{"id":2763,"date":"2013-02-18T19:21:48","date_gmt":"2013-02-19T02:21:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2763"},"modified":"2013-02-18T19:21:54","modified_gmt":"2013-02-19T02:21:54","slug":"odd-lots-215","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2763","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Carol and I are now home from Chicago, still bumping into walls but doing better. If you haven&#8217;t heard from me in a couple of weeks that&#8217;s why.<\/li>\n<li>Chicago burned on October 8, 1871. The cow did it, right? Well, there were a lot of other serious fires around the American midwest that same night. Tucking my ears into my tinfoil hat here: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.strangehistory.org\/cms\/index.php\/home\/16-great-midwest-fires-of-1871-october-8-12-1871\" target=\"_blank\">What if a cluster of biggish small meteorites hit the country that night, sparking fires wherever they fell?<\/a> The more Russian dashcam videos I see, the less outrageous I think the idea is. (Thanks to Michele Marek for the link.)<\/li>\n<li>And for people who say that the Russians seem to attract meteorites, <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/5985185\/here-is-a-map-that-shows-every-meteorite-that-has-hit-earth-since-2300-bc\" target=\"_blank\">look at this<\/a>. I&#8217;d say The Curse of the Splat People has been laid upon northern new Mexico.<\/li>\n<li>Why am I so fascinated by the Neanderthals? Aside from the fact that I may well have a Neanderthal-ish skull and ribcage, it&#8217;s hard to beat our big-brained, musclebound brothers for idea triggers. <a href=\"http:\/\/takimag.com\/article\/thawing_out_the_neanderthals_gregory_cochran\/print\" target=\"_blank\">I had never considered Taki&#8217;s startling question: Would they vote Republican?<\/a> Or would they just tear your arm off for asking? (Thanks to Bruce Baker for the link.)<\/li>\n<li>Search Google Patents for Edward F. Marwick, and you will find 205 different patents filed by my very own late high school physics teacher. He told us about a few of them (like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/patents\/US4344913?pg=PA1&amp;dq=Edward+Marwick&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=nbsiUZOtDsigywHIyYDoBA&amp;ved=0CDkQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&amp;q=Edward Marwick&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\">this one<\/a>) in 1969. We thought he was kidding. The man was a damned good physics teacher, and he thought <em>big<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Bill Beaty posted a comment on Contra for my September 7, 2011 entry describing a very simple solid-state equivalent using an MPF102 and a 9V battery. <a href=\"http:\/\/amasci.com\/emotor\/chargdet.html\" target=\"_blank\">A full description is on his site<\/a>, and it&#8217;s worth seeing if you have an unscratched itch for a half-hour project.<\/li>\n<li>I think I aggregated <a href=\"http:\/\/steampunkworkshop.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">the Steampunk Workshop<\/a> before, but it&#8217;s worth mentioning again. Beautiful stuff, startling craftsmanship. Like <a href=\"http:\/\/steampunkworkshop.com\/daveveloz.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">this Mac Mini mod<\/a>. Wow. (Thanks to Bill Cherepy for pointing it out.)<\/li>\n<li>Carol and I had to cancel our entry of Dash and Jack in the big <a href=\"http:\/\/coloradokennelclub.org\/Rocky_Mt_Cluster_Show.html\" target=\"_blank\">Rocky Mountain Cluster dog show<\/a> for obvious reasons, but one of our Bichon Club members posted <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aENRjgEyFQA&amp;\" target=\"_blank\">a wonderful video of her seven-year-old son Adam showing their puppy, Ruby<\/a>. Ruby and Adam got a blue ribbon. The kid is amazing. Sheesh, when I was that age I was still throwing mushrooms at my sister at the dinner table.<\/li>\n<li>I guess <a href=\"http:\/\/io9.com\/5985001\/drivers-high-on-weed-test-their-driving-skills\" target=\"_blank\">this was inevitable<\/a>, at least in Washington State and\/or Colorado. I suppose the research is useful. (Thanks to Frank Glover for the link.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Carol and I are now home from Chicago, still bumping into walls but doing better. If you haven&#8217;t heard from me in a couple of weeks that&#8217;s why. Chicago burned on October 8, 1871. The cow did it, right? Well, there were a lot of other serious fires around the American midwest that same night. [&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":[41,38,101,72],"class_list":["post-2763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots","tag-astronomy","tag-dogs","tag-steampunk","tag-weirdness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2763","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=2763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2763\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}