Sun - February 7, 2010
People were not black, white, and grey then
Found at Jalopnik.com, here in YouTube is a
10-minute color travelogue movie of London shot in 1927.
Be sure to click on the 480p button at the
bottom, and the full screen button, too, so you get the full
effect.
Posted at 01:33 PM
Fri - January 29, 2010
There is a blog for everything these days
Here is a blog a Dutch fellow
has created, "Running from Camera," where he sets up his camera in
different places, sets the shutter timer for two seconds, and then runs
away.
He posts the pictures that
result.
It's actually kind of interesting, but not THAT interesting. Interesting enough to tell YOU about, I guess.
It's actually kind of interesting, but not THAT interesting. Interesting enough to tell YOU about, I guess.
Posted at 12:35 PM
Secret formula revealed
In this short
video, Charlie Brooker of the BBC shows you how to do a television
news story.
Nailed it.
Posted at 12:29 PM
Mon - January 25, 2010
Late obituaries
Two great men died a few months ago, and you
should know about them, if you didn't already.
Back in 1949, John
Wild invented the use of ultrasound for medical imaging. He died last
September at the age of 95.
And Norman Borlaug also died last September, also at the age of 95. What did he do? From the New York Times obituary: "[He] did more than anyone else in the 20th century to teach the world to feed itself and whose work was credited with saving hundreds of millions of lives. ... His breeding of high-yielding crop varieties helped to avert mass famines that were widely predicted in the 1960s, altering the course of history. Largely because of his work, countries that had been food deficient, like Mexico and India, became self-sufficient in producing cereal grains." He won the Nobel Peace Prize for this, back in 1970 when winning the Nobel Peace Prize still meant something.
Borlaug was greater than Wild, I would say, but if all you did was what Wild did, you would be a great man.
And Norman Borlaug also died last September, also at the age of 95. What did he do? From the New York Times obituary: "[He] did more than anyone else in the 20th century to teach the world to feed itself and whose work was credited with saving hundreds of millions of lives. ... His breeding of high-yielding crop varieties helped to avert mass famines that were widely predicted in the 1960s, altering the course of history. Largely because of his work, countries that had been food deficient, like Mexico and India, became self-sufficient in producing cereal grains." He won the Nobel Peace Prize for this, back in 1970 when winning the Nobel Peace Prize still meant something.
Borlaug was greater than Wild, I would say, but if all you did was what Wild did, you would be a great man.
Posted at 01:52 PM
Fri - January 22, 2010
This stinks
Now the city's sewage treatment people are
saying, we looked at doing it, but it would increase our (so-called) carbon
footprint, so we aren't going to do
it.
You may be aware that over 100 years ago, in one of the great civil engineering feats of all time, Chicago reversed the flow of the Chicago River, so that instead of flowing into Lake Michigan, it would flow through a series of canals into the Illinois River and thence to the Mississippi River. They did because they were dumping the city's sewage into the river, and it flowed into the lake, and then it hung around along the shoreline and stunk up the joint and contaminated the city's water supply. Better, they thought, to turn the river around so Chicago's waste flowed to Joliet and Peoria and points south, and stunk up THEIR joints and contaminated THEIR water supplies.
Chicago should either be forced to disinfect its sewage before dumping it in the river, or to pump it directly into its own water supply intake pipes. One or the other.
(Oh, and, by connecting the Great Lakes to the Mississippi basin, our nation's vast inland sea is now subject to infestation by non-native species, like the massive jumping Asian carp I wrote about some time ago. Just a few weeks ago, Michigan sued Illinois to get the canals closed down, to prevent those carp from getting in to the Great Lakes. I believe the Supreme Court refused to rule in the case, and I'm not sure where it sits now.)
You may be aware that over 100 years ago, in one of the great civil engineering feats of all time, Chicago reversed the flow of the Chicago River, so that instead of flowing into Lake Michigan, it would flow through a series of canals into the Illinois River and thence to the Mississippi River. They did because they were dumping the city's sewage into the river, and it flowed into the lake, and then it hung around along the shoreline and stunk up the joint and contaminated the city's water supply. Better, they thought, to turn the river around so Chicago's waste flowed to Joliet and Peoria and points south, and stunk up THEIR joints and contaminated THEIR water supplies.
Chicago should either be forced to disinfect its sewage before dumping it in the river, or to pump it directly into its own water supply intake pipes. One or the other.
(Oh, and, by connecting the Great Lakes to the Mississippi basin, our nation's vast inland sea is now subject to infestation by non-native species, like the massive jumping Asian carp I wrote about some time ago. Just a few weeks ago, Michigan sued Illinois to get the canals closed down, to prevent those carp from getting in to the Great Lakes. I believe the Supreme Court refused to rule in the case, and I'm not sure where it sits now.)
Posted at 05:44 PM
Top of the World
I don't like cheese, and I don't like mice,
but I like this
ad.
I DO like The Carpenters, though.
Posted at 04:58 PM
Mon - January 18, 2010
Quote of the day
Guy Kawasaki: "Apple's idea of
market research is, Steve's left hemisphere is connected to his right
hemisphere. That's the focus group."
From the documentary, "Welcome
to Macintosh."
Posted at 04:01 PM
Fri - January 8, 2010
I want you all to get one of these
A
French company has come up with a bathroom scale that connects to your home's
WiFi network, and automatically uploads your weight to a
password-protected web site, so you can see graphs of your weight over time, and
various analyses of just how fat you are, and stuff like that.
It will even allow you to publish your weight
to your Twitter account, every
time you step on it, so you will get the additional incentive of having everyone
who follows you in Twitter know exactly how much you weigh, so they can call you
"Fatty" and "Zeppelin Boy" and things like that. Or, give you positive comments
when you lose weight; yeah, like THAT'S going to
happen.
When you have yours set up and publishing to Twitter, please list your Twitter name in the comments, so we can all have a good laugh.
When you have yours set up and publishing to Twitter, please list your Twitter name in the comments, so we can all have a good laugh.
Posted at 12:42 PM
A little bit of justice in California
So, bicycle riders in the street make you mad?
Clogging the road, getting in your way as your motor? Thinking about teaching
them a lesson, using your car? Go ahead, you'll enjoy prison.
Here
is the story of a serial bicyclist harrasser, a medical doctor in
California who, in his most recent assault, passed a couple of bicyclists,
swerved in front of them and braked suddenly, sending them flying. One flipped
into the oncoming traffic lane, the other smashed face-first into the rear
window of doctor's car. The doctor just got sentenced to five years in
prison.
That sounds about right.
His medical license has been suspended as well, and may be permanently revoked. That may be a bit too much, to take away the man's livelihood, but I guess doctors take it seriously when one of their number goes around trying to kill people on the street.
In my experience on a bicycle, most motorists will treat you with respect, but some seem to think it is fun, or their duty, or something, to try to hurt you with their car. Or at least scare you. I'm not sure why; mentally ill, I guess.
That sounds about right.
His medical license has been suspended as well, and may be permanently revoked. That may be a bit too much, to take away the man's livelihood, but I guess doctors take it seriously when one of their number goes around trying to kill people on the street.
In my experience on a bicycle, most motorists will treat you with respect, but some seem to think it is fun, or their duty, or something, to try to hurt you with their car. Or at least scare you. I'm not sure why; mentally ill, I guess.
Posted at 12:23 PM
Tue - January 5, 2010
Keep it real, and safe
Writing
at Forbes.com, plastic surgeon Elan Singer explains that a woman with
breast implants is carrying a lot of liquid on her person -- enough that, if
that liquid were pentaerythritol tetranitrate, she could blow up an airplane
with it.
Pentaerythritol tetranitrate is the reason we
can only bring small amounts of liquid on an airplane anymore. But a breast
implant contains more liquid than the underpants bomber had in his underpants.
And it wouldn't be that hard to load up some women with bomb implants; the
terrorists have lots of doctors on their side, and lots of misguided women who
would be willing to receive the implants. Once on the plane, all the woman
would have to do to set off the bomb would be to stab herself in the breast with
a pen filled with the
accelerant.
And as Dr Singer points out, even if we install full body scanners at all our airports, a breast implant filled with pentaerythritol tetranitrate is going to look like a breast implant filled with silicon or saline liquid, unless the TSA officers manning the scanners are trained radiologists.
The answer is clear: Women with breast implants must be forbidden from flying.
And as Dr Singer points out, even if we install full body scanners at all our airports, a breast implant filled with pentaerythritol tetranitrate is going to look like a breast implant filled with silicon or saline liquid, unless the TSA officers manning the scanners are trained radiologists.
The answer is clear: Women with breast implants must be forbidden from flying.
Posted at 12:05 PM
Mon - December 21, 2009
A candy colored clown they call the sandwich
Just in time for lunch, filmmaker
David Lynch tells Forbes of his five favorite sandwiches.
I am with him on three, unmoved by one, and
repulsed by the other.
Posted at 12:24 PM
Thu - December 3, 2009
Sorry, I've just been pooped
Once I paused in my writing, it was hard to
pick it up again.
I make no promises that I will write with the
frequency I have before. We will just have to wait and see, won't
we?
In the meantime, go to this page and look at all the lists of top 101 US cities, counties, and ZIP Codes, in scores and scores of categories. There you will find, for example, that Bethel, Alaska is the city with the highest percentage of people going to work by taxi, and that, of US cities with populations over 50,000, Seattle ranks fourth on the list of cities with the lowest average sunshine amount (the top 15 are all in western Washington, Bellingham garnering the top spot).
In the meantime, go to this page and look at all the lists of top 101 US cities, counties, and ZIP Codes, in scores and scores of categories. There you will find, for example, that Bethel, Alaska is the city with the highest percentage of people going to work by taxi, and that, of US cities with populations over 50,000, Seattle ranks fourth on the list of cities with the lowest average sunshine amount (the top 15 are all in western Washington, Bellingham garnering the top spot).
Posted at 07:33 PM
Thu - October 1, 2009
Death Train continues to stalk the innocent
While you weren't looking, there were two
collisions on Martin Luther King Way between cars and the new Link light rail,
one last
Saturday afternoon and one early
last Sunday.
Nobody has been killed by the train yet,
emphasis on the "yet."
Posted at 06:56 PM
Wed - September 30, 2009
Nature is violent
This post originally said, "Here
are some pictures of a mule killing a cougar," but it turns out the
mule was just tossing around the body of a cougar the mule's owner had
shot.
I didn't THINK a mule could kill a
cougar.
Posted at 07:10 PM
All aboard
Readers who have never been on an Amtrak
long-distance train and want to see what it's like can go to this
page and look at all the 360-degree photos this fellow took on his
2007 ride on the California Zephyr.
He took pictures in a roomette and a bedroom
(i.e., both main types of sleepers), in the various hallways, in the dining car,
in a coach car, and in the lounge car, so you can see the whole Amtrak-riding
experience. Unfortunately, he took the pictures of the sleeping rooms during
the day, but didn't get any at night, so you can't see what the rooms look like
with the beds down. Let me describe it: They look snug.
Cozy.
Take my word for it: If you are planning an Amtrak trip, pay the extra amount and get a sleeper.
Take my word for it: If you are planning an Amtrak trip, pay the extra amount and get a sleeper.
Posted at 04:42 PM
Sun - September 27, 2009
Wed - September 23, 2009
Good night, Ole
For people who miss Seattle, here on YouTube is video of
the Bardahl sign.
I expect Bardahl to soon be run out of town by
confiscatory taxes, to be replaced by something useful, like a cooperative
making organic dog food for nervous chihuahuas. Founded with federal stimulus
money.
Posted at 07:26 PM
Tue - September 22, 2009
The awkwardness leaps off the screen
I am enjoying AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com,
which is more than I can say for the people in the photos.
Some of them are just
excruciating.
Posted at 06:59 PM
Sat - September 12, 2009
Gotta light?
Here is a video
showing the test-firing September 10 by Alliant Techsystems of the first-stage
solid rocket motor for NASA's new Ares
I launch vehicle.
And what do YOU do today?
Posted at 01:39 PM
Wed - September 9, 2009
They still want to kill you
Those who chafe at the limits on carrying
liquids on airplanes may wish to watch this BBC
video showing what a mixed-on-the-airplane liquid-explosive
soda-pop-bottle bomb, of the sort the terrorists planned to use to blow up
airplanes back in 2006, can do to an airplane. You would not want to be on an
airplane that had such a bomb go off on the ground, to say nothing of at
altitude.
Three of that set of eight terrorists, British
followers of Islam, just
got convicted on a second set of charges, in case you haven't been
following the case. They hoped to blow up seven airplanes in one day, and kill
maybe 10,000 people, found the court.
Posted at 03:18 PM
Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog
I am not a big Weird Al Yankovic fan, and
this video
is about three years old, but I have now watched it about ten times and I laugh
every time. See if it doesn't make you laugh. I dare ya.
If you kids out there don't recognize the
music video he is parodying, here it is --
it's so old we didn't even have the term "music video" then -- and I hope you
recognize that that is Bob Dylan in the original, but the real joke is ... well,
if you don't get the real joke, you must have scored very low on the verbal part
of your SATs, that's all I've got to
say.
[Found at J-Walk Blog, who found it at Change of Subject.]
[Found at J-Walk Blog, who found it at Change of Subject.]
Posted at 01:57 PM
Tue - September 8, 2009
It ain't over 'til it's over, or until the streetlights come on
The Hoosiers
for Central Time Coalition has been formed to petition members of the
Indiana General Assembly, as well as school superintendents around the state, to
work to change Indiana to the Central time zone. Which is where it
belongs.
I wrote about Indiana's adoption of Daylight
Saving Time (DST) back in 2005, when that happened. The downside of the switch
to DST is that the 80 counties that are in the Eastern time zone are now totally
out of whack in the summer months, with the sun not coming up until mid-morning,
and the sun not going down until almost midnight. I exaggerate, but not by
much. And the
Coalition is worried because kids go to school in the dark the whole
year now.
(The other 12 counties of Indiana are in the Central time zone and are uniformly happy, productive, and non-groggy.)
At the time of Indiana's adoption of DST, the US Department of Transportation, which controls the nation's time zones, required each county to petition if they wanted to switch time zones, and a few counties in the Eastern zone did ask to moved to Central, and fewer still were actually allowed to switch, but most counties in Indiana want to align with Indianapolis, and until Marion County switches, the state will stay mostly in Eastern.
If the time zones were in the right place, the boundary between Eastern and Central would cut through the middle of Ohio. And it used to. But there has been a westward creep over the years, and it wasn't such a problem for Indiana when most of the state stayed on Standard Time year 'round, but now the flaw of being in the Eastern time zone is apparent.
I hope these folks succeed.
(The other 12 counties of Indiana are in the Central time zone and are uniformly happy, productive, and non-groggy.)
At the time of Indiana's adoption of DST, the US Department of Transportation, which controls the nation's time zones, required each county to petition if they wanted to switch time zones, and a few counties in the Eastern zone did ask to moved to Central, and fewer still were actually allowed to switch, but most counties in Indiana want to align with Indianapolis, and until Marion County switches, the state will stay mostly in Eastern.
If the time zones were in the right place, the boundary between Eastern and Central would cut through the middle of Ohio. And it used to. But there has been a westward creep over the years, and it wasn't such a problem for Indiana when most of the state stayed on Standard Time year 'round, but now the flaw of being in the Eastern time zone is apparent.
I hope these folks succeed.
Posted at 05:20 PM
Mon - September 7, 2009
Prime Rib of 'Roo
For the benefit of the shopping public, Southern Game Meat Pty Ltd
shares a chart
showing all the cuts of meat you can get off a kangaroo.
I'm not sure if they will ship to North
America, but you can call them and ask. They ship it in vacuum-packed pouches,
so it'd probably keep on the boat
over.
Kangaroo is very lean and tender and is high in iron and zinc.
[Found at J-Walk Blog.]
Kangaroo is very lean and tender and is high in iron and zinc.
[Found at J-Walk Blog.]
Posted at 03:43 PM
Wed - September 2, 2009
Flushed with pride
Here is the web site
SewerHistory.org. Can you guess what it is about? Yes, "Tracking
down the roots of our sanitary sewers." And they have some really interesting
stuff in there.
You know, the Romans ruled the world in their
day because they had aqueducts and sewers and nobody else
did.
I had a friend at Purdue who was a Civil Engineering major, in the Sanitary Engineering program, who used to always say, "Your [feces] is my bread and butter." Thirty years later and that still makes me laugh.
I found SewerHistory.org because I was reading in VintageSeattle.com about the great Ravenna sinkhole of 1957, the largest sewer collapse in the USA to that time, in which the main north Seattle trunk sewer, a six-feet wide brick-lined tunnel 145 feet below Ravenna Boulevard, washed out and created a hole 200 feet long, 175 feet wide, and 60 feet deep in Seattle's Ravenna neighborhood. SewerHistory.org has some pictures of it.
I had a friend at Purdue who was a Civil Engineering major, in the Sanitary Engineering program, who used to always say, "Your [feces] is my bread and butter." Thirty years later and that still makes me laugh.
I found SewerHistory.org because I was reading in VintageSeattle.com about the great Ravenna sinkhole of 1957, the largest sewer collapse in the USA to that time, in which the main north Seattle trunk sewer, a six-feet wide brick-lined tunnel 145 feet below Ravenna Boulevard, washed out and created a hole 200 feet long, 175 feet wide, and 60 feet deep in Seattle's Ravenna neighborhood. SewerHistory.org has some pictures of it.
Posted at 01:18 PM
Greetings from Seattle
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Published On: Feb 07, 2010 01:33 PM
Published On: Feb 07, 2010 01:33 PM