Odd Lots

[jeff_duntemann]

• In the wake of the recent eclipse, the best photo I've seen: One ring to woo them all!
• Although we missed seeing the thin crescent Venus on Sunday night, I saw it again last night (Monday) and through a 12mm Plossl it was spectacular. Probably the thinnest crescent I've seen in 25 years. You can discern the "horns" of the crescent easily in good binoculars. It's quite close to the Sun now and getting closer all the time, but if you can catch it immediately after sunset you'll have a good chance for the next several days.
• And if you're into crescents (I have a drawer full; whoops, wrong category) tonight just after sunset you'll be able to see a very thin crescent moon right beside that very thin crescent Venus. Go get some lemon crescent cookies from Maggiano's, pour some iced tea, and watch the crescents set in the west. Life is good.
• Time to admit it: I pulled the trigger (finally) and bought an ASUS Transformer Prime TF201 tablet, plus its brilliant keyboard/battery/port extender/charging dock. I'm still studying it and testing it, and will report in detail later on.
• Cell phones are not the same UI challenge as tablets, and there's a site listing tablet-friendly apps for Android. I've been cruising it a lot the last few days. Some good stuff in there.
• TV numbers are imploding across the board. The NYT is muttering something about "nonlinear viewing," but I think NPR has it right: People are getting wise to the fact that they're paying $150 a month for overripe weasel manure. What all those people are doing instead is obscure. Dare we hope...books?
• Maker Jeri Ellsworth rocks. And what makes her rock is the wonderful gizmo she rocks on.
• As this article suggests, I had forgotten about ReRAM, thinking it was yet another oddity that would never escape the labs into real products. I guess being 10,000 times faster than Flash memory got somebody's attention, along with the fact that CPUs based on the technology are possible, if still perhaps a ways off.
• Why are so many of the world's collection of leaning towers in Italy?
• Here's a good illustration of why I rarely take "medical studies" seriously anymore.
• Everything else has been built out of Lego. Why not the Nine Circles of Hell? (Thanks to Bruce Baker for the link.)