{"id":293,"date":"2008-08-06T18:20:00","date_gmt":"2008-08-06T22:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=293"},"modified":"2009-01-14T17:41:09","modified_gmt":"2009-01-14T21:41:09","slug":"odd-lots-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=293","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li> I&apos;ll be staying at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.starwoodhotels.com\/westin\/property\/overview\/index.html?propertyID=1012\">Westin                 Tabor Center in Denver<\/a> for Worldcon, so leaving messages there                 is one way to reach me if you don&apos;t have my cell number.<\/li>\n<li>I like the word &#8220;feckless&#8221;\u2014it describes so many                 people so completely, without an excess of venom\u2014and often                 wondered if there were a word &#8220;feckful&#8221; to describe                 the opposite state. <a href=\"http:\/\/eyeblister.blogspot.com\/2007\/11\/davids-definitions-for-december-07-and.html\">Yes                 indeedy<\/a>: Both words come from &#8220;feck&#8221;, an old Scots                 root from which we also get &#8220;effective,&#8221; but somehow                 &#8220;feckful&#8221; never caught on with non-Scots speakers of                 English.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.wired.com\/gadgets\/2008\/08\/toyota-announce.html\">This<\/a>                 mystifies me. 3.7 miles per hour is a modest walk, and this doesn&apos;t                 look like something a disabled person would be likely to get on                 and stay on. And if you&apos;re a guy and <i>don&apos;t<\/i> stay on it,                 ouch! That vertical pillar between your thighs could go to a very                 bad place&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>And speaking of Odd Things That Go, here&apos;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seriouswheels.com\/cars\/top-2006-Smart-Forfun2-Concept.htm\">a                 cross between a Smart car and a Unimog<\/a>. (Again, thanks, Pete!)<\/li>\n<li>And also speaking of Odd Things That Don&apos;t Go: The concrete                 thingie we saw in Ogallala (see my entry for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.duntemann.com\/Diary.htm#08-05-2008\">August                 5, 2008<\/a>) bears strong resemblance to the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Czech_hedgehog\">Czech                 Hedgehog<\/a> (thanks to Bishop Sam&apos;l Bassett for the link) but                 I&apos;m pretty sure it&apos;s a closer relation to the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/A-jack\">A-Jack<\/a>                 and the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Xbloc\">Xbloc<\/a>,                 both of which are used for building breakwaters. (Thanks to Pete                 Albrecht for spotting those for me.)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2008\/08\/01\/AR2008080101340.html\">Amazon                 has purchased ABEBooks<\/a>, from which I have purchased most of                 the used books I&apos;ve read over the past three years. I don&apos;t know                 if this is good or not. Actually, I don&apos;t know if this is bad                 or not. The best we might hope for is retaining the status quo.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com\/2008\/07\/21\/good-news-on-saturated-fat\/\">The                 Fat Nazis are once more struggling to keep ground gained long                 ago<\/a>. It&apos;s gotten to the point where I just don&apos;t trust medical                 advice anymore. I eat lots of protein (meat, eggs, and peanuts),                 lots of dairy, a fair amount of fruit, as much vegetables as I                 can choke down (which I admit is not much; they mostly taste like                 poison to me) some carbs (but not a lot) and almost no sugar.                 I cut obvious fat off of meat and then stop thinking about it.                 My blood chem and pressure are good. I weigh less than I have                 in 15 years. On nights when I can sleep well, I feel great. For                 me at least, this war is over.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&apos;ll be staying at the Westin Tabor Center in Denver for Worldcon, so leaving messages there is one way to reach me if you don&apos;t have my cell number. I like the word &#8220;feckless&#8221;\u2014it describes so many people so completely, without an excess of venom\u2014and often wondered if there were a word &#8220;feckful&#8221; to describe [&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-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293","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=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":305,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions\/305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}