{"id":2492,"date":"2012-05-22T09:03:30","date_gmt":"2012-05-22T15:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2492"},"modified":"2012-05-22T09:04:12","modified_gmt":"2012-05-22T15:04:12","slug":"odd-lots-192","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2492","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>In the wake of the recent eclipse, the best photo I&#8217;ve seen: <a href=\"http:\/\/wattsupwiththat.com\/2012\/05\/20\/2012-annular-eclipse\/\" target=\"_blank\">One ring to woo them all<\/a>!<\/li>\n<li>Although we missed seeing <a href=\"http:\/\/spaceweather.com\/submissions\/large_image_popup.php?image_name=Eric-von-der-Heyden-venus20052012240_g3_b3_ap13_3ka_1337533259.png\" target=\"_blank\">the thin crescent Venus<\/a> on Sunday night, I saw it again last night (Monday) and through a 12mm Plossl it was spectacular. Probably the thinnest crescent I&#8217;ve seen in 25 years. You can discern the &#8220;horns&#8221; of the crescent easily in good binoculars. It&#8217;s quite close to the Sun now and getting closer all the time, but if you can catch it immediately after sunset you&#8217;ll have a good chance for the next several days.<\/li>\n<li>And if you&#8217;re into crescents (I have a drawer full; whoops, wrong category) tonight just after sunset you&#8217;ll be able to see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spaceweather.com\/images2012\/22may12\/skymap.gif?PHPSESSID=t9b2ps4gllmid6i29dumj7ck82\" target=\"_blank\">a very thin crescent moon right beside that very thin crescent Venus<\/a>. Go get some lemon crescent cookies from Maggiano&#8217;s, pour some iced tea, and watch the crescents set in the west. Life is good.<\/li>\n<li>Time to admit it: I pulled the trigger (finally) and bought an <a href=\"http:\/\/eee.asus.com\/eeepad\/transformer-prime\/features\/\" target=\"_blank\">ASUS Transformer Prime TF201 tablet<\/a>, plus its brilliant keyboard\/battery\/port extender\/charging dock. I&#8217;m still studying it and testing it, and will report in detail later on.<\/li>\n<li>Cell phones are <em>not<\/em> the same UI challenge as tablets, and there&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tablified.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">a site listing tablet-friendly apps for Android<\/a>. I&#8217;ve been cruising it a lot the last few days. Some good stuff in there.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/04\/23\/business\/media\/tv-viewers-are-missing-in-action.html\" target=\"_blank\">TV numbers are imploding across the board<\/a>. The NYT is muttering something about &#8220;nonlinear viewing,&#8221; but I think NPR has it right: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2012\/05\/21\/153213340\/networks-must-adapt-to-decline-in-tv-viewers\" target=\"_blank\">People are getting wise to the fact that they&#8217;re paying $150 a month for overripe weasel manure<\/a>. What all those people are doing instead is obscure. Dare we hope&#8230;books?<\/li>\n<li>Maker Jeri Ellsworth rocks. And what makes her rock is <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.makezine.com\/2012\/05\/19\/jeri-ellsworth-rocks-a-commodore-64-keytar\/\" target=\"_blank\">the wonderful gizmo she rocks on<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>As <a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2012\/05\/20\/researchers-develop-silicon-reram-chip\/\" target=\"_blank\">this article suggests<\/a>, I had forgotten about <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Resistive_random-access_memory\" target=\"_blank\">ReRAM<\/a>, thinking it was yet another oddity that would never escape the labs into real products. I guess being 10,000 times faster than Flash memory got somebody&#8217;s attention, along with the fact that CPUs based on the technology are possible, if still perhaps a ways off.<\/li>\n<li>Why are so many of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.darkroastedblend.com\/2012\/05\/precariously-leaning-towers-of-world.html\" target=\"_blank\">the world&#8217;s collection of leaning towers<\/a> in Italy?<\/li>\n<li>Here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/science\/2012\/05\/drink-up-coffee-associated-with-lower-risk-of-death\/\" target=\"_blank\">a good illustration of why I rarely take &#8220;medical studies&#8221; seriously anymore<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Everything else has been built out of Lego. Why not <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/culture\/culturepicturegalleries\/9267162\/The-nine-circles-of-hell-from-Dantes-Inferno-recreated-in-Lego-by-Mihai-Mihu.html?frame=2219919\" target=\"_blank\">the Nine Circles of Hell<\/a>? (Thanks to Bruce Baker for the link.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the wake of the recent eclipse, the best photo I&#8217;ve seen: One ring to woo them all! Although we missed seeing the thin crescent Venus on Sunday night, I saw it again last night (Monday) and through a 12mm Plossl it was spectacular. Probably the thinnest crescent I&#8217;ve seen in 25 years. You can [&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":[124,41,15,39,43,49,58],"class_list":["post-2492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots","tag-android","tag-astronomy","tag-hardware","tag-health","tag-humor","tag-music","tag-toys"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2492","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=2492"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2494,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2492\/revisions\/2494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}