May 19th, 2015:
- This may explain a certain amount of the drama coming out of the anti-Puppies camp…or, for that matter, a great deal of modern politics: Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD). (Thanks to Adam Baldwin for the link.)
- OMG! Global warming may mean stronger weed! (That makes it all better, right?) Colorado’s on it.
- BitTorrent recently released Bleep, a private encrypted P2P messaging system. Of special note is “whisper mode,” in which a message sent vanishes from both devices 25 seconds after it arrives. Whisper mode also blurs out the display so the message can’t be screencapped. It’s available for iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac.
- Ok. This is weird: KFC in Germany developed a tray liner…that was a disposable Bluetooth keyboard. Pair it with your phone, and you can type with the same greasy fingers you’re scarfing chicken with. It was a test, and only available for a single week. Most of the tray liners, furthermore, went home with customers.
- Where’s my flying car? Well, there was once a flying Pinto. (For a little while. Until the wings came off.) I’m still not sure that counts as a flying car. (Thanks to Bill Higgins for the link.)
- Fred Richardson messaged me to say that he had built a Shive torsional wave machine, just like the one that starred in the Carl & Jerry story, “The Bell Bull Sessions.” It’s now for sale on eBay.
- I’m interested in what SFF authors have bichons. I’m one, Jim Butcher is another. Are there more? I’m also interested in bichons that appear in SFF stories. Toby from Varley’s The Golden Globe is the best-known. A bichon also appears in The Last Policeman trilogy, and, of course, my own Mr. Byte appeared in David Gerrold”s excellent “The Martian Child.” Any others?
- I recently learned of Dabble, which is basically Uber for teaching one-off courses. Would I make any money teaching Pascal/Lazarus programming? I could also try teaching SF writing, except that I’m not always sure how I do it myself.
- The Raspberry Pi Model A+ is the beating heart of the do-it-yourself PiGRRL GameBoy-like retro game console. A good video for a chance, though not a step-by-step. I love that little bitty display. (Thanks to Eben Upton for the link.)
- The opah has recently been identified as the only known fish with whole-body endothermy; that is, it’s warm-blooded.
- The National Park Service has posted a number of recordings of the Edison Talking Doll, which was a great deal like Chatty Kathy (and similarly electronics-free) except it was sold in 1890. People have commented that the dolls sound creepy or possessed. To me they sound like the women who made the recordings were shouting at the tops of their lungs to provide enough energy to move the recording needles on the wax cylinders. Listen to the recordings again and see what you think.
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