On Saturday, January December 31 (how did I screw that one up?), I will be having a New Year’s Eve party at my house in Morris Plains, NJ. The party will begin after dinner around 7pm, and run indefinitely into the morning, as New Year’s Eve parties are wont to do. There will be party games, board games, pinball, music, and plenty of other ways to keep entertained. If you know where my house is, you’re invited. If you don’t know where it is, and you wish to attend, talk to me and I’ll give you directions ^_^
I’d like everyone to wear something slightly odd, unconventional, or unexpected. This is inspired by an interesting article of clothing which I recently received as a gift, and which I intend to wear at the party, but which I have no desire to turn into a full-fledged costume. Weird hats or t-shirts, off-colored sweaters, thrift store items… anything interesting from your wardrobe is welcome.
People are also encouraged to bring any bizarre stocking stuffers that you may have received. I know my grandparents always give me some strange things for Christmas, and I’m sure I’m not the exception. The goal is to have a surfeit of conversation pieces 😉
If you have any suggestions for activities to engage in at a New Year’s party, leave a comment, and I will take it into consideration.
January 31 or December 31? *grins*
hi nels–sorry i missed the Free Culture summit. i was really looking forward to it, but erik’s parents came to visit over the weekend so i didn’t get a chance to come out to swarthmore. i hope it all went well!
Actually, it mostly caused me to waste time watching a man in a gorilla suit, but there were a couple of interesting examples… thanks for the link!
Juicer – no mystery
Don’t worry, it IS a Juicer!
We have such a Juicer in our family. It is the best designed, and most effective, Juicer we have ever seen.
How to operate: Cut an orange or a lemon in half, put it in the Juicer. Put a cup under the thing to collect the juice. Press the handle.
Our Juicer also has the markings “PAT.NO DES. 86217”, “OTHER PATS.PEND.”. However there is no “ALCOA” mark. Instead a round embossing reads “WEAR-EVER TRADE MARK ALUMINIUM TAC UCO”.
The Juicer was probably acquired by my wife’s parents around the 1940s.
Magnus,
Sweden
Saving you from having to reply to yourself.
I just read an article that puts forth that the high price for diesel has to do with the quality of the oil being produced now. Producers are pumping flat out, but they’re no longer getting the sweet crude that’s good for making diesel. They’re getting sour crude which is good for making gasoline. Something about long chains (diesel) and short chains (gasoline)(these are hydrocarbon chains).
I disagree somewhat with the idea that, in a shortage, the U.S. would outbid the developing world for the remaining supply. The richer countries would outbid the poorer, of course – that’s happening now. But poor countries almost by definition don’t buy very much oil, so not much relief there. So the real question is which rich countries are going to do without, and the answer to that depends on much more than money. The first thing, of course, is that oil exporters are going to limit exports in favor of their own subsidies and economies.
Apple’s “fix” for iMovie ’08 was to allow everyone to download iMovie ’06 HD for free. I think they’d rather have ‘power users’ buy Final Cut Express, but it’s definitely overpowered for what most people need. iMovie ’08 is definitely less powerful than its predecessor, and doesn’t really count as an “upgrade” as much as a completely new product with a different emphasis, really.
This is a suggestion that’s as much playful as it is serious, but what about Parallels or VMWare Fusion? Then you could be using OSS on a proprietary OS in a proprietary Virtual Machine on top of another proprietary OS!
Really, the value of such VM software is convenience of not dual-booting, so I’m not sure if that factors into the “moral” equation as presented, but it would at least allow for use of the software without giving up the resources of OS X at the same time.