Camping at the end of the travel season in Normandy, H and I had a little fright late one night at a campgrounds that we had nearly to ourselves. There was an awful clanging of a metal trash bin from over by the restroom building.
Monday 15 December 2014
jack and jenny
Friday 12 December 2014
impulse engines
Wired! Magazine’s science desk has an interesting profile on the research of two astrophysicists from Harvard aimed to identify theoretical hypervelocity stars.
catagories: ๐, ๐ญ, ๐, transportation
santa’s little helpers
Writing for The Daily Beast, columnist Sally Kahn reminds us how big warehouse distributors exploit workers, especially those brought on to take up the holiday slack, with a telling decision upheld in the courts.
Though happily in Germany, these elves can go on strike—and over lesser injunctions—for America’s sweat-shops there seems to be little hope, and no great change of heart for these grinches seems forthcoming. This stint is not an insignificant one, not paying workers for the time at the end of each shift they spend being subjected to mandatory screenings and searches to make sure that they are pilfering any merchandise, especially considering that this same company will be awarded (for its tracking and logistics expertise) government security contracts and help maintain that list of who’s been naughty and who’s been nice.
Wednesday 10 December 2014
load of guac
catagories: ๐ฑ, food and drink
wmf or brรธderbund
Via Pre-Surfer comes a fine and heart-felt tribute from The Atlantic for the quirky galleries of clipart that came bundled in software suites, which are effectively being euthanised as one of main libraries of illustrative materials is being discontinued. Though better alternatives can be summoned-up with increasingly less effort, there is something a touch nostalgic to making do with a limited number of choices and the stock images that graced business presentations and school projects until just recently. I suspect that the genre might be perpetuated elsewhere, however, as linotype, stencil and other techniques are still used and appreciated. Fittingly, the eulogy is delivered in the media itself.