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.