Items of interest, some S-L, a little STC newsletter, some curry shrimp, and staying in…

Interesting: Using Google Maps to Get Free Phone Calls


Note: I heard about this on a YouTube clip about “Google Hacks.” To that end, it may be something that Google has heard about and fixed if it’s not really how they want it to work. Bottom line: use this “trick” at your own risk. I will not be responsible for any charges to your phone if you try it and it doesn’t work for free.


I can’t really get my head around this.  This is a picture of a snowflake magnified to 300um using a LTSEM.

Click on the image to read more about it.


This one, I am able to process.


People are so interesting! I listened to an episode of This American Life today described as:

24 Hours at the Golden Apple

The This American Life producers document one day in a Chicago diner called The Golden Apple, starting at 5 a.m. and going until 5 a.m. the next morning. We hear from the waitress who has worked the graveyard shift for over two decades, the regular customers who come every day, the couples working out their problems, various assorted drunks, and, of course, cops.

This episode is quintessential Ira Glass, taking everyday stuff and finding the fascination in it. I absolutely love this excerpt from it:

Interviewer: The front of The Golden Apple is the smoking section. Sitting there is a grayish woman—with a fleshy face and wavy hair—in one of the small two-person booths. Her name is Alice Deluka.

Alice: I work at a purification center. Uh, it’s sauna, running, vitamins and minerals. It’s a program to rid your body of toxins and radiation.

Interviewer: Wow. Have you done the program yourself?

Alice: Yes, I have.

Interviewer: Now to the naked eye, it looks like you’re smoking and drinking coffee and about to have some sausage.

Alice: Yes.

Interviewer: So, how does that square with the whole toxins thing?

Alice: [hesitates, pensively] Well, I’m trying to wake up. [laughs heartily]

Interviewer: [also laughing] You need some toxins to wake up?

Alice: [still laughing] I guess so.


I did a little Service-Learning work today, but spent most of the day working on the April edition—my final edition as this year’s editor—of the STC Community Newsletter.


Tonight, I tried the Shrimp Curry recipe in the Replacements, LTD Dozens of Dishes: Employees Share Their Favorite Recipes book.

I invited Joe over to be a guinea pig partner, and it turned out to be pretty darn good, even though neither one of us is a huge curry fan. It was one of those dishes that got better by the bite, too. I know Joe enjoyed it, because he had seconds.

So, another success out of this book. I’ve yet to make something I haven’t liked or loved out of this book. But once, again, my only frustration with it is that it doesn’t tell you for how many people the recipe is devised. I would say this recipe serves four.


We had plans to meet at Flex tonight for Scareyoke and some pool, but Kevin (av8rdude) called at around 7:30 to say that he and Kurt had decided to stay in, and then Joe decided not to go since tomorrow’s his first day at his new job, and so I bagged the idea, too.

I was in the bed by 10:30, and asleep by 10:35. My life is good.

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