{"id":2998,"date":"2013-10-27T09:43:32","date_gmt":"2013-10-27T15:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2998"},"modified":"2013-10-27T09:45:36","modified_gmt":"2013-10-27T15:45:36","slug":"odd-lots-241","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2998","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>The media loves to build its own myth: <a href=\"http:\/\/mediamythalert.wordpress.com\/2013\/08\/29\/upcoming-pbs-show-on-war-of-worlds-may-reinforce-media-myth-in-cheesy-fashion\/\" target=\"_blank\">Orson Welles&#8217; famous &#8220;War of the Worlds&#8221; broadcast did not cause panic<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Had this last night, over dinner with friends: Zinzilla, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mcnabridge.com\/content\/trade-materials\/funtechzinzilla.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">a monster zin that could be the perfect Halloween wine<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>BTW, &#8220;monster zin&#8221; is not a term I made up: It&#8217;s winespeak for a zinfandel with alcohol content over 15%.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/health\/archive\/2013\/10\/a-hairy-chest-makes-a-man\/280786\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Neanderthal in me rejoices at body hair<\/a>. Wax is for candles.<\/li>\n<li>Why are so many kids myopic? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/health_and_science\/medical_examiner\/2013\/10\/myopia_increasing_indoor_light_may_be_impairing_children_s_vision.html\" target=\"_blank\">This article says it&#8217;s about not getting outside enough<\/a>. I&#8217;ve read that it&#8217;s about not sleeping in darkness, but don&#8217;t recall ever seeing an actual study. If lack of exposure to bright natural light is the issue, a population study somewhere with grim crappy weather could nail it. I nominate Chicago.<\/li>\n<li>The Feds are repurposing an old technology in use at least since Vietnam for domestic spying: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/dangerroom\/2013\/10\/spy-rocks\/\" target=\"_blank\">radios inside rocks<\/a>. If it ever becomes clear what frequencies these are on, I could imagine a massive national radio foxhunt. There&#8217;s some mythspinning about their batteries, and it would be fun to see what dissecting such a device would reveal.<\/li>\n<li>Related: If you&#8217;re an anal-retentive spy, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/threatlevel\/2011\/03\/cia-spy-tools\/\" target=\"_blank\">this page might interest you<\/a>. Scroll down to see why. Scroll further to see a genuine CIA turd radio. These were once sold on the surplus market. I almost bought one.<\/li>\n<li>More spy stuff: <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/5966242\/10-james-bond-gadgets-that-actually-existand-one-that-needs-to\" target=\"_blank\">Bondian gadgets from the movies that have (more or less) become real<\/a>. I notice the absence of the James Bond assassin ball-point pen that dorkeroo Alec was fiddling with in <em>Goldeneye<\/em>. I used to do that a lot, which is why I no longer use retractable ball-point pens.<\/li>\n<li>From the Global Calming Department: The Atlantic hurricane season still has another month to run, but so far <a href=\"http:\/\/wattsupwiththat.com\/2013\/10\/26\/atlantic-hurricane-season-quietest-in-45-years\/\" target=\"_blank\">it&#8217;s the quietest we&#8217;ve seen in 45 years<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>From the Words-I-Didn&#8217;t-Know-Until-Yesterday Department: <em>rodomontade<\/em>, defined as swaggering boastful talk without any grounding in reality, which makes the speaker look like an utter moron; see <em>political bullshit<\/em>. (Thanks to Ernie Marek for dropping the word in my presence.)<\/li>\n<li>Shades of Newsweek&#8217;s execrable &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=906\" target=\"_blank\">The Case for Killing Granny<\/a>&#8220;: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/news_and_politics\/jurisprudence\/2013\/10\/canada_has_death_panels_and_that_s_a_good_thing.html\" target=\"_blank\">Slate endorses death panels<\/a>. Way to make friends for health care reform, guys. Sheesh.<\/li>\n<li>People can live in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but not Chernobyl. <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/why-can-people-live-in-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-now-but-1451250877\" target=\"_blank\">Here&#8217;s a decent explanation why<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The media loves to build its own myth: Orson Welles&#8217; famous &#8220;War of the Worlds&#8221; broadcast did not cause panic. Had this last night, over dinner with friends: Zinzilla, a monster zin that could be the perfect Halloween wine. BTW, &#8220;monster zin&#8221; is not a term I made up: It&#8217;s winespeak for a zinfandel with [&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":[39,73,31,13],"class_list":["post-2998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots","tag-health","tag-language","tag-weather","tag-wine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2998","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=2998"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3001,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2998\/revisions\/3001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}