26 June 2002

The word broccoli originates at the vulgar Latin brocca, meaning “spike.” Brocca morphed into the Italian broccolo, for “shoot” or “sprout” before ending up at the English broccoli.

The sour taste in sourdough bread comes from the lactate byproduct of the lactobacilli bacterial, which culture, combined with yeast, is fed a diet of flour and water for three or four days before being made into bread.

We’re in Ottawa for OLS. The G8 graffiti is amusing, but it really brings home the bored-middle-class-teenager aspect of the antiglobalization culture.

Today was numbingly calm, as if the city had prep’d for the event by spiking the tapwater with sedatives. Or more accurately, as if the protesters were just bored, middle-class teenagers, angry about nothing in particular but with a vague and lingering sense of nihilism & malaise, looking for someone else to blame. Blah.

Oh, but today we released GNOME 2.0.0. Check it out.