A proposal for a new set of metasyntactic variables

There are a number of standard sets of metasyntactic variables, but most of them (such as the "foo", "bar", "baz" sequence) are pretty short.

Thus, I propose adoption of a new set of variables in cases where a longer list is needed: The letters from Doctor Seuss's On Beyond Zebra: Yuzz, Wum, Um, Humpf, Fuddle, Glikk, Nuh, Snee, Quan, Thnad, Spazz, Floob, Zatz, Jogg, Flunn, Itch, Yekk, Vroo, and Hi. These are short, entertaining, pronouncable, and in general unlikely to get confused with any actual English words likely to be used in a program -- exactly the characteristics that one would desire in a metasyntactic variable.

A proposal for a new set of metasyntactic variables

There are a number of standard sets of metasyntactic variables, but most of them (such as the "foo", "bar", "baz" sequence) are pretty short.

Thus, I propose adoption of a new set of variables in cases where a longer list is needed: The letters from Doctor Seuss's On Beyond Zebra: Yuzz, Wum, Um, Humpf, Fuddle, Glikk, Nuh, Snee, Quan, Thnad, Spazz, Floob, Zatz, Jogg, Flunn, Itch, Yekk, Vroo, and Hi. These are short, entertaining, pronouncable, and in general unlikely to get confused with any actual English words likely to be used in a program -- exactly the characteristics that one would desire in a metasyntactic variable.

Random links, October edition

A selection of interesting things that I found online over the last month or so and have been meaning to share with people:

What happens if you go way overboard and then some in making a "cat-friendly" house. And really well constructed, too; none of the cat-related bits look particularly out of place.

A photo of a duck, by timprov. Not often that you see one from quite that angle.

A derelict castle of sorts. Another photo set in the category of "intriguing ruins".

Photos of a really nifty Art Nouveau doorway and building front at 6 Rue du Lac in Brussels. The fellow who posted that picture has a collection of Art Nouveau architecture photos on Flikr, which has lots of neat things in it. A Google images search on "art nouveau doorway" find quite a lot of other interesting things too, and here's another photographer's Flikr set of Art Nouveau doorways.

Modern Art: A reductio. The artwork of Yves Klein. suzimoses will find this way far out on the end of the category of abstract art that she doesn't like, but I find it rather interesting considered as a whole context including the artist and galleries and so forth. The fact that people paid for these paintings and found them enthralling is deeply fascinating to me.

A random recipe for meatball soup, from Penzeys Spices. (I like meatball soup -- particularly the one at Casa de Lupe, one of the local Mexican restaurants -- and this seemed like a good recipe.) Speaking of which, they're opening a store in Menlo Park soon; yay!

The Jules Verne: a beautiful little model triplane made mostly out of drinking straws and yellow sandwich wrap.

According to this Making Light thread, it is in fact possible to get genuine Southern food -- at least, breakfast food -- in the Bay Area. This is the place. I shall be needing to go investigate this!

tiger_spot pointed me at this journal article entitled "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations". It sounds quite entertaining.

This photograph of Chicago rail yards gives me a very strong feeling of deep crisp bitter cold; the sort where snow goes crunch and breath clouds just hang in the air. Brrr! I'm not entirely sure why, and how much of that's in the photo and how much of it's reminding me of the time I was in Chicago on Thanksgiving waiting an hour in an inadequate coat for a bus that had been rerouted.

A different photo of books organized by color, which cobalt_00 linked to in comments last time I posted one of these link summaries. Rather fewer books than a whole bookstore, but still striking. I wonder what a shelf sorted by lightness rather than hue looks like. Or, for that matter, saturation.

A set of photographs from some Greek/Roman ruins in the oldest city in Romania. The city was active from around the 7th century B.C. to the 7th century A.D.; I'm not sure which period these ruins are from. Some really pretty photos, though.

Random links, October edition

A selection of interesting things that I found online over the last month or so and have been meaning to share with people:

What happens if you go way overboard and then some in making a "cat-friendly" house. And really well constructed, too; none of the cat-related bits look particularly out of place.

A photo of a duck, by timprov. Not often that you see one from quite that angle.

A derelict castle of sorts. Another photo set in the category of "intriguing ruins".

Photos of a really nifty Art Nouveau doorway and building front at 6 Rue du Lac in Brussels. The fellow who posted that picture has a collection of Art Nouveau architecture photos on Flikr, which has lots of neat things in it. A Google images search on "art nouveau doorway" find quite a lot of other interesting things too, and here's another photographer's Flikr set of Art Nouveau doorways.

Modern Art: A reductio. The artwork of Yves Klein. suzimoses will find this way far out on the end of the category of abstract art that she doesn't like, but I find it rather interesting considered as a whole context including the artist and galleries and so forth. The fact that people paid for these paintings and found them enthralling is deeply fascinating to me.

A random recipe for meatball soup, from Penzeys Spices. (I like meatball soup -- particularly the one at Casa de Lupe, one of the local Mexican restaurants -- and this seemed like a good recipe.) Speaking of which, they're opening a store in Menlo Park soon; yay!

The Jules Verne: a beautiful little model triplane made mostly out of drinking straws and yellow sandwich wrap.

According to this Making Light thread, it is in fact possible to get genuine Southern food -- at least, breakfast food -- in the Bay Area. This is the place. I shall be needing to go investigate this!

tiger_spot pointed me at this journal article entitled "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations". It sounds quite entertaining.

This photograph of Chicago rail yards gives me a very strong feeling of deep crisp bitter cold; the sort where snow goes crunch and breath clouds just hang in the air. Brrr! I'm not entirely sure why, and how much of that's in the photo and how much of it's reminding me of the time I was in Chicago on Thanksgiving waiting an hour in an inadequate coat for a bus that had been rerouted.

A different photo of books organized by color, which cobalt_00 linked to in comments last time I posted one of these link summaries. Rather fewer books than a whole bookstore, but still striking. I wonder what a shelf sorted by lightness rather than hue looks like. Or, for that matter, saturation.

A set of photographs from some Greek/Roman ruins in the oldest city in Romania. The city was active from around the 7th century B.C. to the 7th century A.D.; I'm not sure which period these ruins are from. Some really pretty photos, though.