{"id":155,"date":"2008-10-20T20:21:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-21T00:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=155"},"modified":"2008-12-13T22:56:42","modified_gmt":"2008-12-14T02:56:42","slug":"odd-lots-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=155","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Sorry to be gone so long here; I haven&apos;t felt well for some                  days and did not do my usual daily quota of follow-your-nose Web                  exploration. Part of it is the politics; I seem to be hitting                  the I-Can&apos;t-Stand-It-Anymore level about three weeks earlier than                  I did in 2004. The rest seems to be the result of eating too many                  MSG-laden barbecue potato chips.<\/li>\n<li>Or maybe it&apos;s all the purely amateur reporting on the current                  financial crisis, declaring that it&apos;s either the end of the world                  or already well past it. Michael Covington (who would probably                  win any contest for World&apos;s Sanest Man) has some perspective on                  both <a href=\"http:\/\/www.covingtoninnovations.com\/michael\/blog\/0810\/#081019\">the                  financial crisis<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.covingtoninnovations.com\/michael\/blog\/0810\/#081011\">the                  stock market&apos;s recent fall<\/a>. Read them, and heed the advice                  printed on the front cover of the <i>Hitchhiker&apos;s Guide to the                  Galaxy<\/i>.<\/li>\n<li>I learned yesterday that Herb S. Brier W9EGQ was a paraplegic                  and could not walk. Like John T. Frye, he lived in Indiana (Gary)                  and was almost entirely self-taught in electronics. Bob Ballantine                  W8SU wrote up <a href=\"http:\/\/geocities.com\/w8jyz\/W9EGQ_Obit.pdf\">a                  short bio on Brier<\/a>, and if you ever followed his Novice columns                  in the 50s and 60s, do read it. The closeness of the two men&apos;s                  call signs (W9EGQ and W9EGV) is probably a coincidence; as best                  we can tell the two men did not know one another.<\/li>\n<li>If you build radios, particularly tube or crystal sets, <a href=\"http:\/\/theradioboard.com\/rb\/index.php\">The                  Radio Board<\/a> is worth a look. The sheer amount of cumulative                  tube-hacking expertise there is mind-boggling.<\/li>\n<li>The local newspapers have been breathlessly reporting rampant                  theft of campaign signs from both sides of the spectrum, and now                  that several perps have been caught, it turns out that they were&#8230;junior                  high kids! Wow! (Like I couldn&apos;t have told you that.) The little                  snots are not being charged with anything; after all, theft is                  political speech. Solution: Force them to give their allowances                  for the next year to the parties whose signs they stole, and wear                  a T-Shirt printed with that party&apos;s canididate&apos;s portrait.<\/li>\n<li>Pete Albrecht sent me a link to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dot.il.gov\/officialrailmap.pdf\">a                  PDF railroad map of Illinois<\/a>, containing all currently active                  routes.<\/li>\n<li>And while I&apos;m at it, let me point you to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.petealbrecht.com\/blog\/blog.htm\">Pete&apos;s                  photos of Stephan&apos;s Quintet<\/a>, a group of five close-set galaxies                  (two are actually foreground objects) that are one of the meanest                  challenges for backyard galaxy collectors\u2014especially if your                  backyard is in Costa Mesa. The group is fascinating, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spacetelescope.org\/news\/html\/heic0007.html\">this                  article about them<\/a> is worth reading.<\/li>\n<li>From David Stafford comes an article about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thesmartset.com\/article\/article10100801.aspx\">what                  it&apos;s like to be a professional term paper writer<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Once again, <i>The Economist<\/i> proves itself to be one of                  the few intelligent print mags remaining by explaining <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/science\/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12376658\">why                  even peer-reviewed scientific journals are not as trustworthy                  as we would like<\/a>. (<i>The Atlantic<\/i> is on my S-list again                  for running too much politics; maybe I&apos;ll resubscribe in December.)<\/li>\n<li>Here&apos;s <a href=\"http:\/\/gadgets.boingboing.net\/2008\/10\/20\/perambulating-spider.html\">a                  robot that carries your houseplants to a spot in the livingroom                  where there&apos;s more sunlight<\/a>. It&apos;s unclear what happens when                  the robot tries to share the sunbeam with the dog. I guess it                  depends on the dog; QBit would tear it to shreds; Aero would lift                  his leg on it. <i>Suum quique<\/i>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sorry to be gone so long here; I haven&apos;t felt well for some days and did not do my usual daily quota of follow-your-nose Web exploration. Part of it is the politics; I seem to be hitting the I-Can&apos;t-Stand-It-Anymore level about three weeks earlier than I did in 2004. The rest seems to be the [&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-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":168,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions\/168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}