{"id":193,"date":"2009-12-17T06:39:17","date_gmt":"2009-12-17T12:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/gazette\/2009\/12\/17\/091217_randomthursday\/"},"modified":"2009-12-17T06:39:17","modified_gmt":"2009-12-17T12:39:17","slug":"091217_randomthursday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2009\/12\/17\/091217_randomthursday\/","title":{"rendered":"Random Thursday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>OK, so where were we? Oh, yeah&#8230;that&#8217;s right&#8230;I lost two full days to a colonoscopy (and in a post-procedure drugged stupor asked my wife if she wanted to go shopping for gas logs). But enough about that&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I&#8217;m not a &#8220;cat person&#8221; (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/mg20427381.200-dogs-vs-cats-the-great-pet-showdown.html?full=true\" title=\"New Scientist: The Great Pet Showdown\">science is on my side<\/a> in that regard, by the way), but I have to admit that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/simonscat\/\" title=\"Simon's Cat YouTube Channel\">&#8220;Simon&#8217;s Cat&#8221;<\/a> series of animations on YouTube seems to be a perfect representation of all that&#8217;s intriguing about felines. Here&#8217;s one example:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/I1qHVVbYG8Y\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div align=\"left\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/buildinternet.com\/2009\/12\/a-handful-of-fascinating-typography-tidbits\/\" title=\"BuildInternet\">Here&#8217;s an article<\/a> that provides some trivia about fonts and typography, but you don&#8217;t have to be a font freak to appreciate it. It even has a movie about fonts in movies&#8230;well, movie <i>posters<\/i>, but that&#8217;s close enough.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\"><object width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/t87QKdOJNv8&amp;rel=0&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;hl=en_US&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<div align=\"left\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>And speaking of architecture &#8212; just kidding; we weren&#8217;t, but we are now &#8212; here are three odd examples:\n<\/li>\n<ul>\n<li>A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abitare.it\/highlights\/casa-a-vals\/\">semi-underground house built\/dug into the side of a mountain<\/a>: I like the idea, but with all that bare concrete, you might as well be living in a missile silo.\n<\/li>\n<li>A <a href=\"http:\/\/steampunkworkshop.com\/visit-steampunked-home\" title=\"Steampunk Workshop\">steampunked home<\/a>: The fireplace-turned-media center is wonderful, as is the file storage closet door, but I&#8217;ll bet the owners&#8217; annual Brasso bill is ridiculous.\n<\/li>\n<li>A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nypost.com\/p\/news\/local\/manhattan\/cozy_crazy_couple_makes_tight_studio_R15ToNFTaJE3c17zkw4efP\" title=\"New York Post\">175 square foot &#8220;condo&#8221; in Manhattan<\/a>: This is home to two apparently sane adults who have found that the key to a happy life is never having to cook.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<li>And speaking of steampunk, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/gadgetlab\/2009\/12\/hard-drives-sculpture\/\" title=\"Wired Magazine\">here are some great uses for old hard drives<\/a>.\n<\/li>\n<li>Boeing&#8217;s long-awaited 787 &#8220;Dreamliner&#8221; is no longer just a dream, as model ZA001 made its maiden voyage yesterday around the Puget Sound area. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/autopia\/2009\/12\/boeing-test-pilots-discuss-historic-first-flight-of-787\/\" title=\"Wired Magazine\">Here&#8217;s an interview with the fortunate guys<\/a> who got to pilot the jetliner on its initial test flight. The plane&#8217;s exterior design has some striking elements, including serrated engine cowlings that assist in noise reduction.\n<\/li>\n<li>When I saw <a href=\"http:\/\/campfire.theoildrum.com\/node\/6043\" title=\"The Oil Drum: SnowBear Farm - Ten Thousand Hours and Counting\">this article<\/a>, I immediately thought of my pal <a href=\"http:\/\/walkedwithangels.blogspot.com\/\" title=\"Visit Bob's blog\">Bob Westbrook<\/a>, who is also working to make a go of it as a farmer after many years of being, well, a non-farmer. I suspect farming the Virginia countryside is a tad easier than turning the sandy soil of West Texas into an oasis, but I&#8217;m sure all farmers face many of the same challenges.\n<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;ve made the conversion to e-books, but I&#8217;m just not ready to do the same with newspapers. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mrt-e.com\/\" title=\"Midland Reporter Telegram's electronic edition\">Nice try, though<\/a>.\n<\/li>\n<li>If you own an iPhone, <a href=\"http:\/\/tapbots.com\/pastebot\/\">Pastebot<\/a>&#8216;s clipboard management capabilities will save you a ton of time (and several tons if you also have a Mac, as its free companion Pastebot Sync allows two-way copy-and-paste between phone and computer [as long as you have access to a WiFi connection]).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OK, so where were we? Oh, yeah&#8230;that&#8217;s right&#8230;I lost two full days to a colonoscopy (and in a post-procedure drugged stupor asked my wife if she wanted to go shopping for gas logs). But enough about that&#8230; I&#8217;m not a &#8220;cat person&#8221; (science is on my side in that regard, by the way), but I&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2009\/12\/17\/091217_randomthursday\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Random Thursday<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-thursday","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}