Namesakes

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Thursday 15 March 2007 @8:18

My surname is a common noun, but an uncommon name. So I expect some false hits in my Google space, such as a page for one Christopher Williams — a Welsh football/soccer player — that lists “Christopher’s League Stats.”

But here are some uncanny clips I found via Google this morning:

Christopher League is something I love and look forward to throughout the week.

Aw, thanks… is that from one of my students maybe? Just don’t turn into a stalker!

Christopher League has become such an important part of my life and I look forward to the years to come.

Uh, okay. You turned into a stalker.

There is no better legacy that I can think of than to take the Christopher League to new venues to allow others to experience the thrills, joy and elation…

Woah, that’s spooky. I’m happy to provide thrills, joy, and elation, but what’s with the definite article in front of my name?

Last Saturday I went to the baseball field to begin a new season of Christopher League.

Okay, now I’m seriously confused. When did this become about sports?

The Christopher League is a baseball program for disabled children and is run in conjunction with NYO’s youth baseball program on a “buddy system.”

Ah, got it! NYO is the Northside Youth Organization in Atlanta, Georgia. Presumably, their Christopher League co-opts the name to honor an early participant…?

Anyway, I’m proud to have this organization as a namesake. Somewhere, I’m sure there’s an unfortunate woman with the name Megan Law.

Two types of types

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Thursday 15 February 2007 @18:40

Follow-up about BitTorrent: at some point, I read the FAQ and found that for BT to work correctly, one needs to forward ports to overcome the Network Address Translation done by the router. (Would have been easy except that I forgot my router config password and had to reset it.) But after doing that, the number of peers increased significantly, and with it both upload and download rates. That’s more like it!

In my email the other day, I received a message with an image claiming that:

Wow, sounds great, I thought. Where was this when I was doing my thesis research? So is it based on the lambda calculus? I read on:

Ah, that kind of ‘type system’. Come to think of it, the message was from myfonts.com…

Tramps and thieves

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Monday 8 January 2007 @17:33

Ah, the League family tree. One of my father’s hobbies is genealogical research. Sometime back I posted about how I am a descendant of King William I, via my mother’s side of the family. Of course, that and $4 will get you a cup of coffee, as they say.

Anyway, the crimes of royals are well-documented, but my father’s side of the family is more… shall we say… colorful? He spent an industrious day at the Maryland state archives last week, browsing police records from South Baltimore during the years 1867–1902. In only 4 hours of research, and looking at a relatively narrow time period and geographical bounds, here’s what they found. Everything below is quoted from my father, so when he says ‘grandfather’, add a ‘great-’ to get relations relative to me.

• Edward League Nov 27, 1895 7:18 PM Disorderly conduct. Fined $1.00.
  (I am not sure who this was. I have no record of him in my database. He could be in my database under a different given name. However, I suspect that he is related to us, because he was a League from South Baltimore and every other League I have ever found in South Baltimore is related to us).
• John League (age 33) August 30, 1895 5:15 PM Assaulting with the intent to commit rape on Lizzie Kreamer age 8 years. Released to court.
  (This was my Grandfather League’s cousin).
• August Geisler (age 23) Jan 26, 1893 9:34 PM Disturbing public worship. Fined $10.00 and court costs. Committed. Released the next day. In other words, he slept it off in the tanker.
  (This was my Grandmother League’s uncle).
• George Geisler (age 19) Oct 24, 1893 being on B&O cars without authorization. Fined $0.50, plus court costs of $1.70.
  (This was my Grandmother League’s uncle).
• Thomas League (age 19) Sept 21, 1895 12:40 AM Disorderly conduct.
  (This was my Grandfather League’s older brother).
• Thomas League (age 33) Sept 25, 1881 Disturbing the peace, using loud and profane language on the streets. Committed and afterwards released on bail to keep the peace and pay costs of $1.95.
  (This was my Great Grandfather)
• George (age 43) & Annie (age 17) Geisler, July 28, 1881. Assaulting and beating Elizabeth Faulk. Each released for court.
  (This was, most-likely, my Grandmother League’s Grandfather and Aunt. It could have been her Uncle George instead of her Grandfather, but Uncle George was only 7-8 years old at the time, so I suspect it was his father, George).
• John J. League (age 51 ) May 28/29, 1887 Larceny of three ducks valued at $0.45. Property of Jos Grimm of 611 Light Street. Committed for court. Note: John lived at 317 Light Street. So, after he took the ducks, he didn’t have to walk too far to get home.)
  (This was my Grandfather League’s Uncle).
• George H. League (age 23) June 22/23. 1887 Selling a hired wagon, valued at $40.00 with intent to defraud the owner, William Robinson. Committed for court.
  (This guy was a very distant relative. Thank goodness, I would not want his actions to besmirch our good name.)
• William League (age 22) Jul 14, 1887 4:00 PM hauling offensive matter through the streets in an open cart. Released for hearing.
  (This was my Grandfather League’s cousin)
• James League (age 27) Jul 1887 Disturbing the public peace. Fined $1.00 and released.
  (I think this guy was only a distant relative).
• Louis H. Bennett (age 39) Nov 12, 1902 Disturbing the peace at 308 S. Hamburg Street. Complainant John J. League. Charges dismissed.
  (Louis Bennett and John J. League were brothers-in-law. Louis was married to John’s sister Catherine. Both of these guys were my Grandfather League’s uncles. By the way, they lived together with their families at this address).
• Thomas League (age 17) Oct 6, 1893 1:27 AM Burglariously entering the store of Samuel Gross at 316 Light Street with the intent to steal. Committed for court. On Oct 17th, he was sentence to 60 days in the house of corrections.
  (This was my Grandfather League’s older brother. By the way, at the time of the attempted robbery, he lived at 317 Light Street, which was right across the street from the store he tried to rob.)
• Walter Bennett (age 15) Dec 6, 1893 being on B&O cars without authorization, committed to 30 days in the house of corrections.
  (This was my Grandfather League’s cousin).

Killer app for PHP

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Thursday 15 June 2006 @19:19

Nothing that new or amazing, but fun all the same: the church sign generator. Found via god hates shrimp.

Opinions are like a**holes

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Wednesday 31 May 2006 @15:24

To me, one of the great things about the explosion of writing on the Internet is that we don’t need to formulate our own opinions on anything anymore. No matter what opinion you’d produce, on any topic, most likely someone out there has already expressed it; all you need do is adopt it.

This leads to a kind of shopping experience: whenever you encounter a new topic of debate, rather than carefully considering the facts and drawing your own conclusions, just Google for others’ opinions and decide who you agree with. Easy peasy!

Take all of the above as facetious, if you prefer. I’m not yet certain how serious I am. (Which reminds me of The Simpsons: in Homerpalooza, one teenager says to another, “Are you being sarcastic, dude?” “I don’t even know anymore.”)

We may think it would be a better world if everyone’s opinions were independently researched and thoroughly considered, but that is unrealistic. And shopping around for opinions from diverse sources is perhaps far better than getting all your opinions from one source, whether it be your church, parents, political party, or home-town newspaper.

Example: I’m basically pro-choice, but mostly because people I trust tend to have that point of view. Personally, I have a hard time caring about the issue much either way. I will never get pregnant because I don’t have the right apparatus. And I will never get anyone pregnant because, well, I’m a Kinsey 6 and in sexual terms, women are about as appealing as Jabba the Hutt. Pretty effective contraceptive, that.

If anything, maybe parents ought to be permitted to extinguish their children until they’re 3 or 4 years old. Ah, but I jest. (I think.) And anyway, many folks who do slaughter their kids appear to be the same brand of fundamentalists who get all huffy over abortion.

This all started with me browsing magazines on amazon.com, and wondering if I am missing anything by relying solely on the Internet and not subscribing to opinions in print. It might be nice to receive some glossy monthly tome packed with various atheist-progressive-rationalist-libertarian-humanist-determinist points of view.

There are a few candidates, but it’s hard to tell which I would like best: Reason, Free Inquiry, Skeptical Inquirer, Skeptic, American Atheist, Mother Jones, Liberty, American Prospect, etc. I should try to skim some of these next time I’m at the book store.