{"id":2923,"date":"2013-07-11T12:21:42","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T18:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2923"},"modified":"2013-07-12T10:11:36","modified_gmt":"2013-07-12T16:11:36","slug":"odd-lots-232","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2923","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Ars has <a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2013\/07\/how-apple-led-an-e-book-price-conspiracy-in-the-judges-words\/\" target=\"_blank\">the best article I&#8217;ve yet seen on the recent ruling in the Apple ebook price fixing trial<\/a>. Insight: Publishers get less under agency than they do under wholesale, but they&#8217;re willing to accept it to keep control of pricing. Book publishing is a freaky business. This may not work out as planned for the publishers.<\/li>\n<li>Also from Ars: <a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/staff\/2013\/07\/hot-latex-beds-the-strangest-searches-that-bring-readers-to-ars\/\" target=\"_blank\">Weird search terms that brought readers to the Ars site<\/a>. I used to publish these too, but I don&#8217;t get as many as I once did. Web search has always been a freaky business. I guess the freakiness just wanders around.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/wattsupwiththat.com\/2013\/07\/11\/the-solar-cycle-is-still-slumping\/#more-89655\" target=\"_blank\">The sunspot cycle still struggles<\/a>. Cycle 24 will be freaky, and weak&#8211;even with our modern tendency to count spots that could not be detected a hundred years ago.<\/li>\n<li>Not news, but still freaky if you think about it: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/blogs\/the_vault\/2013\/07\/11\/flying_saucer_the_full_report_on_a_government_commissioned_prototype.html\" target=\"_blank\">The Air Force tried building a flying saucer in 1956<\/a>. The aliens are still laughing at us.<\/li>\n<li>Actually, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ufocasebook.com\/flyingtrianglemystery.html\" target=\"_blank\">the best flying saucers are all triangles<\/a>. In the greater UFO freakshow, these are by far my favorites.<\/li>\n<li>There&#8217;s a quirk in the insurance industry that will allow young people to opt out of the ACA and still get health insurance&#8211;while paying much less they would buying traditional health policies under ACA. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/merrillmatthews\/2013\/06\/27\/a-surprising-health-insurance-option-for-those-who-refuse-obamacare\/\" target=\"_blank\">Life insurance policies often allow for accelerated payouts of benefits while the insured is still alive.<\/a> My insight: Such a policy would be a way to finesse limited enrollment windows by paying for catastrophic care until enrollment opens again. (Which would be no more than ten months max.) And you thought publishing was a freaky business.<\/li>\n<li>We thought we knew how muscles work. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washington.edu\/news\/2013\/07\/09\/biceps-bulge-calves-curve-50-year-old-assumptions-muscled-aside\/\" target=\"_blank\">We were wrong<\/a>. Human biology is always freakier than we thought.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2013\/07\/how-to-wash-your-hair-in-space\/277693\/\" target=\"_blank\">As is washing your hair&#8211;in space<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/slashdot.org\/topic\/cloud\/how-drm-won\/\" target=\"_blank\">Streaming is the ultimate end of the DRM debate<\/a>. Music, movies, sure. Could one stream an ebook? Of course. Would people accept such a system, or would they freak out? Well, we thought DRM for serial content was dead, too. (Book publishers have become much more aggressive against piracy lately. More tomorrow.)<\/li>\n<li>And finally, if you want freaky, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/national\/archive\/2013\/07\/the-cicada-killers-are-coming\/277688\/\" target=\"_blank\">consider the humble cicada killer<\/a>, which vomits on its own head to keep from frying in the summer. We had them living under our driveway in Baltimore. I didn&#8217;t know what they were and they scared us a little until I called the county ag agent, who said, &#8220;They&#8217;re cicada killers, but don&#8217;t worry. They&#8217;re harmless.&#8221; I immediately called Carol at work to give her the good news. The receptionist at the clinic wrote down: &#8220;Jeff called. The things living under your driveway are psychotic killers, but don&#8217;t worry. They&#8217;re harmless.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ars has the best article I&#8217;ve yet seen on the recent ruling in the Apple ebook price fixing trial. Insight: Publishers get less under agency than they do under wholesale, but they&#8217;re willing to accept it to keep control of pricing. Book publishing is a freaky business. This may not work out as planned for [&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":[112,17,45,39,108,16,54,72],"class_list":["post-2923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots","tag-drm","tag-ebooks","tag-ham-radio","tag-health","tag-piracy","tag-publishing","tag-science","tag-weirdness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2923","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=2923"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2926,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2923\/revisions\/2926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}