Making a stack of Chinese bowls

British woodworker Robin Wood has a blog post with a very well made short video showing a Chinese craftsman making a stack of wooden bowls using a foot-powered lathe.  I've never seen a lathe quite like that one - most of the Western ones I've seen use some sort of spring to counter-rotate the lathe - nor have I seen anyone make a stack of bowls all at once.

Singaporeans worry as temperature drops to low twenties

I lived in Singapore in the late nineties and I still sometimes look at the Singaporean news.  The Straights Times has an article cautioning residents that the temperature has fallen into the low twenties Celsius.

According to NEA's website, the lowest temperature recorded in Singapore was 19.4 deg C on two days in 1934. Both days were in the month of January.

Millennials' Financial Problems

The Huffington Post has an article about why Millennials are in such a bad financial position.  (And no it's not because of avocado toast.)

What is different about us as individuals compared to previous generations is minor. What is different about the world around us is profound. Salaries have stagnated and entire sectors have cratered. At the same time, the cost of every prerequisite of a secure existence—education, housing and health care—has inflated into the stratosphere. From job security to the social safety net, all the structures that insulate us from ruin are eroding. And the opportunities leading to a middle-class life—the ones that boomers lucked into—are being lifted out of our reach. Add it all up and it’s no surprise that we’re the first generation in modern history to end up poorer than our parents.

Finding Serial Killers Algorithmically

The New Yorker has an article about Thomas Hargrove who has been mining crime data to find groups of related murders that haven't been linked before.

Each year, about five thousand people kill someone and don’t get caught, and a percentage of these men and women have undoubtedly killed more than once. Hargrove intends to find them with his code, which he sometimes calls a serial-killer detector.

via FlowingData

Torture doesn't work

The Guardian has a long piece about a pair of scientists who have proved what everyone knew but many didn't want to admit - that torture doesn't work for extracting information.  The article also covers how you should go about an interrogation.

The Alisons, husband and wife, have done something no scholars of interrogation have been able to do before. Working in close cooperation with the police, who allowed them access to more than 1,000 hours of tapes, they have observed and analysed hundreds of real-world interviews with terrorists suspected of serious crimes. No researcher in the world has ever laid hands on such a haul of data before. Based on this research, they have constructed the world's first empirically grounded and comprehensive model of interrogation tactics.

via Schneier on Security

Sleeping Sperm Whales

Kottke.org has a post with a picture of a pod of sleeping sperm whales.

The Swindon Magic Roundabout

While I am generally in favour of roundabouts as opposed to stoplights, Boing Boing has a post with a GIF of a giant roundabout in Swindon, UK that may be taking things too far.

A Day in the Average American Life

Flowing Data has a post with an animation that shows how Americans spend their time during the day.  The individual dots move around the image as the survey respondents changed activities.

via Reddit

Solar System in a Bottle

If you've always wanted your own solar system, this may be the way to go.

via Flowing Data

The Shrinking Reach of Malaria

The Economist has a post with a set of map showing how the area affected by malaria has been shrinking over time.  Interestingly, malaria was endemic in North America and Europe until the mid-20th century.

Martial Status by Age

Flowing data has a post with a chart showing marital status by age (of Americans).  It is interesting that most men die married while most women do not.

Obit: Hugh Montgomery

The Washington Post has the obituary of Dr Hugh Montgomery an American soldier and spy.  He started his career parachuting into Normandy in 1941 and retired from the CIA in 2014 at the age of 90.

via Twitter

Japan to Standardise Symbols on Toilets

The Guardian has an article about the Japanese sanitary equipment industry association's efforts to standardise the symbols used on the button for high-tech toilets.  The goal is to reduce surprises for foreign visitors.

via slashdot

Clearing a Path Through 60 Feet Deep Snow

Atlas Obscura has a post about the Japanese ski area of Toyama where they get some of the most extreme snowfalls on Earth.  Crews plow the road to an under mountain tunnel and sometimes end up making a canyon 60 feet deep.

via Boing Boing

Making Glasses from Scratch

The Knowledge has a post with a 15 minute video from How To Make Everything which details making a pair of glasses from scratch.

The Dutch Reach

Mental Floss has a post about the Dutch Reach which is a method of opening car doors with the far hand that reduces the possibility of "dooring" a passing cyclist.  It would probably be difficult to get existing drivers to change habits but I suppose new drivers could be trained to open doors this way from the beginning.

via Twitter

Mapping the Canadian Population

Google Maps Mania has an article linking to several maps of the results of the recent Canadian census.  Some of the results for downtown Toronto are very interesting.  One district might show a small (or large) decrease in population where an adjacent one might have doubled.

Chinese government influences Canadian Chinese-language newspapers

The New York Times has an article about how the Chinese government works to influence reporters and reporting at Chinese language newspapers in Canada.

via a friend

The myth of the volunteer kamikaze

The Economist has an article (actually a book review from 2006) that dispels the idea that Japanese pilots lined up to become kamikazes.

She reveals that the tokkotai (“special attack force”, which is how the kamikaze are referred to in Japan) had no volunteers when it was formed in October 1944. Instead, new recruits were either assigned by their superiors or forced to sign up using pressure tactics. No senior officer offered his life for this mission; instead the “volunteer” corps comprised newly enlisted boy-soldiers barely of age and student conscripts from the nation's top universities.

Video: Putting on a duvet cover

You wouldn't think there would be much room for advancement in the area of putting covers on duvets but here is a video showing the "burrito method" which seems to involve a lot less effort than how I've always done this before.

This strikes me as the sort of thing we should have leaned in math class while studying topology.

2016 - A good year

An article on Medium gives 99 Reasons Why 2016 Was a Good Year.

Ottawa tourism in 2017

There seems to have been a bit of a surge in interest in tourism to Ottawa recently.  Possibly related to Canada's 150th anniversary.  The New York Times made the news here with its article 36 Hours in Ottawa.  The Ottawa Citizen follows up with several places the NYT may have missed.

And on Medium we have A hipster weekend in Ottawa.

Perhaps it is worth a visit.

Play Lode Runner in your browser

Those of a similar age to me will be thrilled to learn that there is an HTML5 version of the classic game Lode Runner that you can play in your browser.  I spent many hours playing this game on my Apple ][.

via Kottke.org

TED: Kevin Kelly on the coming Industrial Revolution

An interesting 13 minute TED talk from Kevin Kelly basically about how AI and humans working in teams with AI are going to lead to another industrial revolution.  There's nothing really ground-breaking in the talk but it provides a nice overview.

via Boing Boing 

Axe redesign

Business Insider has an article about a redesign of the axe - or at least the type of axe used for splitting firewood.

Making a katana from scratch

Sploid (part of gizmodo) have a post with a video on making a samurai katana (based on the one in Kill Bill) from scratch - i.e. they start with iron ore.  Well worth the 18 minutes.

I had never heard of the traditional Japanese technique for lighting the forge where they pound a piece of iron with a hammer until it becomes red hot then use that to ignite a piece of paper.

Furoshiki: BYO Shopping Bag Japanese Style

No Tech magazine has a post about Furoshiki which is a traditional Japanese cloth that can be folded in different ways to hold bundles of various shapes and sizes.

First Org Chart

Slate has a post about, and with a picture of, the first org chart.  It was drawn in 1855 for an American railway.

The Cafe Where Everything is Free but Time

Business Insider has an article about a new cafe in London where you pay 5 cents (3 pence) per minute to be there but you can eat or drink whatever you want while you hang out.

Next time you're in London, you could walk into the Ziferblat cafe in the fashionable Shoreditch neighborhood and grab a coffee. Perhaps you might sit down on one of the comfortable armchairs, pull out your laptop and check your emails on the Wi-Fi network. Feeling a little hungry? There's some food in the cabinet; help yourself.
How much does all this cost? Well, if you spend, say, 45 minutes there, it will cost you £1.35 (approximately $2.20).

A visualisation of how long you have left

Boing Boing has a post with an extract from an article about a fellow who keeps a jar of coloured beads on his desk.  Each bead represents a day remaining in his life and each day he removes one from the jar.  The beads are colour-coded by decade.

New Technique for Maple Syrup Production

Apparently the new method is to cut the top off a sapling and then, essentially, suck out all the sap with a vacuum.

via Boing Boing

US Internal Migration

Vizynary has a post with an info-graphic that shows migration within the US (ie how many people move from one state to another).  A nice way to show a huge pile of data.

via Boing Boing

Chocolate for Nothing

When I was young I was always fascinated by those puzzles where you rearrange the pieces of a picture of, say leprechauns, and you somehow end up with more leprechauns than you started with.  Boing Boing has a post with a video demonstrating the same thing with a bar of chocolate.

Your Personal Centre of Geography

Geo Mid Point will calculate the geographic mid-point of all of the places you have lived.  Mine seems to be in Labrador near Winokapaa Lake (Lat: 53.214381, Long: -63.207506).
.

Chainmaking

Boing Boing has a post with an animated GIF showing a machine making chain.

Google Street View on a Submarine

I have always like submarines and now Google Street View will let you take a tour of HMS Ocelot a submarine at the Chatham Historic Dockyard in the UK.

via Google Maps Mania

How Common is your Birthday?

The Daily Viz has a post with a heat map showing how common a particular birthday is (at least among people born in the US between 1973 and 1999).  July, August and September seem popular with September 16 being the most common.

The Great Sahara Sea

According to this article on IO9, in the 19th century there were plans to dig a canal from the Mediterranean to flood the low lying areas of the Sahara desert and create a giant inland sea.

The London Times said that the plan "dazzles the imagination, yet it has a sufficiently substantial basis to satisfy several shrewd traders in African commerce and some distinguished engineers." The Daily News called the project "the most remarkable that has ever been devised."

The Royal Navy in the First World War

The Guardian has an animation that shows the movement of the ships of the Royal Navy during the First World War.  The information comes from a project that is going through all of weather information in the ships' logs as part of a study on climate change.  I am assuming it doesn't include all RN ships but it doesn't really say.

500 New Fairy Tales Found

The Guardian reports that 500 new fairly tales have been found in an archive in Germany where they had been sleeping for 150 years.

For example, there is the tale of a maiden who escapes a witch by transforming herself into a pond. The witch then lies on her stomach and drinks all the water, swallowing the young girl, who uses a knife to cut her way out of the witch. However, the collection also includes local versions of the tales children all over the world have grown up with including Cinderella and Rumpelstiltskin, and which appear in many different versions across Europe.

Animated Beer Labels

For some reason this guy makes animated gifs of beer labels.

Average Female Faces

FSToppers has a post about the average female face in various countries.  It is interesting that there are noticeable differences between the various European countries (and also between the South American ones).

Power on Tap

Low-Tech Magazine has a post explaining that before the spread of electricity people used to power household devices using the water pressure from their water taps.

Victorian Lockpickers

Slate has the story of Alfred C. Hobbs an American locksmith who shocked Victorian London by picking a supposedly unpickable lock.

A Map of History

Slate has an article about a "Histomap", published in 1931, that purports to show human history in chart form.

The 5-foot-long Histomap was sold for $1 and folded into a green cover, which featured endorsements from historians and reviewers. The chart was advertised as “clear, vivid, and shorn of elaboration,” while at the same time capable of “holding you enthralled” by presenting:

 the actual picture of the march of civilization, from the mud huts of the ancients thru the monarchistic glamour of the middle ages to the living panorama of life in present day America.

Names Are Becoming Less Common

The Economist reports (with graphs) that the names of newborns in the US are increasing not in the top 100 names.

In fact since the 1950s names have become less uniform across the board. Back then 76% of baby boys were given one of the 100 most popular names. Now the proportion is 43%.

Dolphins Have Names

The Guardian has an article that says that, essentially, dolphins have and use names for each other.

Where the Countries used to be

Flowing Data has a post with a map showing the original continent of Pangea with modern day country borders.  It looks like you could have walked from Newfoundland to Morocco.

Invented in Canada

Mental Floss as a post with a list of 19 things invented in Canada.  In addition to the usual suspects there were a few on the list that I hadn't known were Canadian.

Where Could Snowden Go?

The Economist has a post with a map showing which countries have extradition treaties with the US.  This could be useful information if any of you are considering a life of crime (or whistle-blowing).

Where to see Spaceships (in the US)

Space.com has an article with an infographic (also known as a map) showing where you can see various retired spaceships around the USA.

Montreal Moving Day

The Wall Street Journal has an article about a Canadian phenomena that I have always wondered about.  Why does everyone in Montreal move house on the same day?

DIY Grad School

The Art of Non-Conformity has a post about a do-it-yourself version of grad school.  I have been vaguely considering going to grad school but maybe I should try this instead.  Especially since I already have a subscription to the Economist.

Escher Tile Hardwood Flooring

Technabob has a post about hardwood floor cut into the shape of the Escher reptiles.  I think this might look a bit strange in reality but maybe I'm just hung-up on have long thin strips of wood.

A Bell that has been Ringing for 173 Years

According to this article on io9, there is a bell at Oxford University that has been ringing for 173 years.  Apparently no one knows what is in the battery and they are waiting for it to run down before opening it up.

20th Century Causes of Death

Information is Beautiful has a post with an infographic showing the total numbers of people killed by various causes during the 20th century.

Worldly Personal Space

CNN has a page with an interactive graphic that show the amount of space people take up in various cities around the world.

via Flowing Data

The Most Isolated Man in History

The BBC has an article about Al Worden who was the command module pilot on Apollo 15 and as such orbited the moon alone while the rest of the crew went down to the lunar surface.  When the command module was on the far side of the moon (from both the Earth and the lander crew) he (and the five command module pilots on the other Apollo missions) was the most isolated that any human has ever been.

A Friend's App: Linger

The Atlantic has a write up on my friend Chuck Shnider's new app Linger. The app gives an organised view of the films in the Prelinger Archives.  I was at the NSNorth conference a few weekends ago and during some of the breaks Chuck played films from his app on the giant screen.  This app could be a real time eater.

Fuel Surplus

The Pacific Standard has an article about the amount of oil in the world.

We human beings have consumed, over our entire history, about a trillion barrels of oil.

They continue with:

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates there is still seven to eight times that much left in the ground. The oil that’s left is just more difficult, and therefore more expensive, to get to.

Photo: Owl and Mouse

National Geogrpahic Photo of the Day has an awesome shot of an Owl about to pick up some lunch.

World's Oldest Aerial Photo

The Smithsonian has a blog post about the world's oldest surviving aerial photography.  It is a picture of Boston taken in 1860.

Obit: Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist - last of the anti-Hitler plotters

The Economist has the obituary of Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist.  During the Second World War he twice agreed to be a suicide bomber in plots to assassinate Adolph Hitler.  He was the last surviving member of the July 20 plot (which was the subject of the Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie). 

Words from Shakespeare

Mental Floss has a post listing twenty words that were coined by William Shakespeare.  Apparently he created "over 2200 never-before-seen words".  I was amazed that one of them was the word manager.

Obit: John E. Karlin - Dialing Pioneer

The New York Times has the obituary of John Karlin who was involved in the development of the modern telephone numbering scheme.

2013 Dakar Rally Photos

The Atlantic has a nice photo post on this year's Dakar Rally.  I have never understood why this event doesn't get more coverage.

Awesome Gadget-filled Antique Desk

Make has a post with a video demonstrating the amazing features of an antique desk.  There is no electricity in the desk, all of the mechanisms are powered by falling weights.

How Tall can a Lego Tower get?

The BBC has an article, though it was in many other places as well, about a study to determine the maximum possible height of a tower made of Lego bricks.  The short answer is 3.5 km but it is worth reading the article to see how they figured that out.

via The Brothers Brick

Where the Bombs Hit

Bombsight is a website that maps the locations of all of the German bombs that were dropped on London during the Blitz (7 October 1940 to 6 June 1941).  Apparently two bombs fell on the small street we used to live on in Fulham and four landed in the square opposite my first London apartment (as well as two on the block where the apartment was).

via Yahoo News

The Sun's Energy

According to this Google+ post, the sun produces enough energy in one second to power the world for 1 million years.

Follow up: A vaguely related article in the Economist has a graph showing the falling cost per Watt of solar panels.

Mayan Calendar Converter

Now that we know the Mayan calendar still works, the New York Times has a page that converts dates to and from the Mayan system. 

NYC Criminals take day off

The Guardian reports that on Monday 26 November 2012 no one was murdered, stabbed or the victim of a violent crime in New York City.

New York police department chief spokesman Paul Browne said it was "first time in memory" that the city's police force had experienced such a peaceful 24 hours.
It comes at the end of year when the city is on target to have its lowest murder rate since 1960.

I lived in New York in 1991 and I remember my colleagues there mentioning that one big advantage of living in Toronto was that if you were murdered you were guaranteed to make the news.  In NYC at the time you would have to be murdered in a particularly gruesome way to get a mention.

Google Map of Canadian Census

This site has a nice map interface for viewing some of the data from the latest Canadian census.  It is interesting how the size of the areas being displayed changes as the map is zoomed in.

via Google Maps Mania

Hindenburg Photos

The Atlantic has a nice photo article about the Hindenburg and its fiery end.

via Rebecca's Pocket

The British have Invaded all but 22 Countries

According to this article in the Telegraph, the British have invaded all but 22 of the 190+ countries on Earth.  They do stretch things a bit far to come up with the numbers though.  They basically use present day countries and their current borders.  Then, if the British have ever invaded any place that is now within those boundaries, they count that country as having been invaded by Britain.  Canada for example has never been invaded by the UK but is counted since territories presently held by Canada have been.

I was also rather surprised that the British have never invaded Luxembourg.

via Kottke.org

There is an Abacus in Your Head

The Guardian has a blog post about a strange new sport called Flash Anzan.  Basically the game consists of rapidly adding a series of numbers in your head.  Like a spelling bee anyone who gets the wrong answer is eliminated then another round begins with the numbers displayed faster.  This year's winner added 15 three digit numbers in 1.7 seconds.

via No Tech Magazine

A Summary of Everything

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a post with a video that basically shows the history of the universe in one minute.  There may be some simplification but it is nicely done.

Toronto's First World War Dead

Global TV has a post with a map showing the locations of the homes of all of the soldiers from Toronto who were killed in the First World War.  According to the text:

in Toronto, about 2 per cent of the total male population was killed in the war

Make a Fist With Your Left Hand

The Atlantic has a story about a study that claims athletes can prevent choking under pressure by making a fist with their left hand. It only applies to situation where they are performing a task they have performed many times before (a "motor skill").

"Hemisphere-specific priming" appears to discourage over-thinking in high-pressure situations. Activating the right hemisphere of the brain by doing a simple action with the left side of the body (making a fist, in this case) appears to negate context-related declines in complex motor performance.

via kottke.org

The Evolution of the Airline Baggage Tag

Slate has an interesting article about the evolution of the baggage tags used on commercial airplanes.  There's more to it than just the bar code.

via Flowing Data

How Corks Are Made

WineAnorak has an nicely illustrated two part article explaining how corks are made.

via kottke.org

Factoid: No one born since 1935 has walked on the moon

If you look at Wikipedia's list of Apollo astronauts you will notice that the youngest, Charles Duke, was born on October 3, 1935.

No one born since 1935 has ever walked on another world.  No Baby Boomers, no Gen-X.

Where Can You Not Buy Coca-cola?

The BBC has an article about which countries you can buy Coca-cola in.  It turns out there are only two where you can't: Cuba and North Korea.

Working for Your Beer

The Economist has a post comparing how long the average worker in various countries has to work to buy a beer.  It varies from nearly an hour in India to about five minutes in the US.

The Drake Equation

Presumably you are all familiar with the Drake Equation which lets you calculate to probability of intelligent alien life.  The BBC has a webpage that lets you play around with the various figures in the equation and see how many alien civilizations you would end up with.

Video of Mark Twain

Kottke.org has a post with a video of the only known film footage of Mark Twain.

Drivers in France Must Carry Breathalyzers

The Telegraph reports that drivers in France now have to carry two(!) single-use breathalysers in their cars at all times.  I didn't even know there was such a thing as a single-use breathalyser.

Are You Too Old for the Olympics

The Washington Post has an article that will show you which Olympic sports you are still young enough for.

People Used to Sleep Twice As Often

According to the BBC, the idea of sleeping right through the night is a fairly modern one.  Apparently in antiquity people would sleep for a few hours in the early evening then get up for a few hours then go back to bed.

His book At Day's Close: Night in Times Past, published four years later, unearths more than 500 references to a segmented sleeping pattern - in diaries, court records, medical books and literature, from Homer's Odyssey to an anthropological account of modern tribes in Nigeria.

Much like the experience of Wehr's subjects, these references describe a first sleep which began about two hours after dusk, followed by waking period of one or two hours and then a second sleep. 

Words We Don't Have in English

I think I may have blogged about this sort of thing before but I liked this list of foreign words that we don't have in English.

Some favourites:

Arigata-meiwaku (Japanese): An act someone does for you that you didn’t want to have them do and tried to avoid having them do, but they went ahead anyway, determined to do you a favor, and then things went wrong and caused you a lot of trouble, yet in the end social conventions required you to express gratitude

 Ilunga (Tshiluba, Congo): A person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time

 L’esprit de l’escalier (French): usually translated as “staircase wit,” is the act of thinking of a clever comeback when it is too late to deliver it

 Pena ajena (Mexican Spanish): The embarrassment you feel watching someone else’s humiliation

Evolution of Basketball Uniforms

Dubly has an infographic showing the evolution of the proffessional basketball uniform.  Interestingly it has been getting larger since the 1960s'.

via Flowing Data

2011 Census Map

Global News has a Google Map showing newly released information from the 2011 Canadian census.  You can finally find out for example what percentage of people in your neighbourhood are female.

via Google Maps Mania

Photo: A Dog Dressed as Two Pirates

I'm not really sure how to categorise this but on Twitter we have a photo of, well, a dog dressed as two pirates.

The Shadow of an Eclipse

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a photo of the Earth during the recent annular eclipse.  You can see the shadow of the moon quite clearly.

Apple I For Sale

According to Digital Trends, Sotheby's are auctioning off a working Apple I computer.  It is expected to go for more than $120,000.

Guinness-only QR Code

The dieline has a post about a new pint glass from Guinness with a QR code that can only be read when the glass is full of stout.  If the glass is empty or the contents are amber colour then the code is not readable.

via boing-boing

Youth Mortality

The Economist has a chart showing death rates and causes for 10-24 year-olds in various countries around the world.  It is interesting to compare not just the total death rates - twice as high in the US than in Singapore - but also the differences in the causes - the violence and suicide figures vary hugely.

How Hard is that Language?

Not entirely sure of the source here but here is an info-graphic showing the difficulty ratings assigned to various languages (from the point of view of an English speaker) by the US Foreign Service Institute.

via LifeHacker

Maps of Wikipedia

Trace Media has a post with some maps generated by plotting the locations associated with Wikipedia entries.  It is amazing how similar they look to nighttime pictures of the Earth.

via infosthetics

Obit: The Girl in the Wallet Photo

I always find it interesting to read about people who had minor roles in historical events.  In this case the Telegraph has the obituary of Jean Gerard Leigh her picture was used as part of the false identity created during the Second World War for a body placed in the sea for the Germans to find with a set of false invasion plans in a briefcase locked to its wrist.  Operation Mincemeat fooled the Germans into leaving Sicily lightly defended before the Allied invasion.