Wednesday Linkage

An assortment of various links for your pleasure.

  • Dicey knitting - for the ones among us who like to throw dice when we need to make a decision. "Start with the Ivory Cube -- it will tell if you you knit, purl, slip, increase, decrease, or cable/twist. This is where you Impose Chaos". Thanks, L.
  • Golden silk from golden orb spiders: "A unique piece of golden yellow silk brocade cloth, woven from spiderwebs, is on display at the Museum of Natural History in New York. To harvest enough silk to make the cloth, more than a million female golden orb spiders were collected in Madagascar, "milked" for silk, and released back into the wild." The links are not for the faint-hearted, but they are incredibly interesting. I say this as a arachnophobe.
  • This has been mentioned a lot on various literary blogs, but it bears repeating: An Open Letter to the Federal Trade Comission. There is a difference between being a lit blogger receiving freebies which may/may not be reviewed and a corporate shrill. The FTC has apparently not noticed the difference.
  • Most of my adult life I have been looking for the perfect Bauhaus teapot. I now know why it'll never be mine.
  • Glasgow Guerilla Gardening. What it says on the tin. Sometimes they include knitting.
  • The house of my nightmares. And probably also of the assigned estate agent..
  • The 56 Geeks. Which one are you? And yes, you will be one because you are reading a blog. Brownie points for guessing which one I am. (thanks, Emme)
  • The continuing saga of Amazon, their Kindle and the concept of "Fail".
  • Hilary Mantel won this year's Man Booker. I can't even pretend to be mildly interested. Sorry.
  • One of Dave's online buddies have started a parenting blog. Normally the words "parenting blog" strikes fear into my heart, but when it's called When Should They See Die Hard and the first post made my day: "The first stage is what I'll call "The Minion Stage". Essentially having a little tiny henchman who does as their told and will make Manhattans for you."

Enjoy.