{"id":190,"date":"2008-09-28T15:16:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-28T19:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=190"},"modified":"2008-12-13T23:01:39","modified_gmt":"2008-12-14T03:01:39","slug":"odd-lots-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=190","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/discovermagazine.com\/2008\/oct\/16-is-wine-what-flows-through-the-fountain-of-youth\">A                 chemical found in red wine may slow aging in mammals<\/a>. Reservatrol                 is a hot item these days, and whereas there probably isn&apos;t enough                 in wine to have measurable effects on health or longevity, Big                 Pharma firm GlaxoSmithKlein paid $720M for Sirtris, a biotech                 firm doing research on the reservatrol family of chemicals. Thanks                 to Frank Glover for the link.<\/li>\n<li>Larry Steckler, who had worked for the Gernsback organization                 from 1957 until its bitter end in 2003, has published <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Hugo-Gernsback-Well-Ahead-Time\/dp\/1419658581\/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product\">a                 700-page biography of Hugo Gernsback<\/a>. We&apos;ve been waiting for                 a decent biography of our man Hugo for a long time, and I&apos;ll post                 my reaction here once I&apos;ve read it.<\/li>\n<li>Bruce Baker sent me a link to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.villiard.com\/porte-avions-lego.html\">photos                 of a (more or less) scale model of the aircraft carrier <i>Harry                 S. Truman<\/i> built entirely in Lego<\/a>. <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.makezine.com\/archive\/2008\/09\/lego_aircraft_carrier.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890\">The                 story has been written up (in English)<\/a> on the Make Blog, with                 more photos <a href=\"http:\/\/damncoolpics.blogspot.com\/2007\/01\/lego-aircraft-carrier.html\">here<\/a>.                 My big question with Lego (having grown up on Meccano, in which                 everything is bolted together with real bolts) is how such monumental                 Lego sculptures stay intact. Is it all friction? I&apos;ve built small                 things with Lego, but models that come apart in your hands don&apos;t                 seem to me to be anything near as good as the (admittedly holey)                 things you make with Meccano\/Erector and their ilk.<\/li>\n<li>From Don Doerres comes <a href=\"http:\/\/websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901\/\">a                 link<\/a> to a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Software_radio\">software                 defined radio<\/a> (SDR) on the Web, covering a portion of the                 80, 20, and 40 meter ham bands. The &#8220;waterfall&#8221; visualization                 is fascinating, and something that &#8220;real&#8221; radios just                 can&apos;t do. We&apos;re good at matching patterns, and I was able to see                 when a new signal appeared anywhere on the covered band out of                 the corner of my eye. Contesters must <i>love<\/i> SDRs!<\/li>\n<li>Michael Covington suggested that unnecessary animations are                 a far bigger distraction and degradation of the computing experience                 than windowing, and I have to agree. This is one reason I continue                 to use older software: Its moving parts don&apos;t move unless they                 have to.<\/li>\n<li>Also from Michael comes a story from the UK about the fact that                 <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/uk_news\/7628137.stm\">2% of                 the 1\u00a3 coins in circulation are counterfeit<\/a>. This boggles                 the mind: 1\u00a3 won&apos;t even buy lunch, and making enough coins                 to be worthwhile must take a lot of time and work, considering                 that you can and probably will do time if they catch you. (Does                 anybody remember Bernard Wolfe&apos;s wry short story &#8220;The Never-Ending                 Penny&#8221;?)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A chemical found in red wine may slow aging in mammals. Reservatrol is a hot item these days, and whereas there probably isn&apos;t enough in wine to have measurable effects on health or longevity, Big Pharma firm GlaxoSmithKlein paid $720M for Sirtris, a biotech firm doing research on the reservatrol family of chemicals. Thanks to [&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":[],"class_list":["post-190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190","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=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions\/191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}