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	<title>A Modest Construct</title>
	<link>http://heliologue.com</link>
	<description></description>
	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:33:53 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<item>
		<title>Wednesday’s Word LXIV</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
alcohol
n. (organic chemistry, countable) Any of a class  of organic  compounds  (such as ethanol) containing a hydroxyl  functional group (-OH).
n. (uncountable) An intoxicating  beverage  made by the fermentation of sugar or sugar-containing material.

One would generally expect such a popular item to have more interesting&#8212;potentially dirty or morbid&#8212;roots, but the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://heliologue.com/2010/03/17/wednesday%e2%80%99s-word-lxiv/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>The Great Influenza</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The recent hullabaloo both in America and abroad about H1N1 (&#8220;swine flu&#8221;) last year brought influenza back into the zeitgeist in a way it has not been for many years&#8212;more years, likely, than the last couple of generations largely ignorant of just how serious influenza was and could potentially be in the future. About 14,000 [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://heliologue.com/2010/03/15/the-great-influenza/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>The Forever War</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In a sort of theme of futuristic sci-fi war dystopias (see Ender&#8217;s Game and Old Man&#8217;s War), I&#8217;ve decided to read Joe Haldeman&#8217;s The Forever War.  It&#8217;s a famous book, and over 35 years old at this point.  It&#8217;s most commonly compared to Heinlein&#8217;s Starship Troopers, but that&#8217;s a rather facile comparison, especially [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://heliologue.com/2010/03/12/the-forever-war/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Wednesday’s Word LXIII</title>
		<description><![CDATA[

transparent


adj.. clear; having the property that light passes through it almost undisturbed


Transparent is a common word;  I&#8217;ve known it since I was a child.  Slightly less well known is &#8220;translucent,&#8221; which has largely the same meaning, although the latter usually indicates a lesser degree of transparency.  
With a bit of familiarity with [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://heliologue.com/2010/03/10/wednesday%e2%80%99s-word-lxiii-2/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Juliet, Naked</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Like a lot of readers, my impression of Nick Hornby is most influenced by High Fidelity, which is still widely considered his best novel.  I can&#8217;t say for certain, but I suspect that the book&#8217;s popularity has not a little to do with its treatment of minutiae:  the plot itself is somewhat tepid [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://heliologue.com/2010/03/08/juliet-naked/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>File Compressors in 64-bit</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Though I&#8217;m not the sort of person who believes that native 64-bit compilations of programs will automagically make them perform faster or better, I do like to keep an eye on the state of the art, since I was an early adopter of native 64-bit OSes (I&#8217;ve been using 64-bit Linux since about Fedora Core [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://heliologue.com/2010/03/06/file-compressors-in-64-bit/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>K-Pax</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Like most people (I imagine), I was first introduced to K-Pax via the 2001 film of the same name starring Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges.  I hadn&#8217;t even realized until some time later that it was based upon a 1995 novel by Gene Brewer.  Though I generally hate comparing books and movies, I [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://heliologue.com/2010/02/10/k-pax/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Shades of Grey</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Jasper Fforde has accomplish a lot in a relatively short period of time.  His first novel, The Eyre Affair, was published in 2001, and in the 9 years since, he has published an additional seven novels, with announced plans for 4 more.  I liked The Eyre Affair when I read it three years [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://heliologue.com/2010/02/06/shades-of-grey/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Wednesday’s Word LXII</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
wont
n. a habitual way of doing things
adj. accustomed or habituated (usually to something
v. to accustom (tr.); to be accustomed (intr.) 

I am wont to using this word a lot, in part because it&#8217;s a neat word and in part because it&#8217;s so useful:  three forms, all the same.  The only downfall is that [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://heliologue.com/2010/02/03/wednesday%e2%80%99s-word-lxii/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>The Unnamed</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I was suitably impressed with Joshua Ferris&#8217; debut novel, And Then We Came to the End, which was something of a black comedy.  Its sometimes-serious contents were often overshadowed by the possibilities for humor or darksome whimsy when writing about an office environment, a subject which probably gained its cultural penchant for public mockery [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://heliologue.com/2010/02/02/the-unnamed/</link>
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