(Roughly) Daily

Museums can too often embody a not-quite-covert snobbery…  all those works of art or antiquity, painstakingly (not to say prissily) arrayed to communicate their cultural significance… but what of other products of human ingenuity? Does our democratic age not demand a broader, more inclusive understanding of culture?  Of design?  Should there not be museums dedicated to the less obvious– if no less important– works of humankind?

Thankfully the web has enabled a new wave of brave curators, champions of the underdog arts, who are making the world safe for… well, for instance:

The Moist Towelette Online Museum

…Consider also The Online Toaster Museum.

As we wipe our fingers, we might recall that it was on this date in 1955 that Swiss engineer George de Mestral received a patent for Velcro (which he had actually invented in 1941).  “Velcro” is a portmanteau of the two French words velours, meaning “velvet,” and crochet, or “hook.”

The Pentagon has tapped Lund and Company, a development house that’s designed toy rockets that are powered by burning hydrogen obtained by electrolysing water, to adapt that technology to fire bullets at varying speeds.  The result (if the crossover succeeds) will be a rifle that can be set to fire at “kill,” “stun,” or “bruise.”

Read the entire explosive story in this New Scientist article.

As we pause to reload, we might wish a felix natalis to Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus– the Roman Emperor Claudius– born on this date in 10 BCE.   Claudius succeeded his nephew Caligula to the throne in 41 BCE, oversaw the expansion of the empire (e.g., the conquest of Britain),  and provided Derek Jacobi his big break with American audiences.

The Emperor Claudius