Comments on a Natural, a Woman, a Duck, a Donut, and a Dime.

Further from Schott's Vocab, a list and explanation of number slang from 1960s New Orleans that's just awesome.

I have always found things such as this and the spelling alphabets great fun. I also can't help but notice that it is a way to take something difficult for most people (a string of numberS) and chunk it into bits, thus speeding it along from one number at a time while still keeping some clarity.

Some not-so-serious suggestions on an improved english.

Choose your own Visitor

In a shocking display of good judgment, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued new rules for Medicare- and Medicaid-participating hospitals that protect patients’ right to choose their own visitors during a hospital stay.

And yes, that included same-sex partners. It includes anyone. If you, as a patient, want someone to visit you, they have to have full and equal access to visit you as anyone else. The only reason to deny you a visit should be clinical. The rules will go into effect in about 2 months.

From the press release:

"Basic human rights—such as your ability to choose your own support system in a time of need—must not be checked at the door of America’s hospitals," said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. "Today’s rules help give 'full and equal' rights to all of us to choose whom we want by our bedside when we are sick, and override any objection by a hospital or staffer who may disagree with us for any non-clinical reason."

[...]

"These rules put non-clinical decisions about who can visit a patient out of the hands of those who deliver care and into the hands of those who receive it," said CMS Administrator Donald Berwick, MD, MPP. "While we still have miles to go in making care more patient-centered, these rules make it easier for hospitals to deliver on some of the fundamental tenets of patient-centered care—care that recognizes and respects the patient as an individual with unique needs, who treated with dignity and granted the power of informed choice."

Secret Kitten

Random ancient artifacts

I hit one of those lists of "unexplained ancient artifacts" and was pleasantly surprised how many I didn't know about.

1) The Grooved Spheres (aka the Klerksdorp spheres). These don't seem that interesting once you read the Wikipedia page.

2) The Dropa Stones, which were admitted as hoaxes years ago.

3) The Ica Stones, which I am sad to have not heard of earlier because DINOSAURS!

4) The Antikythera Mechanism which remains all kinds of awesome and delights me no end.

5) The Baghdad Battery. I didn't know Mythbusters had tackled these, and I'm glad to see they remain plausible.

6) The Coso Artifact, which is almost certainly just a sparkplug that got stuck in the earth. I love the idea of a time-traveler dropping it and am amazed it hasn't made its way into more popular literature. I would think I would have seen this in an episode of Doctor Who by now.