April 2002 Archives

After serious discussion, A. has admitted that the comments about wine are actually not factoids. They are factlets. I feel better now.

This from my friend A.:

As you may know, factoid does not actually mean "little fact." That's a factlet. A factoid is something that is similar to a fact, but is not actually a fact.

Hmm. As I said to A., so what exactly makes something like a fact, but not a fact? Merriam-Webster says a fact is "a piece of information presented as having objective reality." What variance from that would make something a factoid?

The original reference was to the following:

...my favorite of the whites. It's a Marsanne, which is not typically used by itself but is usually found in blends. It's also a grape that ages well...

M-W says a factoid is: either

1: an invented fact believed to be true because of its appearance in print or 2: a brief and usually trivial news item.

I don't feel like this bit about wine meets either criteria, so I am left without guidance.

Back to doing stuff, which also leads to complaining. ;) This time, about cleaning up code in stuff people write for the research project website.

Me: "God!!!!"
K.: "Yes?"
Me: "If you were really God, you could get rid of all these span tags for me."
K.: "When a man is given span tags, he has them forever. When they are taken away without any work on his part...he's...an ungrateful...(pause)...fuck!"
Me: "You have no idea where you're going with that, do you?"
K.: "Nope."

If the toothbrush I just bought has soft bristles, then medium must be made of sharpened metal spikes, and whatever is above medium must deliver tiny razor-toothed demon microbes into your mouth to eat away your gums.

I've had mouth surgery three times, I'm a bit picky about this.

[Update, May 28, 2004: it's so strange that after the move from Blogger to MT, which occasioned much deleting of posts, this ended up being my first blog entry.]