{"id":4632,"date":"2021-12-24T08:54:42","date_gmt":"2021-12-24T15:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=4632"},"modified":"2021-12-24T08:58:36","modified_gmt":"2021-12-24T15:58:36","slug":"odd-lots-331","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=4632","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>While putting our Christmas decorations up a couple of weeks ago, it occurred to me that I only hear the word &#8220;stocking&#8221; in connection with Christmas these days. Does anyone actually <em>wear<\/em> stockings anymore?<\/li>\n<li>Well, the best Christmas present we telescope freaks could ask for is a successful launch of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/mission_pages\/webb\/main\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">James Webb Space Telescope<\/a>, now scheduled to head for orbit on Christmas day at 7:20 AM EST. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jwst.nasa.gov\/content\/webbLaunch\/countdown.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Here&#8217;s the countdown page.<\/a> I&#8217;m keeping it in a tab.<\/li>\n<li>My first car was a Chevy. As far as I&#8217;m concerned, this is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=c4-oyBnknHk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the best car commercial of all time<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ing.iac.es\/PR\/press\/rogue.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Astronomers are finding a great many free-floating planets (FFPs)<\/a>, which are planets just drifting around without any star to circle. How they form remains a mystery; are they failed stars or ejected planets? And what sorts of stories could an SF writer tell about FFPs?<\/li>\n<li>Now here&#8217;s a headline that somebody waited <em>years<\/em> to write: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/imaginary-numbers-needed-to-describe-reality\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Imaginary numbers might be needed to describe reality<\/a>. You need to know more quantum physics than I do to understand the point they&#8217;re making, but it&#8217;s a marvelous headline nonetheless.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/digest.bps.org.uk\/2021\/12\/21\/watching-a-lecture-twice-at-double-speed-can-benefit-learning-better-than-watching-it-once-at-normal-speed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Watching a video lecture twice at double speed can help you retain what you learn better than watching it only once<\/a>. I dunno. I still prefer books.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/massive-crash-thursday-morning-closes-162327211.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">This is why we don&#8217;t live in the midwest anymore<\/a>. Freezing rain? Our problem is evaporating rain. And you don&#8217;t skid on heat, heh.<\/li>\n<li>We&#8217;re short on snow here in the desert southwest. We have no shortage of tumbleweeds, though. <a href=\"https:\/\/duckduckgo.com\/?q=tumbleweed+snowman&amp;t=newext&amp;atb=v287-1&amp;iar=images&amp;iax=images&amp;ia=images\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">And this leads to the obvious conclusion<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;ve posted <a href=\"http:\/\/www.duntemann.com\/stormy.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a much cleaner version<\/a> of my flash fiction story &#8220;STORMY Vs. the Tornadoes,&#8221; which originally ran in <em>PC Techniques<\/em>. The new copy is an excerpt from <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Souls-Silicon-Tales-Confronting-Infinite-ebook\/dp\/B01BB4SLKY\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Souls in Silicon<\/a><\/em> , my collection of stories about strong AI. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Souls-Silicon-Tales-Confronting-Infinite-ebook\/dp\/B01BB4SLKY\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$2.99 ebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lulu.com\/en\/us\/shop\/jeff-duntemann\/souls-in-silicon\/paperback\/product-1wdwrkj.html?page=1&amp;pageSize=4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$11.99 paperback<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Enjoy Christmas Eve. At our house we always had the Polish Wigilia (vigil) supper at sundown, when the first star of evening (the <span style= 'FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: \"Times New Roman\"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA'> Gwiadzka)<\/span> appears. Alas, in Chicago, seeing any stars at all on Christmas Eve was probably a one-in-three chance. We did our best. I&#8217;ve always considered this verse from Nehemiah 8 as a Christmas Eve injunction: &#8220;Eat fat, drink sweet wine, and send portions to those who have nothing, for this day is holy to our Lord.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While putting our Christmas decorations up a couple of weeks ago, it occurred to me that I only hear the word &#8220;stocking&#8221; in connection with Christmas these days. Does anyone actually wear stockings anymore? Well, the best Christmas present we telescope freaks could ask for is a successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, [&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":[41,105,177,104,43,20],"class_list":["post-4632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots","tag-astronomy","tag-cars","tag-christmas","tag-fiction","tag-humor","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4632","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=4632"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4634,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4632\/revisions\/4634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}