Tarp Surfing

Who knew? Check here.

The Last Airbender as We Should Have Seen It

Too cool by half. Check it out here, here, here and here.
More here and here.

Book View Café News

Book View Café Holds 30th on the 30th Contest for Fool's Paradise

To celebrate the 30 years of marriage of BVC member Jennifer Stevenson and her stagehand husband, on Friday, July 30th, BVC is holding a 30th on the 30th contest. BVC will be launching episode 30 of Stevenson's stagehand romance, Fools Paradise, and giving out a free, complete copy (including the ending) to the 30th person who reads the episode and can find the answer to the following contest question:

What type of women do stagehands typically marry?

Find the answer in Episode 30 at the BVC site.

Send your answer to [contest@bookviewcafe.com]. Thirtieth responder gets a free, complete copy of Fools Paradise—including the ending.

Shortest Joke in the World: Truth in Politics

(Picture from here.)

Politics is a rough game. But it gets almost impossible when the politicians (both in office and trying to get in office) start lying.

I have a little trouble with "misstatements". A lot of these are out and out, bald face, up front, in your face lies.

A few examples.

The Democratic Primary for New York City happens on September 14. The current rep, Carolyn Maloney, is being challenged by Reshma Saujani-- who, I think from the pictures, suffers from Bush Smirk Syndrome. Be that as it may be, Saujani has been out and out lying. (See here.) Maloney might not be the right person for the job but Saujani looks no better.

Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman are competing to be California Governor. Both sides are lying about the other. Further, the supporters of both sides are lying about the other. Brown's side says Whitman has "done nothing for the middle class" which is patently false. For her part, Whitman's camp says much of California's woes are Brown's fault. Which is kind of tough since the decisions that got them there happened after he left office. (See here and here.)

Republicans like to hit Harry Reid. No surprise there. A PAC says Nevada got bottom of the barrel when it came to the stimulus money. (Interesting attack since the stimulus money was roundly attacked by Republicans. Their motto appears to be: "We hate that stimulus money. Give us more." But what of that.) Not entirely true-- Nevada is 43rd, not 50th as they claim. Even so, it's hard to blame Reid for it since the money is driven by formulas. (See here and here.)

In New York it's Democrat vs. Democrat. In the Georgia governor's race it's Republican vs. Republican. However, here, as in New York, deceit rules. Karen Handel has been annointed by Sarah Palin as her choice. It's with mixed feelings that I report she's under attack by John Oxendine. I don't mind the attack but Oxendine is lying. He misquotes an article describing skyrocketing budgets since 1997 attributing it to her after she'd been in office three months. He claims she funded abortions when she did not. (See here.)

When they get interviewed on television, they're not worth watching. (See here and here.)

Too many to count:
Obama here. Wisconsin Senate race here. Florida Governor's race here. Colorado Democratic Senate primary here.

What's strange is these guys say this and expect not to get caught by it. I just ran briefly over FactCheck.org (bless them!) to get the above. It's easy to catch them. Pretty much, with the internet, fact checking is pretty easy. You have to rate the good sources (factcheck.org, etc) over lesser sources, journalists over bloggers who don't reveal their sources, bloggers over tea baggers and pretty much anybody over Ann Coulter. See? It's easy.

So: either people take what is being said without critical thought, have already made up their mind without facts or just don't care.

I don't know which is more scary.

When the Sea Saved Humanity

Life was good 200,000 years ago. The climate was mild. Food was plentiful. We were happy.

Then, things went in the toilet. The climate went bust. Things dried up.

We almost died out.

But fortunately, we learned how to get some food from the ocean down in South Africa.

That's the gist of an online exhibit over at Scientific American on line.

Go check it out.

Another DIY Day

(Picture from here.)

Another DIY day.

Ideas categorized for your pleasure.






Weirdly Cool
Magnetic Silly Putty
Robot butterfly
The Rocket Project
Plastic bottle island
Ecobot
Dabbling in Alchemy
Balloon linear accelerator
Quadapult
FDR's secret train station

Food
Hibiscus Cooler
Baked potato chips
Breakfast rice
Pumpkin cheesecake
Elderflower cordial
Smoothie pops
Vegetable panini

Hot Metal Stuff
Saltines
Welding cart
Chromuim
Barbecue welding
Garden Incinerator-Patio Heater

Hand Work
Rotational Origami
Sketch book
Playdough painting
25 cent silver ring

Resources
Flat Pack Chair Design S/W
Tour the ISS on line
DIY Satellite Launches
Inside a photo copier
Make: Projects

Off Label Uses
Uses of petroleum jelly
Things to do with a USB

Electro-Chemical
Salt and Vinegar circuit etching
Gas sniffing alarm
Glow sticks

Primitive Techniques
Hand knapped glass knife
Knots and more knots
Traditional knowledge database

The Real World
3 D Printing
Micro-mill from scrap
Circular Saw->Table Saw
Solar lawn mower
Stirling engine fan
Plumbing desk

Nature
Artificial reef
Terra cotta fountain
Making a fire piston
PVC garden trowel
Growing gourmet mushrooms in a coffee cup
Raising chickens

Entertainment Value
Slip and Slide
Kids Projects
Simple robots
Water guns
Catnip extract kitty crack
Toy catamaran
Rubberband shotgun
Fortune telling cube

Things better left undone
Fart operated TV remote

About "Winters Are Hard"

Winters Are Hard goes up over at Book View Cafe today.

WAH appeared on scifi.com in 2002. It stayed up there for a long time-- long after the branch of the SciFi Channel quit publishing original literate science fiction. It's nice to have it hosted again.

I'd been working on a future history (the file is called "The Howard Cycle") for a long time.

Yeah, I know. What can I say? I grew up reading Heinlein. For all his faults Heinlein was one of the first popular SF writers that wrote within a framework that existed outside the published work. Nowadays, that's common.

I'm convinced that technology gets most interesting is when the line is blurs between what is human and what is human technology. That's part of WAH and, not surprisingly, a center piece of of the Howard Cycle.

Of course, I wrote WAH before Apples iPod and iPhone. Consequently, my idea of humans blurring the line between themselves and technology involved surgical changes. The way people interact with technology now suggests that the line can be washed away without messy medical procedures.

WAH was the first story of mine that was placed firmly in the Howard Cycle. It hasn't been the last.