http://www.xefer.com/ en-us 2010-03-06T09:32:53-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://www.xefer.com/2010/03/pluto The "New Horizons" probe recently passed the half-way point to Pluto - at least in terms of total distance flown. According to this simulation, it will be half-way between Pluto and the Sun on July 14th, and then half-way... 243@http://www.xefer.com/ 2010-03-06T09:32:53-05:00 http://www.xefer.com/2010/02/ipswich A map of Ipswich Massachusetts by Philander Anderson. Ipswich, Massachusetts. 1832 Notice that the current Washington Street is called Gravel Street, which follows the path of the current Liberty Street to Lord Square. The current Mineral Street is called... 242@http://www.xefer.com/ 2010-02-17T13:08:47-05:00 http://www.xefer.com/2010/02/the This continues some earlier notes I had made on the etymology of the word "the". Old English is the earliest attested progenitor of modern English, so any earlier etymologies can only be done by comparing other related languages and... 241@http://www.xefer.com/ 2010-02-12T12:09:00-05:00 http://www.xefer.com/iuncturae/2010/01/240 Colby Cosh has an intriguing piece in the National Post that mentions forthcoming evidence from Pat Sutherland which will strengthen her claim that the Nanook site on Baffin Island is a Norse Settlement. Sutherland's original paper was dismantled by University... 240@http://www.xefer.com/iuncturae/ 2010-01-31T16:51:28-05:00 http://www.xefer.com/2010/01/naming Below are some interesting maps showing how generic terms for watercourses are distributed in the Northeastern United States from a 1955 paper by Wilbur Zelinsky.1 The term river is universal throughout the examined area, so only terms applied to... 239@http://www.xefer.com/ 2010-01-18T15:28:11-05:00 http://www.xefer.com/iuncturae/2009/12/238 A hilariously humorless review of Magnus Mills' "The Maintenance of Headway" from The Socialist Worker.... 238@http://www.xefer.com/iuncturae/ 2009-12-14T18:26:16-05:00 http://www.xefer.com/2009/06/Burlington Off in a corner of a parking lot of the Executive Office Park in Burlington, Massachusetts there is a small waterfall where a little stream emerges out from under Mall Road and tumbles into what, for all intents and... 237@http://www.xefer.com/ 2009-06-09T18:14:17-05:00 http://www.xefer.com/iuncturae/2009/05/236 "At three sites on Baffin Island, which the Norse called 'Helluland' or 'land of stone slabs,' and another in northern Labrador, the researchers have documented dozens of suspected Norse artifacts such as Scandinavian-style spun yarn, distinctively notched and decorated... 236@http://www.xefer.com/iuncturae/ 2009-05-28T08:19:27-05:00 http://www.xefer.com/2009/05/gepeswich These are the earliest written references to the city of Ipswich: 942 A.D.: Will of Theodred, Bishop of London. Sawyer 1529. See: Charta Anglosaxonicae, p. 293 line 9. BISHOP ÐEODRED In nomine domini nostri Ihusu Christi! ... And ic... 235@http://www.xefer.com/ 2009-05-24T14:38:21-05:00 http://www.xefer.com/2009/05/ipswich 234@http://www.xefer.com/ 2009-05-13T14:27:31-05:00 http://www.xefer.com/2009/04/chigurh In Cormac McCarthy's book (and in the Coen brother's adaption of) "No Country for Old Men", there is an infamous scene where the assassin, Anton Chigurh, subjects a gas-station owner to a trial where his life hangs in the... 233@http://www.xefer.com/ 2009-04-18T17:13:37-05:00 http://www.xefer.com/2009/03/bellowsfarm While the Dropkick Murphys are a fine group, I've always been more interested in the name of the band itself. Members have always told that they took the name from a supposed detox center, owned and operated by a... 232@http://www.xefer.com/ 2009-03-27T15:52:37-05:00 http://www.xefer.com/2009/03/metropole "Kafkaesque" is perhaps our most overused eponymous adjective, but in the case of Hungarian writer Ferenc Karinthy's brilliant Metropole, there is simply no more fitting term to employ. It's amazing that this book, written in 1970, has only recently... 231@http://www.xefer.com/ 2009-03-07T15:20:54-05:00 http://www.xefer.com/2009/02/mills Magnus Mills the Booker Prize-nominated author who was famously a bus driver before his first book was published, is apparently still plying that trade. He has a rather innocuous commentary in The Independent which while typically clever and all,... 230@http://www.xefer.com/ 2009-02-26T18:25:26-05:00 http://www.xefer.com/iuncturae/2009/01/229 Okay, this story is over a year old, but I missed it at the time. Enoki Kunuk headed off to hunt caribou but got his snowmobile stuck by the thaw 100 kilometers from home. The military called of the search... 229@http://www.xefer.com/iuncturae/ 2009-01-25T09:33:27-05:00 http://www.xefer.com/2008/09/boston Boston Skyline, September 21, 1942 The above is an early color photo of Boston taken from across the Charles River in Cambridge. It is part of the Charles W. Cushman Photograph Collection hosted at the University of Indiana. Same... 228@http://www.xefer.com/ 2008-09-04T21:13:47-05:00 http://www.xefer.com/2008/08/auyuittuq The title of this entry comes from a quote in a CBC News article yesterday describing the on-going flooding problems in Auyuittuq National Park on Baffin Island. Parks Canada officials say they have never seen anything like this before... 227@http://www.xefer.com/ 2008-08-07T08:19:08-05:00 http://www.xefer.com/iuncturae/2008/08/226 A beautiful image taken by the ESA's Envisat satellite. On the right (East) is Baffin Island showing Nettilling Lake which drains via the Koukdjuak River into Foxe Basin. Nettilling Lake is the largest lake on an island in the... 226@http://www.xefer.com/iuncturae/ 2008-08-06T19:57:58-05:00 http://www.xefer.com/iuncturae/2008/08/225 Unusually warm temperatures coupled with heavy rains caused such extensive flooding in Auyuittuq that 21 hikers had to be evacuated from the park. This follows recent flooding in Pangnirtung that wiped out several bridges. There the flooding bore through the... 225@http://www.xefer.com/iuncturae/ 2008-08-05T20:20:27-05:00 http://www.xefer.com/2008/08/tvparty Of all the television shows mentioned in the two versions of Black Flag's song "TV Party", only one, Saturday Night Live, remains on the air in its original form. The other long-running show, Monday Night Football, changed networks in... 224@http://www.xefer.com/ 2008-08-04T19:08:06-05:00