Dear Apple Store employees,

When you say “let me look at it”, please note that there is a definite distinction between “let me look at it so I can help you” and “let me look at it so I can check if you’re a moron”. I promise it’s not the latter, so you’re wasting my time if you don’t mean the former.

Thank you for taking 20 minutes of my time to verify my claim that the blinky lights fail to come on when you plug in my AirPort Express. I already knew that. The least you could have done was replace my obviously defective hardware instead of making me set up a Genius Bar appointment for tomorrow.

Love, bob

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He who would do some great thing in this short life, must apply himself to the work with such a concentration of his forces as to the idle spectators, who live only to amuse themselves, looks like insanity.

— Some guy named John Foster (prob’ly this one) doesn’t think I’m crazy.

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Lest anyone attempt to use these knots in real life:

That “sheet bend” depicted is actually a just square knot with two ends crossed. The “sheet bend double” is really called a “double sheet bend”.

Two of the knots have the standing end on the wrong side of the knot: The “square knot” is a liar’s knot, and the “tiller’s hitch” is nothing at all. If you pull on either of them, they will come untied.

The “figure eight double” should be called a “double figure eight”. This knot is used to join two ropes so it is tied with the ropes end-to-end, not parallel.

Also of interest: The “bowline” depicted is a left-handed knot. It works just as well as the right-handed variant, but it looked strange to me until I tied one of my own to compare it to.

Yeah. I’m a nerd :)

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The difference between rising at five and seven o’clock in the morning, for the space of forty years, supposing a man to go to bed at the same hour at night, is nearly equivalent to ten additional years to a man’s life.

— Philip Doddridge, who overestimates my baseline waking hour by at least two hours. So apparently I’m missing out on twenty additional years.

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… The rules do matter - it’s just that obeying them doesn’t. … The stickler-advocated rules of spelling, grammar and punctuation slow the speed of change and allow the language to remain united. They’re as important to the continued strength of English as the internet’s power to coin new usages.

— David Mitchell, on innovation in language (article via Tara Hunt)

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It’s much easier to look for a lost key under the light, than to look for the key where you actually lost it, because it’s dark over there.

— Rafi Sela, on how to fix airport security.

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My year in cities, 2009

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bobthecow

is Justin Hileman

Dear Apple Store employees,