Primogeniture

Something that has bugged me for some time is the concept of Primogeniture. I don’t have a problem with the idea that the first son gets the inheritance (which is what the word means), but rather that I’ve never been able to find the word for the opposite concept. I mean, if you’re going to come up with a $3 word like Primogeniture, you should at least have the decency to make a word for the idea of splitting the inheritance among all of the sons (and even daughters?).

I was pondering this thought (which has been troubling me for 15 years), and I thought to myself: “I wonder if google knows.” Google does know.

Partible Inheritance is the runner up, since it’s two words, not one, but it does express the idea without being itself the definition. Even better is Gavelkind, which was the term used in Ireland for partible inheritance. Best of all is Stirpital, defined as “of or relating to per stirpes distribution.” This word, also spelled stirpical is used in English common law and wills to describe a sharing of portions of the inheritance among the children of the deceased.

The developers on the FreeSwitch team are continually very responsive and quick to fix problems. It’s an excellent project, and if you have a need for computer telephony, I’d recommend using and donating to it.

Flash Player 10.1 is very close to being able to play HD video off of my netbook. Just a bit of tearing. Come on Adobe, lets get that code optimized.

Crossover Mac Close

LogMeIn Ignition almost runs in the new Crossover for Macintosh. LMI has clearly used some non-standard drawing APIs, but the remote control works. If either codeweavers or LMI made a stable LogMeIn administration interface on the Mac, I’d have to pay them some money.