{"id":2950,"date":"2013-08-21T09:00:54","date_gmt":"2013-08-21T15:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2950"},"modified":"2013-08-21T09:40:46","modified_gmt":"2013-08-21T15:40:46","slug":"odd-lots-236","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2950","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><em>Wired<\/em> ran <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/rawfile\/2011\/06\/ekranoplan\/\" target=\"_blank\">a wonderful photo piece<\/a> on one of the weirdest aircraft ever to fly: the Soviet Union&#8217;s ground-effect ship-killer seaplane <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lun-class_ekranoplan\" target=\"_blank\">Lun<\/a>. (Thanks to Mike Bentley for the pointer.)<\/li>\n<li>Surezhell, a faint tickle of a memory led me back to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.darkroastedblend.com\/2013\/08\/the-ekranoplans-showcase-part-1.html\" target=\"_blank\">even more Lun-y goodness<\/a> at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.darkroastedblend.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Dark Roasted Blend<\/a>. Don&#8217;t forget <a href=\"http:\/\/www.darkroastedblend.com\/2009\/06\/ekranoplans-showcase-part-2.html\" target=\"_blank\">Part 2<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Which led directly to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.darkroastedblend.com\/2013\/05\/awesome-armoured-trains-and-rail.html\" target=\"_blank\">Awesome Armored Trains<\/a>. (Steamfrack? Again, the Russians seem to be the masters of this game.)<\/li>\n<li>Yet another photo gatherum from Spiegel, highlighting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiegel.de\/international\/zeitgeist\/brilliant-but-unrealistic-designs-for-futuristic-transport-a-916765.html\" target=\"_blank\">zany transportation ideas that didn&#8217;t pan out<\/a>. Or get anywhere near the pan.<\/li>\n<li>Ars has a nice article on a very new category of aircraft: <a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/information-technology\/2013\/08\/almost-orbital-solar-powered-drone-offered-as-atmospheric-satellite\/\" target=\"_blank\">the solar-powered &#8220;atmospheric satellite,&#8221;<\/a> a robot plane that flies in the high atmosphere for indefinite periods without fuel.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/wiredscience\/2013\/08\/large-explosion-at-sakurajima-dusts-kagoshima-with-ash\/\" target=\"_blank\">Sakurajima is acting up again<\/a>. That was one of my favorite volcanoes when I was a kid, right after now-extinct (probably) <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Par\u00edcutin\" target=\"_blank\">Paracutin<\/a>. One thing to note here is how good the comments are. I read Klemetti&#8217;s blog as much for his community as for his own (excellent) posts. No politics, no hate, no incessant <em>tu quoque<\/em> from tribal slaves. You don&#8217;t see that very often.<\/li>\n<li>As with all claims in this category, whether fission or fusion, I&#8217;ll believe it when I see it, but damn, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/news\/518116\/a-nuclear-reactor-competitive-with-natural-gas\/\" target=\"_blank\">I would like to see this<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/for-barnes-and-nobles-nook-the-beginning-of-the-end-7000019630\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Nook business is in trouble<\/a>. We&#8217;ve seen that coming, but it makes me wonder if the Nook is alone, or if the rest of the color-screen ebook readers are falling into line behind it. (E-ink will remain as a niche for daylight reading.) I read ebooks on my Transformer Prime. Works. It&#8217;s a general-purpose tablet with a keyboard dock that makes it an only slightly crippled laptop. The number of specialized gadgets I&#8217;m willing to cart around is limited.<\/li>\n<li>That said, <a href=\"http:\/\/publishingperspectives.com\/2013\/08\/reports-of-barnes-nobles-death-are-greatly-exaggerated\/\" target=\"_blank\">B&amp;N&#8217;s print book business is in reasonably good shape<\/a>, especially its very profitable textbook division. (Thanks to Janet Perlman for the link.)<\/li>\n<li>Ouch. <a href=\"http:\/\/sethgodin.typepad.com\/seths_blog\/2013\/08\/an-end-of-books.html\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;There&#8217;s no real ebook piracy problem because most people don&#8217;t think books are worth stealing.&#8221;<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org\/2013\/08\/12\/an-industry-pining-for-bookstores\/\" target=\"_blank\">Publishing is an ecosystem, and the parts don&#8217;t thrive without the whole<\/a>. The ecosystem can change, of course, but the changes take time, and not all parts of the system will survive the changes. (Again, thanks to Janet Perlman for the link.)<\/li>\n<li>Forget underage women. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/news\/2013\/08\/16\/amazon-restricts-students-bringing-certain-textbook-rentals-across-state-lines\" target=\"_blank\">Crossing state lines with rented textbooks can get you into trouble<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.darkroastedblend.com\/2013\/08\/we-dare-you-to-play-these-scores.html\" target=\"_blank\">Composers on acid?<\/a> I&#8217;d be curious to hear from experienced musicians whether most of these, um, <em>compositions<\/em> are playable at all.<\/li>\n<li>Now this is the sort of drought I can celebrate: <a href=\"http:\/\/wattsupwiththat.com\/2013\/08\/19\/2013-is-a-record-low-year-for-u-s-tornadoes\/\" target=\"_blank\">We&#8217;re looking at a record low tornado count this year<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>On the hurricane side, the accumulated cyclonic energy (ACE) value, which is an aggregate of how much power has been seen in cyclonic storms so far this year, is <a href=\"http:\/\/policlimate.com\/tropical\/\" target=\"_blank\">48% of normal to August 21<\/a>. Less than half. The Coriolis Gods are evidently taking a break. Let&#8217;s hope it&#8217;s a long one.<\/li>\n<li>The latest Duluth Trading catalog is pushing a product called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.duluthtrading.com\/store\/mens\/duluth-ingenuity\/mens-ballroom-jeans\/mens-ballroom-jeans.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Ballroom Jeans<\/a>. Huh? For cowboy proms? Ballroom&#8230;wait. Ok. I get it.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ilovebacon.com\/fresh-bacon\/textured-vegetable-protein.html\" target=\"_blank\">Always read food labels carefully<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wired ran a wonderful photo piece on one of the weirdest aircraft ever to fly: the Soviet Union&#8217;s ground-effect ship-killer seaplane Lun. (Thanks to Mike Bentley for the pointer.) Surezhell, a faint tickle of a memory led me back to even more Lun-y goodness at Dark Roasted Blend. Don&#8217;t forget Part 2. Which led directly [&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":[76,33,17,43,16,54,31],"class_list":["post-2950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots","tag-aviation","tag-books","tag-ebooks","tag-humor","tag-publishing","tag-science","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2950","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=2950"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2954,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2950\/revisions\/2954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}