I’m trying to keep my excitement in check, because nothing is confirmed yet, but it appears that the far-flung outpost of my home town (a whopping 6 miles from the biggest city in the state, so practically nowhere) is getting DSL. That means for just a little extra cash (if my wife is reading) I can increase my connection speeds by an order of magnitude. Admittedly that’s in part because my dial-up only worked at 28.8k, but still.
The BBC has a report about new research on a volcanic eruption in Iceland in 1783. The research suggests that perhaps 10,000 people died in the UK as a result of a cloud of emissions from the eruption, combined with some unusual weather conditions. Clearly this highlights the surprising interconnectedness of areas across the globe. But what was more amazing to me was that the after-effects of the volcano killed 9,000 Icelanders, one quarter of the population, in a time known as The Misty Plague (or the typeface-challenging “Móðuharðindin“).
Imagine if an event with such devestating consequences had happened in Europe (oh right, the Black Death) or the US (ah yes, the Jamestown settlement starvation, or smallpox and related colonial acts, depending on your viewpoint). We know about these things, but imagine how many other countries have similar cataclysms lurking in their pasts. Truly amazing.
I bought some shoes from Zappos and wanted to pass on my heartiest recommendation. Good website, painless ordering, very good pricing, and I even got an upgrade to overnight shipping! And they have more shoes than you and your significant other could share individual sticks at.
Enough naked commerce, a rant about unAmericanism to follow…
Top headline from the BBC: “Mice produce sperm from monkeys”. Presumably you have to grind them up really small, so it makes sense because mice have such small hands.
When people ask me what the Internet is for, I point them to sites like this.