{"id":1350,"date":"2010-07-10T11:37:49","date_gmt":"2010-07-10T15:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=1350"},"modified":"2010-07-10T11:37:49","modified_gmt":"2010-07-10T15:37:49","slug":"odd-lots-118","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=1350","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul>\n<li>Before GPS, there was&#8230;<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.makezine.com\/archive\/2010\/07\/1930s_answer_to_gps.html\">rolled paper<\/a>. I&#8217;m not sure how useful a one-dimensional scrollable map is, but it was a good start. (And now, all you steampunkers, figure out how to do the same thing in two dimensions.)<\/li>\n<li>Shortwave radio and one-time pads are still being used, as we discovered in the recent Russian spy foofaraw. Slate&#8217;s done <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/id\/2259417\/\">a decent overview of number-station covert communication<\/a>. The late Harry Helms wrote a lot about these, and most of what I know came from his books. Some technologies just don&#8217;t get better over time. They were optimal from just about the beginning.<\/li>\n<li>This Lifehacker tutorial tells you in agonizing detail <a href=\"http:\/\/lifehacker.com\/5583650\/run-mac-os-x-in-virtualbox-on-windows\">how to install OS X Snow Leopard in a VirtualBox VM<\/a>. Cool enough&#8211;but when did that become legal? (My guess: It didn&#8217;t.)<\/li>\n<li>From Pete Albrecht comes a pointer to an item describing <a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/news\/2010\/07\/us-could-learn-from-brazilian-penalty-for-hindering-fair-use.ars\">a proposed copyright law in Brazil<\/a> that provides penalties for attempting to limit use of public-domain material, or fair use of copyrighted material via DRM. That is a remarkably good idea. (Maybe we&#8217;ll see the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Viagens_Interplanetarias\">Viagens<\/a> someday after all.)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/5582940\/i-wish-the-smart-tank-were-real\">This looks real<\/a> (i.e., not Photoshopped) but as at least one commenter has pointed out, there seems to be no way to get inside. Maybe it&#8217;s the ultimate RC car.<\/li>\n<li>Speaking of cars, in reading the comments for this Wired Blog article (titled <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/autopia\/2010\/07\/whats-the-fastest-youve-driven\/\">&#8220;What&#8217;s the Fastest You&#8217;ve Driven?&#8221;<\/a>) I felt old and frumpy. The fastest I&#8217;ve ever driven in my life was 95 or 96 MPH: in 1971, in my mom&#8217;s battered teal-green 1965 six-banger Chevy Biscayne, northbound on the Edens Expressway just before the I-290 junction&#8230;in the rain. Why? I no longer remember. And that&#8217;s probably just as well.<\/li>\n<li>And yet more about cars: Buss Ford Lincoln Mercury in McHenry, Illinois posts YouTube video endorsements from their happy customers. Buy a Merc before they&#8217;re gone&#8230;and be famous! (It worked for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=gQ2Lo73q0cY&amp;feature=related\">Carol&#8217;s sister and her husband<\/a>.)<\/li>\n<li>And now, for <em>quite<\/em> enough about cars: Pete Albrecht reminds us that in 1973 <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/AVE_Mizar\">somebody glued the rear portion of a Cessna Skymaster to a Ford Pinto<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.f150online.com\/forums\/members\/dirt-bike-dave-albums-misc-picture24018-ave-mizar.html\">it flew<\/a>&#8230;for awhile. (What do people say? &#8220;Don&#8217;t fly 70s cars?&#8221; Uh, yeah.)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/nextbigfuture.com\/2010\/07\/darpa-flying-submarine-and-project-to.html\">DARPA wants a flying submarine<\/a>. They should ask <a href=\"http:\/\/www.modelermagic.com\/?p=18975\">Irwin Allen<\/a>. Or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tomswift.info\/homepage\/diving.html\">Tom Swift, Jr<\/a>. (Thanks to Frank Glover for the link.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before GPS, there was&#8230;rolled paper. I&#8217;m not sure how useful a one-dimensional scrollable map is, but it was a good start. (And now, all you steampunkers, figure out how to do the same thing in two dimensions.) Shortwave radio and one-time pads are still being used, as we discovered in the recent Russian spy foofaraw. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[43,151,14],"class_list":["post-1350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots","tag-humor","tag-memoir","tag-software"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}