{"id":3350,"date":"2015-02-08T11:33:10","date_gmt":"2015-02-08T18:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=3350"},"modified":"2015-02-08T11:33:11","modified_gmt":"2015-02-08T18:33:11","slug":"odd-lots-274","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=3350","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><a href= \"http:\/\/blog.dilbert.com\/post\/109880240641\/sciences-biggest-fail\" target=\"_blank\">Scott Adams reminds us that science has failed us on diet and health so often that some people assume that science itself is unreliable<\/a>. His point is good: Being wrong is part of the scientific method, but humans see patterns in things, and that pattern simply means that science is slower than we&#8217;d like, and refines knowledge over time by identifying our mistakes. We forget this at our peril.<\/li>\n<li><a href= \"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gadgets\/2015\/02\/review-intels-broadwell-mini-pc-is-a-next-generation-ultrabook-in-a-box\/\" target=\"_blank\">Intel&#8217;s latest rev of its NUC (Next Unit of Computing)<\/a> has a Broadwell CPU and a swappable lid that provides a standard form factor for 3rd party extensions. The only big mistake is the total lack of SD card slots. We&#8217;re well along toward my 15-year-old prediction that computers will ultimately be swellings on the backs of monitors.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/2015\/02\/white-house-drone\/\" target=\"_blank\">Why the Feds are terrified of hobby helicopters<\/a>. (Drones? No, you&#8217;ve got it backwards. Those are the Feds.) This is nonsense, and the whole thing is a dodge. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=3119\" target= \"_blank\">I made this point some time back<\/a>: <em>Governments do not want to be watched<\/em>. No governments, anywhere. That&#8217;s what the whole &#8220;drones&#8221; thing is about, top to bottom.<\/li>\n<li><a href= \"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/2015\/02\/dear-radioshack-adored-love-wired\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Wired<\/em> staffers bid farewell to Radio Shack<\/a>. Me too. I considered a TRS-80 in 1978, and occasionally regretted not getting one once my friend Jim Dunn bought one in 1979.<\/li>\n<li>Radio Shack, yes. We also forget how the Model 100 (noisily) transformed tech journalism. In 1984 <a href= \"http:\/\/www.old-computers.com\/museum\/computer.asp?st=1&amp;c=489\" target=\"_blank\">Xerox tried to field a competitor to the Model 100<\/a>, which I evaluated for our department. It was hideous, and (worse) cost $2500, which would be $5700 today!<\/li>\n<li><a href= \"http:\/\/www.radioshackcatalogs.com\/html\/index_general.html\" target= \"_blank\">Here&#8217;s the mother lode of scanned and browsable Radio Shack catalogs<\/a>. I still have a few of these. (Thanks to Esther Schindler for the link.) As an example, <a href= \"http:\/\/www.radioshackcatalogs.com\/catalogs\/1977\/pages\/011.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">here&#8217;s the page describing the stereo I bought the first Christmas Carol and I were married<\/a>, 38 years ago. It still works, and we still use it.<\/li>\n<li>Very cool physics demo on YouTube: <a href= \"http:\/\/physics.stackexchange.com\/questions\/150033\/how-does-this-simple-electric-train-work\" target=\"_blank\">An AA battery and four disk magnets pull themselves around inside a tube made of coiled copper wire<\/a>. (Thanks to Bob Fegert for the link.)<\/li>\n<li><a href= \"http:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2015-02-kitchen-sponge-supercapacitor-porous-benefits.html\" target=\"_blank\">A supercapacitor made from nanoelectrodes and a kitchen sponge.<\/a> (Again, thanks to Bob Fegert for the link.)<\/li>\n<li><a href= \"http:\/\/wattsupwiththat.com\/2015\/02\/07\/tides-earthquakes-and-volcanoes\/\" target=\"_blank\">Tides do not seem to affect earthquakes and volcanic eruptions<\/a>. The discussion is plainly written and I think anybody can follow it.<\/li>\n<li>I hadn&#8217;t heard of <a href= \"https:\/\/bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com\/2015\/01\/07\/announcing-sad-puppies-3\/\" target=\"_blank\">the Sad Puppies<\/a> before a few days ago. (Whatever you may think of the concept, they have <a href= \"http:\/\/home.comcast.net\/~brad.r.torgersen\/misc\/sad_puppies_3_patch.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">a great logo<\/a>.) I guess I&#8217;ve been away from Fandom for awhile.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/lileks.tumblr.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Lileks has a feed on Tumblr<\/a>. Worth following, as is <a href= \"http:\/\/weirdvintage.tumblr.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Weird Vintage<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scott Adams reminds us that science has failed us on diet and health so often that some people assume that science itself is unreliable. His point is good: Being wrong is part of the scientific method, but humans see patterns in things, and that pattern simply means that science is slower than we&#8217;d like, and [&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":[21,15,39,43,54,18],"class_list":["post-3350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots","tag-electronics","tag-hardware","tag-health","tag-humor","tag-science","tag-sf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3350","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=3350"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3351,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3350\/revisions\/3351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}