Fantasist’s Scroll

No, nothing new about my health.

Just some fun/strange news stories from the past week or so.
First, apparently, some political unrest in Africa is going to cause a world chocolate shortage. Yikes! (Actually, if you read the article, it’s more likely to cause prices to go up, slightly, because manufacturers have likely taken some of these problems into account.)
Then, in an impressive variation of “Man Bites Dog”, there was the story about a teacher being “reprimanded” for biting a student. But, before you decry the sad state of our proessional educators, the poor man, who happened to be the wrestling coach, was being attacked by several of his wrestlers who were trying to give him a wedgie. The kids got, basically, a scolding and were otherwise off scott-free. But, the assualted teacher got into trouble. That is what’s wrong with our education system today. Those kids should have been brought up on charges! Damn psycho-jock brats!
Thirdly, here’s a news story that proves what I’ve been telling my mother for years: it’ snot a mess, it’s my system. Apparently, there is a direct link to a messy desk and higher productivity after all. See?! All this time I was right! HA!

And, as a bit of a bonus, here’s something for all the folks thinking about getting married soon: How to Tell that the Honeymoon is Over. In short, to summarize the article, you know your new marriage has taken a turn for the worse when your new spouse tries to run you over in the car. It’s a sure sign.
And, on a more personal note, yesterday was the anniversary of my adopting Hilda from H.O.P.E.. I know because someone I used to volunteer with there e-mailed me after seeing my blog. Apparently, she was checking on who had linked to their website and the post at Diary of a Network Geek, four years ago, where I talked about adopting my darling girl, was one of the prominent links. If you’re in Houston, and thinking about adopting a dog, or cat, H.O.P.E. is definately the way to go. A great organization that I’m proud to pay dues to annually, even if I don’t have the time to volunteer for them right now.

So, in any case, I hope one of those things made you smile a bit on this Friday. Either way, enjoy your weekend!

Today is William Gibson’s Birthday!

For those of you who have been hiding under a rock for the past twenty years, or have been freshly cloned, William Gibson is the primary progenitor of the cyberpunk movement. He’s generally credited with coining the term “cyberspace” and popularizing a somewhat more realistic, if somewhat bleak, view of the future.
He also ran away to Canada in 1968 to avoid the draft. Which is the only bad thing I can say about him. I otherwise admire his work and thought processes. Certainly his literature is beyond compare. I admire his work very much and occasionally will reread some of his short stories, just to capture the feel of his prose.

Anyway, celebrate his birthday with a little science-fiction in thanks for what he’s done for the genre.

Well, cancer seems to be on my mind this week.

Go figure, right?
Well, it’s been a long week and I’m tired, but I have two fun links for you regarding cancer. The first is a link to the National Children’s Cancer Society educational publication page, which includes a cancer coloring book called “Sammie’s New Mask: A Coloring Book for Friends of Children with Cancer“.
The second link is to The Adventures of Captain Chemo and the Chemo Command. I’ll let you make your own judgements about both of these, but they struck my strange sense of humor. I know they’re trying, but I think they can do better on the “fun” links for cancer.

Hmm, maybe I should put together a cancer coloring book myself as I go through all this. Might fill some time and keep me amused.
Anyway, it’s the best I can do this week. Better links next week, I promise. Until then, enjoy your weekend. Hell, enjoy every day.

So, today, my Friday Fun Links have a theme.

I’m not sure if it was the cleaning this week or what, but I’ve been feeling very, well, um, “domestic”. So, my fun links this week pretty much all have to do with things around the house, or housing itself.
Okay, so let’s start from the outside and work our way in. First, I have a link to some interesting plans for an 11 foot by 7 foot flat in London. Apparently inspired by a janitor’s closet with a bathroom that sold for £170,000 in London’s upmarket Chelsea, the plan is really quite ingeneous.
Now, let’s talk furnishings… If you’ve just spent $335,000 on a large broom closet, you probably don’t have much left over for furnature, so it’ll be IKEA for you. No worries, though, thanks to the IKEA Hacker blog. Yes, the stuff on that blog all started life as humble IKEA flatpack that got modified into something wonderful. I especially like the breakfast nook for two.
But, you’ll need light for this tiny hovel, right? Well, thanks to Gizmodo, you can light your flat with the coolest, freakiest science-fiction lamps ever. Also, you can use the coolest, hippest, most radically arty light switches ever to turn the lights on. I thought the pool ball switch was cool for the mini-flat, since it was described as being about the size of a billards table.
But, wait! There’s more! Since this flat would be so totally strapped for space, there’d be no room for a rack of cookbooks in the kitchen, er, make that, by the tiny hotplate and microwave. So, instead, use the coo.boo Digital Cookbook that’s the size and shape of a spatula!
And, finally, in a barely related story, if you can squeeze into the fridge, get out some Ben and Jerry’s Steven Colbert’s Americone Dream ice cream. No, I’m not making that up, but, also no, it’s not quite available yet. Yet.

So, there you have it, a geek getting domestic and working on too little sleep. Enjoy your links and your Friday!
And, yes, this did appear on my other blog, Diary of a Network Geek.

Today is William S. Burroughs‘ birthday.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri on this day in 1914, he is best known for having written Naked Lunch, which was later turned into a movie that starred Peter Weller. He started writing while attending Harvard, but when a piece of his was rejected by Esquire magazine, he was so disappointed that he didn’t write again for six years. He tried to enlist in the military, but he was turned down by the Navy,and when he got into the Army infantry, his mother arranged for him to be given a psychiatric discharge.
So, at 30 years old, he moved to New York City and got involved in a bohemian scene. It was there that he was introduced to two younger men, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. He also got addicted to heroin, and wrote his first book about it, a memoir called Junky. It came out in 1953.
Burroughs is also famous for having accidentally shot his wife at a party while recreating the infamous “William Tell scene.”

Okay, there is no theme to this at all.

Well, I guess, links I saw this week that made me scratch my head could be a theme, but, whatever…
First, as many of us are thinking about our taxes and how to pay less of them to the government, this story from MSN about the 9 wierdest tax write-offs made me laugh. I especially liked the one about the pimped out Amish buggy.
Then, there was this story about RFID tattoos. My first thought was that it would be an interesting way to track your kids, but, apparently, they’re using it to track livestock. Which makes sense, since meat is the most shoplifted item in the stores. I mean, meat isn’t cheap, so it wouldn’t surprise me to find out how much gets stolen on the hoof, too. And, I’m sure it’d be easier for other kinds of record keeping, too.
The last wacky link is to a story about the iPod index. Well, to be more specific, an index to track currency values based on the cost of an iPod. Apparently, an Australian bank is using the iPod as a commodity on which to place relative values of world currency. I wonder if it’s occurred to them that shipping and manufacturing costs in various parts of the world might skew that index? Well, anyway, iPod fanataics already know ours are like gold.

So, now, I’ve hopefully given you something to read that ends your week with a chuckle.
Enjoy your Friday Fun links!
(And, yes, this also appeared on my other blog, Diary of a Network Geek.)

Okay, so, once again, my thoughts are scattered, and my links are, too.

First, there’s a link to an article on Australian IT that makes me glad I don’t live in Singapre when I was teaching my parents about bandwidth theft. Apparently, a nosy neighbor turned a kid in and now, he’s been sentenced for stealing another neighbor’s wifi bandwidth. Kind of harsh, but, then it is Singapore, so he’s probably lucky he didn’t get caned!

Here’s two that are sort of related. At least, they both rot your brain.
First there’s the gross one. Did you all hear about the “brain worms” found in South Texas? Apparently, these nasty, little buggers, if you’ll pardon the pun, get into your brain via improperly stored and prepared food, then, they eat their way out.
The other brain-rot story was one that surprised even this jaded cynic: pot-laced snack products. Yeah, no joke. They’re illegal as all hell, but some guy was apparently selling these cannibis-infused “look-alike” snacks. Crazy stuff.

And, finally, since I finished paying the bills right before I typed this in, from the Get-Rich Slowly blog, Money Making Hobbies (from 1938). The dream is always to get that hobby that not only pays for itself, but makes a little extra, too. Sadly, based on the suggestions from this book, the only way to make money with a “hobby” is to write and sell this kind of book!

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got in me this week. It’s been another long, busy one, so, enjoy your Friday Fun Links!
(And, yes, I’m back to reposting the stuff from my other blog, Diary of a Network Geek.  It was a really long week!)

It’s the birthday of one of the most prolific writers of the 20th century, Isaac Asimov, who was born in Petrovichi, Russia in 1920. He came with his family to the United States when he was three years old and his parents opened a candy shop in Brooklyn. Issac grew up to become a professor of biochemistry at the Boston University School of medicine and in 1950 he published his first novel Pebble in the Sky.

About the same time Asimov took part in writing a textbook for medical students and he found that he loved explaining complicated things in ordinary language, and so he set out to write about science for the general public, in language they would understand. He said, “Little by little my science writing swallowed up the rest of me.”
Asimov developed a regimen of working ten hours a day, seven days a week, producing between two and five thousand words a day. Asimov’s method was to write a book about any subject that interested him but which he didn’t fully understand. He used writing as a way of teaching himself about everything.
By 1970 Asimov had written more than a hundred books and he began branching out into areas other than science. He wrote about nuclear physics and organic chemistry, history, Greek mythology, astronomy, religion, in addition to his collections of limericks, mystery novels, autobiography and science fiction. By the time of his death in 1992 he had published more than 400 books.