Archive for May 2009
Fluid dynamics…
Coach: Can I draw you a beer, Norm?
Norm: No, I know what they look like. Just pour me one.
Readers may have recognized that your correspondent has a weakness for nifty info-graphics. In browsing recently, he came across a wonderful series created by Wallstats for (Roughly Daily’s old favorite) Sloshspot…
…and in that series, a striking juxtaposition. Consider that:
And that, at the same time:
As we plan to monitor our water use and tithe from our beer allowances to RDI, we might recall that it was on this date in 1870 that Professor Edward Joseph De Smedt of the American Asphalt Pavement Company, New York City, received two patents for the invention known as “French asphalt pavement”– the first practical version of sheet asphalt. Later that same year (on July 29), the first road was paved with sheet asphalt: William Street in Newark, New Jersey.
early asphalt paving (source)
The Future of the Fourth Estate?…
…from our friends at Make… Bay Area readers should note (lest they missed the newspaper ads) that today is the first day of Maker Faire– a mustn’t-miss event organized and hosted by those same good folks!
As we sharpen our craft, we might recall that it was on this date in 1911 that Ray Harroun won the inaugural Indianapolis 500; Harroun averaged 74.6 mph in the Marmon Wasp.
The miracle(s) of life…
The Barnados Threadsnake (Leptotyphlops carlae)
In the last issue of The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Sixth Extinction?” sounds an alarm. Observing that of the many species that have existed on earth, more than ninety-nine per cent have disappeared, and that these extinctions have tended to come in waves– five of which were especially broad– she ponders the possibility that we are at the lip of the sixth great wave of species disappearance.
While there’s every reason to worry that Kolbert is right, one notes that new species are uncovered every year– even in periods of relative decline in diversity. Indeed, Wired provides a nifty catalogue of “10 Strange Species Discovered Last Year.”
The forces of life and variety fight back!
As we celebrate the creative impulse (in all of it forms and products), we might recall that it was on this date in 1919 that Arthur Eddington confirmed Einstein’s light-bending prediction– a part of The Theory of General Relativity– using photos of a solar eclipse. Eddington’s paper the following year was the “debut” of Einstein’s theoretical work in most of the English-speaking world (and occasioned an urban legend: when a reporter supposedly suggested that “only three people understand relativity,” Eddington was supposed to have jokingly replied “Oh, who’s the third?”)
The Annals of Ostentatious Erudition, Volume XII…
Cicero addressing the Roman Senate, using lots of Latin phrases (source)
Was there ever an occasion to make an impression, or a confrontation– or that matter, a conversation– that wasn’t tastier when spiced with a few well-chosen Latin phrases?
Now, thanks to The Phil Brodie Band, a Sheffield (UK)-based blues outfit, that crucial bon mot is nearer to hand. Drawing on the work of Henry Beard, PBB has fielded “Handy Latin Phrases“– and indeed they are handy. Consider, for example:
Bulla Crustulum- Stud-muffin (literally, manly pastry)
Mendax mendax tuum braccare flagare- Liar, liar, pants on fire (PBB notes, ” the spelling might be wonky”)
Fac ut cubiculum- Get a room!
Aspice quod felix attracsit- Look what the cat dragged in.
And (in “honor” of the California Supreme Court’s recent upholding of Proposition Hate… er, Eight):
Fructus Sum!- I am a fruit!
Many more here.
As we get in touch with our inner Oscar Wilde, we might recall that it was on this date in 1974 that the first Daytime Emmy Awards were bestowed in a stand-alone ceremony (Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, and Search for Tomorrow did well; but The Doctors ruled!)…
A megaton here, a megaton there…
from Dr. Strangelove (source)
Further to “Just when you were beginning to feel a little bit safer…,” this piece by Jeffrey St. Clair of Counterpunch, an excerpt from his forthcoming book, Loose Nukes, in Alternet:
Things go missing. It’s to be expected. Even at the Pentagon. Last October, the Pentagon’s inspector general reported that the military’s accountants had misplaced a destroyer, several tanks and armored personnel carriers, hundreds of machine guns, rounds of ammo, grenade launchers and some surface-to-air missiles. In all, nearly $8 billion in weapons were AWOL.
Those anomalies are bad enough. But what’s truly chilling is the fact that the Pentagon has lost track of the mother of all weapons, a hydrogen bomb. The thermonuclear weapon, designed to incinerate Moscow, has been sitting somewhere off the coast of Savannah, Georgia for the past 40 years. The Air Force has gone to greater lengths to conceal the mishap than to locate the bomb and secure it…
For the strong of stomach, the article continues here.
As we practice “duck and cover,” we might console ourselves console ourselves with grateful thoughts of a Divine communicator, Durante degli Alighieri– Dante– born on this date (or so many scholars believe; the exact birth date might also be June 1) in 1265… We might also note that this is both Arnold Bennett’s (1867) and Dashiell Hammett’s (1894) birthday, as well. May 27…a wonderfully eclectic day for literature!
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