Start­ing Mon­day out with beer:

A list of 10 very old com­pa­nies. 3 of them are brew­eries, found­ed in
1040, 1074, and the new com­er in 1328. There’s also a hotel/restaurant
that’s been serv­ing beer for more than 1000 years.
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/29340

On to motorcycles.

I like the lived in look of this Wrench­mon­kee’s Moto Guzzi.
http://wrenchmonkees.blogspot.com/2009/07/blog-post_942.html

We need to get one of these for­pass­ing around to the younger generation.
http://designyoutrust.com/2009/07/15/the-rocking-horse/

Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty: Two impor­tant bits this morning.

On patent­ing plant mate­ri­als. Lar­ry Proc­tor has lost the first round
in his attempt to main­tain a ridicu­lous patent he duped the US Patent
office into giv­ing him on the com­mon sta­ple (in some Latin American
areas) azufra­do or May­oco­ba bean.
http://www.ciat.cgiar.org/newsroom/release_31.htm

The Swedish Pirate Par­ty is gain­ing legs in Europe and mak­ing small
inroads into the USA. Copy­right reform is, of course, onthe big planks
in thi­er plat­form. (Does any­one else use that metaphor anymore?)
Richard Stall­man has pub­lished a piece on how the pro­posed 5 year
copy­right lim­it might adverse­ly affect the GNU (copy­left) licensing.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pirate-party.html

Ars com­ments intel­li­gent­ly on Stall­man’s argument.
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/07/pirate-partys-copyright-reform-cannon-could-sink-copyleft.ars

And the best kind of pirates. Les­bian Space Pirates! Joce­lyn turned me
on to this com­ic when she post­ed a link to this shoe lament. SWF (If
you decide to read fur­ther, and you should, some bits are NSFW.)
http://rosalarian.com/lesbianpirates/?p=34

A cou­ple of inter­est­ing sets of archives.

A col­lec­tion of resources on the Eugen­ics move­ment in the USA. This
lit­tle rec­og­nized move­ment has chill­ing lessons to teach about the
urge to pre­scribe what’s best for every­one else.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/07/27/american-eugenics-mo.html

On a less ter­ri­fy­ing note. Duke uni­ver­si­ty has opened the John Hartman
Cen­ter’s Archive of ads from the 50’s through the 80s cre­at­ed by the
D’Ar­cy Masius Ben­ton & Bowles agency. I expect to see a lot of these
turn­ing up on the ‘net real-soon-now. Requires iTunes — sorry.
http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/adviews/explore/

Speak­ing of iTunes and Apple’s rumored tablet. The thing I miss most
about buy­ing music on-line is album art and lin­er notes. Especially
lin­er notes. Apple may fix that. Not quite enough moti­va­tion for me to
buy an Apple com­put­er but close. Link to arti­cle about the Tablet is
behind a reg­is­tra­tion wall at the Finan­cial Times. Boo.
http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/apple_tablet_confirmed_newschool_device_for_oldschool_media_14151.asp

On books and what­not. The argu­ment about how to arrange the books has
unset­tled many a mar­riage. Well not mine but I’m a trained librarian
so I have an auto­mat­ic win on this one. How do two librar­i­ans manage?
Read the com­ments too.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/21/books-arrange-james-purnell

Images for today.

War­ren Ellis pro­vides a link to a trail­er for the Asian ani­me version
of wolver­ine. Very ani­me, not very mar­vel. Judge for yourself.
http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=7576

Best. Slash pic­ture. Ever. Every pos­si­ble cliche in one draw­ing. (if
you don’t know what it means don’t ask — it’s total­ly squick)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcus_e/917607569/

I had a ter­ri­ble time last night fig­ur­ing out what to eat this week
that would­n’t require either heat­ing up the house with the stove or
get­ting burnt to a crisp try­ing to BBQ in the heat. Sal­ad is often
good but lacks pro­tein. Here’s a nice look­ing sal­ad that won’t turn
you into a rab­bit. (Fry the bacon and boil the eggs ear­ly in the day.)
http://www.joyfulabode.com/blog/2009/07/25/belt-salad-blt-with-egg-with-roasted-asparagus/

That’s it for today.

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