Category Archives: Items of interest

With love, to baristas everywhere.

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Most people are not aware of The Whiteboard, firstly because it’ a webcomic and the vast majority of people out there don’t follow them; secondly because it revolves around paintballing; and thirdly because it’s characters are anthropomorphized animals which all God-fearing, right-thinking people know are the spawn of Satan’s fiery ass.

Their loss.

Doc Nickel is not only a skilled technician[1], he’s also a very funny and gifted writer and artist, and I’ve enjoyed his strip for years even though I don’t know the difference between a Tipmann and a Dyson vacuum cleaner.

Long, long ago, back in the stone age when the syndicated comic Piranha Club was known as Ernie, Bud Grace did a series about a marriage between coffee machines and technology. As smart as today’s young people are, even they might choke on some of the antiquated references used in this series, but to a “Knight of the Old Code” such as myself, this was hilarious (click the image for a larger version):

ErnieCoffeeMaker1

Strangely enough, the last panel is still valid for even the most advanced systems…

Well, now comes Doc with a whole new take on the complexities of coffee making (and apologies for reproducing these here – I hope the added exposure is compensation enough!)

Clicking each image will take you to the relevant page at The Whiteboard:

autotwb1677

autotwb1678

autotwb1679

autotwb1680

autotwb1682

autotwb1683

Even though I haven’t been a coffee drinker for around 44 years (Old_Wolf_Cry), I lived in Italy for a good stretch of time between 1970 and 1971, and I know what good espresso is. I also know that it’s not a brainless operation to make a good cup of joe; a lot of thought and technique goes into choosing the appropriate raw materials and the process involved.

So the next time your barista takes an extra minute to whip up your Venti 1 pump caramel, 1 pump white mocha, 2 scoops vanilla bean powder, extra ice frappuccino with 2 shots poured over the top (apagotto style) with caramel drizzle under and on top of the whipped cream, double cupped, give her or him a break. It’s not like building tinkertoys.

Oh, and tip them.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

[1] An example of Doc’s machining skills can be found here. (I hear an ominous hummm….)

An Upvote for Upworthy

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Two days ago I posted here about a couple of things at Upworthy’s website that bothered me, and made it an open letter because I couldn’t find any way to contact them on their website.

Today I received a comment from Luigi Montanez, Upworthy’s founding engineer. You can read it over at the original post, but I reproduce it here because it’s deserving of it’s own page.

Hi there, I work for Upworthy. Thanks for taking the time to write out this candid feedback. It’s immensely helpful for us to read.

1a) On the popups: Have you tried clicking the “Don’t show again.” links on them? Once clicked, they’re supposed to suppress those popups in the future. If they’re not working for you, that’s a bug we need to look into. Or if you didn’t notice them, we’ll work on improving their prominence.

1b) On the Facebook friends module: We actually don’t know who your friends are on Facebook. What you’re seeing is called an iframe; it’s a way for us to embed a little bit of the Facebook.com website into our webpage. It’s like a small window into Facebook.com that’s embedded on our page. Facebook never tells us who you are, or who your friends are. Here’s more info:

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/

If we wanted that information, we’d need to ask you to opt-in using Facebook Connect, which we don’t do.

2) Yes, this is a major oversight on our part. Instructions for contacting us are on our About page, but they’re hard to find. Based on your feedback, I created a dedicated Contact page and linked to it in the footer throughout the site:

http://www.upworthy.com/contact

Again, thank you for this. If you have more feedback, please send it our way.

Lots of love,

Luigi
Founding Engineer, Upworthy

This made me sit down astonied.

  1. First of all, someone saw my post. This meant that Upworthy has a social media team or person that is actively scraping the Net for feedback and buzz about their company.
  2. Next, someone answered, meaning that someone cares. In any company in the 21st century, that’s a gold star right off the bat.
  3. Last, Luigi provided constructive suggestions and actually implemented one of my suggestions. I was gobsmacked.

Really, there’s only one possible response:

MorpheusUpvote

Well done, Upworthy.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

How Prices Hit Home, Part II

Posted on by The Old Wolf

I previously posted about prices in 1978, and whilst cleaning out files I came across an article I had saved from my father’s archives. I present it here for comparison’s sake, and just because it’s interesting.

This was published in the Daily Compass on August 15, 1951, which itself cost 5¢ for each daily edition.

Prices Then and Now - 1939 and 1951

 

1939’s prices were, of course, depression-era; for your gratuitous enjoyment, a song from 1927 which was looking for any bright spots in an otherwise dismal economic climate:

The Old Wolf has spoken.

The Kel-Bowl Pac: Good ideas never die.

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Kel-Bowl-Pac 2

In a previous post, I used this clever innovation to springboard an exploration of my earliest stirrings as a prescriptive grammarian – an affliction I am pleased to say I was able to shake off over time. It was a good idea, especially for its time; and even though the patent on the name has expired, and nothing is said about it any longer, the idea persists.

Friday we were coming out of a showing of “Now You See Me” – phenomenal show, by the way, I recommend it highly – and they were giving out sample packs of “Krave,” a new cereal that would rival Calvin’s “Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs” for unhealth:

Krave

 

But as I happened to examine the back, the light was just right and there they were… the Kel-Bowl-Pac perforations. I would be curious to know if anyone ever uses these little boxes the way they were designed, or if it’s just one of those manufacturing holdovers that no one ever thought to do away with. Whatever the case, it gave me a smile.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Space Opera, then and now

Posted on by The Old Wolf

For my friends and readers who enjoy good SciFi

In a period of time eons ago, but after the coalescence of the Two Galaxies… was E.E. “Doc” Smith, the father of modern Space Opera. If you’ve ever read his Lensman series, or his *giggle* Skylark series, you’ll understand why he earned that title. Swashbuckling heroes with muscles that ripple in their gray leather suits, red-headed seven-sector callouts with tawny, gold-flecked eyes, strange looking aliens both good and bad, a deus ex machina good-guy gimmick, a drug that transcends any humanly possible high, intergalactic gangsters, ancient, wise and terrible guardians and blackguards, and weapons that become ever more powerful, biting, clawing, gouging, and coruscating through the spectrum into the black, beyond even the ability to describe their absolute, incomprehensible-cubed destructive ability… well, you get the drift. I happen to enjoy his fiction… it’s old, corny, hackneyed, totally disrespectful of all known laws of physics, and a great ride.

But today I’d like to introduce you to one of Smith’s heirs: Schlock Mercenary, a webcomic written and drawn by Howard Tyler.

Schock01

Sergeant Schlock, an amorph and eponymous hero of the strip.

“Schlock Mercenary” is space opera, just like its predecessor… but it’s space opera for the 21st century, with both heart and brains. Tayler, in addition to being a cartoonist, is a writer, in every sense of that word, and one who takes his craft as seriously as a heart attack.

The strip is complex and deep and tangled and convoluted, and not for those looking for “fluff” – Tayler has created a world every bit as intriguing as Niven’s “Known Space,” and I’m not going to even try to give you an overview. But I’ll suggest you get to know the strip through one character: Kathryn Flinders.

schlockkathryn_3590

Start at the beginning of Mallcop Command and watch this lady develop as a character (you first see her on 2/11/2010). In the process, you’ll be drawn in to an amazing world of military mercenary magic, and some intriguing character development along the way. If you like good science fiction and good writing, there’s a high probability that you’ll be hooked, and have to go back to the beginning of the strip.

You can thank me later.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

They speak the regular way

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Which is the meaning of the name “Illinois.”

17

 

This map is intriguing. Prepared by the Atlas of True Names, it shows each state with the translated meaning of the state’s name. I wondered about the accuracy of the effort when I saw Utah described as “Land of the Sun,” when everyone here knows that Utah means “people of the mountains;’ however, a bit more digging revealed that linguistically, the word “Ute” means “the high land” or “the land of the sun,” which by metonymy could be extended to meaning the people who live in a high place, or the mountains.

Anyway, it’s presented here for your gratuitous enjoyment. Check out the other maps offered by the Atlas… I’d love to have some of these in hard copy on my walls.

The Old Wolf has spoken.