{"id":428,"date":"2008-04-27T20:36:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-28T00:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=428"},"modified":"2009-01-14T22:19:07","modified_gmt":"2009-01-15T02:19:07","slug":"odd-lots-39","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=428","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>We had rockfish for dinner the other night, and since I didn&apos;t                 know exactly what I was eating, I researched it (it&apos;s nothing                 remarkable; a sort of domesticated sea bass) but in the process                 I happened upon a brilliant little animated hard SF short about                 an unflappable interstellar sportsman of the future who goes out                 with his faithful pet monkeydog and trolls for The Big Catch:                 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.atomfilms.com\/film\/rockfish.jsp\">&#8220;Rockfish<\/a>.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>While we&apos;re doing animated videos, don&apos;t miss the charmingly                 inane steampunk short &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.blur.com\/gentlemans_duel.html#\">A                 Gentleman&apos;s Duel<\/a>&#8221; from the same studio.<\/li>\n<li>From Frank Glover comes a pointer to <a href=\"http:\/\/io9.com\/380089\/which-parts-of-the-galaxy-do-aliens-hang-out-in\">an                 interesting article about whether there are &#8220;habitable zones&#8221;                 in our galaxy<\/a>. We&apos;re caught between our schedule, our metals                 concentration, and our supernovas, and ferdang, somehow we got                 placed &#8220;just right.&#8221; I&apos;m always a little suspicious                 of charts that somehow get us dead-center. Supernovas may trigger                 lots of interesting things, from radiation-proofed cellular reproduction                 systems to &#8220;novel&#8221; stars and planets. I&apos;m far from sure                 that zones closer to the Core are so deadly as to preclude the                 evolution of any kind of life\u2014just Life As We Know It.<\/li>\n<li>Are you nervous about European-style national health care? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/02\/21\/world\/europe\/21britain.html?_r=2&amp;hp&amp;oref=slogin&amp;oref=slogin\">You                 should be<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Also from the NYT: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/02\/01\/us\/01birth.html?pagewanted=1&amp;_r=1&amp;sq=fertility&amp;st=nyt&amp;scp=1&amp;adxnnlx=1208895074-0I1SvBXZHokzVUXxLBbuxQ\">The                 housing crash will likely cut the US birth rate<\/a>, which roughly                 tracks housing availability and may be the reason that the birth                 rate is so low in Europe, with its staggeringly high housing costs.               <\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.strangenewproducts.com\/\">A compendium of                 really weird products<\/a>, including wedgie-proof underwear and                 a Hilary Clinton toilet bowl brush. What boggles the mind is that                 this is not a collection of hoaxes: <i>All of these items are                 real<\/i>.<\/li>\n<li>Here&apos;s <a href=\"http:\/\/econ.cudenver.edu\/home\/workingpapers\/Rees_WP_08-01.pdf\">an                 eye-crossing but interesting paper<\/a> that explains a lot of                 why I dislike competitive sports.<\/li>\n<li>From David Stafford comes news of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fasterandfaster.net\/2008\/04\/uno-parallel-wheels-and-gyros.html\">one                 of the most bizarre motorcycles ever imagined<\/a>. It&apos;s electric.                 It works a little like the Segway. It gets points for design,                 fersure, but&#8230;you ride. I&apos;ll watch.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We had rockfish for dinner the other night, and since I didn&apos;t know exactly what I was eating, I researched it (it&apos;s nothing remarkable; a sort of domesticated sea bass) but in the process I happened upon a brilliant little animated hard SF short about an unflappable interstellar sportsman of the future who goes out [&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":[],"class_list":["post-428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428","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=428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":440,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions\/440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}