Odd Lots

[jeff_duntemann]

• Juggling, thing-throwing robots are a major theme of my newly completed novel, Ten Gentle Opportunities. It's a good bet they'll be deployed in Disney theme parks eventually. I'm not sure why, but I find this very depressing.
• I read this when it first appeared ten years ago and I still think it's true: DRM does not and cannot do what it's supposed to do. This from Microsoft, heh. I sure wish they'd quit trying.
• Here's a good quick survey of Linux window managers, starting out by explaining the difference between a window manager and a desktop environment. (We don't have this problem in the Windows world.)
• Smilodons and bear dogs somehow managed to coexist. What I don't understand is how I lived sixty years without ever hearing the term "bear dog."
• I dunno. This reminds me a little of Cold Fusion: We all want it desperately, but it just seems so damned unlikely. (Thanks nonetheless to Frank Glover for the link.)
• Facebook enforces a sort of least-common-denominator social behavior on people, and is thus stressful. In other words, everybody's got a hot button, and if you have enough friends people will get pissed at you no matter what you say. The people who don't care are probably the only ones who should be on Facebook.
• Not space-efficient, but very cool in its way: the Moebius clothes hanger. (Big question: If you buy two will they breed in the closet?)
• This is the heaviest thing that Amazon will ship for free. It weighs a ton. (Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link.)
• If you still have a Commodore 64 (or something like it) try this one-line BASIC program. Amazing.
• Yes, except that if I drink as much as I want, I wouldn't sleep. (I barely sleep without drinking it at all.)
• Everything you didn't really want to know about Gangnam Style and didn't feel like asking. The funniest thing about the video is that it doesn't go anywhere near the ritzy Gangnam area that it's named for, though I would expect only Koreans to get that part.
• Oh--and the name of the dance that PSY and his gang are doing is (as best I can tell) "the invisible horse dance." It's a natural at weddings. Watch out, chicken dance--your days are numbered.