Odd Lots
- Of all the essential elements of science, proving causation is by far the hardest. Correlation only points in a direction that further research should take; it has no value in and of itself. (The title of the article is very hokey, by the way: Science is not failing us. Human ignorance–and corruption–are interfering with the scientific process.)
- Marvelously wrought steampunk playing cards. (Thanks to Bill Cherepy for the link.)
- I went to high school with one of these guys. (Joe Lill.) Very impressive piece of work. (Thanks to Pete Albrecht–another high school colleague–for the link.)
- I got one of these for Christmas from Lee Hart. We’ll soon see if I can still write COSMAC binary machine code in my head, 35 years later. F8 FF A2…
- Carol presented me with Steven Pinker’s new book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and I will report after I finish it. Pinker’s stuff is always worth reading, and I’ve been waiting for this one for a long time.
- The Ropers (my sister Gretchen, Bill, and her girls) gave me one of these for Christmas, and having tested it on a few Meccano parts downstairs, I suspect it may turn out to be the best hex nut starter I’ve ever had.
- This is the first waterproof (more or less) tablet I’ve ever seen, and in my preferred 4:3 format to boot. And a MicroSD slot for sideloading! Details are still sparse, but it’s the first CES 2012 announcement that hasn’t made me yawn.
- I bought a Nook Color last week; more in upcoming posts. I heard today that you can now get a Nook Color for $99 or a Nook Simple Touch for free with a one-year subscription to the New York Times or People. I don’t know if this is good for the industry or not, but it may well do wonderful things for the Nook’s market share.
- There are challenges to living in the best Effin town in Ireland. (But nothing like those of a certain town in Austria.) Thanks to G. McDavid for the link.
- I offer this interesting piece as a glimpse into my ongoing research into the drivers of climate. I have long intuited that climate is a chaotic system, and we see evidence of two states in recent geological history. What the attractors are, and whether there are other states are questions of enormous importance, as is the question of how bad a change to the other known state would be. Note well: My tolerance of Climate Madness is now close to zero. Please limit comments to the points made in the article. If you wander into politics or comment angrily your posts will be deleted without hesitation or regret.
Posted in: Odd Lots.
Tagged: books · ebooks · hardware · humor · music · science · steampunk · tablets
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Have you had a look at the Toshiba Thrive?
I’m still a big fan of my CM7 mod Nook Color, but last August I bought my daughter a Thrive for an early graduation present. Bless her, for Christmas she returned the favor and got me one, and I’m using it for day to day work. So far I’m well pleased with it’s capabilities. Full size SD slot, mini&full USB (read, mini keyboard/mouse), even HDMI. Running Honeycomb, and I’m doubting they’ll Do a Sandwich release, but I’m ok with it. Gyro, accelerometer, GPS.
What I have found is that the Barnes and Noble native ereader app (the one that runs on an un-modded Nook Color) is MUCH better that the Nook Android app. Makes sense from a business standpoint, but even on the thrive the app is a little sluggish when a few dozen books are loaded. May actually consider reverting back to the original environment on the Nook Color just to get that ereading experience back.
Santa brought several Nook Simple Touch ereaders to friends/family over the Holiday, and I was volunteered to update and register them (read, PLAY with them). Hands down this little device wins best ereading experience award, my honest opinion.
Not a B&N affiliate, just a happy customer.
My brother-in-law has a Thrive, and I’ve messed with it a little. Rugged machine, pretty much a laptop display with the processor added to the display slab. I’d like something a little thinner and maybe a little lighter, but it’s definitely still in the running. The port selection is wonderful. I’m not sure that a smaller tablet couldn’t have a couple of USB ports and a full-sized SD slot; I’m pretty sure that the manufacturers are nervous that carriers won’t like the machine with all that graspable I/O.
I’m going to make a Cyanogen card for my Nook when time permits. (Won’t be right away with the remodeling going on downstairs.) I like the Nook Color for epubs. The display is too small for most of the technical PDFs that I have.
I’m hoping the OLPC people reinstate the “Give One Get One” program with their new XO-3 tablets; I’d like to get hold of one. Since they can run Android, it should be possible to put a CyanogenMod distro on them.
Interesting stuff in the climate article. The chaos theory stuff pretty much went over my head without meaningfully disturbing my hair. To the extent that I did understand his point, it very much jibes with my intuitive reactions to the whole subject.
As M. pointed out, the whole doctrine of global warming sounds remarkably like the traditional doctrine of weight loss/BMI/etc., save that there’s much more hard data saying the latter is simply wrong.
-JRS
I’ve been intrigued by climate as a chaotic system since Gleick mentioned it in his book Chaos 20-odd years ago. I’m not a total master of the math, but I’ve studied it enough to understand what the chap is saying. I posted the link mostly because the role of chaos in climate needs to be much more heavily researched than it has been so far. We may never identify all of the attractors, but if there are additional states beyond the two we know, they should be discernible in the geological record.
For anyone trying to get away from ‘Climate Madness’:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPPbmXSI1ZM
Another take on climate that is strongly based on logic and reason:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtevF4B4RtQ
the best Effin town in Ireland.…
How about this department store signage?
But, as was noted in a comment to this entirely unconnected posting, “It’s amazing … how often ‘It’s Japan’ is a sufficient explanation… They’re just… different.”