Odd Lots
- I always hate to hand you two Odd Lots in a row, but I’ve been so burned out by the end of the day working on this book that there’s nothing left to craft a coherent essay with. I was going to write something insightful about Prohibition (which was repealed 80 years ago today) but about all I can muster is this: Prohibition was altogether evil and accomplished nothing. It was a cry of rage against Irish and southern European Catholic immigrants, and in one blow created organized crime and birthed a disrespect for the rule of law that afflicts us to this day. Of all the things our government has condoned, only slavery was more evil.
- ARM Holdings offers a free ARM and Thumb-2 instruction set reference in PDF format. I remember when these things folded up to fit in your shirt pocket. Not anymore.
- Somebody figured out how to hack Parrot quadricopters wirelessly, and it was done with a Raspberry Pi.
- Bill Meyer sent me a link to a nice comparison of various small under-$100 boards in the Arduino / Raspberry Pi class. The only serious omission I see are the Beagle boards, including the fascinating BeagleBone Black.
- But never fear: Make did a BBB vs RPi comparison back in August. Best I’ve seen so far. Gizmag’s is older but still worth a quick scan.
- You can evidently find out if your login or logins were stolen in the recent hack of Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Adobe, and other sites. Here’s a multi-site lookup.
- Is there any article online about the “divided sleep” concept (our ancestors retired at nightfall, slept for three or four hours, awakened for an hour or two, and then slept again for three hours or so) that does not walk back to Roger Ekirch? I’ve read Ekirch’s book very carefully, and his evidence for this phenomenon is pretty damned slim. Yet…it shows up all over the place.
- Statins may not cause memory loss or confusion. However, their primary mission of reducing cholesterol levels may not do much to prevent heart disease in people who don’t already have it.
- Eau Crappe. Newsweek returns from the death that is the Cloud, and will resume a weekly print edition. Will the magazine be awright, Uncle Lar? Well guldurn, Little Tommy, I sure hope not! (Thanks to Pete Albrecht for the link.)
- There are currently 35 volcanoes erupting around the world. Here’s a great site summarizing where they are and what they’re doing. I’m still curious about what the active volcano trends have been over the past thousand years or so (within the limits of our ability to determine what was blowing up on Kamchatka in the 1300s) and if you’ve seen any trend reports like that, do drop a note.
- That poor llama is finally getting a rest. After fifteen years, AOL is shutting down the Winamp page and ceasing support of the product on December 20. Winamp was the first MP3 player I ever tried, way back in 1998. One of my colleagues had to send me an MP3 to test it with: Rosanne Cash’s “Seven-Year Ache.” The song didn’t impress me, but the concept made me think: This is gonna change a few things in the music business.
Posted in: Odd Lots.
Tagged: hardware · health · music · software
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Of course, the government is now neck-deep into “Prohibition 2.0” aka The War on (Some) Drugs, which has resulted in even more evil and stupidity than the original Prohibition. (The G-men enforcing the original Prohibition would have loved asset forfeiture, for instance.) Still not up to slavery level, though, and some cracks are developing (such as the actions of Colorado and Washington).
I agree completely with you about the stupid war on drugs.
God save us all from prohibitionists of all stripes.
It recently occurred to me that the ACA (unAffordable Care Act)
will likely result in effects similar to what prohibition wrought.
I posted the following on a blog and repeat it here.
………………………
As it was during the time of prohibition, so it will be again with Obamacare.
It will be top-quality health care that is prohibited.
People will go to the Caribbean to get it, just as they went to the Caribbean to get Rum.
People will go to Mexico to get it…or to Canada, or India, or Thailand.
Doctors will set up medical ships off shore, much like Mr McCoy did to sell imported liquor from his boats(The Real McCoy)
There will be hush hush secret clinics in all major cities. (Joe sent me)
First we had the madness of alcohol prohibition, that led to the madness of drug prohibition when the enforcers no longer had anything to enforce. Now we have the madness of Obamacare… pray it does not stick around as long as the drug war has.
Too late to go to Canada for health care: they got the government provided sort 40 years ago. (I’ve suffered it, so believe me, I know its flaws.)
Oddly, many seem incapable of recognizing that the War on Drugs is Prohibition resuscitated, and will fail for the same reasons.