tingilinde

how to use a telephone

Shown around the US in theaters in 1927 (via archive.org)



It wasn't a "talkie" and didn't convey color information, which became important later as the user interface  evolved.

 

The movies continued as shorts before the main attractions. Here is a history as seen by AT&T from 1935 (also from the archive)

affordable housing in nyc

Some of these don't meet legal requirements, but that doesn't stop landlords from trying and budget minded renters from renting.

One friend paid about $2500 a month for about 300 sq ft in a nice location (West Village).  It did have a bathroom, but was very old and terribly designed.  Heating and cooling were major issues.  Another shared a place with at least a half dozen others and rented rights to a shelf in the 'fridge, a place to store a couple of suitcases and use of a couch for half a day (someone else got to sleep on it during the other half).  

 

 

 

investment advice from susan:-)

The NY TImes has a short piece on Susan Crawford.  

A caveat is I'm a friend.  I'm in 99% agreement with her ..    I'm not keen on her endorsement of Tom Wheeler for FCC chair.  I'm not as optimistic, but perhaps she knows something and there is always political expediency. 

snip

...

Ms. Crawford, with a smile on her face, says the outlook is grim.

“We are in this position as a country because we assumed that the magic of the marketplace would provide competition and provide world-class communications,” she said. “But history has demonstrated that left to their own devices, companies will gouge the rich, leave out the poor, cherry-pick markets and focus solely on their profits. It isn’t evil, it’s just the way things work.”

...

 

 

early naca/nasa photos

A nice repository of historic photos from the past of American aviation and space research.

properly in black and white

dealing with peak water

When a stored resource is used at a faster rate than it is replenished over the decades a reality emerges that demands change.  The impact of intense irrigation in parts of the Midwest (via the NY Times)

snip

...

The land, known as Section 35, sits atop the High Plains Aquifer, a waterlogged jumble of sand, clay and gravel that begins beneath Wyoming and South Dakota and stretches clear to the Texas Panhandle. The aquifer’s northern reaches still hold enough water in many places to last hundreds of years. But as one heads south, it is increasingly tapped out, drained by ever more intensive farming and, lately, by drought.

Vast stretches of Texas farmland lying over the aquifer no longer support irrigation. In west-central Kansas, up to a fifth of the irrigated farmland along a 100-mile swath of the aquifer has already gone dry. In many other places, there no longer is enough water to supply farmers’ peak needs during Kansas’ scorching summers.

And when the groundwater runs out, it is gone for good. Refilling the aquifer would require hundreds, if not thousands, of years of rains.

This is in many ways a slow-motion crisis — decades in the making, imminent for some, years or decades away for others, hitting one farm but leaving an adjacent one untouched. But across the rolling plains and tarmac-flat farmland near the Kansas-Colorado border, the effects of depletion are evident everywhere. Highway bridges span arid stream beds. Most of the creeks and rivers that once veined the land have dried up as 60 years of pumping have pulled groundwater levels down by scores and even hundreds of feet.

...

 

 

 

the air force and potato canons

Actually an education project at the Air Force Academy.  I'm guessing most physics majors built something like this as teens:-)   the pdf link

Studying the Internal Ballistics of a Combustion Driven Potato Cannon using High-speed Video

E.D.S. Courtney, M.W. Courtney

(Submitted on 4 May 2013)

A potato cannon was designed to accommodate several different experimental propellants and have a transparent barrel so the movement of the projectile could be recorded on high-speed video (at 2000 frames per second). Both combustion chamber and barrel were made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Five experimental propellants were tested: propane (C3H8), acetylene (C2H2), ethanol (C2H6O), methanol (CH4O), and butane (C4H10). The amount of each experimental propellant was calculated to approximate a stoichometric mixture and considering the Upper Flammability Limit (UFL) and the Lower Flammability Limit (LFL), which in turn were affected by the volume of the combustion chamber. Cylindrical projectiles were cut from raw potatoes so that there was an airtight fit, and each weighed 50 (+/- 0.5) grams. For each trial, position as a function of time was determined via frame by frame analysis. Five trials were taken for each experimental propellant and the results analyzed to compute velocity and acceleration as functions of time. Additional quantities including force on the potato and the pressure applied to the potato were also computed. For each experimental propellant, average velocity vs. barrel position curves were plotted. The most effective experimental propellant was defined as the one which accelerated the potato to the highest muzzle velocity. The experimental propellant acetylene performed the best on average (138.1 m/s), followed by methanol (48.2 m/s), butane (34.6 m/s), ethanol (33.3 m/s), and propane (27.9 m/s), respectively.

 

when its really raining -- beyond cats and dogs...

frogs, female trolls, and shoemaker's apprentices

curious idioms from around the world..

quick and dirty velomobile

The idea behind a velomobile is to use a recumbent bike, trike or quadricycle and put a fairing over it to cut wind resistance and give a bit of protection from the elements.  They are mostly unknown in the US.  Holland and Germany seem to be the major domains - they are more practical than a bike for long (say more than 10 mile) commutes, and less practical for parking.  They also tend to be nearly handmade and expensive.

A few people have been making inexpensive fairings going mainly for wind resistance reduction.  Pop one on a trike or quad and you should have a less expensive velo that can easily be converted back to the original state.  

Firefly uses a mostly transparent body that lights up from the inside for night use.  It looks like a design exercise, but could be a nice project for folks who know how to build stuff.  There are a lot of nice (and not so nice) recumbent trikes out there.  Catrike is very popular and good brand.

I wonder if bright lights inside would cause drivers to take note and render this safer than riding a bike?  What is the limit for lighting before the police deem it a hazard (really bright flashes for example)?

flares and aerobatic teams

The Russian Knights aerobatic team has moved beyond using smoke in their performances and are releasing flares.



One of the stunts is very dramatic

 

 

 

 

 

us taxpayer bill for extreme weather was high last year

According to the NRDC it was nearly $100 billion - about $1100 per taxpayer.  While last year may have been a spike it is likely the average will just keep increasing.  Most of the damage was covered by taxpayers rather than insurance.

After Sandy the term resilient seems to be coming into general use  - mostly replacing sustainable.  In this part of the country (NJ) a huge number of small electric generators have been installed.  Being without electricity for a week or two in freezing weather was not particularly fun and many came to see them as extremely desirable necessities.  Permanent natural gas generators are frequently in the $5,000 to $10,000 range and are a very expensive and inefficient power source. Perhaps this should be viewed as an additional cost burden on families who can no longer trust the power infrastructure.

 

 

 

mark doesn't like google

there are issues when the end user is the product and taste is an issue...

(hat tip to Josh)

 

a costly service downgrade for sandy victims

from Verizon...  and AT&T is doing some interesting things

There is no real competition in most of the US.

 

(hat tip to Alan)

 

a clever mudguard for bikes

A clever kickstarter project- the Plume retractable mudguard

progress

Robert Reich writes an optimistic note to new college gradutes noting American progress in the 45 years since he graduated.

 

the daily show's cronkite moment?

Jon Stewart lashes into the Obama Administration

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart