict are in dire need of Temporary Protected Status – cf. Inside “the most diverse square mile in America”

What Caused the War? Ukraine and Russia in Historical Context

The Race to Archive the Ukrainian Internet

Ukrainian Actress Oksana Shvets Killed in Russian Rocket Attack

Non-war conflict

Hate and extremism

How did Christianity become so toxic?

The Interactive Theater of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Confirmation Hearing

Addressing racial inequality in paid leave policy

Sara Jacobs, one of the youngest members of Congress, talks about sexism and ageism in politics.

Writing Women into History

Women in medicine are running up the wrong side of the escalator

Where Does the Religious Right Go After Roe?

Sojourner Truth’s Battle to Free Her Son from Slavery

Actor Tim Reid on addressing racial issues on WKRP in Cincinnati

Texas’ New Voting Law Disenfranchised Thousands Of Otherwise Eligible Voters

The Tangled, Messy Roots of Fake News, long before it became djt’s favorite term

Ginni Thomas demanded Congressional Republicans take the fight to overturn the 2020 election to the streets

John Bolton admits that ‘it’s hard to describe how little [djt] knows’

I Know There’s An Answer

Climate Change Brings Uncontrollable Wildfires

The Illinois town that got up and left

The 1950 Census is Coming: What You Need to Know

Timbuctoo Institute would build opportunities in the Adirondacks

About Those Gas Prices

Concert Tickets: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

2021 County and Economic Development Regions Population Estimates for NYS

Luka’s mural

Jobfished: the con that tricked dozens into working for a fake design agency

“They’re called ‘quotation marks’.”

Phobias. Aibohphobia is the (unofficial) fear of palindromes. Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia is used to describe the fear of very long words.

The official Girl Scout cookie power rankings

The Result of a Rabbit Hole

Audience participation

A GoFundMe page for the Albany High School Robotics Team to compete at the FIRST Robotics World Championship in Houston, TX on April 20-23. They placed 2nd in the New York Tech Valley Regional Competition.

Four Open Seats on Albany Public Library Board in May 17 Election. Nominations are due to the Clerk of the City School District of Albany by Wednesday, April 27, at 5 pm.

New York Bike Census

Now I Know

The Biggest Bread Soup in the World and Why Are My Baby Carrots Always Wet? and The First Computer Bug and The Phone Booth in the Middle of Nowhere and Beware the Ire of Caesar and Which Came First, The Algorithm or the Pi? and World War II’s Pre-Email E-Mail

MUSIC

Livinliv – Aleksandr Shymko

Irish tunes

K-Chuck Radio: The musical tree of Ida Red and green songs

Holiday at Ferghana -Reinhold Gliere

Lullabye of Broadway from 42nd Street

Coverville: 1393 – John Cale and Velvet Underground Cover Story and 1394 – The Blink-182 Cover Story II and 1395 – The Smashing Pumpkins Cover Story II

Nog, nogg, noggin, nogging

the brain

Dan writes: For the next “Ask Roger:”

Is the word “noggin” derived from the word “nogg?” The implication that one has a wooden head… jammed in the wall with a nail through it?

This is actually an excellent question to receive. I learned that NOGG is the National Osteoporosis Guideline Group. Of course, it is “a multidisciplinary group including patient representation and professionals involved in the care of people with osteoporosis. It was established in 2007 to provide a clinical guideline for the management of men and women at high fracture risk, using the output from the FRAX calculator.”

I assume that a broken head is possible. Wait, wait, that’s the wrong usage. Nogg is a carpentry term for “a shave for shaping dowels and handles”.

Thus nogging:
(noun) One of a number of wooden pieces fitted between the principal timbers of a half-timbered wall.
(v.t.) To fill (a framed wall or partition) with small masonry, as bricks or stones.

Boozing it up

However, I’ve occasionally seen nogg, which my spellcheck does NOT like, as an alternative spelling of nog, as in egg-nogg. Nog is:
“any beverage made with beaten eggs, usually with alcoholic liquor; eggnog” or
“a strong ale formerly brewed in Norfolk, England.”
First Known Use of nog: 1693, in the meaning defined at sense 1. History and Etymology for nog: origin unknown

Nog was also a character on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Now, the definitions of noggin are:
1: a person’s head
2: a small mug or cup
3: a small quantity (such as a gill) of drink
The first known use of noggin was in 1588, or 1620–30, depending on the source; origin uncertain.

Noggin is a Nick Jr. cable channel “where kids learn with characters they love.” In the UK, there is a brain supplement called Noggin. This seems to gravitate towards the idea of “using your noggin” i.e. your brain, not just the head itself.

The colloquial sense of “head” (originally as boxing slang) is included in the same OED entry as “noggin” so, as Neil from a Facebook group dedicated to words surmised, maybe there was some slang notion of the head being like a bucket.

More interesting, and frankly more confusing to me, are articles about noggin as whatever this is from 2011. “The Bone Morphogenetic Protein Antagonist Noggin Protects White Matter After Perinatal Hypoxia-ischemia.” Yeah. “Perinatal HI was induced in transgenic mice in which the BMP antagonist noggin is overexpressed during oligodendrogenesis (pNSE-Noggin).” Does someone want to translate that into English?

Anyway, I’m finding a link between nog and noggin, in terms of alcohol or beverage, or the container. Nogg’s wood-related origin seems to have developed separately, as far as I am able to ascertain. Unless, of course, the bucket was made of wood, which it probably was.

Neil found for me a reference to nog or nogg as “a peg, pin, or cylindrical piece of wood, serving any of various purposes” is now “chiefly Australian and New Zealand.” As are so many of the definitions, it is also of uncertain origin.

In other words, I just can’t be certain of the linkage, because so many of the derivations are unknown.

Cornhole, tea lights – words I didn’t know

You Can Count On Me

My family was in a local bar/restaurant waiting for takeout. There were at least three televisions tuned to differing sports events. One was showing a competition from the American Cornhole League. No, I did not know that was a thing.

The competitors play by the rules of the American Cornhole Association, which sells “official cornhole bags.” There’s also the American Cornhole Association – ACO.

How do you score? “Bag In-The-Count (Woody): Any bag which comes to rest anywhere on top of the board. Each is worth one (1) point. Bag In-The-Hole (Cornhole): Any bag which is thrown through the hole or knocked through the hole by another bag. Each is worth three (3) points.”

I got home and asked my wife, “What was the name of that game in which they were tossing bean bags into a hole?” I had to look it up. When I would play it in a playground or someone’s yard, only the bag going into the hole counted.

Silent Night

At church on Christmas Eve, we usually have individual candles, which the congregation blows out after the lights come on and we sing Joy To The World. It was decided that the tradition wasn’t COVID safe. I thought we weren’t going to sing Silent Night at all. Instead, a bunch of tiny electric candles either were purchased or retrieved from somewhere.

In describing them to my wife and daughter, I described them as little electric votive candles. In fact, they have a very specific name: tea lights. I had never heard of that designation in my life.

What’s the name of that movie?

Sometimes, I have a difficult time remembering the name of movies when I find the titles unmemorable. The first movie I ever saw with Mark Ruffalo and Laura Linney was You Can Count On Me (2000). Yet I have the hardest time remembering what it’s called and end up searching IMBD for one of the actors.

Worse is a 2014 movie about a character played by Jon Favreau who buys a food truck. The film shows the best-looking grilled cheese sandwich I’ve ever seen filmed. Yet I can’t remember the name of the movie. Oh, yeah, Chef, which is what the Favreau character was BEFORE he bought the food truck.

Similar to…

When I occasionally can’t up with a common word, I’m comforted that first, I think of a related term then work back to the one I want. For instance, if you were going to make dinner, you might need that list of food items. What’s that called? I might think Menu, which IS a list of foods. No that’s not right. Recipe. Of course.

Review: The Worst Person in the World

Verdens verste menneske in Norway

A couple of months ago, my wife and went to the Spectrum Theatre. there was a poster for the then-upcoming The Worst Person in the World. “Have you heard of it?” my wife asked. “Nope.”

Then on a date night in March, we went to see the film there. Julie (Renate Reinsve) is, like a lot of young adults, trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life in terms of work and love. Early on, she is in a substantial relationship with Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), a comic book artist, and a cultural icon in Oslo. She learns a lot from being with him. But is that all SHE is?

And how much flirting is allowed, she and Eivind (Herbert Nordrum) ask each other?

I imagine that The Worst Person in the World (Verdens verste menneske) could be remade into a not-too-appealing American rom-com. But this take is engaging. Even the tropes and there are a few, seem fresh. The decision to break the story into a dozen chapters allows transitions not bound by traditional storytelling. And, for the most part, they work.

NOT the worst

I think the worst thing about the movie is the title. Julie is hardly a terrible person, but one who I could definitely relate to. In the Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney wrote: “It’s rare to encounter a romantic comedy as fresh, insightful and alive with bittersweet tenderness as this reflection on the fumbling mistakes we make as we figure out who we are. That’s due in part to the luminous Renate Reinsve as Julie, but especially to the wisdom and compassion of director Joachim Trier and regular co-writer Eskil Vogt’s screenplay.

This film concludes Joachim Trier’s Oslo Trilogy, but not seeing the previous films won’t diminish your viewing. I hope it wins the Best Original Screenplay Oscar. It’s also up for Best International Film. Check out the trailer. On Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of the critics and 86% of the audience agree it’s a fine movie. I should note, I suppose: yes, there are subtitles.

Lydster: what to write on her natal day

To the degree that I know anything…

Back in the day, I would have gushed about my daughter, especially on her natal day. I might have noted how cute she was, and how lovely she is now. Perhaps I would indicate how much I’ve learned from her almost every day.

Her sense of justice has always been finely tuned. At least a decade ago, when the change from my pants pocket fell onto the bed, my wife would collect it. But my daughter thought my wife was stealing from me and ratted her out to grandma. Now, she is savvy about issues of racism, sexism, and other inequities.

I’m much more aware of looking at food labels because of her allergies, especially dealing with peanuts. She and I react almost exactly the same to everything from ragweed to cigarette smoke, which is to say, badly.

To the degree that I know anything about 21st-century music, technology, changes in language, and a myriad of other things is because of her.

But…

Here’s the thing, though. 1) She’s a teenager. 2) She sometimes reads my blog, especially on the 26th of the month. A bunch of platitudes would probably make her gag. She’s doesn’t think she was cute as a child. (N.b., she’s wrong.) If I say I love her, at best she’ll roll her eyes.

So frankly, I don’t know WHAT I’m going to write that doesn’t invade her privacy too much.

I can say this. She’s applied to about eight colleges. She got into most or all of them. Currently, she’s considering a couple of them and wants to make second visits to both before deciding.

Ah, heck. I’ll write what I want. It’s my blog, and if it wasn’t for her, there would likely not BE a blog. Here’s a story I’ve told before. When I got one of those baby books where one records her first tooth or first steps, I was TERRIBLE at using it. To be fair to me, her mother was no better than I.

So when I comtemplated starting a blog, I decided that I would write about my daughter at least once a month. And always on the 26th of the month, because. I might write about her MORE often, but that was the floor.

Since May 2005, I have managed to write about her every 26th, 203 times in a row if my math is correct. I’ll try to keep this up, but it might be more difficult. We shall see.

(Don’t tell her that I wrote how much I love her. She’d REALLY will roll her eyes.)