Photo: Freedom 7 Liftoff

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a great shot of Freedom 7 - the rocket carrying the first American astronaut - moments after liftoff.

Table Becomes Picture Frame

Make has a post showing a wall mounted picture that folds down into a table.

Where There is No Doctor

I have heard of the book "Where there is no Doctor" many times before and had always wondered about getting a copy - just in case.  Now the book is available online as a PDF.

Lego: Balloon Over Mountains

I love the fake perspective in this Lego vignette.

Lights Under Italian Clouds

National Geographic Photo of the Day has a nice picture of an Italian valley with clouds lit from below.

Canada's Oldest Hercules Leaves Afghanistan

Several interesting facts in this article from the Ottawa Citizen about the Canadian Air Force's oldest Hercules being moved back to Canada.

The C-130 H Hercules has flown nearly 45,000 hours and nearly 18 million kilometres since it was ordered by the Diefenbaker government.

That's over 5 years in the air and 23 round trips to the moon.

I also thought this was amusing:

Col. Al Meitzinger, Canada's last air wing commander in Kandahar, discovered a few days ago that he had a personal connection to the departing aircraft going back to the time when he was a Grade 5 student. His father, Chief Warrant Officer Dave Meitzinger (ret.), checked his old logs and discovered that he flew the same aircraft (tail number 130819) as a loadmaster from 1977 to 1980.

Wolfram Alpha can help you with crosswords

This may be overkill but if you type a partial word into Wolfram Alpha with underscores instead of some of the letter, you will get a list of possible words.

For example: ch__s_b___er

Obama's Cone of Silence

The BBC has an article about the mobile security setup that the US president uses when he travels.

Designed to withstand eavesdropping, phone tapping and computer hacking, Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities - also known as SCIFs - are protected areas where classified conversations can be held.
They can be permanent enclosures within a building, or mobile areas set up when a world leader is on the move, to allow them to view sensitive documents or have secret conversations without any outsiders listening or hacking in.

Video: The Joy of Stats

The Hans Rosling video The Joy of Stats is now online.  It is a bit long, almost an hour, but is a good intro to what Rosling has been saying about how statistics can be used to help people.  He also makes the point that increasingly powerful computers make bigger and bigger volumes of data usable by humans.

A while ago I blogged about a TED talk that Rosling did using animated graphics to show changes in statistics from the third world.  Still worth a look if you don't have time for the Joy of Stats.

Marines Need Their Chocolate Milk

According to this article in Slate, the US Marine Corps requires the companies that run their mess halls to have chocolate milk at all meals.

The US Army on the other hand has the following breakfast requirements:

eggs-made-to-order, three types of bread, three types of meat, six kinds of cereal, no fewer than one potato dish, and at least one pastry

Intelligence Artist

You may have heard of War Artists who are officially sanctioned artists who accompany troops on missions but the New York Times has an article about an artist who did a similar thing for MI6, the British Secret Service.

Lego Tank Filmed by Lego Chase Cars

Gizmodo (which has a horrible new site design) has a post with a cool video of a small Lego tank.  The tank gets extra mobility by using omni wheels.  The video is extra cool because it is filmed by a video camera on another Lego car. 

DIY Pocket Tool

Make has a post about the Switch modular pocket knife.  It comes with a James Bond style case from which you select your attachments.  There are three different sized frames you can use for anywhere between 4 and 13 of the 17 attachments.

Factoid: US Army loses more troops to suicide than in Iraq and Afghanistan

Congress.org reports this astounding fact about US Army losses:

For the second year in a row, the U.S. military has lost more troops to suicide than it has to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 via kottke.org

Video: View From the Tip of a Sword

This is a bit vertigo inducing but this YouTube video shows what it looks like if you attach a video camera to the end of a sword.

The Dakar Rally

I'm not a big sports guy but I enjoyed these photos from this years race on The Big Picture.  The rally is now held in South America but the terrain looks just as rough as in Africa.

Video: Tim Ferriss Learns Samurai Horse Archery

A post on Tim Ferriss's (of the 4 Hour Workweek) blog has a video of what was probably meant to be the pilot of a TV show.  Ferriss goes to Japan to learn yabusame which is a type of horse archery.  He only has five days to learn so he has to use various advanced training techniques.

A well done video.  The yabusame stuff is interesting as are Ferriss's techniques.  It would have been interesting to see what other things he would have done if the series had had more episodes.

iPhone Demo Video: WordLens

Lifehacker has a post with an amazing video of an iPhone app called WordLens.  The app, at least in the video, does real time translation of signs from Spanish to English.  The cool part is it preserves the font and colours of the original.

I have seen their free demo app that reverses text and it is very cool but sadly it only impresses geeks.

Nickel For Scale

Make has a post with a short video that demonstrates using a nickel (a 5 cent coin) to determine the size of objects in a picture.  In the video they place a nickel on the back of someone's hand to determine the correct size of a ring.

Obit: Richard Winters - leader of the Band of Brothers

The Washington Post has the obituary of Richard Winters.  During the Second World War, Winters was the commander of E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division - better known as Easy Company of Band of Brothers fame.

High Speed Graphiti Tagging

Make has a post showing a neat little attachment you can make for a spray paint can that can make endlessly repeating stencils.  It is a bit of a shame that the demo video appears to use the device for vandalism but you can't really blame the gizmo for that.

The Economist: Life Begins at 46

The cover story on the Christmas issue of the Economist is titled "Life Begins at 46".  For those of us turning 46 this year this sounds like good news.  Unfortunately, what they mean is that 46 is that age at which people on average are the least happy.  After that their happiness level increases every year.

So I guess they're saying that if I can get through the next year I should be laughing.

Fire Department Activity Map as Art

Infosthetics.com has a photo of some wall art that is actually a map showing locations of incidents worked by a particular station of the Ulvenhout fire department in the Netherlands. 

A Koran Written in Sadam Husein's Blood

This is just weird.  According to this article in the Guardian, while he was president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein had blood drawn regularly so that he could have a Koran written in it.  Now of course the Iraqi government don't know what to do with it - they'd like to get rid of anything to do with Saddam but they can't throw away the Muslim holy book.

Space Station in Front of the Eclipse

Astronomy Photo of the Day has a picture of the recent eclipse but this one shows the International Space Station passing in front of the sun at the same time.

Letter Reveals 1916 Christmas Truce

Canada.com has an article about a recently discovered letter that mentions a previously unknown First World War Christmas truce.  The 1914 truce is apparently well documented but this letter mentions one in 1916.  The author of the letter, 23-year-old Private Ronald MacKinnon, was killed at the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

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.

Google's Self Driving Car

The New York Times has an article with Google's experiments with self driving cars.  Their seven test cars have already driven over a thousand miles without human intervention.

Robot drivers react faster than humans, have 360-degree perception and do not get distracted, sleepy or intoxicated, the engineers argue. They speak in terms of lives saved and injuries avoided — more than 37,000 people died in car accidents in the United States in 2008. The engineers say the technology could double the capacity of roads by allowing cars to drive more safely while closer together. Because the robot cars would eventually be less likely to crash, they could be built lighter, reducing fuel consumption.

Royal Navy Field Gun Competition

This video is worth checking out especially if you've never seen such a thing before.  A field gun competition involves two teams racing to each pull an old fashioned field gun around a course and over and through various obstacles.  As you are watching, try to think about how heavy the various bits are.

via kottke.org

Factoid: Great Pyramid was second tallest building until 1874

According to Wikipedia, the Great Pyramid of Giza was the second tallest building in the world until 1874.  It was the tallest until 1311 when Lincoln Cathedral was built.  The pyramid had been knocked out of the top three for a while but clawed its way back in in 1625 when the spire on St. Olaf's church in Tallinn burned down.

How to Escape from a Sinking Car

Lifehacker has a post with videos from Rick Mercer and the Mythbusters to teach you how to escape from a car sinking in water.  There's nothing really earth shattering in there but I did learn that if you have to kick it is better to kick near the hinge side of the door windows.  Also the demonstration of the centre punch in the Rick Mercer video was pretty impressive.

They Make Their Own Ladders

Make has an article, with a video, about the San Francisco Fire Department's ladder factory.  For various reasons they still use wooden ladders and they make and repair their own.

Factoid: Carrots used to be purple

The blog Today I Found Out has a post that explains that carrots were purple until the late 16th century.

New Model of Raytheon Exoskeleton

Tech&Gadgets has a post about the latest version of the Raytheon Exoskeleton.  There is a video with a demonstration involving, for some reason, one of the actors from Iron Man 2.  It is looking very cool but is still tethered to a base station, presumably for power.

Beer Chart

World Famous Design Junkies has a great chart that shows the interrelationship of the various types of beer - with examples of each type.

Getting People to Return Your Digital Camera If They Find It

Andrew MacDonald has a blog post with a series of photos that he always puts as the first pictures on his digital cameras.  The pictures form a funny story that lets him ask that anyone who finds the camera to get in touch with him.

via lifehacker

The First World War is over for Germany

The Telegraph has an article about Germany making its last reparation payment imposed under the treaty that ended the Great War.

Followup: Time has an article with a bit more information.

Make Your Own Google Map Envelope

MapEnvelope.com lets you enter a location and a comment and will then generate a page you can print to make your own envelope with a google map of the specified location right in the centre.  (This will be a lot clearer if you look at the example.)

The Universal Packing List

Packing for a trip?  This website will generate a packing list for you.  The site has been on the net since 1993 so is presumably well tested.

Flash Rations

The New York Times has a flash slide show of various countries' military rations.  If you click on the package it will show you the contents.  I had always thought that French ration packs had wine in them but apparently not.

Factoid: Studying in Multiple Places is Better

According to this article in the New York Times:

In one classic 1978 experiment, psychologists found that college students who studied a list of 40 vocabulary words in two different rooms — one windowless and cluttered, the other modern, with a view on a courtyard — did far better on a test than students who studied the words twice, in the same room. Later studies have confirmed the finding, for a variety of topics.

via lifehacker

Control Panels

Dark Roasted Blend has another of their mega roundups. This one showcases control panels from various vehicles including fighter aircraft and the Hindenburg airship.

A Paper Map That Zooms In

Here is another real world paper folding product. It is a pocket sized map of London that unfolds to let you zoom in on a given area.

Labels Help Make Beer Bottles Musical

Make has a post about a brand of beer bottles that are printed with levels that show what note you would make by blowing across the top of the bottle.

Video: Ride the Trans-Siberian Railway

Here is a Google Map / video mash up that lets you ride the 9230 km length of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Note that I have only actually tested the first few kilometres leaving Moscow.

via Google Maps Mania

Tour de France

National Geographic Photo of the Day has an excellent action shot of the Tour de France pack of riders passing by.

Obit: Piper William Millin

The Telegraph has the obituary of William Millin. Millin was a piper who actually piped troops ashore under heavy fire during the D-day landings.

The pipes were damaged by shrapnel later that day, but remained playable. Millin was surprised not to have been shot, and he mentioned this to some Germans who had been taken prisoner.

They said that they had not shot at him because they thought he had gone off his head.

There are other obituaries in the Wall Street Journal, and The Scotsman.

Post-It Prevents Mess When Drilling

via LifeHacker

Obit: Rear-Admiral Bob Welland

The Telegraph has the obituary of Canadian Rear-Admiral Bob Welland. Worth a quick read and has several amusing points:

In 1943, when Welland took command of the destroyer Assiniboine, his mother wrote to him: “Bobby, aren’t you a bit young at 25 to be a destroyer captain?” He replied: “Aren’t you a bit young at 39 to be my mother?”

I also found this interesting about events during the Korean War:

When wounded civilians were brought to Athabaskan by local fishermen, the ship’s doctor operated on Welland’s dining room table. One patient was a six-year-old girl who had been shot in the chest ; during the two weeks it took her to recuperate, her mother stayed on board and helped in the galley.

How Many Tabs is Too Many?

You know how in Firefox when you accidentally hit the close window button a dialog pops up that basically says: "Dude you are about to close 5 tabs! Do you really want to do this?"

Well the other day I accidentally hit the close window button and a dialog popped up that said (and I'm not making this up) "You are about to close 198 tabs! Do you really want to do this?"

This may explain why I had to go out and by more RAM yesterday.

Computer Hardware Chart

Ever wondered what all of those connectors and sockets on your computer are? Well check out this page, it will probably have your answer.

Apollo Astronauts Insurance

UKInsuranceNet.com has an article about an unusual form of life insurance used by the Apollo astronauts. Since they were unable to get normal life insurance what they did was sign postcards that would be posted (and hence postmarked) when the rockets took off. The theory was that if the rockets crashed the cards would be worth a fortune.

via Dark Roasted Blend

Lego: Castle in the Sky

I love the fake perspective in this model.

via Brothers Brick

Camel on a sand dune

I'm not sure why but I like this photo from National Geographic of a camel on a sand dune.

Factoid: There are two ATMs in Antarctica

According to this article there are two Wells Fargo banking machines at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. Interestingly they don't have to send new money to the continent as the cash just circulates around on the base.

via kottke.org

Real Life Superheroes

Wired Danger Room has an article about the sub-culture of real life superheroes. These are people who dress up in costumes and go out to do good deeds.

Factoid: Bomber Costs

According to this Danger Room post:

Every time the Air Force sends a B-1B bomber on a mission over Afghanistan, it spends costs $720,000 in fuel, repair, and other costs. And when the plane comes back, it has to spend 48 hours being repaired for every hour it was in the air.

First Flight of Full Sized Robot Helicopter

Wired has an article about a US Army test of a fully autonomous flight of a full sized helicopter.

While on-the-fly autonomous navigation is a first for a full-sized helicopter, the technology developed by Sanjiv Singh and his team from Carnegie Mellon is not so different from what they used to outfit a Chevy Tahoe to win Darpa’s 2007 Urban Challenge. “It’s not as if we started from scratch,” says Singh. “A lot of the technology was there already.”

Time Usage Graphic

Information is Beautiful has an amusing graphic that compares TV watching with writing wikipedia. (Note that one is per year and the other is total.) This is an example of the so called cognitive surplus.

via lifehacker

More Scripts of the World

If you liked the earlier post on Scripts of the World, Smashing Magazine has the second part of the article.

Eclipse over the Andes

Another cool eclipse photo, this time over the Andes.

Eclipse Over Easter Island

I always like those giant stone heads they have on Easter Island. Astronomy Photo of the Day has this great shot of the recent solar eclipse behind some of those heads.

Webcomic: Rupert and Hubert

I've only just started reading the Dresden Codak web comic but I really liked this one.

Lego Fireworks

A bit late for Canada Day but here we are.

Video: A Tiny Cannon

Make has a post with a video demonstrating an extremely small (1 inch maybe) black powder cannon. It is amazing how destructive such a small thing can be.

Special Forces Powerline Tap

Here is a cool gadget. It is designed to let special forces teams tap into power lines to get electricity.

How Long Will You Live

Wolfram Alpha will show you how long you have to live and what the chances are of you living to various ages. For example, I have a 98.7% chance of living past age 50 but a 98.8% chance of dieing before age 100.

An Escalator for Bikes

This is an interesting idea, an escalator for bicycles. It runs along the side of a set of stairs and lets people walk their bikes up more easily.

Ninite: Easy PC Installs

I haven't actually tried this but ninite.com looks very cool if you need to install software on a new Windows PC. You go to the page, select the software you want and it gives you an installer to download. You do the one install and all your apps will be there.

via lifehacker

Ancient British Sites on Google Maps

The Megalithic Portal has a Google Map showing locations of various pre-historic sites in Britain. You can even filter them in case you like stone circles but can't stand hill forts.

via Google Maps Mania

Lego Ship in Bottle

This is not a trick. This Lego ship was built inside the bottle through the neck.

via Brothers Brick

What do those badges mean

The Daily Telegraph has an article with a diagram that explains all the badges on US General David Petraeus's uniform (and he has a lot of them).

The Second World War on Facebook

College Humor presents: OMG WWII on FACEBOOK! a modern adaptation of world war II for the american teenager.

Scripts of the World

Smashing Magazine has a very interesting article about various writing systems in use around the world. Lots of cool pictures and interesting information.

Which Colour Means What Where

Information is Beautiful has a post with a very cool chart showing what various colours mean in various cultures.

A Flat Piggy Bank

Make has a post (with pictures) of an amusing piggy bank. It basically sandwiches your coins between two panes of glass.

Lego: Radio Controlled Sailing

Love this little vignette especially the gun-smoke / cannonball.

via Brothers Brick

Video: Dutch Marines Capture Pirates

This is the sort of thing that will probably become much more common in the future. It is combat footage of Dutch Marines storming a hijacked cargo ship and capturing the pirates. The video was taken by a helmet camera worn by one of the marines.

The commentary is in dutch but it is pretty easy to follow what is going on. I liked it when the fellow with the helmet cam slid down the rope from the helicopter.

Who puts an OED in a blue box?

Several strange things happened to me the other day. I got up early because the electrician came to fiddle around with the electrical outlet for our new stove. (It had been installed where it blocked the stove from being pushed all the way back.)

The first weird thing is that I went for a run at about 8 AM. I was amazed at the number of people who were out that early. I kept having to slow down or dodge around groups of school kids. It was also garbage / blue box day so I kept having to dodge around them on the sidewalk.

The second weird thing happened a few minutes into the run. I encountered a gaggle of school kids and a row of garbage cans while I was beside a large truck parked in the road. Because I couldn't pass I slowed down. As I did so, I glanced over at the blue box. Sitting on top of it was an Oxford English Dictionary.

I'm not talking about one of those largish books that you keep on your desk for essay writing. I'm talking about one of these (that's the best picture I could find). This is a two volume set that collects all the content from the full 20 volume OED. In order to accomplish this, each page has the contents of 9 pages from the full set. Because the print is so small, the box that holds the two volumes has a little drawer that holds a magnifying glass.

The magnifying glass was missing but then I guess no one would throw a magnifying glass in a blue box.

Roman Ingots for Modern Physicists

Nature has an article about some ancient roman lead ingots that have been recovered from a shipwreck. Italian physicists plan to use the lead to line part of an experiment as the lead was refined so long ago that all of its own natural radioactivity has completely faded away.

Photo: Rocks off Scotland

National Geographic has a great photo of some huge rocks in the sea off the Scottish coast.