- Art Student’s 407-Piece Hand-Carved Wooden Clock Literally Writes The Time - Beautiful piece of work: ”Watching his viral Twitter video, you will see a beautifully complicated-looking mechanical contraption quietly ticking away, with "06:19" somewhat crudely scrawled on a white board in the center. A few seconds into the video, and the entire structure comes to life, the white board is cleared, and mechanical arms scratch out the time "06:20." Then, in most likelihood, you restart the video to see it happen again, because it truly is that amazing.”
- Running on Empty - "Over the past decade, ultrarunning has gone from a fringe pursuit for distance freaks to a hypercompetitive sport attracting big-time sponsors. But a mysterious training condition is suddenly plaguing its ranks, robbing a generation of top athletes of their talents and forcing victims to wonder: Is it possible to love this sport too much?" A look at overtraining syndrome, which can leave exceptionally fit people suddenly unable to perform.
- Disaster by Design/Safety by Intent - Fascinating series (17 posts so far) on ways in which critical safety systems at nuclear installations have failed: ”Nuclear power reactor designs feature multiple diverse safety components to prevent a fuel meltdown and the release of radiation should a meltdown occur. Called defense-in-depth, these multiple barriers would all have to fail for radiation to be released… The protection afforded by multiple diverse safety measures will be weakened if problems with individual safety components are tolerated rather than corrected, making it more likely that an extreme event can overwhelm all the barriers to cause disaster. In a new series of blog posts—Disaster by Design/Safety by Intent—UCS will explore how defense-in-depth can be eroded, and how it can be enhanced.”
- Trek at 50: The quest for a unifying theory of time travel in Star Trek - "Time travel, while perhaps one of the most interesting devices in the series, is also confusing, befuddling, and inconsistent. In the words of Captain Janeway, “the future is the past, the past is the future; it all gives me a headache.” While we can’t get too deep into the purported mechanisms behind Trek time travel—they rely on things like “chronotons” whose nature real-world science has sadly yet to discover—it's still interesting to ponder time travel's effects. How does it affect the present? Is interference with the past a predestined part of history? Do alterations in the past get mixed into the current timeline?" Don’t mention the “whatever the scriptwriters found convenient that week” hypothesis
- Another Vietnam - "For much of the world, the visual history of the Vietnam War has been defined by a handful of iconic photographs: Eddie Adams’ image of a Viet Cong fighter being executed, Nick Ut’s picture of nine-year-old Kim Phúc fleeing a napalm strike, Malcolm Browne’s photo of Thích Quang Duc self-immolating in a Saigon intersection… But the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong had hundreds of photographers of their own, who documented every facet of the war under the most dangerous conditions.” Now Tim Page and Doug Niven have tracked down many of these photographers and collected their work in a new book; here are some examples of their work.
- ‘Boxing’ Ants Can Trade Over 40 Blows a Second - "To settle a labor dispute, ants put up their dukes. And when the bell rings, they can unleash a flurry of punches in the blink of an eye." And you thought Ant Fight Club was just a silly Facebook game
- The RMS Titanic Radio Page - Lots of info on the Titanic’s radio equipment, its operators, and the distress radio traffic: ”The Titanic's "wireless" equipment was the most powerful in use at the time… The equipment's guaranteed working range was 250 miles, but communications could be maintained for up to 400 miles during daylight and up to 2000 miles at night.”
- When U.S. air force discovered the flaw of averages - "In the late 1940s, the United States air force had a serious problem: its pilots could not keep control of their planes… the size and shape of the seat, the distance to the pedals and stick, the height of the windshield, even the shape of the flight helmets were all built to conform to the average dimensions of a 1926 pilot.” Only problem: it turned out that not a single airman (no women back then) actually had the dimensions of the average.
- A Skeptic Infiltrates a Cruise for Conspiracy Theorists - "Conspira-Sea [is] a seven-day cruise where fringe thinkers can discuss everything from crop circles to mind control on the open sea. Last month’s cruise featured a caravan of stars from a surprisingly vast galaxy of skeptics and conspiracy theorists, including Andrew Wakefield, known for his questionable research and advocacy against vaccines. Also aboard was Sean David Morton, who faced federal charges of lying to investors about using psychic powers to predict the stock market.“ Also aboard: Colin McRoberts, attorney and sceptic. If you’re not busy this afternoon, you can skip Wired’s executive summary and go directly to his blog posts:
- Anchors Aweigh! The Conspiracy Cruise Sails Soon.
- A skeptic on the Conspira-Sea Cruise: Day 1
- Reverse the Constitutional Polarity of the Baryonic Trustee Matrix: Legal Gibberish on the ConspiraSea Cruise (Day 2)
- Nothing to fear: ConspiraSea cruise day 3
- Troubled Waters: ConspiraSea Cruise Day 4(ish)
- A skeptic on the ConspiraSea cruise, day 5: I Just Can't Do Another Nautical Pun
- ConspiraSea Cruise Day 5 Part 2: I Took The Bait
- ConspiraSea Day Six: You know who exposes real conspiracies? The media.
- ConspiraSea Day 7: I failed.
- Anchors Aweigh! The Conspiracy Cruise Sails Soon.
- How 43 Giant, Crumbling Presidential Heads Ended Up in a Virginia Field - "After an ambitious monument went bust, big dreams—and big heads—remain." Photos by David Ogden:
Happy invoicing!
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