{"id":3212,"date":"2014-08-06T20:33:22","date_gmt":"2014-08-07T02:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=3212"},"modified":"2014-08-07T10:14:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-07T16:14:00","slug":"odd-lots-260","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=3212","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><a href= \"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/technology\/sony\/11013820\/Sony-admits-defeat-in-e-reader-battle-with-Amazon.html\" target=\"_blank\">Sony is shutting down its ebook reader business<\/a>. Note the line that says with a straight face: &#8220;&#8230;the Librie was the first to use the e-ink display that makes long sessions headache free&#8230;&#8221; Headache-free? Headaches were why I stopped using the PRS-500.<\/li>\n<li><a href= \"http:\/\/sploid.gizmodo.com\/the-surface-of-a-comet-seen-up-close-for-the-first-time-1616990423\/+caseychan\" target=\"_blank\">Here are the best shots I&#8217;ve seen of the first comet we&#8217;ve seen really close up<\/a>. Y&#8217;know, I&#8217;ll bet we could make that into <em>two<\/em> comets if we really wanted to.<\/li>\n<li><a href= \"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/2014\/07\/virtual-unreality-the-online-sockpuppets-that-trick-us-all\/\" target=\"_blank\">According to <em>Wired<\/em>, there are Type 1 and Type 2 sockpuppets<\/a>. I&#8217;ll bet there are others.<\/li>\n<li>Is luck really luck? <a href= \"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/technology\/3304496\/Be-lucky-its-an-easy-skill-to-learn.html\" target=\"_blank\">Or is it some combination of skills and attitude?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href= \"http:\/\/www.firearmsid.com\/feature%20articles\/rifledbarrelmanuf\/barrelmanufacture.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Here&#8217;s a detailed description of how rifle barrels are made<\/a>. It&#8217;s a much more subtle business than I thought. (Thanks to Pete Albrecht for the link.)<\/li>\n<li>In case you were too young to actually be part of the 60s muscle car culture and wondered what all the jargon was in the old Beach Boys&#8217; song &#8220;Shut Down,&#8221; <a href= \"http:\/\/www.carlustblog.com\/2010\/04\/great-cars-of-song-shut-down.html\" target=\"_blank\">here&#8217;s a detailed discussion<\/a>. I was crushed: The mighty Corvette was going up against a &#8220;413,&#8221; which was in fact a&#8230;<em>Dodge Dart<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Someone asked me what I think about the <a href= \"http:\/\/theness.com\/neurologicablog\/index.php\/nasa-tests-em-drive\/\" target=\"_blank\">EmDrive<\/a>. Answer: I don&#8217;t. And until it&#8217;s demonstrated as thrust against gravity rather than thrust against a torsion spring, I won&#8217;t.<\/li>\n<li><a href= \"http:\/\/lifehacker.com\/the-complete-guide-to-making-animated-gifs-1503276993\" target=\"_blank\">Why, Lord? WHY?<\/a><\/li>\n<li>I thought I was imagining it, but evidently not: There really was a book called <em><a href= \"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Science-Milk-Cartons-Herman-Schneider\/dp\/B00CSVA5OU\/\" target=\"_blank\">Science Fun with Milk Cartons<\/a><\/em> . Now, where did I see the line, &#8220;Fun with Giant Frogs&#8221;?<\/li>\n<li><a href= \"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Fuck-YES-Guide-Acceptance-Everything-ebook\/dp\/B005CXQ0YU\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1407422944&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=fuck+yes\" target=\"_blank\">This one was real too<\/a>, and I saw it face-out at eye-level in Bookstar.<\/li>\n<li>Speaking of real things, <a href= \"http:\/\/www.amplifyingglass.com\/products\/\" target=\"_blank\">there&#8217;s a hot drink (tea of some sort, by the looks of it) called Urinal<\/a>. (Scroll down.) I can guess where that one&#8217;s going. (Thanks to Irene Smith for the link.)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amplifyingglass.com\/products3\/\" target= \"_blank\">More of the same here<\/a>, though you&#8217;ll have to scroll to the very end to see the can of Unicorn Meat.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sony is shutting down its ebook reader business. Note the line that says with a straight face: &#8220;&#8230;the Librie was the first to use the e-ink display that makes long sessions headache free&#8230;&#8221; Headache-free? Headaches were why I stopped using the PRS-500. Here are the best shots I&#8217;ve seen of the first comet we&#8217;ve seen [&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":[41,17,43,49,46],"class_list":["post-3212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots","tag-astronomy","tag-ebooks","tag-humor","tag-music","tag-psychology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3212","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=3212"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3216,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3212\/revisions\/3216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}