{"id":2045,"date":"2011-07-28T11:54:47","date_gmt":"2011-07-28T17:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2045"},"modified":"2011-07-28T11:54:47","modified_gmt":"2011-07-28T17:54:47","slug":"odd-lots-161","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2045","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>A lot happened while I was down in Taos, and I&#8217;ll do my best to catch up a little here today. But as you&#8217;ve seen from my two entries about the workshop, it was tough to pay attention to anything there but the challenge at hand.<\/li>\n<li>More photos from the workshop: Christie Yant has established <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/fish_with_feet\/collections\/72157627156507601\/\" target=\"_blank\">a single page linking to all four of her Flickr albums from Taos Toolbox 2011<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Several people sent me invites to Google+, and I established an account several days ago. (I already had a Google account, so it was no big deal.) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/magazine-14312047\" target=\"_blank\">Google being insanely paranoid about how real your name is<\/a>, look for me as&#8230;Jeff Duntemann.<\/li>\n<li>In the wake of Tuesday night&#8217;s epic natural gas leak here, I discovered that <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ethanethiol\" target=\"_blank\">the ethyl mercaptan molecule resembles a balloon animal weiner dog with its hindquarters on upside down<\/a>. Hey, I wonder if a balloon artist has ever done balloon hydrocarbons? (Google comes up empty.)<\/li>\n<li>Motorola is finally rolling out <a href=\"http:\/\/news.cnet.com\/8301-13924_3-20079249-64\/android-3.2-rolling-out-on-xoom-motorola-says\/\" target=\"_blank\">an Android upgrade that enables use of the Xoom&#8217;s SD slot<\/a>. Guys, why was that so hard?<\/li>\n<li>Only a handful of people ever make it to 114 years old. And, weirdly, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/id\/2299256\/\" target=\"_blank\">that&#8217;s when virtually all of the oldest of the oldest of the old actually die<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/5821389\/the-largest-gun-ever-built\" target=\"_blank\">a photo of the largest cannon ever built<\/a>. No points for guessing who built it.<\/li>\n<li>And while you&#8217;re browsing <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/monster-machines\/\" target=\"_blank\">Gizmodo&#8217;s Monster Machines category<\/a>, don&#8217;t miss <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/5822447\/the-worlds-most-gargantuan-diesel-engine\" target=\"_blank\">the largest Diesel engine in the world<\/a>. Your flip-flops got paddled across the pond by something very like that.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2011\/07\/26\/sandisk-ultra-ssd-heading-to-retailers-brings-youthful-exuberan\/\" target=\"_blank\">This SSD<\/a> might well make that seven-year-old PC a little bouncier&#8230;but I still recommend maxing out RAM to 4 GB, cleaning the registry, and getting rid of crapware. I&#8217;m less convinced than some people that hard drive speeds are a serious bottleneck when your registry looks like an empty lot in a war zone.<\/li>\n<li>QBit, who on beach walks favors dead fish but will gladly settle for seaweed, has refused to answer the question: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/id\/2299835\/\" target=\"_blank\">Why do dogs roll in stinky stuff?<\/a><\/li>\n<li>I doubt that this would ever work, irrespective of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aviastar.org\/helicopters_eng\/papin.php\" target=\"_blank\">its cool halfway-to-dieselpunk looks.<\/a> It does make me wonder what other cool stuff might have been drowned out in the racket coming from WWI. (Thanks to Gary Kato for the link.)<\/li>\n<li>And I <em>know<\/em> damned well that <a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-A2jhm9ZCLa8\/TeEr2k_D4dI\/AAAAAAAANHI\/VbNbO1Be78I\/s1600\/coal+flying+boat.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">this<\/a> wouldn&#8217;t work, but it goes all the way to full-bore, balls-out dieselpunk fantasy. (Thanks again to Gary Kato.)<\/li>\n<li>Perhaps you&#8217;ve seen the Dyson Fan on TV ads. <a href=\"http:\/\/electronics.howstuffworks.com\/gadgets\/home\/dyson-bladeless-fan.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Here&#8217;s how they work<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baerendreck-apotheke.de\/frameset.htm\" target=\"_blank\">The site is in German<\/a>, and is well-known in Europe for high-end licorice. Pete Albrecht assures me that the name of the company really does translate as &#8220;Bearshit Pharmacy.&#8221; Wow.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A lot happened while I was down in Taos, and I&#8217;ll do my best to catch up a little here today. But as you&#8217;ve seen from my two entries about the workshop, it was tough to pay attention to anything there but the challenge at hand. More photos from the workshop: Christie Yant has established [&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":[38,15,43,54,14,101,110],"class_list":["post-2045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots","tag-dogs","tag-hardware","tag-humor","tag-science","tag-software","tag-steampunk","tag-tablets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2045","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=2045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2045\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}