computer word of the day.

clue-by-four

[Usenet: portmanteau, clue + two-by-four] The notional stick with which one whacks an aggressively clueless person. This term derives from a western American folk saying about training a mule “First, you got to hit him with a two-by-four. That’s to get his attention.” The clue-by-four is a close relative of the LART. Syn. `clue stick’. This metaphor is commonly elaborated; your editor once heard a hacker say “I smite you with the great sword Cluebringer!”

see also –

pococurante (po-ko-koo-RAN-tee, -kyoo-) adjective

Indifferent, apathetic, nonchalant.

noun

A careless or indifferent person.

[From Italian, poco little + curante, present participle of curare, to
care, from Latin, curare, cure, care.]

folks are really lucky I forgot to bring my clue-by-four into work today, and neglected to mercilessly pummel the gathered pococurante population.

http://www.iht.com/articles/17225.html

lamprey eel brain in a robot. Ok… now this is something out of Brainiac or Lex Luthor’s crime file right here.

https://i0.wp.com/www.kwic.com/~pagodavista/lamprey.jpg?w=474

“They [lampreys] feed by biting their victims, fastening themselves by their sphincter-like mouths. Once attached, the lamprey begins to drain blood…”

do you really want something that used to drive a tooth-filled mouth of death inside of a robot? In the words of seanbaby…“Why not the brain of something less dangerous like a fire-breathing crocodile or Joseph Stalin? Then maybe you could attach a power drill to its face and hire it out to daycare centers!”

I now officially fear the day when robotic flesh-eating cyborgs come to chew off my face. THANKS, SCIENCE!!

folklore… from http://www.pantheon.org/ a great resource.

Baba Yaga
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In a number of East European myths, a Baba Yaga (there are more than one) is a cannibalistic witch who lives in a hut on the edge of the forest. The hut stands on chicken legs and will only lower itself after Baba Yaga said a certain rhyme. A picket fence surrounds the hut and she places the skulls of her victims on it. For transportation Baba Yaga uses a giant mortar which she drives at high speed across the forest floor by steering the pestle with her right hand and sweeping away all traces of her passage with a broom in her left hand. A host of spirits often follows her.
Baba Yaga is often represented as a little, ugly, old woman with a huge and distorted nose and long teeth. She is also called Jezi-Baba or Baba Yaga Kostianaya Noga (“bone-legs”), referring to the fact that she is rather skinny. She is regarded as the devil’s own grandmother.

In old Hungarian folklore, Baba (“old woman”) was originally a good fairy but was later degraded to a witch. A Baba Yaga is a hard bargainer, and will threaten to eat those who do not fulfil their part of an agreement.