Photographs of strange alien "iceballs" in Victoria Park

Photographs of strange alien "iceballs" in Victoria Park, article. And you thought crop circles were spooky?

Fuji dynamic range

Fuji has announced the first high-dynamic-range compact camera. You don't get the HDR benefit at full resolution, but still, for very contrasty subjects this will be an interesting camera.

A big noise

After midnight last night I started three simultaneous and long email conversations with three different good friends, one of whom I hadn't spoken to for about 15 years. This was so stimulating that I didn't get to sleep until about 7 am. And then I woke up before noon and had to handle some biz. So by mid-afternoon, I was pretty cooked.

So just as I was eating a bi' o' cereal and watching season one DVDs of Third Rock From The Sun, winding down to go to sleep again, an infernal noise started. I'm not kidding, I could not hear what they said on the TV!

It turned out to be my downstairs neighbor who is getting central heating, and he was drilling a big hole through his kitchen wall. He was through the inner wall of brick, but it turns out that the outer wall of brick is very, very hard, amazing though that is for this building.

I'd no choice though, I had to sleep, so I closed all the windows fully and all the inner doors, hoping that would dampen the noise when he started again. But when he started again, it was clear that he was now drilling in the wall just under my bedroom. Or that was what I believed: it turned out later that the noise was simple so loud and transferred so well through all the walls in the building that it sounded like it was right on top of me! I can't believe how loud that was.

The funny thing is that I actually got better rest anyway than I would have if the upstairs' neighbor's dang clock radio had been going! Innat weird? (I have bought a small alarm clock for him now, which turns off after two minutes...)

I should add that these things are exceptional, normally I'm snug as a bug in a rug where I am. (Also "smug as a bug in a rug" as Peppermint Patty put it.)

The trough of no value

The trough of no value, article by Mike Johnston. How to get your stuff or work preserved for the future.

Koalas

My excuse for posting something this cute is that I'm trying to prove I'm not just a cerebral bastard. :-)

This is circulating on the Net now:

It has been so hot in South Australia for over a week - 40+ degrees Celsius every day, very dry also. A guy at work lives at Maude. His wife sent him these photos of a little Koala which just walked into the back porch looking for a bit of heat relief. She filled up a bucket and this is what happened!

Is it stock buying time?

[Thanks to TC.] Buffett's metric says it's time to buy, article.

I admit the stock market as per this graph has fallen more and quicker than I realized. But I'm still in doubt if it's not gonna fall further. It seems unlikely that a crisis this profound can correct so fast. I don't think a bottom 30% lower would seem entirely out of order.

Dotty as you've never seen her before

Art by Eric Bowman.
Apart from this being a fun and surprising idea, I like it as a painting.

iPod Nano IRL

I finally got around to see the new(ish) iPod Nanos in real life. I just have to say: gawd, they're beautiful. Before this generation, I'd been bitching about the boring colors, but I gotta say, when they finally did it right, they did it really right. The design is simple and gorgeous, and the colors are vibrant. I tried photographing them, but because it's metallic colors, photographs just fall flat, they don't capture the glow of the things.
Some people plaster gems or gold all over an iPod to make it a piece of jewelry, but besides being poor taste at the best of times, with these things it's gilding a lily, they are already jewelry.

My god not yours

People who pray to god to help them in battle or sports remind me of two ants looking up at an eagle soaring high overhead and arguing: "He's on my side!" "No, he's on my side!"

Japanese baby

Economy of scale

Isn't economy of scale amazing? I just bought this set of books for thirty-seven pounds (fifty bucks). They are small, but there are twenty of them! If I published a small picture book, probably I'd have to sell just that one for a similar price, but because the good doctor is hugely popular, the price per unit goes way down.
Of course, that is also the only reason we can buy insanely complex objects like cameras or iPods at prices anybody can afford. If there were only ten customers in the world for an iPod, the price would have to be in the millions.

(The iPod is included for scale, it didn't come with the books!)

I want candy

Taiwanese candy street vendors. Babycakes! I don't think they have trouble attracting customers, at least male ones. The female ones probably hate them.
Photo from Daily Bubble Tea.