Old Hardy Boys

Opuses

This summer, I picked up some old books at a flea market, two of which were first editions of The Hardy Boys. Tonight, I was reading The Tower Treasure and noticed something I had not noticed when reading the books as a boy, namely, that the farmers were pulling their wagons with horses. I did not remember that from the original series; still it was not out of place in a book written in 1927. But on a whim I checked a 1987 edition of the same book that I happen to possess and what did I not find? Chapter IV! Moreover, Chet’s “gay-looking speed-wagon” had become “The Queen.” There was no trace of the pointless prank the Hardys’ “chubby friend” played on the local “indolent” farmer, and he wasn’t even so “chubby” anymore. That is right chums, The Hardy Boys series was expurgated, to our loss, sometime during the 1960s!

A quick search revealed that others have figured out the same. Well, I shall enjoy reading this edition, for it surely holds some pleasant surprises.

Love Means Never…

Observations

Your quotation of the day: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

That’s one of the lamest things I’ve ever heard. I had to say “I’m sorry” to three or four people yesterday. Do I love those people? Of course I do! Yet I believe the only way I could have avoided that sorriness is to have avoided contact or refrained from real relationships with those folks. What a joke.

United Nations and the Internet

Observations

D.G. writes:

The UN continues to poke its nose into the internet’s business:http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6131394.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punycode

There are some wonderful statements in that zdnet article:

“This new society leaves people isolated, marginalized…”

“Linguistic diversity should be ‘the key principle of Internet governance…'”

“Hamid Shahriari, part of Iran’s delegation to the U.N.’s Internet Governance Forum, blamed Microsoft for having software that does ‘not work hardly on my own languages.'”

And now you will be havening to be enjoying to read my opinion: It may or may not be a good idea to have multi-lingual domain names; that’s not for me to decide. If, however, those are the only reasons we can come up with, then it’s not a good idea.