Archive for July, 2009

Jul 30

Software and such

A couple of changes: I’m trying MarsEdit to post to the chow now, uh, now. Just an experiment. So far so good.

Also, due to some cool new developments, I’m using NetNewsWire for feed reading. Love this program. In fact, it helped me track down an old blog that I loved, but who’s feed must have changed since I subscribed: it’s the Britannia Blog. Some really great stuff here, including their kinda funny video guide to careers.

*Update* – I bought MarsEdit cause it is teh awesome. Managing multiple blogs from one sweet interface (usable offline as well) is just too good.

0
comments

Posted in random, TV, Universal

Jul 22

Amazing Video Of Huge Aquarium

Wait for the video to load fully before viewing in full screen. Wow.

Kuroshio Sea – 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world (Please don’t go by Barcelona) from Jon Rawlinson on Vimeo.

via Kottke.

0
comments

Posted in Elliot, movies, Universal

Jul 22

Consider The Merdeuf

A French psychiatrist has written a book called “NO KID – 40 Reasons for Not Having Children”, which is apparently a huge bestseller in France.

For the record, she has given copies of her book to both her children. Neither has picked it up, or paid it any attention. “All they want to do is read Harry Potter,” she sighs.

The theme of one chapter: “The child is a kind of vicious dwarf, of an innate cruelty.”

via ‘I really regret it. I really regret having children’ – The Globe and Mail.

0
comments

Posted in health, random, Universal

Jul 15

Home again

Here are a batch of pics from our trip to PEI and New Brunswick (along with some older ones of a Nova Scotia visit from this spring).

0
comments

Posted in Elliot, health, Lex, Universal

Jul 02

This explains my neighbors

Damn, Social Studies is hot today!  Love the explanatory clause in the first sentence here: “… the American equivalent of Canada Day”.  Hilarious.  Find me a Canadian who doesn’t know what the fourth of July is!  Even the almighty Cancon can’t shield Canadians from the media onslaught that is American Independence Day – see the movie?

At any rate, I’m looking forward to not being here for the fourth.  We’re actually driving to New Brunswick tomorrow morning (staying at my Grandmother’s house), and on to a rented house on Prince Edward Island on Saturday.  We’re missing Canada Day and Independence Day.  Sweet!  I’m sure the noise in our North Adams neighborhood will be horrendous.  Won’t miss that a bit.

The rockets’ damn glare

Tomorrow is a U.S. national holiday, the Americans’ equivalent of Canada Day. In the evening, “a bit after 8 o’clock, the sun will set,” Troy Patterson writes in Slate magazine. “The civilized thing to do at this juncture would be to go home, kick back with a little John Locke and pass out fast. But, no, we must reckon with the stupid fireworks, an integral part of the Fourth of July since 1777, when they befouled the skies above Boston and Philadelphia. … Just as it is incalculably more thrilling to watch a piano burn than say, kindling, there is more satisfaction in watching actual stuff explode – cars, volcanoes, toasters, what have you – than in witnessing explosions that produce only bombast. When fireworks blow up, the only things up-blowing are the fireworks themselves. There is no drama. There is violence but there is not sex. There is a feeling of danger without a corresponding feeling of adventure.”

We are so looking forward to Brackley Beach on PEI!

via The rockets’ damn glare, tips for rich artists and tsk, tsk, tsk – The Globe and Mail.

0
comments

Posted in Bitchfest, dumb, Local, random, Universal

Jul 02

Sign me up

I feel it’s somewhat promising that the rss feed for Globe and Mail’s Social Studies section has finally been updated, after subscribing a few weeks ago.  This could be good.

On the downside, at the time of this writing, the above link’s main page only displays “sponsored links”.  Hmmm.  I’d love to see a list of recent articles.  Plus, today’s article was published at 5:11 pm EDT.  They’re getting there, at least.  I hope.

This bit looks really cool, though.  I’d love to learn how to do it.  In fact, I might be so devoted to this idea (*this is so cool!*) that I may want to become an expert and give lessons on this myself someday.  Time will tell:

Tsk, tsk, tsk

“With just a few weeks of training, you can learn to ‘see’ objects in the dark using echolocation the same way dolphins and bats do,” reports Hadley Leggett in Wired magazine. “Ordinary people using no special skills can use tongue clicks to visualize objects by listening to the way sound echoes off their surroundings, according to acoustics experts at the University of Alcala de Henares in Spain. ‘Two hours per day for a couple of weeks are enough to distinguish whether you have an object in front of you,’ Juan Antonio Martinez said in a press release. ‘Within another couple of weeks you can tell the difference between trees and pavement.’”

via The rockets’ damn glare, tips for rich artists and tsk, tsk, tsk – The Globe and Mail.

3
comments

Posted in Bitchfest, dumb, health, random, Universal