rivercrow

My friend Kuranes sent me a BBC News story on an African Grey parrot with an outstanding contextual vocabulary and an obvious sense of humor.
He invents his own words and phrases if he is confronted with novel ideas with which his existing repertoire cannot cope - just as a human child would do.

Kuranes no […]

I was saddened by a conversation I had with a friend a few days ago when we were comparing notes on mixed gender relationships.
Why does spousal/SO jealousy have to interfere with mixed sex friendships? Isn’t it possible for men and women to have friendships without a sexual component? Office-based relationships are acceptable because they […]

We went out last night to take photos of Christmas lights. A whole town not far from here unites in a coordinated effort; the whole main drag and all the houses are decorated in white, green, and red lights and other stuff. Some closer communities have beautiful light displays as well–complete with luminaires–so we cruised […]

James Brown died today.
Christmas has always reminded me of James Brown. Now, the two are linked for everyone else as well.
We lived in Augusta, Georgia, in the mid-70s. A local annual tradition was to go to the James Brown estate where there would be a large Christmas display of animated characters and lights. I remember […]

If you allow FireFox to save form information, you’ll probably end up with Firefox suggesting a number of alternatives for forms. Some of these are just annoying, others are misspelled.
Looking in Options | Saved Form suggests that you can only clear out the whole stash. Not so. You can delete specific saved form data.
Next time […]

ComputerWorld recently interviewed Robert Sutton, author of the upcoming book The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t.
I don’t know if you’ve attempted to quantify this, but has there been a rise in the number or percentage of jerks in the workplace? Or has this remained a constant? I don’t […]

My parents were stationed in Okinawa in the early 60s. There were a few things that stuck in mom’s mind about the experience that ended up affecting me, even though I hadn’t been born.
When my family disembarked from the US Army ship that had carried them there from Hawaii, the very first thing they noticed […]

My friend is very tall.
I wanted people to understand what it’s like to be beside him.
Somehow, I’m not sure this says it adequately.
No–he’s not a tree.