Happy Birthday William Shakespeare!

Today is the observed 448th birthday of the Bard.  To celebrate, I scanned portions of a May, 1964 National Geographic article penned by the then director of the Folger Library in Washington, D.C.  In classic National Geographic fashion, the magazine included an amazing map which could not be scanned as a whole.  I hope you enjoy some of the details.

I love this rendition of Puck.

There be monsters here.  This reminds me of the old flat Earth maps that assumed the presence of huge and menacing sea creatures lurking the depths near the edge of the world.

Only a nerd would be excited at finding a vintage magazine featuring Shakespeare's Britain.

Artist's rendition of the Globe.

Of course, there are always the haters that say Shakespeare didn't write the collected works of Shakespeare.  Some say he didn't even exist.  Some point to his signature as being a sign of illiteracy.  I guess that means the majority of doctors can't actually read.  I could say the same for most of my peers in the regulatory compliance world.  My signature is beyond illegible.

I have something special for the Shakespeare deniers: a reminder that on this blog he has some muscle behind him.

As an aside, I am becoming reacquainted with an old friend after the utter failure of a new one.  I've owned an Epson Perfection 3170 Photo scanner for a number of years.  It is a single purpose device with a more complicated interface than most of the family prefers.  It had been supplanted by an all-in-one scanner/printer combination, a HP Deskjet 4480.  The latter is now declared the worst recent piece of technology I have owned other than Windows Vista.  It won't recognize refill cartridges.  Expensive high capacity cartridges work for a dozen or so pages and then are reported as empty or start overprinting lines.  Worse yet, when there is a cartridge problem, the scanner also stops working.

In contrast, the old Epson still works perfectly and the company has supplied updated drivers for Windows 7.  Bear in mind that this scanner dates to Windows XP.  Kudos to Epson!  I wish I could say the same for Adobe's Lightroom (they never updated RAW profiles for 1.0 and force users to buy new software) and the ColorVision Syder2express (no software updates since Vista).   Please bear with me while I get used to the controls and optimize scan file sizes.

For the HP Deskjet 4480, I present an Epic Fail award photo.  I will never buy another new HP printer, even if it is tossed in free with a computer package.

Vultures await the carcass of the HP 4480.  Long may it rot.

Irrational Exuberance: The Spacebot Star Wars Knockoff

There are some things in this world that are so uniquely ugly they are beautiful in their own way.  Such is the case of the Spacebot.  I've seen photos of these Darth Vader Bootleg/Knockoff things, but I never thought I would actually get to hold one.

Finding these at a Dollar store made we way happier than I should have been.  As much as I love real classic robots and space toys, the funky fugly toys are in a class of their own.  As the title implies:  irrational exuberance.

Just in case you don't make it all the way to the end of this photo set, I will go ahead and recommend one of the finest online collections of ugly robots for your perusal.  If you don't make it to the end, you will miss the best part.  I won't hold it against you, really.

ToyboxDX Forum Fugly Challenge

Without further ado, I present the Spacebot twins (and friends).

Even the packaging screams "quality".

You push the button and all kinds of things light up in concert with an incredible collection of digital noise and Star Wars blaster sounds.

Meet Darth Albino

Yep, albino glowing red eyes.  Well, make that a glowing red skull.  The plastic is a bit thin what with the recession and all.

A face only a mother or a true nerd could love.

They look even better off the cards.  The light saberish thing lights up in Anakin blue.

Is the pen truly mightier than the sword?

What if you have R2C4 for backup?

That's how Will rolls.

You cannot win, Darth.