I've been following the Twitter user and Substack writer Old Hollow Tree for a few months. He has an interesting life story about his return to the Vermont woods of his youth and writes about his quest to find meaning in family and a newfound rural lifestyle.
What is his authentic way to experience today's solar eclipse? With pie, of course. His mother prepared this Boston cream pie to show the path of the moon across the sun.
In 1859, a huge solar storm called the Carrington Event damaged what little electrical infrastructure existed in the world at the time. If a similar storm happened now, the damage to our electricity-dependent modern world be severe.
Nuclear weapons detonated high in the atmosphere could have the same effect. This type of attack is called an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack and national security agencies have considered how to prepare for and mitigate against such destruction.
What would you, as an individual, do in order to prepare for life after an EMP attack? Some preppers and the companies that sell products to them consider options. MOS Equipment is a firm that specializes in protective gear, including a tent that can shield a car's sensitive electronics from an EMP. It's basically a huge Faraday cage.
-via David Thompson
A tractor trailer operated by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) on March 29 crashed near the town of La Grande. The trailer contained approximately 102,000 live salmon smolt. KOIN News reports that the driver suffered only minor injuries.
What about the baby salmon? About 26,000 of the fish, sadly, died. But the ODFW says trailer conveniently crashed next to and then flipped over into Lookingglass Creek, so approximately 77,000 survived and are now in the wild in a suitable habitat. Experts estimate that about 350-700 are likely to survive to adulthood to spawn in that creek and its watershed.
-via Kale Williams | Photo: ODFW
The Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit was, until last year, the world's most advanced stealth strategic bomber aircraft in the world. It's gradually being replaced by the B-21 Raider, but the B-2 is still a technological marvel.
The B-2 has been out of production since 2000, so parts can be hard to find. Aviation Geek Club shares a story from Brian Edwards, a technician who worked on the B-2 while serving in the Air Force. Years ago, a B-2 needed, for the first time, a replacement windshield. The manufacturer had none and couldn't make new ones without extraordinary expense.
But the company had sold a surplus of the windshields to a private citizen. The Air Force reached out to this man and, for an undisclosed sum, purchased them. He had been using the windshields for his daughter's treehouse.
-via Ace of Spades HQ
Mainichi (Google Translate version in English) reports that Professor Hiroshi Yoshida of Tohuku University in Sendai, Japan argues that the most common surname, Sato, will be come universal by the year 2531. Because married couples adopt the same surname, Sato, which currently constitutes 1.529% of the population, will only increase over time.
Professor Yoshida urges that couples keep distinct surnames in order to stave off the coming Satopocalypse. But he also notes that due to declining population, although everyone in Japan will be a Sato by 3310, that's only 22 people total.
-via Spoon & Tamago
The luxury fashion house Balenciaga has once again sparked debate with its latest accessory, a bracelet designed to resemble a roll of clear tape, complete with the brand's logo and a hefty price tag of approximately $4,000!
— epicthings (@justepicthings) March 23, 2024
This is just insane pic.twitter.com/DwUFI7lMl4
Balenciaga, a world-class fashion house, knows its audience. Two years ago, it attracted the fashion elites with its designer garbage bag. Now it's offering a more upscale (and expensive) roll of packing tape that you can wear around your wrist like a bracelet.
Highsnobriety reports that Balenciaga unveiled its must-have accessory last winter but it has taken until more recently for larger and more gauche audiences to learn about it. The bracelet is helpfully branded with the fashion house's name so that people won't think that you're just wearing something you picked up at the office supply store. And, if I understand it correctly, the item just looks like a roll of tape, so it lacks the actual utility of tape that would mark you as a prole.
-via Dave Barry
The YouTuber named the Speed Bard performs musical covers with an unconventional instrument: the speed bag. Although most commonly used to train boxers in a gym, the Speed Bard proves that anything can be a musical instrument if you hit it hard enough.
In his video, he performs the 1999 hit "All Star" by Smash Mouth. Browse his channel for other songs, including "Feel Good Inc" by Gorillaz, "In the End" by Linkin Park,"Gangnam Style" by PSY, and "Uptown Funk" by Bruno Mars. After you feel pumped from watching, try knocking out your own rhythms on a heavy bag.
-via The Awesomer
My 94-year-old grandmother has kept a list of every book she ever read since she was 14 years old. Amazing archive of one person’s mind over nearly a century pic.twitter.com/Cu9znTgkJO
— Ben Myers (@_BenMyers_) March 20, 2023
Ben Myers, a professor of theology and literature at a college in Australia, writes that his grandmother, who was born in Germany, recorded every book that she read from the age of 14 until she passed away last week. She provided complete records of every book for 80 years. It's a total of 1,658 books, which is approximately one book every two weeks.
The lady was, I gather, a Serbian who lived in Germany before immigrating to Australia after World War II. In addition to English and Serbian, could read German and Hungarian.
I've done something similar for the past dozen years or so--just an ongoing reading list. Perhaps it will give something for my own grandchildren to ponder.
Candlepin bowling is a variant of bowling that originated in New England and the maritime provinces of Canada. The cylindrical pins, which resemble candles in shape, are three inches wide. The balls are much smaller than what you might be used to measuring only four and a half inches across.
D'Amanda's bowling alley in Ellsworth Maine, which is owned and operated by one person, has a unique pinsetting machine that was built as a prototype in 1949. It's still in use, although it is fragile and requires almost constant repairs.
At the age of 19, Autumn Mowery purchased the alley and is its only employee. Mowery has to run everything because it's impossible for her to get insurance to protect workers who would have to repair and reset the pinsetting machine. WCSH News in Portland interviewed Mowery about her mission to preserve the traditions of candlepin bowling and this particular business.
Johannes Vetter is a German athlete who specializes in the javelin throw. His personal record is almost 320 feet and 9 inches, which is a long distance to throw anything at all.
How does Vetter do it? He trains hard and trains smart, using the best techniques and equipment available. This includes weighted sleds designed specifically for javelin training. I think that he's using this specific model, which was allows for not only weight adjustment, but also calculates the velocity of each throw. Athletes can use this machine while seated or standing.
-via Massimo
The Course des Cafés is a traditional race in Paris in which professional waiters must briskly walk 2 kilometers in uniform while carrying a glass of water, a cup of coffee, and a croissant--a traditional French breakfast--on a tray without spilling them. The race was first held in 1914.
The Guardian reports that the winners of this year's race were, for the men's competition, Samy Lamrous at 13:30 and for the women's competition, Pauline Van Wymeersch at 14:21. They each received as their prizes a gold medal identifying them as the fastest waiters and a stay for a night at a luxurious hotel.
-via Dave Barry
The San Francisco Gate reports that officers in the California Highyway Patrol pulled over a gentleman driving his car alone in the carpool lane on Interstate 880 near San Francisco. A shirt and hat took the place of an actual person in the front passenger seat. The driver, though, said that the setup represented an imaginary friend.
The express lane system allows for reduced tolls for cars with multiple occupants. This driver, the police allege, was attempting to trick cameras into reading a passenger. This is not permissible.
What about an anime hug pillow if it depicts your waifu? I'm asking for a friend.
-via Dave Barry | Photo: California Highway Patrol
According to the respected Pew Research Center, which conducts public opinion polling on many topics, 12% of young Americans can operate a SSBN, which is one of these:
The SSGNs are US nuclear-powered submarines that, instead of firing nuclear missiles, fire non-nuclear cruise missles at land-based targets. Navy nuke school is famously demanding, passing only the most focused, intelligent, and physically fit people into the ranks of American submariners. Yet, despite the negative reputation of Generation Z, fully 12% of them have qualified. This percentage far outstrips that of older generations.
What's going on here? Pew does not actually think so many young people have actually earned their Dolphins. Rather, Pew conducted this study to illustrate that opt-in polling produces unreliable results. Opt-in polling means that the study designers do not restrict who can participate in a poll and thus cannot argue that the participants are a representative sample.
The study found that young people and Hispanic adults were especially likely to affirm absurd claims, although I don't see an explanation of why this is the case.
Anyway, when you see the results of an online poll that says that an alarmingly large number of people believe in something profoundly disturbing, such as Holocaust denial, realize that extremely faulty survey design may be the cause of these numbers. The population has not gone completely insane yet.
-via Megan McArdle
Teams test the new emergency chutes from the pad 40 crew tower in Florida pic.twitter.com/rWVj7zaHp0
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 19, 2024
The commercial space industry is exploding, which is something that the private space exploration firm SpaceX knows well. It takes astronaut safety seriously and wants to be able to evacuate astronauts from the launch pad in a hurry if necessary.
Two weeks ago, we saw that NASA uses armored military vehicles for this purpose. SpaceX instead uses this rapid-deployment chute that quickly carries the 40 members of a launch pad team away from the pad and to the ground. It looks like fun! Chief Operations Officer Gwynne Shotwell personally tested it.
-via Super Punch
Would you like try some python meat? We're told that it tastes like a mix of chicken and calamari.
ABC News reports on a recent study conducted by conservationist Patrick Aust and his colleagues about the sustainability of python meat production. They examined the farming of Burmese and reticulated pythons in Southeast Asia and concluded that the mass cultivation of pythons could be an efficient way to provide meat to more people.
Pythons mature rapidly, reproduce in huge quantities, and efficiently turn their food, such as wild rodents and fish meal, into harvestable meat. They are also more durable to extreme weather than mammals. So try a slice of snake. Maybe add some hot sauce because, Aust warns us, python meat can be a bit bland.
-via Dave Barry | Photo: Florida Fish and Wildlife
