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Thursday, August 19, 2004 The Thursday Threesome: Desperate times lead to disparate measures Aside: I always thought this saying was supposed to be "desperate times lead to desperate measures" but it actually makes more sense stated in this meme. Measures can be "disparate" (different) but not really "desperate" (lost hope). Usually only a person or a situation is "desperate". The confusion, I think, stems from the fact that "desperate" and "disparate" are pronounced the same way by a lot of people. Personally, I've always emphasized the first syallable in "desperate" and the second in "disparate" so I (as well as other people) wouldn't get confused. Onesome:Desperate times-- Hmmm... The ever present time crunch. Do you have a story of a time when you needed to be somewhere and it just didn't look like it was going to work out? Did you make it? No??? What happened? I really try to be on time for things. If I'm not on time, I usually blame it on my watch (it always runs slow), my experiments (you can't rush those things, you know!), or sheer procrastination. Twosome: lead to-- What leads you to write at your place? What strikes your fancy and leads you to your keyboard to share it with the blogosphere? I write about whatever I find interesting. Usually. Lately, my life is very boring (or at least it would be described as boring by people who prefer unexpected action to planned schedules) except for those times when I can't help but eavesdrop on my neighbors even though I don't want to. Sometimes I type out a rant about something that annoys me, but half the time, it doesn't make it to the blog. I don't really like reading rants so why should other people? Another part is the memes. If it's a recurring meme, like this one, I do it partly out of a sense of obligation and partly out of habit. To be honest, I'm not even sure anyone really reads these things--maybe I just do it to be nice to the people who've created the meme. The science stuff is another thing. Yes, some of it also ends up in another meme, but I primarily do it because there's some research that I think is interesting and that other people should know about it besides myopic academics. I also want to improve my science writing for a lay audience. I think I need a lot of improvement since I hardly get any comments on those posts (or people linking to them or google searches). I'm probably talking over people's heads (which is the most likely scenario), people are anti-science, or people don't care about microbes unless they're running a fever or vomiting their guts out. In my (not so humble) opinion, people don't care about anything unless it directly impacts them or their beliefs. On reviewing and writing: I read all sorts of books and I review them in hopes that I might interest someone in either reading what I've read or recommending something that they think I might like to read. Same thing for movies or plays or concerts--whenever I do get to see them. But judging from All Consuming, it's probably not worth my effort except for my own edification. Most bloggers seem more interested in political tracts, geeky books about web standards and weblogs, and bestsellers. I also used to write about my speculative fiction writing projects, but I don't anymore (at least on this blog) because people don't care unless you're a Famous Author. Threesome: disparate measures-- Hey, what is it you do that's really different from your friends or family or acquaintances that drives them to distraction? Is it something as simple as the way you put the toilet paper roll on? ...or maybe your habit of eating all your vegetables first? Come on, you know there's a little something it's safe to share with the gang! I don't annoy people. People annoy me. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:13 AM : ]
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