BBC News: Ben Collins, aka ‘The Stig.’
”Former Formula Three driver Ben Collins has won a legal fight to publish an autobiography in which he claims to be The Stig - the mystery driver on the BBC’s Top Gear show. But who is he?” Fast, that’s who he is.
BBC News: Rare Roman lantern found in field near Sudbury.
”The lantern dates from between 43 and 300 AD. It is like a modern hurricane lamp and the naked flame would have been protected by a thin sheet of horn which had been scraped and shaped until it was see-through.” Startlingly modern in design!
BBC News: Musician Nick Franglen creates bridge symphony.
naked capitalism: Indian Outsourcers Complain Re Difficulty of Finding US Staff.
New Scientist: Road to cut off Serengeti migration route.
”It could also be a collision zone for humans and animals, leading to casualties on both sides, and there is a risk that transported livestock would spread disease, the society adds.” Why not bridge or tunnel across large swaths, meeting both needs?
New Scientist: Arctic oil and gas drilling ready to take off.
”Nothing much can be done to cope with a spill in the winter beyond tracking the ice, waiting for the oil to surface in the summer melt, then setting it alight. Yet calls for an Arctic-wide moratorium on oil exploration until safety measures are in place have gone unheeded.” Big Oil’s hoping ‘out of sight, out of mind’ will rule the Arctic oil field production.
WSJ: For Sale: T. Rex, Good Condition, Woolly Mammoth, Needs Repair.
“Prairie Dog Town, near Oakley, Kan., is for sale, with an asking price of $450,000, says its owner, Larry Farmer, who also wants to retire. It comes with 37 billboards advertising the attraction, 400 prairie dogs and — for anyone not sufficiently excited by burrowing rodents — a live, six-legged cow.”
PapaScott: It Was Twenty Years Ago Today.
Great story, Scott. Food for thought; thanks for sharing it!
ABC News: Grown Men Travel With a Stuffed Animals: Teddy Bears, Dogs in Businessmen’s Suitcases.
BBC News: Dry weather reveals archaeological ‘cropmarks’ in fields.
60 new sites in a day. Impressive.
Eurekalert: Parenting study: Italians strict, French moderate, Canadians lenient.
“Italian parents are seen as more demanding in rules and authorizations. They take more punitive actions when rules are broken and are less tolerant of peer socialization. They uphold family regulations and require their adolescents to ask for authorizations until a much later age.” I wonder which adolescents are better adjusted as adults.
BBC News: Llanwrtyd Wells bog snorkel ‘has new world record time.’
”Contestants must avoid conventional swimming strokes when negotiating the 60 yard (55m) water-filled trenches.” Beats watching sitcoms, I suppose.
Vimeo: Ghosts in the Hollow.
Oh, well done.
photo.net: Photo on a sailboat …
… in a fjord. Great!
NY Times Art Review: ‘Samurai in New York’ at Museum of the City of New York.
“Ever since our arrival at the American capital we have frequently been asked by photographers to allow our photographs to be taken, but we have hitherto refused, as it is not the custom in our country. Today, however, we had to submit, in deference to the President’s wishes. We therefore, for the first time, faced the photograph machine.” I like that ... ‘photograph machine’. I’ll reuse that.
Discove Magaziner: SPEECH Act now a law: big win for libel reform!
Nomad Tent Company: The Ténéré Expedition Tent, 2 Man Adventure Motorcycle Tent
Smart. 13 pounds, packs to sleeping bag size. Linked for my upcoming world motorcycle tour (in my dreams, anyway).
NPR: Taliban Spokesman Suggests It May Attack Aid Workers In Pakistan’s Flood Zone.
”In an interview with The Associated Press, Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, suggested militants may attack humanitarian workers in flood-ravaged country.” They obviously don’t want any gratitude to build up over US aid. The devastation’s bad enough, but forcing aid workers to have to watch their backs ...
Boston Globe, The Big Picture: Russia in color, a century ago.
Bloomberg: Egypt to Improve Museum Security After Van Gogh Theft.
”Egypt plans to set up a security control room to monitor all museums after the theft of a $55 million Vincent van Gogh painting in Cairo, Zahi Hawass, head of the country’s antiquities agency said today.” Routing everything to one place, allows for a single point of failure to radiate outwards. Not wise.
Nova Roma.
”Dedicated to the restoration of classical Roman religion, culture and virtues.” Via MeFi.
Washington’s Blog: Mercenaries, BP, Corexit …
Watch the two videos, before reading the remainder. Here are links to the CDC, for their take on risk from light crude and dispersant. However, and offered as counterpoint, a different set of folks are a little more concerned ... net-net, don’t soak your kids in Gulf waters. Children are particularly susceptible to these chemicals, and exposure might set them up for all kinds of immunological and neurological issues.
Best sources I can find say oil is toxic at 11ppm, and Corexit at 2.61ppm, so Gulf waters classify as ‘toxic’, if these reports and assessments are true. I’ll keep looking for better references, as I have time. The benzene is particularly concerning to me ... that’s nasty stuff to expose a kid to.
NPR: Why Coffee Is Getting More Expensive.
NOWNESS: A Continuous Lean: On the Green.
Michael Williams Visits the Concours d’Elegance 2010 at Pebble Beach Golf Links. Photos. Gorgeous photos. Dude’s got an eye.
NY Times: Inside the Knockoff-Tennis-Shoe Factory.
“Counterfeiters played a low-budget game of industrial espionage, bribing employees at the licensed factories to lift samples or copy blueprints. Shoes were even chucked over a factory wall, according to a worker at one of Nike’s Putian factories. It wasn’t unusual for counterfeit models to show up in stores before the real ones did.” Bonus points to the author for using the verb ‘chucked’.
