Ivan's weblog

Today I saw a fire extinguisher that had the equivalent of this NFPA diamond:

This is a standard code to tell firefighters about the risks of specific substances. The areas covered are health hazards, flammability, and reactivity.

Now, what is ironic is that, when fighting a fire, the last thing I would worry about is the hazardous (?) substances contained in the fire extinguiser itself (and I would certainly not expect them to be flammable!). But don’t worry, the 1/0/0 diamond above means “may cause irritation", and is the same as the one assigned to substances such as sodium chloride. So, in the end, this is almost like looking at the nutritional information label on a water bottle…

Disclaimer: fire extinguishers can be hardazous if misused–always use the appropriate fire extinguiser according to the fire source and conditions! (And while we are at it, don’t try this at home, eat fruits and vegetables, and talk to your doctor.)

…you start writing “two” instead of “too". I’ve been making that kind of silly mistake more often lately.

I learned English mostly by reading and writing, so I suspect that I thought of words as sequences of letters. Since “two” and “too” are different sequences with different meanings, I could never confuse them. But they sound the same, so now, after speaking English for a few years, I must be thinking of words a bit more phonetically, because I’m starting to make some of the strange mistakes that the native speakers make.

I just hope that I never write “principle” when I mean “principal", because if that happens, I’ll eat my hat!

This is based on a sign seen on the milk aisle of the local supermarket. Search the web for “organic milk shortage” for more information.

There is turmoil in the galaxy. The limited supply of organic milk is insuficient for the growing needs of the Republic. More organic farms are desperately needed. Hoping to settle the conflict, the chancellor has dispatched Jedi Knights to speed up the lengthy certification process. . . .

[…]

Inorganic milk is taking over, lead by the mysterious Count Hood. The senate is voting to create a GRAND HERD OF CLONED ORGANIC COWS, based on Babe Fett from the remote Vermont system. . . .

I was in a maze or underground complex, full of German soldiers from WWII. I was walking or running from one end to the other aimlessly, or on errands that I no longer remember. I noticed that there were classrooms full of sitting children, but no teachers. Suddenly I remembered my mission: to weigh a dollar bill. Luckily I had one in my pocket, and I remembered I had previously seen a balance in a very small room (more like a closet) somewhere in the complex. Fabiola was with me. After a while we found the room; the soldiers didn’t do anything; they never saw us. The balance was digital, with 0.01 g precision, but it had to be taken outside for it to work. After another while we found an exit. There was a snow and wind outside; to make sure the bill didn’t fly away I weighted it with a bunch of snow. The net weight was 0.28 g.

When I’m alone, driving on the highway, I sometimes listen to the radio. I start at the low end of the FM spectrum (87.9 MHz) and scan for stations. I often stop at the first classical music station I find. I’ve noticed that there is almost always one such station between 88 and 90 MHz. I’ve seen that in MA, CT, NY, NJ, and MD, as well as in Mexico City. Is this some sort of unwritten convention, or is it just a coincidence?