{"id":2935,"date":"2013-08-05T20:06:58","date_gmt":"2013-08-06T02:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2935"},"modified":"2013-08-05T20:09:26","modified_gmt":"2013-08-06T02:09:26","slug":"odd-lots-235","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2935","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Have been grumpy and researching boring things lately. But leaf by niggle, the Odd Lots pile continues to grow. So you get two running.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/astronomy.com\/perseids2013\" target=\"_blank\">The Perseids are coming up<\/a>. The peak will occur the night of August 11-12, but look toward the northeast after midnight any night before then (and for a few days after) and you&#8217;ll see a few. People are posting idiotic Facebook memes claiming that the Perseids are among the rarest of all meteor showers. The Perseids happen like clockwork once a year, when the Earth wanders into the trail of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Comet_Swift\u2013Tuttle\" target=\"_blank\">comet Smith-Tuttle<\/a>. Virtually all meteor showers happen once a year. None are &#8220;rare.&#8221; Vet your memes, willya?<\/li>\n<li>Here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/wattsupwiththat.com\/2013\/07\/28\/solar-cycle-24-update-2\/\" target=\"_blank\">a good quick summary of the current state of Solar Cycle 24<\/a>. Doesn&#8217;t look good for Solar Cycle 25, at least if you&#8217;re a DXer. Or someone in a northern latitude.<\/li>\n<li>August 21, 2017. Nebraska. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eclipse2017.org\/2017\/maps\/states\/NE_web.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Probably the best (and certainly the closest) solar eclipse most of us will ever see again<\/a>. Some friends and I will be there. Anybody wanna join us?<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gottabemobile.com\/2013\/07\/31\/samsung-840-evo-ssd-1tb\/\" target=\"_blank\">Samsung&#8217;s new 1TB (!!) SSD<\/a> will cost $650, and should be available soon. 1 TB. <em>2 ounces<\/em>. Egad.<\/li>\n<li>I used <a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/science\/2013\/08\/simple-technique-puts-graphene-capacitors-on-par-with-lead-acid-battery\/\" target=\"_blank\">graphene supercapacitors<\/a> as electrical hand grenades in <em>Ten Gentle Opportunities<\/em>. If you ever find yourself in the middle of a robot zombie apocalypse, it could be a useful technique.<\/li>\n<li>So I asked, &#8220;Who wants <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/these-protein-bars-are-made-of-crickets-1021284151\" target=\"_blank\">one of these candy bars<\/a>?&#8221; Crickets.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nypost.com\/p\/news\/business\/new_york_times_sells_boston_globe_8pziM8qnFjU4EPvMOtAPzJ\" target=\"_blank\">The <em>New York Times<\/em> has sold the <em>Boston Globe<\/em> to the owner of the Red Sox, at a 93% loss<\/a>. This is actually good: Newspapers should be owned and controlled by people in the areas they serve. And the <em>Times<\/em> got a billion-dollar spanking. Priceless.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/makezine.com\/video\/developing-fingerprints-with-super-glue\/\" target=\"_blank\">Go for it, Sherlock<\/a>. Just don&#8217;t glue your fingers together.<\/li>\n<li>From Mike Bentley: <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/G\u00f6bekli_Tepe\" target=\"_blank\">A temple complex in Turkey that may be 11,500 years old<\/a>, older by a significant fraction than <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/\u00c7atalh\u00f6y\u00fck\" target=\"_blank\">Catal Hoyuk<\/a>, which may go back to about 7,500 BC. How could primitive humans have possibly done that? No, wait&#8230;it must have been the Neanderthals. Either way: Eat your heart out, Pharaoh.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.darkroastedblend.com\/2011\/04\/automotive-madness-funny-pics.html\" target=\"_blank\">Big Dangerous Things With Wheels. And Small Silly-Assed Things With Wheels<\/a>. If that isn&#8217;t enough, here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.darkroastedblend.com\/2013\/06\/automotive-madness-funny-pics-part-2.html\" target=\"_blank\">Part 2<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Steve Lesser has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo.php?fbid=473174959447360&amp;amp;set=p.473174959447360&amp;amp;type=1&amp;amp;theater\" target=\"_blank\">a very nice photo of the Turtle Wax turtle statue<\/a> atop a building at Madison and Ashland in Chicago. It was there until the mid-1960s, but I still don&#8217;t have crisp dates for when it was erected and when it was taken down.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/06\/24\/sports\/ncaabasketball\/critics-say-chicago-shouldnt-aid-depaul-arena-with-schools-being-shut-down.html\" target=\"_blank\">My very wealthy alma mater is cooperating with the City of Chicago to build a $173M basketball stadium for its team, all while the city is shutting down schools in poor neighborhoods for lack of money<\/a>. Note to De Paul: <em>You are filth<\/em>. I will tell people you are filth for the rest of my life. You will never get a nickel out of me again.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have been grumpy and researching boring things lately. But leaf by niggle, the Odd Lots pile continues to grow. So you get two running. The Perseids are coming up. The peak will occur the night of August 11-12, but look toward the northeast after midnight any night before then (and for a few days after) [&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":[37,45,15,44,54,72],"class_list":["post-2935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots","tag-food","tag-ham-radio","tag-hardware","tag-history","tag-science","tag-weirdness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2935","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=2935"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2937,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2935\/revisions\/2937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}