{"id":3254,"date":"2014-10-04T11:35:31","date_gmt":"2014-10-04T17:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=3254"},"modified":"2014-10-04T13:41:24","modified_gmt":"2014-10-04T19:41:24","slug":"odd-lots-264","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=3254","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><a href= \"http:\/\/slatestarcodex.com\/2014\/09\/30\/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup\/\" target=\"_blank\">This overlong, (10,000 word) wandering, muddled, and occasionally brilliant essay<\/a> is a must-read if you feel (like I do) that tribalism and tribal hatred are the greatest threat facing humanity today. We&#8217;re precisely one month away from the midterms, and my phone is ringing a dozen times a day with haters demanding that I hate whole groups of people who have little in common with one another beyond their being hated by the callers. Here&#8217;s a clue, folks: <em>Politics does not give you permission to hate<\/em>. If you hate, you&#8217;re a hater&#8230;and those of us who don&#8217;t hate know who the haters are.<\/li>\n<li>Jim Strickland sends a link to new research on creating <a href=\"http:\/\/www.solardaily.com\/reports\/Blades_of_grass_inspire_advance_in_organic_solar_cells_999.html\" target=\"_blank\">organic solar cells based on short vertical nanopillars<\/a> that look like well-trimmed blades of grass, or a short-pile shag carpet.<\/li>\n<li>Here&#8217;s <a href= \"http:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/why-i-almost-bit-on-bitcoin-and-nearly-bought-into-the-butterfly-labs-scam-7000034201\/\" target=\"_blank\">as clear a statement as I&#8217;ve ever seen why not to play with bitcoin<\/a>, quite apart from the fact that law enforcement probably considers posession of bitcoins ample evidence of criminal activity. No thanks.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/2014\/10\/53-kilobytes-ram-1953\/\" target=\"_blank\">There was 53K of RAM on our planet in 1953<\/a>. And damned if the computers didn&#8217;t want 64.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2014\/10\/04\/Apple-DRM\/\" target= \"_blank\">A case that was a long time brewing may establish additional precedent that DRM is an antitrust violation<\/a>. Actually, what DRM <em>really<\/em> does is turn honest customers into pirates.<\/li>\n<li><a href= \"http:\/\/www.lansingstatejournal.com\/story\/money\/2014\/10\/01\/harsh-winter-halved-state-wine-grape-crop\/16562063\/\" target=\"_blank\">Michigan vineyards are having their worst grape harvest ever this year, thanks to last winter&#8217;s record-breaking cold<\/a>. That&#8217;s a shame; Michigan makes some damned fine wines, especially sweet wines, which we drink when we&#8217;re in Chicago. (I don&#8217;t see them here in Colorado.)<\/li>\n<li>Wines, yes: Back in 1973 I had my first can of wine. The other night I had <a href= \"http:\/\/www.liquormart.com\/infinite-monkey-theorem-back-alley-moscato-23748.html\" target=\"_blank\">my second<\/a>. My first thought: The Seventies are returning, egad. My second thought: Hey, <a href= \"http:\/\/iheartdenver.tumblr.com\/post\/53032360989\" target= \"_blank\">that&#8217;s not bad wine!<\/a><\/li>\n<li>The real reason there will be no Windows 9: <a href= \"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/windows-10-may-have-gotten-its-name-because-of-lazy-cod-1641383218\" target=\"_blank\">Some lazy code jockeys will mistake &#8220;Windows 95&#8221; and &#8220;Windows 98&#8221; for &#8220;Windows 9.&#8221;<\/a> This makes sense to me, and if it reduces the universe&#8217;s bug supply even a little, it&#8217;s a very, very small price to pay.<\/li>\n<li>Wow. <a href= \"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/morning-mix\/wp\/2014\/09\/30\/saturday-morning-cartoons-are-no-more\/\" target=\"_blank\">There are no longer any cartoons on Saturday Morning broadcast TV<\/a>. Which doesn&#8217;t mean that the universe is not awash in cartoons, most of them simply hideous.<\/li>\n<li>Before reading <a href= \"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/double_x\/doublex\/2013\/10\/axe_men_s_body_spray_what_happens_when_a_woman_wears_it_for_a_week.html\" target=\"_blank\">this article<\/a>, I had never heard of <a href= \"http:\/\/www.theaxeeffect.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Axe Deodorant<\/a>. Now, all else being equal, I&#8217;d rather smell like nothing. But do I read here that there&#8217;s an SKU with the scent of&#8230;solder? How about Bakelite terminal strips plus capacitor wax?<\/li>\n<li>Pertinent to the above: The last aftershave I think I ever used regularly was called <a href= \"http:\/\/cleopatrasboudoir.blogspot.com\/2014\/01\/nuts-bolts-colognes.html\" target=\"_blank\">Nuts &amp; Bolts<\/a> in, I believe, 1971.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This overlong, (10,000 word) wandering, muddled, and occasionally brilliant essay is a must-read if you feel (like I do) that tribalism and tribal hatred are the greatest threat facing humanity today. We&#8217;re precisely one month away from the midterms, and my phone is ringing a dozen times a day with haters demanding that I hate [&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":[15,44,151,32,46,54,88,13],"class_list":["post-3254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots","tag-hardware","tag-history","tag-memoir","tag-programming","tag-psychology","tag-science","tag-windows","tag-wine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254","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=3254"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3259,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254\/revisions\/3259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}