Jeff Duntemann's Contrapositive Diary Rotating Header Image

Odd Lots

  • When I was a (much) younger man, I wanted a ’59 Chevy. Having seen this, I guess it’s just as well that I didn’t get one. (Thanks to Todd Johnson for the link.)
  • Micropayments may not allow small creators (like me) to make money. They may not allow big huge monstrous media outlets make money either. They may not allow anybody to make much money at all. Bummer. I did have hopes…
  • Oh, and the Long Tail may not be as long as we thought. Double bummer.
  • Has anyone reading this ever played with the Alice language/GUI system for teaching programming? (Alas, no Linux version. Triple bummer. ) Any opinions? I have nieces who are growing up so fast…
  • From Pete Albrecht comes word that Chicago’s Kiddieland is closing. My father took me there in 1955 while my mom was working. We had pizza and I went on all kinds of rides. That night I puked my guts out, and my mom thought I was coming down with polio. (They don’t call it the Scrambler for nothing.)
  • Here’s another thing I thought I might have imagined: World Of Giants , a b/w TV show from 1959 that went into syndication and used to run just before the 4:00 PM monster movie on Channel 7 in Chicago, circa 1965. At least two people must have watched this, and the other one must have been Irwin Allen. (And the guy who created the show must have read Richard Matheson.)
  • Although the sun’s face has been devoid of sunspots for 18 days running (and 212 days this year) there is a major sunspot on the other side of the Sun, which may rotate into view sometime tonight. I boggle a little to think that we can image a sunspot on the far side of the Sun. How this is done is interesting, and has little or nothing to do with light. Flying cars or no, we are living in the future!
  • From the Not Too Clear on the Concept Dept: I just nuked a spam message pitching “herbal testosterone.” Right.

2 Comments

  1. Gary Kato says:

    There is a Linux version of the Alice 3 beta.

    If your nieces have Windows PCs, you could get them Lego Mindstorms!

    1. Didn’t know that…and it’s worth another look. Since Katie is currently two months short of her third birthday, and Julie not even a year and a half old, I think we have a little time still.

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