Useful Dohicky

Lifehacker

The other day I helped the lady next door to move a bookcase to retreive some fallen stuff. The case had pressed some extention chords into an outlet, cracking the outlet and creasing the chord enough to expose copper. The denouement of the story was a trip to Cole Hardware and about ten minutes with an unlabeled breaker box. The dohicky in the picture looks like it would have, at least, saved about $17.00, and more importantly, stopped a fire hazzard. As for the unlabeled box, that's just p-poor workmanship. ¡Ándele! - ¡Ándele! no-good if the job is unfinished.

Aurora Australis

Popular Science: This particular aurora is unique in the sense that it was spotted fairly far away from the South Pole over the southern Indian Ocean, likely as a result of a large ejection of energy that burst from the sun on May 24. The photographer is looking south toward Antarctica, though you can’t see the southernmost continent in the photograph. The ISS orbits at around 220 miles, while the aurora was located somewhere in the ionosphere between 60 and 190 miles above the planet’s surface.

Taken from the International Space Station. Link

Via: Neatorama

OMG

Lemmy Kilmister

via: Dangerous Minds

Belated Round-Up

This weekend, I had a visitor. The end result was I found various ways to not get a darn thing done. It was great fun, but the catching up Monday portion is about what you would expect. As I wrote before, Alison is now Dr. Alison. I received pictures through Dianne and one is above. The belated link-dump begins with Afghanistan. Quite some time ago, the President said we had to finish the Afghan job, but never explained what that job was. Now we know.

• Vast Minerals" in Afghanistan: The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.
• Trillion Dollar Curse: The value of the reserves just discovered is already estimated at about a trillion dollars - and there's probably more where that came from. What does this portend for Afghanistan, and the war? That's the, ahem, trillion dollar question.

Next are culture links, including a eulogy for Jonathan Wolken, founder of Pilobolus. You might remember seeing Summer in the City on a late night gabfest.

• The nature-nurture canard: I sympathize with both arguments; I see Carr's point, but feel he overplays it. I find digital culture immensely distracting. I regularly dive down rabbit holes in my computer, iPhone, and iPad, taking wandering, shallow paths much like those manner Carr describes. Yet I remember pretty clearly getting distracted by other things — newspapers, magazines, favorite books I'd already read, tennis matches, conversations with neighbors — as a young adult in the dark dark pre-Internet era.
• Jonathan Wolken, R.I.P: The lights go down, the curtain goes up, and six half-clothed dancers come running on stage and immediately start tying themselves into exotic knots and strange, almost-familiar shapes. Are you dreaming? Are you trapped inside a surrealist painting? No, you're just watching Pilobolus Dance Theatre, a group so witty and imaginative that it has flourished for a quarter-century...
• New science fiction and fantasy from Finland in English: It may be those long cold winters, but when it comes to fantastic writing the Finns are on top of their game.
• Charles Fort, The original Art Bell: A better description of his interests would be to say that what fascinated Fort were the things which were intellectually excluded by science. Rains of frogs, alien spacecraft, meat falling from the sky and spontaneous human combustion were the grist for his mill and this is what he spent his life meticulously cataloging.

The remainder of the links are political. I can find no reason to think that professional wrestling isn't a good metaphor for the real world.

• Tsk tsk … I realize we should all be amazed and delighted that state Rep. Nikki Haley won the Republican gubernatorial primary in South Carolina despite the nasty and hard-to-substantiate charges of adultery coming at her from two yoyos who claim to have been her lovers. But personally, I’m riveted by Haley, a Tea Party favorite and Sarah Palin buddy as everyone delights in observing, precisely because of those allegations. I know columnists are supposed to be above the fray and bemoan, as Nikki did on the cusp of victory, the trashing of opponents with “disgusting politics.
• The deterioration of U.S.-Turkish relations: Of course, for many analysts referring to this divide is not so much intended to describe what is going on as it is aimed at demonizing the direction Turkish foreign policy has taken. The so-called “Islamic” turn is mostly cited by those who want to minimize or deny the role that Western governments have had in sabotaging the Western orientation of Turkey they claim to find so valuable.
• No one under the bus: The omnipresence of this narrative is matched by its complete disconnect from reality. In fact, the reset has provided a laundry list of deliverables, from an agreement that allows U.S. planes to fly over Russian territory on their way to Afghanistan, to Iran sanctions that are significantly more stringent than the prior three (if it's a used rug, then it must be a pricey Persian antique).
• The Hollow Arab Core: But for the most part, the Obama administration chose to fall back on the conventional policies of the past: Palestinian reconciliation remained in the hands of an enfeebled and partisan Egypt, the grand bargain with Iran faded from an agenda dominated by the nuclear question and sanctions, and the Turks are now seen as more of a problem than an asset.
• Weasel Stomping Day: What do you mean, ‘in’ a democracy?” answered the Stoic. “Democracy is a procedure of rulership. It’s not a place you live in. Saying you live ‘in’ a democracy is like saying you live ‘in’ a trial by jury.”

Smoke first, Soup Later

"Opium was stuffed into the chicken's head and then a whole basketful of the things could be carted about Chinatown without drawing much attention."

There is less live animal sales in Chinatown today compared to a few years back, but I suspect that those in the know (native speakers) can still find the unusual stuff. Cash is king.

Via: TYWKIWDBI and TIME Inc. photographic archives

Back in the Day

When I was a kid, your phone didn't have naked ladies on it. Thats what National Geographic was for. And furthermore, your slide rule couldn't be programed for lascivious suggestions. Well mine only had 5 scales, maybe the professional ones could. And as far as I know, the magazine you kept upstairs in the hog-house couldn't tattle on you the way an I-Pad can. That, as we all know, is what sisters are for. And yeah, I promised myself when I was a kid that I'd never sit around and **** about progress, but....

Via: I have seen the whole of the Internet/ joannecasey.blogspot.com

Avoiding Offense

The Ministry of Truth gets caught out. The picture on the right was used in the British exhibition The War Experence, the one on the left is the original. Of course the politicos are out looking for a PC librul or a tyrant that hates our freedoms to blame, but I didn't really have to tell you that. A more cogent theory is that it was some mid-level executive just sanding off the less profitable aspects of the exhibit. After all, cigars don't draw customers. It does go to show you how malleable history is when an interested party sees a dime in it.

The Daily Mail - UK