{"id":2585,"date":"2012-08-09T18:39:40","date_gmt":"2012-08-10T00:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2585"},"modified":"2012-08-09T19:23:20","modified_gmt":"2012-08-10T01:23:20","slug":"odd-lots-197","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2585","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>For readers who are in the Colorado Springs area: All Breeds Rescue is hosting the 14th annual <a href=\"http:\/\/www.haveanicedog.org\/events\/romp2012.html\" target=\"_blank\">Romp in the Park<\/a> this Saturday, August 11, at Norris Penrose Event Center. The event runs from 10:30 AM to 4:30 PM. Carol will be working it, and I should be there midafternoon with QBit.<\/li>\n<li>The Curiosity rover has a trick I didn&#8217;t hear about until after it landed: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slashgear.com\/curiosity-rover-tags-mars-with-morse-tire-tracks-06241847\/\" target=\"_blank\">Its treads imprint a Morse code pattern in the sand or soft soil it crosses<\/a>. The pattern spells JPL. Now <em>that&#8217;s<\/em> DX!<\/li>\n<li>From Ernie Marek comes a link to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.darkroastedblend.com\/2008\/10\/project-orion-powered-by-atomic-bomb.html\" target=\"_blank\">DRB&#8217;s very visual article on Project Orion<\/a>, including a sketch of Niven\/Pournelle&#8217;s <em>Michael<\/em> spacecraft from <em>Footfall<\/em>. I would have called it OBB, for &#8220;Old Boom-Boom.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Weird clouds are a minor interest of mine, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/wiredscience\/2009\/09\/clouds\/\" target=\"_blank\">here&#8217;s a compendium from <em>Wired<\/em> that I missed when it first appeared in 2009<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/wiredscience\/2012\/08\/possible-eruption-reported-at-new-zealands-tongariro\/\" target=\"_blank\">New Zealand&#8217;s Tongariro volcano just erupted<\/a>&#8211;and it was a complete surprise. I don&#8217;t know if I&#8217;ve mentioned <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/wiredscience\/eruptions\/\" target=\"_blank\">Erik Klemetti&#8217;s Eruptions blog<\/a> on <em>Wired<\/em> before, but it&#8217;s well worth following if you have any interest at all in volcanic phenomena. Erik has a helluva constituency: The comments occasionally contain better insights and links than the blog itself!<\/li>\n<li>Memories sometimes just appear out of nowhere, and the other day I remembered <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/neatocoolville\/2075585493\/\" target=\"_blank\">these<\/a>. My next thought was, <em>Nah, you imagined that!<\/em> But they did exist, and when I was 13 or 14 they were first-run and I used them.<\/li>\n<li>Ballotpedia has <a href=\"http:\/\/ballotpedia.org\/wiki\/index.php\/Net_Worth_of_United_States_Senators_and_Representatives\" target=\"_blank\">a fascinating listing of the net worth of congresspeople and senators<\/a>. First insight: We are ruled by multimillionares. I am not disturbed that some of our representatives are multimillionares. I am disturbed that virtually <em>all<\/em> of them are. Second insight: Compare the net worth of Democratic vs. Republican senators. Things are not what you&#8217;d expect.<\/li>\n<li>From the Hardware WTF File: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.asus.com\/Eee\/Eee_Pad\/Eee_Pad_Transformer_Prime_TF201\/\" target=\"_blank\">The ASUS Transformer Prime&#8217;s otherwise excellent keyboard dock<\/a> <em>does not have a delete key<\/em>. Shift-Backspace is as close as it gets.<\/li>\n<li>And on the outside chance that you too have a Transformer Prime keyboard dock, here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/forums.androidcentral.com\/asus-transformer-prime\/158490-keyboard-shortcuts.html\" target=\"_blank\">a list of keyboard shortcuts<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2012-07-25\/newsweek-owner-says-magazine-will-eventually-be-online-only.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Newsweek<\/em> will probably cease print publication later this year<\/a>. A lot of people have never forgotten their mean-spirited and idiotic 2009 cover story, &#8220;The Case for Killing Granny,&#8221; and I personally cannot wait to see that thing rot in its grave.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/news_and_politics\/assessment\/2001\/07\/august.html\" target=\"_blank\">David Plotz does not like August<\/a>. Me, I could do without March.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For readers who are in the Colorado Springs area: All Breeds Rescue is hosting the 14th annual Romp in the Park this Saturday, August 11, at Norris Penrose Event Center. The event runs from 10:30 AM to 4:30 PM. Carol will be working it, and I should be there midafternoon with QBit. The Curiosity rover [&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":[61,38,15,43,54,18,31],"class_list":["post-2585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots","tag-aerospace","tag-dogs","tag-hardware","tag-humor","tag-science","tag-sf","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585","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=2585"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2587,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585\/revisions\/2587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}