Reflected Liftoff

Astronomy Photo of the Day has a great shot of the trail of a launching Space Shuttle reflected in a canal.

How to fall from 35,000 feet

Popular Mechanics has a how to article about a potentially very useful skill, how to survive a fall from 35,000 feet.

via Walter Jon Williams

Origami High Chair

Here is an interesting origami idea - a baby's high chair made our of cardboard. This might be a bit tricky to make on your own and possibly a bit noisy if your design fails during user testing.

An Illuminated Frog

National Geographic has a photo of a small frog in the process of swallowing a lit Christmas light. Don't worry, it all works out in the end.

Stars over the Himalayas

Astronomy Photo of the Day has an excellent photo of the night sky over the Himalayas.

A Wordy Clock

Make has a post about a clock that uses words rather than number or hands.

Photo: Desert in House

National Geographic has a photo of the desert reclaiming the inside of a house in Namibia.

A box that will only open in one location

Make has a post about an interesting wooden puzzle box. The box can only be opened in one place on earth. Personally I think you should be able to change the batteries without opening the box but that is a minor quibble.

Google Chart API

This is a bit of a geeky one but it might be useful for people who need to get graphs into their webpages / blogs but don't want to learn how to create images in a spreadsheet.

The Google Chart API lets you draw quick little graphs (and other graphics) using just a URL.

For example the url:
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chd=t:70,30&chs=250x100&chl=Chris|World

will create the following image:







You can change the image just by editing the URL. So, for instance, if you don't like the division in the above graph you can change the 70:30 ratio in the URL. So
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chd=t:10,90&chs=250x100&chl=Chris|World would give you:



The other parts of the URL are the type of chart (p3 for pie chart), the size of the chart (250 by 100 pixels) and the labels for the two sections (Chris and World).



There are lots of other charts available as well:

bar charts:






Venn diagrams:







A stranger example is maps. For example, this url: http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=t&chtm=world&chco=FFFFFF,FF0000,FFFF00,00FF00&chld=CAGBSGUS&chd=t:0,0,0,0&chs=440x220
creates a map showing all the countries I've lived in:

A Home Grown Chair

Atlas Obscura has an article, with a picture, of a chair that was grown from a specifically planted stand of trees.

via Hot Roasted Blend

Million Dollar Murray

Malcolm Gladwell has an article about Million-dollar Murray. Murray was a homeless man who lived in Reno, Nevada. Because he was poor he got all of his medical treatment at the hospital emergency room. Because he was an elderly alcoholic who lived on the streets he ended up in the emergency room a lot. The local social services estimate that they had paid over $1 million for Murray's medical care.

The article raises an interesting point. Obviously it would be cheaper to just rent Murray an apartment and find him a job and a regular doctor. The problem of course is moral hazard, ie if you help everyone who ends up on the streets then people have no incentive to not end up on the streets.

The article, which is from 2006, discusses several other similar situations.

Life Magazine on line

Google Books now has the entire run of Life Magazine on line for free.

The interface makes it pretty easy to find, for example, the issue from the week you were born. The cover of mine shows Martin Luther King Jr and proclaims "A Historic Turning Point for the Negro's Cause".

You can see the whole list of magazines on Google Books here.

One of our intrepid correspondents has reported that they have the entire run of the World Weekly News for those of you researching the history of Bat Boy.

How People Spend Their Day

The New York Times has a nice interactive graphic that shows how people in various groups spend their time over the course of a day. It is interesting to click on the buttons and see what people are up to.

via kottke.org

Going for the Paper Airplane Record

WTOP has an article about a recent attempt to break the record for keeping a paper airplane aloft from a throw from the ground. Amazingly the record is 27.9 seconds.

An Eclipsed Blue Moon

Astronomy Picture of the day has a nice shot of a partially eclipsed blue moon.

Free Air Miles (well, not anymore)

The Wall Street Journal has an article on what used to be a great way to get free flights. Basically the US Mint was selling dollar coins for $1 with free shipping. So you buy as many as you can on your credit card, get the air miles, then, when the coins arrive you use them to pay off the credit card. Repeat until done.

Sadly, the mint doesn't let you do this anymore.

Obit: Roy King, England's master bowmaker

The Times has the obituary of Roy King, a English man who had mastered the ancient art of bowmaking.

But perhaps King's most enduring contribution was to the Mary Rose Trust, which asked him to replicate the bows recovered from Henry VIII's flagship, which sank off Portsmouth in 1545 and was raised in 1982. Few examples of longbows from that era – the last years before gunpowder weapons became dominant – were then known to exist. But among the many treasures raised with the Mary Rose were 139 complete, and 33 partial, longbows.

And in true modern fashion he was born in Poland.

Ultimate Model Airplane

Now this is a model airplane. It is a 1:16 scale model of a P-51D Mustang fighter plane, was handcrafted from aluminium and took three years to make.

A Campervan with a Loft

Here is a pop top camper with a bit of a difference. Instead of adding extra headroom when the top is up. The top here provides a second floor for use as a sleeping area. Also interesting is the way the roof pivots up from one side rather than just popping straight up.

As a related bonus here is a really cool looking trailer that pops open into a camper.

How big is Antarctica?

This picture compares Antarctica to the continental US. It's bigger than I thought.