I'm amused by the jargon-filled sentences one often finds in technical journals. I especially like to drop them in casual conversation, completely out of context.

There was an article on star formation in Scientific American some time in 2002. They reprinted it this month in their "resubscriber's bonus issue". It includes a great quotable line:

The logarithm of the metallicity falls off linearly with distance, with a slope of -0.07 dex per kiloparsec.

I don't know how I'm going to work that in at my next cocktail party, but I hope to slip it in right after "furlongs per fortnight".

So, what is the deal with the sudden spate of spam offering me pseudo-Rolex watches? In a matter of a week or so, I went from getting 0 per day to hundreds per day. Is this the Internet equivalent of the shady street corner character, opening his trench coat to show me an array of cheap knock-offs? I can understand the Viagra/Cialis spams. The profit margin on those pills has to be high enough to make even a small spam hit rate into a major profit center. But fake watches? I don't get it.

We Americans are so easily duped. The price for regular unleaded at my local gas station has dropped from $2.029 to $1.929 over the last two weeks, and I found myself thinking, "what a bargain!" On the other hand, I did three business trips to Europe this year. When I visited Edinburgh, a city I dearly loved, I noticed that gas was priced at 89p per litre. After a little number crunching, I realized that was just over $6 per gallon. I didn't get much sympathy from my hosts when I whined about paying $2 per gallon.