{"id":2674,"date":"2012-12-01T20:52:23","date_gmt":"2012-12-02T03:52:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2674"},"modified":"2012-12-01T20:52:24","modified_gmt":"2012-12-02T03:52:24","slug":"odd-lots-205","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2674","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Juggling, thing-throwing robots are a major theme of my newly completed novel, <em>Ten Gentle Opportunities<\/em>. <a href=\"http:\/\/io9.com\/5963295\/disney-is-populating-their-theme-parks-with-robots-that-can-throw-things-at-you\" target=\"_blank\">It&#8217;s a good bet they&#8217;ll be deployed in Disney theme parks eventually.<\/a> I&#8217;m not sure why, but I find this very depressing.<\/li>\n<li>I read this when it first appeared ten years ago and I still think it&#8217;s true: <a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2012\/11\/how-four-microsoft-engineers-proved-copy-protection-would-fail\/\" target=\"_blank\">DRM does not and cannot do what it&#8217;s supposed to do<\/a>. This from Microsoft, heh. I sure wish they&#8217;d quit trying.<\/li>\n<li>Here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2012\/10\/30\/how-to-picking-a-window-manager-linux\/\" target=\"_blank\">a good quick survey of Linux window managers<\/a>, starting out by explaining the difference between a window manager and a desktop environment. (We don&#8217;t have this problem in the Windows world.)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/wiredscience\/2012\/11\/carnivorous-neighbors-how-sabercats-and-a-bear-dog-managed-to-coexist\/\" target=\"_blank\">Smilodons and bear dogs somehow managed to coexist<\/a>. What I don&#8217;t understand is how I lived sixty years without ever hearing the term &#8220;bear dog.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>I dunno. <a href=\"http:\/\/io9.com\/5963263\/how-nasa-will-build-its-very-first-warp-drive?\" target=\"_blank\">This<\/a> reminds me a little of Cold Fusion: We all want it desperately, but it just seems so damned <em>unlikely<\/em>. (Thanks nonetheless to Frank Glover for the link.)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2012\/11\/are-your-facebook-friends-stressing-you-out-yes\/265626\/\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook enforces a sort of least-common-denominator social behavior on people<\/a>, and is thus stressful. In other words, everybody&#8217;s got a hot button, and if you have enough friends people will get pissed at you no matter what you say. The people who don&#8217;t care are probably the only ones who should be on Facebook.<\/li>\n<li>Not space-efficient, but very cool in its way: <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/5964307\/moebius-hanger-bends-time-and-space-to-de+wrinkle-your-shirts\" target=\"_blank\">the Moebius clothes hanger<\/a>. (Big question: If you buy two will they breed in the closet?)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Cannon-Safe-CO54-Commander-Champagne\/dp\/B004Y0WET2\/insta0c-20\" target=\"_blank\">This is the heaviest thing that Amazon will ship for free<\/a>. It weighs a ton. (Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link.)<\/li>\n<li>If you still have a Commodore 64 (or something like it) try <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/technology\/books\/2012\/11\/computer_programming_10_print_chr_205_5_rnd_1_goto_10_from_mit_press_reviewed.html\" target=\"_blank\">this one-line BASIC program<\/a>. Amazing.<\/li>\n<li>Yes, except that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/health\/archive\/2012\/11\/the-case-for-drinking-as-much-coffee-as-you-like\/265693\/\" target=\"_blank\">if I drink as much as I want,<\/a> I wouldn&#8217;t sleep. (I barely sleep without drinking it at all.)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/cuteinkorea.com\/oppan-gangnam-style\/\" target=\"_blank\">Everything you didn&#8217;t really want to know about Gangnam Style and didn&#8217;t feel like asking<\/a>. The funniest thing about the video is that it doesn&#8217;t go anywhere near the ritzy Gangnam area that it&#8217;s named for, though I would expect only Koreans to get that part.<\/li>\n<li>Oh&#8211;and the name of the dance that PSY and his gang are doing is (as best I can tell) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/arts-post\/post\/gangnam-styles-invisible-horse-dance-crazegiddyup\/2012\/08\/23\/0dec6ace-ed29-11e1-b09d-07d971dee30a_blog.html\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;the invisible horse dance.&#8221;<\/a> It&#8217;s a natural at weddings. Watch out, chicken dance&#8211;your days are numbered.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Juggling, thing-throwing robots are a major theme of my newly completed novel, Ten Gentle Opportunities. It&#8217;s a good bet they&#8217;ll be deployed in Disney theme parks eventually. I&#8217;m not sure why, but I find this very depressing. I read this when it first appeared ten years ago and I still think it&#8217;s true: DRM does [&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":[127,59,49,108,32,54],"class_list":["post-2674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots","tag-dance","tag-linux","tag-music","tag-piracy","tag-programming","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2674","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=2674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2675,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2674\/revisions\/2675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}