But It Checqued Out Fine

This probably isn’t news to people who are both good writers and use MS Word, but its grammar checker sucks.

I personally find it a frustrating mix of useful and extremely annoying. It does occasionally catch a word I misspell (something that I do rarely), but it almost never gives me good grammar advice. Ninety percent of the time (probably more) its recommended changes are either of no value, or would actually be wrong (I notice in particular that it has problems recognizing subjects and objects when recommending singular or plural forms of irregular verbs). I’ll probably keep using it, but given my writing style, I wish that I could disable the “long sentence, no suggestions” feature, because that’s the one that I most often get false alarms with.

Anyway, as the article says, if you’re a student (or worker) and think that your product is spelled correctly and grammatical just because Microsoft says so, think again. There’s still no substitute for a human editor, whether yourself or, if you’re unsure, another.

[Via Geek Press]

Space Blogroll Update

I’ve added a blogger who’s an employee at Johnson Space Center to the “Space” links to the left, who runs the “Mazoo” blog. I’m keeping this person anonymous, because I don’t know if (s)he wants the notoriety–if a self outing is desired, I have a comments section. As a content sample, there are some thoughts there on Hubble, the role of aeronautics in NASA (the first “A” and a subject to which I’ve been giving some recent thought) and the new administrator.

I’ve also moved Spaceship Summer, Rocketman, and The New Space Age blogs to the “AWOL” list, in the interest of weeking my garden, since I’ve seen no posting there for quite a while. They can inform me if they start posting regularly again.

By the way, if there are other space bloggers out there of whom I’m not aware, let me know, either in a trackback/comment here or via email.

[Update a couple hours later]

Here, via Instapundit, is another space blog previously unknown to me–Space Law Probe

Homesick



It was one of the wettest winters on record in southern California this year, and having moved to Florida last fall (just in time to be hit by two hurricanes), I missed it. All the rain has apparently made for a fantastic bloom of wildflowers there, particularly up in the Golden Poppy Reserve in the hills west of the Antelope Valley. Transterrestrial web designer Bill Simon took a trip up there this weekend, and this is a sample of what he shot.

I liked this one, too:

The rest of the images can be found here.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!