Custer's Last Flag Sold at Auction

The Seatle Times reports that the only flag (actually a guidon) recovered from Custer's Last Stand has been sold at auction for $2.2 million.

Stormcell over Montana

Astronomy Picture of the Day has an amazing picture of a stormcell in Montana.  I'm not sure what the scale is but I think it is probably a good thing it is far away.

Singapore Streetview

I've just discovered that Google now have streetview for Singapore.  Some highlights for my curious readers:

This is the pedestrian gate to the condo complex I used to live in.

I used to work in this building. In my day what is now the Singapura Financial was an actual Royal Bank of Canada branch. I worked in the trading room which was up on, I think, the 15th floor.

If you walk down the street from the old RBC building and turn on MacCallum street you get to the hawker centre where we used to get lunch most days.  Unfortunately you can't go inside and see if the fried rice man is still there.

Web Comic: Beware the Third Wish

I liked this comic.

An Astronaut at the Window of the Spacestation

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a great photo of an astronaut looking out the new bay window on the International Space Station.

A Giant Clothespeg in the Park

I can't really describe it more than that.  Check out the picture.

Strangely Shaped Coins and Wheels that aren't Round

When I lived in the UK I used to sometimes wonder about the strange shape of the 50 pence coin.  It seemed to be half way between round and hexagonal (actually it has 7 sides).  According to this blog post the shape of the coin means that it has constant width even though it isn't round.  The post shows how this works and even demos using them as wheels.

Aerial Footage of WWI Aftermath

The BBC has an article with a short video taken from a blimp flying over First World War battlefields in 1919.  The devastation is amazing.

Ancient Roman Multi-tool

Make has an article, with picture, about an ancient(ish) Roman pocket knife.  It's not exactly a Swiss Army knife but, given that it would have been made by hand, it looks pretty good.

Astronauts Can See Cosmic Rays

According to this article in the Guardian about life on the International Space Station, astronauts sometimes see cosmic rays when they pass through their eyeballs.

The lights don't go out completely, though. People dozing in orbit see streaks and bursts of bright colour caused by high-energy cosmic rays painlessly slamming into their retinas.

Love Locks

I have never heard of this before but apparently there is a trend for couples in love to fasten a padlock to certain large objects and then throw away the key.  Some of the pictures in the article have a heck of a lot of locks.

Obit: Dennis Rendell, WWII Escaper

The Telegraph has the obituary of Dennis Rendell who served in the British Parachute Regiment and Royal Military Police.  The most amazing thing about the article is the picture at the top.  It shows Rendell, on the run after escaping from a German prison camp, playing a carnival game in between two German soldiers.

Follow up:  I had never heard of those shooting games mentioned in the obituary that take a picture when you hit the target but then came across this article about a woman who visited such a shooting gallery from 1936 until the present day. 

follow up via kottke.org

The Bowl is the Scale

I quite like the first item on this page.  The bowl that becomes a scale when it floats, is one of those ideas that designers have that probably will never become a real product but are cool nonetheless. 

Lightning over a Volcano

National Geographic Photo of the Day has an awesome shot of lightning in the smoke plume of an erupting volcano.

Stars over a Wreck

A nice picture from Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Walt Disney's Mind Map

Peter Duke has a blog post linking to a mind map done in 1957 by Walt Disney (the person not the company) detailing his plans for his future empire and how the parts would relate to, and help each other.

You can't say that in English

I think I blogged about this sort of thing ages ago but here is another list of words that can't be directly translated into English.

I do like:

Tartle - Scottish – The act of hestitating while introducing someone because you’ve forgotten their name.

and

Ilunga - Tshiluba (Southwest Congo) – A word famous for its untranslatability, most professional translators pinpoint it as the stature of a person “who is ready to forgive and forget any first abuse, tolerate it the second time, but never forgive nor tolerate on the third offense.”

as well as the somewhat more modern

Prozvonit - Czech – This word means to call a mobile phone and let it ring once so that the other person will call back, saving the first caller money. In Spanish, the phrase for this is “Dar un toque,” or, “To give a touch.”

Facebook Now Lets You Download All Your Data

According to Lifehacker, Facebook now lets you download a copy of all of your information - including all of your pictures.

How Much Exploring Did Apollo 11 Do?

Chart Porn has some images that show just how little of the Moon's surface was explored during the first lunar mission.  They have superimposed the routes followed by the astronauts onto a baseball diamond and a football field.

As a bonus, this site from the BBC will let you superimpose the moon landing area on your own address.

An Abandoned Lego House

Here is an awesome Lego model built using only black and white bricks.