{"id":2553,"date":"2012-07-08T13:13:07","date_gmt":"2012-07-08T19:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2553"},"modified":"2012-07-08T13:22:07","modified_gmt":"2012-07-08T19:22:07","slug":"odd-lots-194","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2553","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>I hit a milestone the other day: 40,000 words on <em>Ten Gentle Opportunities<\/em>, which is at least halfway there and maybe (if I&#8217;m willing to settle for a 75,000 word story) more than halfway.<\/li>\n<li>One of my readers sent a link to a page describing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baptiste-wicht.com\/2012\/01\/install-insight-debugger-linux-mint-ubuntu\/\" target=\"_blank\">how to install the Insight debugger under Linux Mint<\/a>. As my ASM freak friends will recall, I no sooner described Insight in <em>Assembly Language Step By Step<\/em>, Third Edition than Debian pulled it out of their distribution. Supposedly this method will also work for newer versions of Ubuntu. I need to test the repository under both distros, and will report when I do.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.skyandtelescope.com\/observing\/highlights\/Yet-Another-Nova-in-Sagittarius-161716235.html\" target=\"_blank\">There&#8217;s a new nova in Sagittarius<\/a>. (Is that redundant?) Mag 7.8&#8211;which is easy to see with binoculars, <em>if<\/em> you can separate it from the stellar mosh pit in which it appeared. Thanks to Pete Albrecht for the link.<\/li>\n<li>Michael Covington sent <a href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/ngrams\/chart?content=whosever,whoever's&amp;corpus=0&amp;smoothing=3&amp;year_start=1800&amp;year_end=2008\" target=\"_blank\">a Google Ngram for the words &#8220;whosever&#8221; and &#8220;whoever&#8217;s&#8221;<\/a> indicating that &#8220;whosever&#8221; has been on the run for a couple of <em>centuries<\/em>. It became the minority player about 1920 and has been down in the mud since about 1960.<\/li>\n<li>Ok, I agree: <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/5924132\/trap-door-colander-will-revolutionize-your-kitchen\" target=\"_blank\">This is the most brilliant kitchen gadget since the salad spinner<\/a>. Or before.<\/li>\n<li>I used to do this a lot, though I haven&#8217;t done it since 1977: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WSxEGgrvhMM\" target=\"_blank\">pull the guts out of a photocopier<\/a>. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eevblog.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">This guy&#8217;s blog<\/a>, by the way, is news to me but should be on every techie&#8217;s blogroll. (Thanks to Jack Smith K8ZOA for the link.)<\/li>\n<li>Haven&#8217;t heard much about software radio recently. <a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2012\/07\/how-software-defined-radio-could-revolutionize-wireless\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ars Technica just had a nice overview piece on it<\/a>. The hardware keeps getting better, but all the promised weirdness (including new types of pirate radio) hasn&#8217;t happened yet. My theory: Wi-Fi is just a better weirdness magnet.<\/li>\n<li>Foxconn is releasing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2012\/07\/07\/foxconn-nano-pcs-get-priced-dated-and-tweaked\/\" target=\"_blank\">a fanless nano-PC toward the end of summer<\/a>, and I like the looks of it, at least if it&#8217;s got something better than an Atom in it. Roughly 7.5&#8243; X 5.25&#8243; X 1.5&#8243;. No optical drive. 5-in-1 card reader on the front panel. Under $300.<\/li>\n<li>Talk about nutty brilliance for film promotion: <a href=\"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2012\/01\/30\/flying-people-spotted-over-new-york-city-film-at-nine\/\" target=\"_blank\">RC drones in the shape of superhero-style flying people<\/a> to hype the film <em>Chronicle,<\/em> which is evidently about&#8230;flying people. (Thanks to Pete Albrecht for the link.)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.livescience.com\/21427-fullerene-buckyball-growth-explained-nsf-bts.html\" target=\"_blank\">To inflate a Buckyball, just use a laser<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.guydrewvineyards.com\/store\" target=\"_blank\">This sweet merlot<\/a> (scroll down) was lots better than I thought it would be, especially for a hot summer evening&#8217;s barbecue. May be hard to find outside Colorado. No least hint of concord grape, for you mutant-blueberry purists. About $15.<\/li>\n<li>Yet another sign that we may be winning the Fat Wars: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/health\/archive\/2012\/07\/for-best-results-dont-eat-your-salad-with-a-fat-free-dressing\/259422\/\" target=\"_blank\">Fat-free dressing is bad for you<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Still yet another sign may be that the grocery store near our condo outside Chicago carries <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/50848308@N07\/4698070916\/\" target=\"_blank\">a sort of spreadable lard called &#8220;smalec.&#8221;<\/a> This is the best-kept secret in the food world; it took me ten minutes to even find a picture of it. It was brought here by Polish immigrants and is no less healthy than butter, though I have no clue as to its taste.<\/li>\n<li>As if we didn&#8217;t have enough to worry about, well, the latest home hazard is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/nation\/nationnow\/la-na-nn-summer-danger-swallowing-bristles-from-grill-cleaning-brushes-20120706,0,7546016.story\" target=\"_blank\">swallowing loose bristles from your grill brush<\/a>. My brush is at least five years old and failing. Looking for another technique. (Again, thanks to Pete Albrecht for pointing it out.)<\/li>\n<li>This sure sounds like a hoax, but there <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-2168161\/Zombie-theme-park-Detroit-hit-flesh-brain-eating-zombie-apocalypse.html\" target=\"_blank\">could be a zombie apocalypse theme park in Detroit&#8217;s future<\/a>. The concept suggests that time&#8217;s about up for the zombie craze, so I&#8217;d better get my novel (which contains dancing zombies) shambling on to completion before the whole thing caves in.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I hit a milestone the other day: 40,000 words on Ten Gentle Opportunities, which is at least halfway there and maybe (if I&#8217;m willing to settle for a 75,000 word story) more than halfway. One of my readers sent a link to a page describing how to install the Insight debugger under Linux Mint. As [&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":[125,37,15,39,32,54,13,20],"class_list":["post-2553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots","tag-assembly","tag-food","tag-hardware","tag-health","tag-programming","tag-science","tag-wine","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2553","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=2553"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2556,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2553\/revisions\/2556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}