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Odd Lots
- I started using two nice little utilities this week, and both are worth a look. The first is MozBackup, a program that creates a single compressed backup file from your Firefox settings and bookmarks, or your Thunderbird settings and mail. It comes out of the Czech Republic, so some of the English is a little rough, but it works beautifully.
- The other is MBoxView, a no-install app that does only one thing: It allows you to view an MBox file such as the mailbox folders used by Thunderbird. I occasionally set up a mailbox folder for a project, and then when the project is over I exile the folder to my archives so it isn't cluttering up my Thunderbird folder hierarchy in perpetuity. I don't refer to such archived folders very often, but when necessary, the utility makes looking at ancient mbox folders completely trivial.
- Here's a great page on a plastic model I had almost fifty years ago: The Von Braun Ferry Rocket, a three-stage finned behemoth that nicely anticipated (in function if not in shape) our Space Shuttle. It was featured in Collier's in 1953 (note one of the other headlines on the cover: If they only knew...) and there are some very nice paintings of how the device would operate, including some scary-claustrophobic single-occupant re-entry capsules. Thanks to Pete Albrecht (who also had the model back in the day) for the pointer.
- Also from Pete comes a pointer to the Fantastic Plastic site, with photos and brief writeups of a lot of other space and aviation plastic models from the 40s to the present day. Some breathtaking—as well as silly—stuff was out there capturing young imaginations. I had this. And this. And this.
- From Ken Rutkowski's online newsletter come some interesting stats: Only 12.5% of Americans drink wine. And those who drink wine regularly fall into a fairly tight demographic:
More than half of all frequent wine consumers are 50 years or older and that adults who earn $50,000 in household income who are 45 years or older with no children living at home are 85% more likely to frequently consume wine compared to the average adult. According to The Media Audit, adults who fit these criteria are termed “Affluent Empty-Nesters” and they are a prime target audience for wineries and distributors.
"Frequently consume wine" here means have a glass of wine at least three times during a two-week period. Not surprisingly, San Francisco is the wine-drinking capital of America, with West Palm Beach and Fort Myers close behind. This is a pretty concentrated demographic. Maybe I should actually write Sweet Blindness—think how many more Americans might drink wine if they realized that not all of it tastes like cat-piddled oak floorboards!
And -- oddly enough -- that wine taste is what most American wine drinkers think it's supposed to taste like.
B
(Anonymous)
wine taste
And by the way, white is what you drink when you run out of red -- which should be rarely.
Bill Meyer
Both are effects of the tannins. And most American dry whites are awful, so don't worry about not liking them. Good Old World whites -- even the dry ones -- are much less tannic and much more food friendly. I could pour your a whole range of wines, red and white, that I think you'd like.
B
Ah, yes. Here's an old friend. My high-school buddy John Knoll still had his, in perfect condition - that being the kind of guy he was. He probably still does… (He scratch-built a 2001 space pod from a ping-pong ball that would have blown your mind. There it was, in every detail.)
And speaking of old friends, here is my first eBay purchase, still sitting in its box awaiting the time and care to build it properly. I recall these model parts as being somewhat larger in my hands…. I direct your attention to the decals, and the supplemental brochures, and even the T-shirt transfer!
- and I still have my Moon Bus in a box, somewhere - alas, merely what Time has left of it. Still, enough remains that it could be restored…
That said, your words will actually be far better informed than mine, so I'm looking forward to hearing what you think!
Kindle is one of those things that could work spectacularly well or die the death, and right now my main reservation is the $400 price. I read ebooks mostly on my Tablet PC, and my experience with the Sony Reader has been...tepid. I hope to have something to say on Kindle shortly--but even knowing as little as I do, I say Bravo! The more players the better, even if any single player's efforts are weak.