Category Archives: General

General

Small Really is Beautiful

Tiny Living, a store that caters to New Yorkers living in cramped spaces has a website, so the rest of us can share in the small is beautiful life, and do it in style.

Here are a few of my favorite items from the site:

Spice Carousel Auto-measure Spice Carouselsize: 7.25″ diameter, 8.5″h
Facts: (8) spice bottles on a rotating base
free standing or under-cabinet mounted
stackable
bottles dispense teaspoon at a time, no need for measuring spoons
bottles also have pop tops for shaking and pouring
matte champagne, black and clear plastic, won’t break
spices not included
…
$32.95
Pepper Ball Tiny Magnetic Pepper Grindersize: 2.25″ x 3.5″Facts: magnetic one-handed pepper grindereasy refillingclear and black plastic…$9.95
Miss Army Kit Miss Army Kitsize: 0.75″w x 1″d x 3.5″h
Facts: girlie pocket knife includes:
mirror, flashlight, scissors, nail file, tweezers, pen, pill box, perfume bottle, knife, ruler, bottle opener, screwdriver, corkscrew, safety pin, needle + thread, key chain…$17.95

(Yeah, it’s “Girlie”, but it is cute. 😛 )

The prices seem pretty reasonable, and theres a lot of stylish, low profile stuff for small places there.

Hat tip to Wired News for this.

General

From Beyond the Grave (Well not Really…) 42

From Google Groups:

From: Douglas Adams – view profile
Date: Wed, Nov 3 1993 2:51 am

In Article <2b4asr$…@syzygy.socs.uts.edu.au>, mjche…@socs.uts.EDU.AU

(Mark J Cherkas) wrote:
>I am new to this group so bear with this beginners question:
>Why is the answer 42 ?
>Has Douglas Adams ever explained this ?

The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be a number, an
ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations,
base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk,
stared into the garden and thought ’42 will do’ I typed it out. End of story.
Best,
Douglas Adams
London, UK | d…@dadams.demon.co.uk (dormant)
Currently in Santa Fe, NM | ada…@nic.cerf.net (current)

General, Tech

Finally a useful extension for Firefox (just kidding)

But, seriously, there is a great extension out there for researchers, writers, students, any one who needs to keep stuff organized, and referenced. It sure beats 3×5 cards. 😀

It’s called Zotero:

Zotero in action

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself.

You can save whole webpages, pdfs, images, citation sources from webpages, etc. It works with Amazon, Google Books, Library of Congress, many university libraries, (here’s a list of compatible sites) and if used with the book burro extension helps find books cheap. You can even save notes in EndNote format with it.

Academics rejoice!!!!!

(Hat tip to BoingBoing for this)

Art, General, Politics

Robert Anton Wilson

It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea. In an evolving universe, who stands still moves backwards.

RAW

These words seem appropriate for our times, don’t they? Brought to us by a man of wit and intelligence, and brought back to me by a visit to his website, after reading news of his present difficulties.

I learned a lot from Mr. Wilson, and his writings (The Illuminatus Trilogy, etal., Cosmic Trigger, Prometheus Rising, etc.), and was saddened to hear that not only is he ill, but couldn’t even pay his rent for the few months he has left (he can now, thanks to the generosity of his fans), and thought I’d post this to get it out a little more. (It even hit /. I see, but that’s the usual troll/moron fest that /. seems to have become lately). If you’d like to contribute checkout the BoingBoing posts above, they tell you how.

Peace out.

Art, General

Paint

What (sometimes) amazes me is how different the different manufacturer’s paints are.

F’rinstance–today I went looking for some Pthalo blue acrylic paint, which I haven’t bough in several years, but decided that I needed for some paintings that I’m working on/thinking about. At my local craft/art store they carry three brands of artist’s acrylics–Liquitex, Winsor-Newton, and Golden–all very fine paints, and I use all of them, but… Here’s something to note, Golden is more expensive than W&N (about $2 for the Pthalo–and W&N calls their pthalo blue “Winsor blue”), and W&N is about $2 more expensive than Liquitex. W&N only has one shade of the pthalo blue, where Liquitex and Golden have 2 a “red”, and a “green”, which just means which way they slide on the color scale, and which way they go if you mix them with white.
All OK so far. Open the tubes up, and compare them. W&N and Liquitex look about the same for richness, and plastic-y look that acrylics have. So not too much difference there. Not so with the Golden. It has a richer blueness about it, and doesn’t have that plastic look to it. It’s beautiful. There’s definitely more pigment in it, and the acrylic polymer formula is obviously different then the other two brands.

Yes, it costs more, but with all that pigment in there, it’s obviously worth it.

So there you have it, sometimes more costly does mean better, and always comparison shop.

acrylics

Art, General

I’m Baaaack!

Well I’m back from my 2 month excursion.

It was interesting to say the least. I met some new friends, and got reaquainted with some old ones.

Old ones–if you’re ever in Barcelona, you must go to the Museu Picasso, you won’t regret it.  An amazing collection.
New ones–In Cork, Ireland, The Crawford Museum, and Louis Le Brocquy, Mainie Jellet, and Harry Clarke, among others.

I even did some artwork, which I’ll upload to the gallery at some point–when I get pictures taken of it.

General

Hola! from Barcelona

Well I see from my little venture yesterday, that pictures aren’t
working–I’ll fix that when I get a chance.
We are in Barcelona, and I love it. A city built for people.
Went to the Museu Picasso yesterday, and had a great time.
Wish you were here.

General

Day 6

Hello Fans. 😀
Another day at sea, and not much going on. I got a pic
of sunrise this morning, which came out really good. I’ll attach it
here. (I don’t know how things look here, I hope the pics aren’t
killing the looks too bad.) We are/have passed through the Azores, and
passed by one of the southernmost islands tonight at about 1900. It
was right on the horizon, and just bejeweled with lights. At first I
only saw one light when looking out, and thought it was another ship,
but I got outside, and saw more lights, and figured it out. Too dark
for pics on that one.
Well that’s it, probably no more excitement, until we hit Gibraltar.