{"id":2827,"date":"2013-04-06T13:19:47","date_gmt":"2013-04-06T19:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2827"},"modified":"2013-04-06T13:19:52","modified_gmt":"2013-04-06T19:19:52","slug":"odd-lots-224","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2827","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s not cinder blocks, but something altogether more boggling: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=pp89tTDxXuI\" target=\"_blank\">a pair of quadricopters tossing a pole to one another, catching it, and balancing it<\/a> like I used to do with rakes, only <em>way<\/em> better. (Thanks to Bill Higgins for the link. )<\/li>\n<li><em>Salon<\/em> can&#8217;t seem to decide if <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2013\/04\/04\/hugh_howey_self_publishing_is_the_future_and_great_for_writers\/\" target=\"_blank\">self-publishing makes sense<\/a>, or if <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2013\/04\/02\/im_a_self_publishing_failure\/\" target=\"_blank\">it doesn&#8217;t<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/listverse.com\/2013\/03\/21\/10-supremely-nerdy-language-tidbits\/?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=pulsenews\" target=\"_blank\">10 thoroughly obscure terms<\/a>, of which I knew 7&#8211;which makes me a bit of a language geek. I knew everything but &#8220;pataphor,&#8221; &#8220;isograms,&#8221; and &#8220;capitonym.&#8221; I suspect those are relatively recent coinages, compared to &#8220;zeugma.&#8221; (Thanks to Bill Cherepy for the link.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>NPR: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/blogs\/thesalt\/2013\/03\/19\/174739752\/whole-milk-or-skim-study-links-fattier-milk-to-slimmer-kids\" target=\"_blank\">Kids who drink whole milk are thinner than kids who drink skim milk<\/a>. Fat makes you thin. Carbs make you fat. The evidence just keeps on a-pilin&#8217;.<\/li>\n<li>It gets worse: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/news\/calorie-restriction-falters-in-the-long-run-1.11297\" target=\"_blank\">Life extension by calorie restriction doesn&#8217;t work<\/a>. Starving yourself doesn&#8217;t make you thin, doesn&#8217;t make you live longer, and beyond the continuous suffering it entails, may make you so unpleasant to be around that people will run when they see you coming.<\/li>\n<li>Related: From the Terms I Didn&#8217;t Know Until Yesterday Department: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.omicsonline.org\/JNDT\/JNDT-2-108.php?aid=4874\" target=\"_blank\">The <em>second meal effect<\/em><\/a> : The glycemic index of the food eaten at any given meal will affect blood glucose levels at subsequent meals as well. Eating low-GI all the time may be necessary to keep your blood sugar in line.<\/li>\n<li>And while I&#8217;m being a party pooper: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/articles\/2009\/06\/02\/why-restaurants-make-you-fat.html\" target=\"_blank\">Why restaurants make you fat<\/a>. Carol and I make a point of not eating out more than once a week. In a lot of months, we have a sit-down restaurant meal maybe twice.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/health\/archive\/2013\/04\/study-organic-labels-make-food-taste-healthier\/274683\/\" target=\"_blank\">People think that food labeled &#8220;organic&#8221; tastes better<\/a>. It&#8217;s supposed to, therefore it must, I guess. (I drink organic dairy products to avoid hormones; beyond that, it&#8217;s case by case.)<\/li>\n<li>As if we didn&#8217;t have enough to worry about these days, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2013-04-05\/new-bird-flu-seen-having-some-markers-of-airborne-killer.html\" target=\"_blank\">H7N9 may get airborne<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/arts\/books\/2013\/04\/why_are_dogs_popular_in_books_and_cats_popular_on_the_internet.html\" target=\"_blank\">Web publishing favors cats. Print publishing favors dogs<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>The latest <em>Nuts &amp; Volts<\/em> (April 2013) has a cover story on a modern reconception of the classic AM low-power broadcaster, using a 12K5 space charge tube. The twist is that the broadcaster is fed by an Arduino board called <a href=\"http:\/\/spikenzielabs.com\/SpikenzieLabs\/VoiceShield.html\" target=\"_blank\">VoiceShield<\/a>, which can generate all <em>sorts<\/em> of audio signals.<\/li>\n<li>From Kent Kotal: Behold <a href=\"http:\/\/popdust.com\/2013\/01\/22\/the-richest-musicians-of-all-time\/\" target=\"_blank\">the 20 richest musicians of all time<\/a>. Note that the richest one is <em>not<\/em> a rock star.<\/li>\n<li>Also from Kent: <a href=\"http:\/\/chicagoradioandmedia.com\/news\/3202-clark-weber-to-adds-weekly-commentary-to-wind-am-weekend-show\" target=\"_blank\">Chicago radio legend Clark Weber will be doing on-the-air commentaries on WIND-AM<\/a>. Clark is also a ham radio op (W9FFB) and I contacted him a few times back in the late 70s while I still lived in Chicago.<\/li>\n<li>For a trifling $44M, <a href=\"http:\/\/curbed.com\/archives\/2013\/04\/01\/for-44m-live-in-the-fortress-of-roman-emperor-tiberius.php\" target=\"_blank\">you can live in the fortress of Roman Emperor Tiberius<\/a>. My only concern: If it&#8217;s haunted, it&#8217;s gonna be <em>way<\/em> haunted. (See Tacitus, <em>Annals<\/em> V1.) Thanks to Steve Sayre for the link.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s not cinder blocks, but something altogether more boggling: a pair of quadricopters tossing a pole to one another, catching it, and balancing it like I used to do with rakes, only way better. (Thanks to Bill Higgins for the link. ) Salon can&#8217;t seem to decide if self-publishing makes sense, or if it doesn&#8217;t. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,39,49,16,83,113,20],"class_list":["post-2827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-noneoftheabove","tag-ebooks","tag-health","tag-music","tag-publishing","tag-radio","tag-robotics","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2827","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=2827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}