{"id":357,"date":"2008-06-15T15:04:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-15T19:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=357"},"modified":"2009-01-14T21:39:55","modified_gmt":"2009-01-15T01:39:55","slug":"odd-lots-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=357","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>After posting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.duntemann.com\/Diary.htm#06-13-2008\">my June 13, 2008 entry<\/a>,                 I did locate <a href=\"http:\/\/jjesse.wordpress.com\/2008\/06\/09\/excited-for-ubuntu-netbook-remix\/\">an                 unofficial list of apps to be included in the Ubuntu Netbook Remix                 distro<\/a>: Firefox, Thunderbird, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pidgin.im\/\">Pidgin<\/a>,                 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gnome.org\/projects\/rhythmbox\/\">Rhythmbox<\/a>,                 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fbreader.org\/\">FBReader<\/a> (for ebooks),                 <a href=\"http:\/\/liferea.sourceforge.net\/\">Liferea<\/a> (RSS feed                 reader), <a href=\"http:\/\/f-spot.org\/Main_Page\">F-Spot<\/a> (photo                 viewer) and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.openoffice.org\/\">OpenOffice<\/a>.                 No serious surprises here, though I wonder how well a mobile CPU                 like Atom will run OpenOffice. I guess we&apos;ll find out later this                 year.<\/li>\n<li>Ken Taaffe spotted <a href=\"http:\/\/www.duntemann.com\/june2007.htm#06-08-2007\">my                 lament that my rotatable parts tower was no longer available<\/a>,                 and pointed out that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.globalindustrial.com\/gcs\/product\/productsPerPicGroups.web?picGroupKey=137&amp;options.parentCategoryKey=124&amp;index=4&amp;catSearchParams.categoryKey=1581&amp;REQ_SUB_CAT=Drawer+Cabinets#gridAnchor\">it                 can be had from a different vendor<\/a>. It&apos;s more expensive than                 it was in 1990 (though what isn&apos;t?) but it looks like precisely                 the same item. $439. I paid about $350 for it in 1990. See a photo                 in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.duntemann.com\/12vtubes\/shoptips.htm\">my                 shop tips article<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Years ago, I half-seriously suggested that somebody should create                 a Bottom 60 radio format, and only play songs that charted but                 never made it into the Top 40. Well, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.superoldies.com\/main.html\">Shawn                 Nagy&apos;s SuperOldies<\/a> is pretty much the item, though it uses                 the Cash Box charts rather than Billboard. It&apos;s Internet Radio                 and you can listen with Winamp and other Internet Radio players.                 I&apos;ve had it on for most of an hour and have yet to hear a song                 that I recognize. Is that good? Well, how bored with Clear Channel                 are you?<\/li>\n<li>I&apos;m intrigued by a recent run of articles about tweaking certain                 simple algae and bacteria to produce Diesel fuel as a metabolic                 waste product. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk\/tol\/news\/environment\/article4133633.ece\">Here&apos;s                 one<\/a>. And <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk\/tol\/news\/environment\/article4133668.ece\">another<\/a>,                 both from the <i>London Times<\/i>. Assuming that this works reliably                 and doesn&apos;t have a downside, we may all eventually have a refrigerator-sized                 thingie in the basement or garage into which we dump trash, lawn                 clippings, or other organic waste and from which we extract vehicle                 fuel, drip by drip. It doesn&apos;t matter if it only produces a gallon                 a day; for a smallish car with a good Diesel engine, that&apos;s plenty.                 The other (and in my view, far greater) advantage is that it&apos;s                 completely <i>decentralized<\/i>: If our vehicle fuel comes from                 a hundred million little boxes (rather than five or six monster                 refineries) terrorists and hurricanes will have a bitch of a time                 messing up the transportation industry.<\/li>\n<li>Aki Peltonen sent me a link to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artima.com\/forums\/flat.jsp?forum=106&amp;thread=221497&amp;start=0&amp;msRange=15\">a                 large forum post<\/a> by Java expert and author Bruce Eckel, about                 why he can&apos;t abide Vista and won&apos;t use it. Read the comments,                 too. Lots of interesting ideas and suggestions here.<\/li>\n<li>Michael Covington posted <a href=\"http:\/\/www.covingtoninnovations.com\/michael\/blog\/0806\/#080612\">a                 note<\/a> abut <a href=\"http:\/\/www.embeddedpc.net\/Default.aspx?tabid=110\">the                 Ebox 2300<\/a>, a very small, fanless $200 PC-compatible computer                 suitable for dedicated\/embedded applications running Linux or                 Windows CE. One little but brilliant touch is making the machine&apos;s                 mounting holes the same as a VESA-compatible monitor stand, meaning                 that you can mount the computer on the back of the monitor using                 the same holes. I envision a desktop weather station or something                 like that. Oh, for time to tinker&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>Pete Albrecht sent me a pointer to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ap-i.net\/avl\/en\/start\">Virtual                 Moon Atlas,<\/a> an extremely rich resource for Lunar geography                 that belongs in every SF writer&apos;s toolkit. 422 MB download, but                 hey, dare ya to find all this stuff on one Web site, or anywhere                 else. <\/li>\n<li>Finally, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/globe\/ideas\/brainiac\/2007\/03\/woe_is_us_part.html\">here&apos;s                 the reason that &#8220;woe is me&#8221; is actually correct English<\/a>,                 and always has been, right back to the days of Chaucer or even                 Beowulf. I had heard that, but never had the presence of mind                 to chase down the grammar. It&apos;s about <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dative_case\">the                 dative case<\/a>, and all these years we thought we were just repeating                 an old error. Woe is we.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After posting my June 13, 2008 entry, I did locate an unofficial list of apps to be included in the Ubuntu Netbook Remix distro: Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin, Rhythmbox, FBReader (for ebooks), Liferea (RSS feed reader), F-Spot (photo viewer) and OpenOffice. No serious surprises here, though I wonder how well a mobile CPU like Atom will [&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":[],"class_list":["post-357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357","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=357"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":372,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions\/372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}