Outraged over the AIG bonuses?

I was, too. Then I read this.

Dilbert on the abuse of graphics

Since I'm going to an Edward Tufte seminar on Monday, I thought today's Dilbert comic was quite timely:

Language peeve of the week: "forecasted"

I'm seeing this more and more lately. Consider this, from ABC news:

"In a speech this morning at an economics conference in northern Virginia, just outside Washington DC, Romer, noting that 'the deeper the recession, the more rapid the rebound,' forecasted that when the country recovers from its current crisis, it will enjoy a period of 'very rapid growth'”.

Forecast works perfectly well as a past-tense. And doesn't it just sound better to say that Romer "forecast that when the country recovers?"

I know, your dictionary says "forecasted" is ok. Well, Theodore Bernstein says it better than I can:

"If you think you have correctly forecasted the immediate future of English and have casted your lot with the permissivists, you may be receptive to broadcasted, at least in radio usage, as are some dictionaries. The rest of us, however, will decide that no matter how desirable it may be to convert all irregular verbs into regular ones, this cannot be done by ukase, nor can it be accomplished overnight. We shall continue to use broadcast as the past tense and participle, feeling that there is no reason for broadcasted other than one of analogy or consistency or logic, which the permissivists themselves so often scorn."

Forecast is derived from the word "cast." Would a fisherman say "I casted my line into the stream?" I think not.

Source

Ash Wednesday

As befits my upbringing, I have a throbbing headache this morning. Last night I was lucky enough to have tickets to see Dr. John and the Neville Brothers in Chapel Hill. It was a great show but the sound system was cranked up too high, the distortion made it hard to hear the lyrics. (Dr. John provides his own distortion, but Aaron Neville's angelic voice deserves better.)

And for the Neville's portion of the show, there was WAY too much bass drum in the mix. My whole body throbbed with every beat. The musicians were great, but the audio was so bad I had to leave before it was over.

Huh. I really am turning into a cranky old man.

The guru of graphics is coming to town

Geek that I am, I haven't been this excited since I got tickets to see George Harrison in 1974.

Edward Tufte is doing a one-day seminar right here in Durham in March! Tufte is Professor Emeritus at Yale and literally "wrote the book" on the graphical display of complex data.

Business Week calls him the "Galileo of graphics" and the New York Times calls him "The Leonardo da Vinci of data."

Tuesday morning in a cheap hotel

I've been in Marietta, GA since last Thursday. We're here because Angela is having Duodenal Switch surgery tomorrow. This afternoon we'll go to the hospital to have her IV line put in.

My dog was having some issues last week, so I asked the vet to check him out while they were boarding him. They did an ultrasound this morning and his prostate is greatly enlarged, and there's some constriction of his urethra. They are going to do a biopsy.

They are going to call me back later with the results. I have a feeling I may not have a dog by the time I get home.