I’m in the middle of one of those spiffy moments that happen so nicely on the Internet.

I was perusing the headlines on The Agonist, Sean-Paul Kelley’s site that lately has turned into one of the more popular warblogs. The site name, explained in Why Agonist? (page no longer exists), comes from Ancient Greek theater.

Sean-Paul’s war missives have been labelled consecutively using Roman numerals; it’s up to LVII as of this writing. What struck me as I loaded the page just now: “Why isn’t he using Ancient Greek numbers?” This was followed instantly by: “What are Ancient Greek numbers?” Google to the rescue!

According to this article on Greek numbers, there wasn’t only one system, but rather several, and each further slightly mutated depending on the island state. A fascinating read for those of either the historical or mathematical bent, of which I am both.

There is also Links to Information on Number Systems, if you’re interested in investigating the myriad ways humans have kept count.

I was preparing the previous entry (about Python form data processing), originally from dive into mark (Mark Pilgrim’s blog) and which I copied via NetNewsWire (grabbing the raw HTML from the entry). I happened to notice what I thought at first was a mistyped <p> tag, but which was in fact a <q> with accompanying </q>, putting quotes around the text inside. I asked my friend Tom via IM if he had ever seen a <q> tag before, but he hadn’t either.

This is one of those things that gets me obsessed. As I told Tom, I could feel it happening even as I was sitting there: Trumpets going off, leg bouncing, huge grin. Something really simple and stupid, but insanely obsession-producing.

Much nicer than a <blockquote> first of all, but also allows the browser to decide how to display it….like how would a screenreader deal with a <blockquote>? Tom wondered if it was part of XHTML. In any case, I am now on a <q>uest to answer this <q>uestion.

(Of course, the rest of the universe probably already knows about the <q>, but obsessions have nothing to do with logic or reality, really. :)

#!/bin/sh
# Shell script grabs most recent complete index
# for Project Gutenberg.
# Assumes Mac OS X default install with curl available.
# Also assumes you have a copy of GUTINDEX.ALL in ~/Documents
# Feel free to move it around.
# GUTINDEX.ALL file updated weekly-ish.
##############################
# Cool ideas for extending this:
# cron the script so it happens automagically
# cron a grep on it to keep an eye out for fave authors or titles

cd ~/Documents
cp GUTINDEX.ALL GUTINDEX_LAST
cd /tmp
curl -O http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/GUTINDEX.ALL
cp /tmp/GUTINDEX.ALL ~/Documents/GUTINDEX.ALL

Forgive this slow boar of London

That’s right, Mabel, it’s not only American politicians who are defilers of sloths! I suggest using one of these fine Medieval Insult Generators and sending Mr Clarke a message. Best part is, he won’t be able to figure out the meaning! Ha!

Education: Charles Clarke, the education secretary, has revealed that he regards medieval history as ‘ornamental’ and a waste of public money. (Guardian Unlimited)

Update

We’re not all philistines, Mr Clarke
Education: The education secretary’s attack on medieval history is another example of Labour’s rejection of its broader cultural roots, argues Tristram Hunt. (Guardian Unlimited)

3-(1-Methyl-2-pyrrolidinyl)pyridine

Nicotine is an alkoloid (a substance with a basic charge) contained in the leaves of several species of plants. The primary commercial source of nicotine is by extraction from the dried leaves of tobacco plant (Nicotinia tabaum and N. rustica). The chemical formula for nicotine is C₁₀H₁₄N₂, with a molecular mass of 162.23. In proper nomenclature, nicotine is 3-(1-Methyl-2-pyrrolidinyl)pyridine. Nicotine’s structure was deduced by Pinner (Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft 29: 294)…

Today is my first day without putting on a new nicotine patch in the morning. So far, a strange day. One that is hard to pin down, like rubbing oil between your fingers.

Posts and news may be sparse for the next few days until I settle into the rhythms of this new version of life. I’ve been looking forward to this day for a while now, ready to be done with 3-(1-Methyl-2-pyrrolidinyl)pyridine and moving forward. I have 57 days of not smoking now — it will be officially two months this Sunday, on Mother’s Day. Sometimes I’m astounded I made it this far. Other times I scowl at the thought and think, “Get back to me when it’s been a year.” Whatever, it still means something.