I’ve mentioned before that I like snarky reviews. How can you not like book reviews that contain lines such as:
We imagine that Meyer’s editor had to cross out the “DUN DUN DUN” in the original manuscript.
And this tale of GPS from a directionally-challenged woman made me laugh, particularly this question from her husband: “How long do you have to be missing before I can start dating again?”
I’m back from a week at Yellowstone. Got a few hundred photos to sort through, including a bunch of wildlife photos. I’ve got a couple of a coyote trotting across the outflow of the Grand Prismatic Spring that I think are pretty good. We saw a lot of wildlife: hawks, eagles, cranes, bison, elk, pika, marmot, mountain goat, and so on.
Anyway, I have links, some that have been hanging around since before we left, so I’m just going to cram them all in here.
These people make a musical instrument I want. It looks pretty easy to use, and more versatile than shown in this video. It’s apparently not available yet, though. As an aside, the Gundam statue in the background was used as the site of a Gundam-themed wedding.
The Guitar Guy has a lot of chords and lyrics available.
I love this photo. The vacuum cleaner just adds the undefinable “touch” to the scene. I’d love to know more about what happened.
I fixed this dish before the trip. It goes onto the list of keepers.
Prior to the trip, one of the local groceries had corn on sale, ten ears per dollar. I’ve got a bunch hung up in the basement drying as the first step in this recipe.
Madison, WI, is now on my list of places that might be worth visiting.
I wonder if the kid will get his sword back? I suspect the local burglars may try to avoid him in future, though. Presuming, of course, that they’re smart enough, aware enough, and not strung out at the time.
I’ll have to watch some of these lectures; I’ve always been interested in learning to program in LISP.
Norman Borlaug has died. Shannon Love has a nice post about him.
Speaking of Shannon Love, I like her take on the ACORN child prostitution mess.
That’s all for now.
In amusing news, the best joke of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival goes to:
“Hedgehogs. Why can’t they just share the hedge?”
The rest of the top ten best, and a few of the worst, are at the link.
This year, it marks the 50th anniversary of the hovercraft.
I’ve long been interested in hovercraft: when I was a young boy, I put together a plastic model of the SRN-1. When I was in high school, I wanted to build a Yellow Jacket. Never did, though. I’ve seen Courtney Willis (scroll down) demonstrate a simple hovercraft built with a shop-vac and a large piece of plywood and said, “I could do that … but I don’t have the room.” I see the hovercraft toys available now and think, “Where were these when I was a kid?”
You know, the human-powered hovercraft at the first link looks interesting, although I didn’t see how it was steered. I wonder …
A little while ago, I wrote about parts of the Voynich manuscript being available on line. I just ran into the XKCD comic related to the Voynich manuscript, and it’s certainly an amusing comment on it.
Finally, my aluminum foil expenses can go down … unless this is just what they want me to believe!
Well, not so much a frenzy. Kinda cute, though.
Via.
Vortex cannon?
EMBED-Giant Vortex Cannon Destroys Everything – Watch more free videos
Via Viral Footage.
I first heard about the Voynich manuscript when I was in high school. Some years after that, I tried to track down a facsimile edition, but I don’t believe any were made – at least, not in a quantity that would make the price affordable to me.
Now, parts of it are available on the web, which pleases me. Not that I have any delusions about being able to make sense of it; I just like knowing that such things are available.
Jeff Atwood documents the slide into tastelessness exhibited by advertising for an online game. I remember seeing all of those ads, but I didn’t notice that they were all for the same game.
Can there be tasty tastelessness? That’s what human-flavored tofu would appear to be. What’s the market for that, anyway? Vegetarian zombies?
Does your cat go after the mice in your (home) office? Get a kitty inbox so you can get work done. After all, workplace safety is very important.
I’ve heard that smoking is a filthy habit that costs too much money, but twenty-three quadrillion dollars? I guess this is how the Democrats are planning to fund their new healthcare plan.
Conspiracy theorists ahoy! Because of the lack of documentation on President Obama’s background, an Army major fought deployment to Afghanistan on the basis that Obama was not legally the Commander-in-Chief. His orders have now been revoked, and his attorney, Orly Taitz, is claiming that because the Army hasn’t defended its position in court, it must be unable to defend it.
“Do you know what this means?” Taitz asked in a telephone interview with Military.com Tuesday, about an hour after hearing from Maj. Stefan Cook, the officer fighting his deployment to Afghanistan. “It means the Obama administration has blinked. They have no cards to play with. The moment I filed a lawsuit, they didn’t even fight!”
“Can you imagine what are the consequences? This is disastrous” for the administration, she said. “We’ll have no military. Because anytime any Soldier, any Sailor, any Airman does not want to follow any orders, all he has to do is call an attorney and say ‘I don’t want to follow this order because I question the legitimacy of the commander in chief.’ “