Various middlebrow synonyms

Babbitt, boeotian, dabbler, dilettante, illiterati, know-nothing, no scholar, puddinghead, tenderfoot, unintelligentsia

I think "unintelligentsia" is my favorite. I think I'd be proudest to be named one of the unintelligentsia, certainly. On the other hand, "dilettante" is a very comfortable word for me—I use it quite a bit in self-description. And I've certainly got some Babbitt tendencies too.

What a great list.

Prolegomena to a Middlebrow Arithmetic of Curves of Genus 2

link

You've got to love this—prolegomena, middlebrow, and number theory, all at once!

Morning basketball

Despite my responsibility to find my seat in the juror's box in Palo Alto by 8:30am, I decided to go to my regular Friday morning basketball game in Menlo Park, from 6:30 to 7:30am, and then hurry back to the house for a shower. I made it with time to spare.

I had a good day covering the (injury-recovering) Wade, who has lost a step temporarily as he comes back from knee and back trouble. I was able to get lots of shots from about 13-ft away, and (most importantly) make them. On the other side of the balance, Tim is now playing again too, and he's a tough enforcer inside:

He doesn't wear that outfit, exactly, to morning basketball, but he is awfully strong (it's a "strength of ten men" kind of situation). So no rebounds for me.

Jury trial outcome

I finished my three days of jury duty today.

The defendant was a California highway patrolman in training who spent an evening drinking in Mountain View and Palo Alto with his friend, who came down from Sacramento. He was off duty.

At 1am on Hamilton Avenue near Middlefield Road, he was stopped for speeding, and then asked to do FST's (Field Sobriety Tests) and blow into a Preliminary Alcohol Screening (PAS) device, which is a kind of hand-held breathanalyzer. The PAS registered .111 and .107, which is quite a bit above the .08 limit, but when they took the defendant to the station, a more precise machine at the Palo Alto Police Department got a reading of 0.08, exactly.

He was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and driving with blood alcohol at or above over the .08 limit. We found him guilty on the first charge, and not guilty on the second.

Not good for him (he's just 22 years old), but I think it was the right verdict.