Anguish Languish

English is not very organized, which probably contributes to its flexibility...but it can make it very hard to spell.

I ran across this link which claims that:

When all the words in a given passage of English have been so replaced, the passage keeps its original meaning, but all the words have acquired new ones. A word that has received a new meaning has become a wart, and when all the words in the passage have become warts, the passage is no longer English; it's Anguish.

This link has some fun examples of Anguish Languish: Anguish Languish

Winning those eBay auctions

I've recently lost a number of eBay auctions at the last minute or so. Someone was telling me about www.powersnipe.com . I think the idea is that you put in a bid and the bidding software or website waits until the last few seconds and executes your bid. The idea being that you don't drive the price up and you still have a good chance of winning the auction. I checked it out but the price seems to be a bit steep for me given that I don't buy on eBay that often.

I searched and found www.esnipe.com which seems to have a price model that matches how often I buy on eBay a bit better. I noticed that esnipe.com has the ability to have a bid group so you could bid on multiple items and as soon as you won one the other bids would be canceled so you'd have a better chance of winning at least one.

I haven't tried it but next time I'm interested in something on eBay I just might try it.

ebay items nobody wants

The site www.lastminute-auction.com tracks eBay auctions that are ending soon and where the current bid if very low. I haven't snagged anything using it but it looks like it might be useful.

Clever Attractors

Playing around with physics....

http://www.thecleverest.com/content/attractors.html

Solar Roller

Read about this: http://cachefly.oreilly.com/make/mc_beambots.pdf which is from a Make magazine article telling you how to make tiny little solar robots that move about when sunlight hits them. Sounds like they would be a fun little project.

Eraser shaped like a keyboard delete key

Just what I need...an eraser shaped like a keyboard delete key.

http://store.artlebedev.com/catalog/office/tersumus/

Born on a Blue Day

I heard a fascinating interview today while in the car on On Point Radio with Daniel Tammet who has a rare form of autism called savant syndrome. The interview can be heard here.

Daniel sees numbers and words as objects, they have shape and color. The title of his memoir "Born on a Blue Day" refers to the fact that he was born on a Wednesday which for him has a blue color. He described the shapes and colors of some numbers for the interviewer.

He needs order and can be overwhelmed by stimuli but feels it is important for him to work with researchers because he may be able to give them a window into helping those with autism.

I was encouraged by how articulate he was and the fact that he was able to encourage parents of kids with autism and Asperger's Syndrome.

Daniel has a website: www.optmnem.co.uk.

I think the On Point Radio interview is worth listening to.

Geocaching

I've recently started geocaching. Check out www.geocaching.com where you can find cache locations and see what is happening to a particular cache. I mostly do it with our youngest son. He and I have found that it is a fun way to spend time outdoors and some of the caches require puzzle solving skills. We've also done it with other members of the family as well...our oldest son also is pretty good at it.

I bought the most inexpensive hand-held GPS I could find the Lowrance iFINDER GO, which works fine for me.

We go to the www.geocaching.com web-site, find a cache near our location, put the coordinates into the GPS and head off to find the cache. Typically we bring something small to place in the cache and in return we take something (if anything grabs my son's fancy). We then log our success (or failure if we can't find the cache) at www.geocaching.com.

Sometimes a cache contains a Travel Bug which is a registered "something" whose movements between caches is tracked at www.geocaching.com.

Apart from the joy of spending time outdoors with family members the other unexpected benefit as been that we've discovered a lot of parks/conservation areas close to us that we never knew even existed.

Planes landing in cross-winds

Some pretty strong cross-winds!

This one is looking at the plane coming in head on.




This is looking at different landing from behind.

Boeing 747 Facing Extreme Cross Wind

This is an amazing video of a Boeing 747 facing an extreme cross wind. Pretty impressive bit of piloting!