Friday November 27, 2009
Thursday November 26, 2009
A drunken soldier and a music teacher, both courting a young lady and neither who he pretends to be. The lady recognizes them as the same person, but in turn is mistaken about his identity.
In the end, of course, Count Almaviva's true identity is disclosed, and he gets the girl against the odds in
Rossini's Barber of Seville.
Now for another
Opera, in which you write the libretto — and can prevent an email's recipients' email addresses from being found out:
›› Email all that need to know all they need to know — and not more, say all the other recipients' email addresses. Here's how to send a message to "undisclosed recipients" in Opera.
Tuesday November 24, 2009
"The Batavians plunged through where the current was strongest," Tacitus recounts a Germanic tribe's reaction to the naval attack launched by Germanicus in the year 16. The Batavians acted "under their leader Chariovalda," who would later play a heroic role in the battle.
Now, doesn't that name, "Chariovalda", sound a bit like "heriwald"? Doesn't "heriwald" seem similar to "heraut"? Does not "heraut", to an astonishing degree, resemble "herald"?
So, "herald" could have something to do with the made-up name "heriwald" (which means army-commander), and Tacitus indicates some such name may have existed.
In any event, Herald does exist, and it does have something to do with Mac OS X Mail:
›› Herald adds pretty and functional new mail announcements to Mac OS X Mail that let you read, delete, reply and mark as spam. (Mac)
Monday November 23, 2009
"Thou" makes you think of what? Pomp and reverence?
For quite a while during the Middle Ages, "thou" addressed friends and family, though, in a friendly manner -- or children, of course.
Just before "thou" will have fallen out of favor (around 1650), let's greet Thanksgiving, in a friendly manner, with these kind blue-clad pilgrim children: Hail thou, fellow Thanksgiving, well met!
›› Lovely animated Pilgrims waving hello to Thanksgiving. (IncrediMail)