{"id":5257,"date":"2024-09-17T12:05:26","date_gmt":"2024-09-17T19:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=5257"},"modified":"2024-09-17T12:05:26","modified_gmt":"2024-09-17T19:05:26","slug":"odd-lots-351","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=5257","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>It\u2019s a little late but there\u2019s still time to see it: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2024\/09\/17\/science\/partial-lunar-eclipse-harvest-moon\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tonight will be the full Moon, and also a partial lunar eclipse<\/a>. 7:45 PM makes it about ideal for the Pacific and Arizona time zone, with all the usual adjustments for Mountain, Central and Eastern.<\/li>\n<li>Scott Pinsker posted an article on PJMedia back on September 9th, <a href=\"https:\/\/pjmedia.com\/scott-pinsker\/2024\/09\/09\/is-mans-best-friend-the-superweapon-that-helped-humans-outcompete-the-neanderthals-n4932383\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">about dogs allowing humans to out-compete Neanderthals<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=1387\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">I wrote about that back in 2010<\/a>: Dogs were alarm systems that made dawn raids ineffective. Lacking dogs, Neanderthals may have simply dawn-raided themselves into extinction.<\/li>\n<li>I\u2019m looking for a book that defines terms and instruments used in classical music. Andante, allegro non troppo, adagio, the viola, the celesta, and that instrument consisting of a series of pieces of metal tubing hung from strings under a bar, whose name I just cannot recall. A lot of that stuff can be found online, but, well, I\u2019m just partial to books. If you have one that you like, please mention it in a comment.<\/li>\n<li>The blinking cursor on our computer screens is now 54 years old. Here&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/getpocket.com\/explore\/item\/54-years-ago-a-computer-programmer-fixed-a-massive-bug-and-created-an-existential-crisis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a short history of how it came about<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>It\u2019s been a pretty sparse hurricane season, with the single exception of Beryl. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhc.noaa.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Right now on NOAA\u2019s hurricane map<\/a> there is a dying hurricane in Arkansas, one named tropical storm, Gordon, and two disturbances with less than 40% chance of becoming cyclonic. We\u2019re halfway through hurricane season, and <a href=\"https:\/\/pjmedia.com\/rick-moran\/2024\/09\/07\/where-are-all-the-hurricanes-n4932327\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">not much has been happening<\/a>. My take: predicting a hurricane season\u2019s severity is a fool\u2019s model. Too much chaos and butterfly effect. It could get worse any time. Or it might not. We won\u2019t know until we get there.<\/li>\n<li>Who had <em>this<\/em> on their 2024 bingo cards? <a href=\"https:\/\/new.nsf.gov\/news\/window-into-body-invisible-skin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Good &#8216;ol Yellow #5 dye, in large quantities, makes living tissue temporarily transparent.<\/a> Scientists have created temporarily transparent mice. No human trials have happened as yet. So go easy on those Cheetos, ok?<\/li>\n<li>This is boggling but perhaps inevitable, assuming it\u2019s true\u2014and I\u2019m skeptical: A chemhacker group is creating software and desktop labware <a href=\"https:\/\/www.404media.co\/right-to-repair-for-your-body-the-rise-of-diy-pirated-medicine\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">allowing people to synthesize expensive prescription medications at home<\/a>. An $800 pill becomes a $1 pill. Yes, there are risks, but if you&#8217;re dying for lack of an expensive drug, well&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>Over on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.city-journal.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">City Journal<\/a> Michael Totten has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.city-journal.org\/article\/the-universe-is-not-a-fairy-tale?skip=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a long-form meditation on Liu Cixin&#8217;s SF trilogy <em>Remembrance of Earth&#8217;s Past<\/em><\/a> that bears on the Fermi Paradox and the question of whether we should actively seek out alien life&#8211;or hide from it. A little outside what I see in City Journal, but well-worth reading.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s a little late but there\u2019s still time to see it: Tonight will be the full Moon, and also a partial lunar eclipse. 7:45 PM makes it about ideal for the Pacific and Arizona time zone, with all the usual adjustments for Mountain, Central and Eastern. Scott Pinsker posted an article on PJMedia back on [&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":[41,38,15,39,49,31],"class_list":["post-5257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots","tag-astronomy","tag-dogs","tag-hardware","tag-health","tag-music","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5257","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=5257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5258,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5257\/revisions\/5258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}