Don’t be tempted to clean the foam pads on your Etymotic ear phones with anything vaguely solvent like. They will never be quite the same again.
Category: goatee-stroking musing, or something
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M-W Visual Dictionary Online
M-W’s Visual Dictionary Online is rather good. F’rinstance: ENERGY :: WIND ENERGY.
Update: whoa, I just looked at this on IE, and it’s an absolute ad-beast. It has been a while since I surfed with ads enabled.
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thappy hanksgiving (belated)
We’re in Ohio, having had too much turkey yesterday. I think this thanksgiving was brought to you by Married To The Sea, as Mindy, Karl and Carl sat around with their laptops chortling like turkey-filled chortling things.
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something other than wind blows here
Dave Bidini‘s article in today’s Globe & Mail, An ill wind blows (now irritatingly hidden behind a paywall, but helpfully cached here) troubles me about what got through basic fact-checking:
- “The turbines expected on the island are open-bladed, a style being replaced in Europe by closed-blade turbines, which do less damage to wildlife.” What are closed-blade turbines? I’m in weekly contact with colleagues in the European wind energy industry. If people were installing a radically different type of machine, I’d know about it.
- The article cites the National Center for Policy Analysis as a source. Quoting the NCPA on wind energy and the environment is a little like quoting the NRA on gun control. Check out the NCPA’s E-Team: Providing Accurate Information on Energy & Environment Issues. Overall, I’d say that ExxonMobil are getting great VFM on their donations to NCPA [PDF] if they’re now being quoted as a credible, balanced source.
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take it or leave it
I got Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael from the library on a friend’s recommendation. I tried, but I don’t feel the love for the psychic gorilla.
It’s not that the wise protagonist is a psychic gorilla. I can get past that. It’s just that the conclusions are so pat. I wonder how many readers come away with the romantic notion that they’re the only Leaver in a Taker society? (they’re wrong, of course; I’m the only one to which this applies …)
I also didn’t get the “Takers need prophets” deal. if you decide to follow the ideas in the book, what is Ishmael but a prophet? A not-for-prophet?
Writers like Jared Diamond (though flawed) and Julian Cope (though fried; but at least can play mellotron) wrote it better. Ain’t but the one way, as the Drude sang.
What I did like about the library copy that I borrowed was that it had clearly made an impression on a previous reader. Crabbed on every page in tiny, infra-neat madperson handwriting was a seemingly endless thesis about something. What, I can’t tell; the diligent guardians of the Toronto Public Library erased almost every word, so I couldn’t tell if a worldview had been shattered or affirmed. Maybe it was the wisdom of the ages. Who can tell?
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surely I’m not alone … ?
Ottawa VIA Rail station has a circular spiral ramp that leads down from the concourse to the platform level. It has a smooth channel for a handrail which looks perfect for racing marbles or toy cars down.
Surely I’m not the only person who has ever wanted to do this? It looks so inviting! -
big ole bagel
City Cafe Bakery, at the corner of Victoria & Strange (!) in Kitchener has the best bagels.
I hadn’t been there for years. Last time was with Steve Izma (typesetter and BTL Books guru) and his family, who are regulars.
Being Scottish and consequently dough-addicted, CCB is heaven.
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The big 14k
Yep, I’m 14000 days old today (how old are you?). It’s supposedly the length of a biblical generation.
Many people suggested ways I should celebrate (most involving ingestion of various ethanol-based solutions). It turns out that a company I’m working with is taking me out to the Leafs game tonight. There may well be ethanol.
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yecch!
Under no circumstances should you consider consuming gum that’s sat in its packet in the pocket
of a leather jacket for several months. It tastes of old death. -
the colour of
I picked up these crayons at the GE Wind stand at CanWEA:
Yes, those really are the colour names – Purification Purple, Evolution Orange, Mother Earth Brown, Cleaner Coal Black, Solar Yellow, Revitalized Red, Hybrid Green, Clear Water Blue.
Is there a connection between wind power and crayons? Wait until I don my polyester leisure jacket, James Burke-style, until I tell you: Edwin Binney, inventor of Crayola, had a daughter (Dorothy) who married George P. Putnam. Putnam went on (with only a short detour into promoting then marrying the person for whom the word “aviatrix” is most often used, Amelia Earhart) to help create the Smith-Putnam wind turbine (itself perhaps the most heroically unsuccessful story in the history of wind energy).Wind turbines; crayons: it’s all connected, see?
Maybe I should’ve picked up a bunch of these at the show, as even a ratty package of them is going for over $30 on eBay. I’m glad that mine are already on their way to a 4 year old in Ohio, where they will be appreciated more than by any collector.
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hunger strikes twice
On the way to Canwea in Quebec, I stop for food – and find the place oddly familiar. Seems that Catherine and I stopped in this same A&W in St Nicolas on the way to PEI.
It’s not as if we sought out A&W; it’s just what was there. -
barefoot hydrodynamics
Ever since I discovered them, I have been fascinated by the Foxfire books. Not that I’m planning to go back to the land or anything, just they they often display flashes of ingenuity and craftsmanship.
Take this, for example:
It’s clearly a turbine runner, but it’s made from a slab of solid pine, pinned together then held in compression by steel bands around the rim.
It was made by Georgia craftsman Sam Burton, and is documented in Foxfire 2 (Wigginton et al, 1973, pub. Anchor Books, ISBN 0-385-02267-0, pp. 142-163).
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most 70s book cover ever
Floaty-haired woman motif? Check
Happy couple riding a horse? Check
Elaborate, possibly ill-advised, used of perspective? Check
Fashions suggesting high polyester content? CheckFriends, I give you Mel Bay‘s Fun With The Dulcimer:
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beware of those you pay to beat you up
Alternative therapy for backache ‘can kill or disable’ | UK News | The Observer
Spinal manipulation, used by chiropractors to treat hundreds of thousands of patients a year, poses serious risks …
It’s probably heresy to say this in Ontario (‘cos DD was from Pickering) but I’ve always thought that having someone smack your spine about was not the smartest thing to do. But then, my one of my secondary mottoes for life is Allopathy Now!
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The Danish Poet
If you haven’t seen The Danish Poet, you should. I had some time to kill on Thursday evening, so went into the Mediatheque. I’d heard that the animation had won an oscar, so I looked it up. It’s a really sweet (if extremely convoluted) story of true love and Scandinavian coincidences.
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baby
Today’s instalment of The Perry Bible Fellowship surpasses its usual standard for twisted humour.
