Pacific Standard: Nikola Tesla and the Myth of the Lone Inventor.
The myth of the lone anything is rarely helpful. I don’t know about you, but I can barely stay upright for all the different shoulders I stand upon.
NY Post: The observation deck at One World Trade Center.
Hope that’s extra thick glass. They get some incredible winds up there.
Not One-Off Britishisms: “Pulling.”
A new one on me.
Youtube: A day at the gun range in LA.
Seems busy and chaotic.
Mashable: Why Introverts Have All the Fun [COMIC].
Indeed. One observation: you may indeed find happiness in a vacuum, but it is doubtful you’ll experience career success in one.
Guardian.UK: Boeing 787 Dreamliner completes test flight with new battery system.
They need to do back-to-back long-duration test flights, much as the airliners would be experiencing in the normal duty shift, before being re-released for use.
WSJ: Take Your Search for a Job Offline.
Later: Come to think of it, all I know about employment I learned from Passepartout. Nothing wrong with being a man-of-all-trades, and ‘enjoying the journey.’
New Scientist: US patent change angers inventors.
Posting a letter to yourself is no longer enough. You’ve got to spend the $$.
Bezos Expeditions: F-1 Engine Recovery.
Apollo rocket engines found, photographed, recovered.
Guardian.UK: Facebook users risk identity theft, says famous ex-conman.
“If you tell me your date of birth and where you’re born [on Facebook] I’m 98% [of the way] to stealing your identity.” OK, didn’t know this.
Collectors Weekly: Dying To Go Retro? This Modern-Day Morticia Gives Death A Makeover.
“I thought I wanted to revitalize the funeral industry by putting the ‘fun’ in ‘funeral’ and having crazy spectacle funerals with champagne glasses or shooting your ashes into space. Then I realized, oh my God, this is actually very gross and difficult.” Ahem. “Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Do pay it. Don’t forget.”
Pacific Standard: Bloodthirsty Charities.
Atlantic: The Light-Bulb Eater Next Door.
“He swallows a toilet plunger instead of a sword, for example …” No comment.
SoundDrown.com.
For when you miss the ambience of a coffeeshop. [The thumping drives me bonkers; YMMV.]
Paul Jensen: What custom looks like ...
Some whacky vehicles to feast your eyes upon.
SF New Mexican: Downtown roadwork to close section of Bishops Lodge Road until fall.
Major annoyance, this is going to be. Think of St Francis Drive as the vertical of a large “P”. Paseo de Peralta is the semicircle of the P that surrounds Santa Fe’s downtown area. The proposed blockage is at the top-right of the P’s curve. You see the problem if that’s blocked. There are secondary roads, but all will cause some entertaining snarls.
SF New Mexican: Officials—Pilot warned of winds before fatal crash.
Clear case of pilot error. Angel Fire Airport is the fifth highest airport (in altitude) in the US at 8,300 feet above sea level. A small plane (a Mooney M20e), stoked with four people and ski gear (prob. near gross weight), taking off at high density altitude in 40+ knot crosswinds heading into rising mountainous terrain in all directions? What was he thinking? The online pilot boards are seething with this sentiment. Even sadder, the pilot was an aeronautical engineer, who worked for Mooney for a period of time.
S+R Today: How Do Zombies Help Us Cope With Fears About the Future?
“From overpopulation, disease, nuclear meltdowns, and species endangerment to climate change and dwindling resources, people around the world have been hearing about and discussing what our attempts to ensure a good future have potentially done to threaten it. Regardless of our opinions on those topics, they still form part of our cultural experience and add further to the list of possible ways we are collectively at risk.” Discussed among my commenters previously here. I can buy into a broader concept of ‘fear of the future’ more than just a ‘fear of WWII.’ We seem to collectively long to descend into dystopia; I suppose with the lack of religiousity, something had to replace ‘imminent Second Coming’ for the populace.
Gizmodo: When the Weather Goes To Hail, Protect Your Ride With This Giant Airbag.
If you think $400 is expensive, compare it to my recent $5k bill for mild-dimple hail damage. I admire this device!
Gizmodo: Incredible Images of the Massive New Tunnels Hollowing New York City.
They oughta at least mention the photographer. One hell of a lighting job.
The Coders Lexicon: Can Tools Make Coding Too Easy?
“Most of us roll our eyes when we see someone come to us with code generated by Dreamweaver. We already know that the generated code is not up to snuff and is often full of useless div tags or styling that almost contradicts itself. This is an extreme case of what I am talking about, but tools that do things for us automatically should always be met with skepticism or at least peer reviewed. I guess what I am asserting here is that tools that automate too much make us lazy and stupid simply because we often don’t take the time to understand everything it did.” More spaghetti is generated by DW than any other piece of programming software I come across—though, to be fair, only older versions now. I still come across small businesses based on drag-and-drop DW. When introducing new people to HTML and CSS, I always, always emphasize learning to hand-code. That simpler is beautiful. The point that makes the most impact these days is, “Google prefers cleaner, tighter code.” That perks up ears.
Top.rbc.ru: A meteorite fell in Russia, leaving destruction in its wake.
Right out of a sci-fi film. Run through Google Translate, if necessary. I think the photos and video tell all you really need to know.
New Yorker: Poet of Piercing Valentines—On Robert Graves
NY Times/Photographs: Westminster’s Best of Breed.
Some of these just BEG for a caption contest.
Outside: Sunk—The Incredible Truth About the ‘Bounty,’ a Ship That Never Should Have Sailed.
“But instead of sailing east, the ship’s AIS—its automatic indicator system, a kind of GPS tracking device—shows it cutting a sharp angle around the tip of Long Island before establishing a south-southeasterly course of approximately 165 degrees: directly into the hurricane.” They should have swung far to the East and cut down for Bermuda, around the storm.
